In the debate over whether or not video games are art, people – on both sides – often bring up that video games are made up of different forms of art; visual art, music, sound design, etc. As a defence for the artfulness of games, I find it misses the forest for the trees – the question is whether or not the combination of techniques that make up a video game is a) unique and b) can create specific emotional and thematic effects, to which I think the answer to both is an obvious yes. More importantly, though, the point implies something interesting: an individual element of a larger piece that is good on its own but ill-suited to the overall effect of that piece. And that whole paragraph was really a roundabout way of setting up that I like the music of Mass Effect 1, but I don’t think it works in the context of the game.
The Mass Effect series is an action-RPG space opera, with the intention of getting you to feel like a classic sci-fi protagonist. The first one is, on every level, flawed but successful; the universe you’re presented with is compelling, it just never quite manages to go into any real depth; the story is functional and has one really great revelation at the center but I never really care about the villain one way or the other; the gameplay takes the cover shooter form popular at the time and adds in superpowers, but the pacing is glacial and the RPG elements (both in terms of powers you gain and in equipment you gain) are immersion-destroyingly fiddly.
The music is right in there with that. And what gets me in particular is that I actually enjoy the music itself a lot; sometimes when I go out for a walk, I’ll listen to it on its own. That track above is “Protecting the Colony”, music that plays during the action sequences on Feros; the game’s music was largely composed by Jack Wall, a veteran video game composer, and I understand he was largely inspired by Vengalis’s work on Blade Runner – though, as people in the comments of that video point out, you can also hear a bit of John Carpenter’s work on Escape From New York and Brad Fiedel on The Terminator, particularly in the central percussion-like synth riff that makes up a large part of the track.
One of the central elements of any video game music is that you have to be able to listen to it at length without getting bored or annoyed – you never know how long the player will get stuck on something – and I think part of my problem with this is that it doesn’t quite manage to pass that. When listening to this alone, I like trying to count the number of notes in the riff, but it doesn’t feel dense enough to carry a video game; it would actually work perfectly in a film, and I think that lack of density helps it; there are at least a dozen different elements going on in a film at once (visuals, acting, set design, script, lighting, framing, etc) on top of the music, and you as a viewer are trying to pay attention to all of them at once, even if you’re not specifically paying attention.
Video games, by definition, have moments where you do nothing and can, potentially, get bored. There’s a classic comparison I’ve seen used for decades: in a movie, a character reaches for a doorknob, and the music rises in tension, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them, so you feel tension too. In a video game, the player reaches for a doorknob, they hear the music rising, and they stop. A composer (and a director) has to deal with player agency in that way. When the player is in no immediate danger, the player has the chance to explore; when the player is in a tense moment but has found a position of relative safety, they most likely will choose to stay there.
(The Left 4 Dead series found a way around that – outside of specific saferooms, you’re always in danger – with a specific musical solution – the music is composed almost entirely of musical stings and are intimately tied into gameplay)
I find the most successful musical moments in Mass Effect 1 are either specifically tied to exploration or are cinematic moments that with a cutscene that has been staged and edited (you know, like a movie). My all-time favourite musical moment in the game is when you get an exposition dump from an old virtual interface and the theme song of the game plays; it’s unexpectedly sweet and melancholic at the climax of the game, and it feels really special. I also enjoy the theme of the Normandy that plays as you wander about it; it’s very gentle and laid-back, as well as very scifi.
One can compare the games with the work Wall did on the second game; I can pick just about any arbitrary track from an action sequence and hit gold, where the work is denser and more complicated. I don’t want to stand still when this shit is kicking into gear. I’m not at all saying every video game has to have music like this, but I do think every video game needs to have music that’s fit to purpose; Hollow Knight has music that’s closer to Mass Effect 1 and that works so well for it because aside from the fact that it has more sound design choices, it’s going for a kind of sad, melancholic atmosphere, even in the gameplay, where you’re moving through more methodically. Part of the reason I think video games are art is because you can create a unified effect (emotionally or thematically), and music is a big part of that.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Year of the Month
This is the angriest a book has made me since that fucking Ayn Rand book.
Year of the Month
High fantasy for people what who have to work for money.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Happy Endings, Season Two, Episode Sixteen, “Butterfly Effect Effect”
“My skin is so dry, it’s got a British accent.”
“I’m ready for no more announcer voice.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Sorry we’re late, Brad insisted on Brazilian which takes way longer than his normal wax.”
“No, no, they could be angry kissing.”
“Nope, they’re normal kissing.”
“In what world is she the together one? She polishes her fax machine.”
“Well, in his defence, he does eat honey like that year round.”
I completely saw Brad and Jane faking an argument coming.
“I haven’t faked something that hard since I told your mother I celebrate Kwanza!!!”
“It’s so sad that we’re evolving and our friends are not!”
“I am angry! I’m angry you’re not naked right now!”
“Where are your flowy pants? You know they facilitate conversation.”
“We’ll play MASH. I get to be Hawkeye.”
“You know I love a good capade.”
“I love a capade too.”
“You get to live with a bear that sounds like Tim Allen.”
Didn’t anticipate a joke about dancing bears.
“She really marches to the beat of her own slow little drummer.”
“I’m not giving you accusing eyes. Now I’m giving you accusing eyes.”
“Oh look, I have three missed calls from Penis. Because all of my contacts have been changed to Penis.”
“And I am not cold. Because I’m warmed by the heat of my convictions.”
Home Movies
Past season three at this point. It’s amazing how hard everyone works on this while it’s also, you know, looking like that. I obviously see a lot of proto-Bob’s Burgers in this show but it’s also ambitious and messy in the ways that come with that. Melissa has also become much more of an active, even irritable character at this point; everyone realises how funny it is for her and McGuirk to be antagonistic with each other.
Shore Leave is not a typical Home Movies episode but it may be the best, and it has the best Melissa/McGuirk interaction. “Coach wants to fly away.”
Invitation to a Gunfighter – This one’s a bit complex. George Segal returns from the Civil War, the only person in his New Mexico town to fight on the rebels’ side. He finds his farm has been sold out from under him, and his girl has married someone else. Before long, he unintentionally gets into a gunfight with the new owner of the farm (offscreen) and kills him. And then since the town sheriff is a drunk – and not under the local banker and landlord’d thumb – the banker hires the titular gunfighter. Who is Yul Brynner, from New Orleans, very cultured, very very cynical, and the son of an enslaved woman and her slavemaster. Oh, and the way the white people treat the Mexicans is rather shoddy, if more “benign neglect” than active hatred. A lot of things get juggled here, and at times there are too many ideas and at other times things just kind of happen. But Brynner, with his endless screen presence and his skill at playing the Other (despite actually being Russian and not Romany or any sort of Brown person), carries this quite well. Segal is pretty okay if not my first cboice to play a good old boy. Pat Hingle is the bad guy and is good enough. Janice Rule, loved by Segal and coldly lusted after by Brynner, is very good.
Elementary, “Sober Companions” – It doesn’t take long for Sherlock to realize that the murder of Gregson’s daughter’s roommate is a serial killer announcing himself, and that the killer is his new acquaintance Michael. We’re firmly in Fictional Serial Killer territory, since by and large serial killer are less like the Son of Sam and more like the Gilgo Beach Killer. But hey, we’ve all see a lot of Fictional Serial Killers, and know what to expect, and as such this episode works very well. Even if the shot of Michael shaving was too much a callback to the opening credits of Dexter. But the heart of this continues to be Sherlock’s struggles with his brain disorder, and at the end of this one, after the killer graciously bows out until Sherlock is better, our hero finally goes off to recover. Jonny Lee Miller is killing it. So is Aidan Quinn. Desmond Harrington as Michael…well, not everyone is Michael C. Hall.
MASH, “End Run” – A college football star loses his leg, and wants no sympathy or help. Meanwhile, Zale and Klinger are in each other’s faces and Frank is egged on by Margaret to have them fight it out properly. The former story, if a tiny bit pat, is heartfelt, and makes it clear that the prospects of a Black man who was hoping to find a little success playing football are greatly dimmed without being too blatant. The latter is a tonal collision with the former, and continues along the path of “Frank without Margaret is too much of a buttmonkey.” I wonder just when Larry Linville quit.
Barney Miller, “Fire ’77” – A suspect arrested robbing a church, after giving Wojo a hard time for not attending services, starts a fire in the bathroom so he can escape while everyone is busy and not be send back to Riker’s Island. (Even in 1977, that jail was awful.) And a couple are brought in after making a suicide pact and failing to live up to it separately. Leaving to the woman (K Callan) getting very hot and bothered by the idea of dying in the fire! Bizarre, but oddly effective.
“George Segal” ooh, sounds good “returns from the Civil War” whaaaaaaaaaaat. Segal is great but he’s the 70s version of “this face knows what a cell phone looks like,” I cannot picture him in a piece like that.
And then toss in a Southern accent (for plot reasons). Plus I just saw him in The Hot Rock and that really does not match.
Thirteen Ghosts – or Thir13en Ghosts or whatever. This popped up on streaming when I was looking for something dumb and easy to watch, it was definitely both of those things, and also so aggressively 2001-specific that I found it weirdly charming even though it is, without any doubt, terrible.
Live Music – fun slacker-rockers Publicity Department playing a somewhat under-attended matinee on Saturday afternoon. I think they’re a good band, and the latest album is a step up from the previous one. They have a retro keyboard onstage to add some lo-fi synthy bits to their kinda-Pavement-y sound which I enjoyed, I’m a sucker for those sounds. Support was some solid emo-rock (not really my thing, but done well) and then also a friend of mine doing his second solo show, a couple of years after the first, and… uh… it still needs work. I loved his old band but he really hasn’t figured out how to perform on his own yet.
I watched 13 Ghosts on cable in, maybe, 2003, and I had exactly the same reaction.
It looks weirdly OK for a 25-year-old movie that uses as much CGI as it can possibly cram into 90 minutes. And there’s a certain appeal to a horror movie presumably aiming at a teen audience having Tony Shalhoub and F. Murray Abraham as two of the leads. But yeah it’s not very good at all.
Wooooooo live music! Wooooo matinees so we can get some decent sleep!
Small Time Crooks – Allen in the ‘90’s was less consistent than in his prior decade, but he delivered some real gems. Husbands and Wives is, I think, his very best film, and we also get the searing Deconstructing Harry, the adorable Everyone Says I Love You, and the closely observed Sweet and Lowdown. Now, as he enters the new millennium, we must admit that this is a fallow period, at least until he embarks on his European Adventure halfway through the decade.
So, Small Time Crooks. Ray and Frenchie (Allen and Tracy Ullman) are a low-rent Brooklyn schnook and his nail-tech wife who get the idea to rob a bank by renting a nearby storefront and tunneling under. There’s some funny business around Allen and his pals’ bumbling attempts during the heist itself. But the bulk of the movie takes place a year later after they’ve struck it rich. Frenchie wants to be a society doyenne, but she realizes she doesn’t understand anything about that world, so she engages Hugh Grant, a refined art dealer, to teach her culture and manners. Meanwhile Ray becomes disaffected with wealth and Frenchie’s newfound snobbery. Elaine May, easily the best part of the picture, is Frenchie’s dimwitted cousin who becomes Allen’s confidante.
This is not at all a bad film, but it’s awfully wan. There are laughs here and there (mostly delivered by May). And Ullman, who often plays everything to the rafters, is very good here even in a bridge and tunnel role which many would use as an excuse to overdo it. Her Frenchie is sweet and vulnerable. The problem is that, for a movie about a couple growing apart after they get everything they think they wanted, there just isn’t enough interaction between Allen and Ullman. They rarely share the screen after they hit the big time, which, while I guess it’s the point, means there is little reason to root for the two of them to get it together or lament what they’re losing. This film has quite a strong critical reception. I liked it fine, but compared to other Allen films even of this same period I think you could do better.
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion – This is often considered Allen’s worst film (including by Allen), but that is dead wrong. Ok, Allen is too old to be playing opposite Helen Hunt (27 years his junior) and Charlize Theron (39 years younger). But the chemistry he has with Hunt in particular almost makes it work. (Allen has said he didn’t want to play the lead in this but he couldn’t secure another actor in the time allotted and then the period setting made it too expensive to reshoot later like he did with September.)
Allen is once again a low-rent schnook (like Boris Grushenko and Danny Rose, the role he was born to play), this time a crack insurance investigator in 1940 New York. He clashes with Hunt, the efficiency expert who the owner has brought in to streamline the place. After being volunteers for a hypnotist’s stage show, the hypnotist (Davif Ogden Stiers) secretly then uses them as his catspaws in a series of jewelry heists. And their film follows Allen as he first tries to find the culprit which he doesn’t know is himself and then finds himself trapped as his guilt becomes clear.
Allen and Hunt’s scenes are great together — they’re fast and funny like the screwball comedies which inspired this film, but also their dialogue is incredibly biting and mean. Whenever Allen leaves the room Huny sweetly calls out something like “Make sure the elevator is there when you step in, or you might plunge fifteen floors down the shaft and shatter your spine!” (It’s funnier when she says it.)
At the same time they have these unexpected moments of real connection, as much as they hate to admit it to themselves, when Hunt suffers romantic reverses or Allen finds himself up against the law. Hunt has never been better — in her movie career she often plays brittle, but here she’s nothing brittle or taut about her even though she plays moments of emotional vulnerability. (The scenes between Allen and Theron as a slumming socialite don’t work as well, but the 20-something Theron in her Veronica Lake haircut is so ridiculously beautiful you don’t notice so much.) Plus this movie looks astounding. The period setting looks great and Zhao Fei, in the last of three Allen films, shoots everything with a lovely sunset glow.
It legitimately does take a minute to suspend your disbelief to see Allen and Hunt, but especially Theron, as potential romantic partners. But if you can get past that this is an unsung gem and a pleasant surprise.
I think Crooks is the first Woody I watched? But Jade Scorpion was a bridge too far re: “who finds a 70 year old man attractive” even for me, a then-teen who hoped girls would love neurotic intellectuals.
I may be forgetting something, but I think this is the last time he played the romantic lead in any of his movies.
Oh wait, no, he does the same in Hollywood Ending, but there his relationship with Deborah Messing is IIRC clearly transactional.
Or if he’s not the romantic lead, he’s still sleeping with much younger women like in Anything Else. Starting to think…this guy has issues…with women.
Man, maybe he should make a movie about that!
The Lords Of Salem — Rob Zombie is a sincere artist, he loves gore and gnarly shit but he also just likes making movies and he clearly loves getting the actors he does in a similar way to Tarantino, and that is a cool thing to see. But despite lots of good performances (from older women in particular, when Zombie shoots a evil naked hag he is more interested in the evil than the naked) this never quite takes off, even with the killer premise of “sick riff turns women into witches.” The last ten minutes are pretty out there but brought to mind Monty Python more than Nathaniel Hawthorne; the opening of this, which begins where THE VVITCH ends, is better. Oh well.
You Can See Everything — Nathan Fielder is a tricky artist, he is both uncomfortably direct and insinuatingly passive, and the latter is what makes me not trust him. There is a lot going on here and some very funny bits (Billy Evans is the breakout star of 2026, what a loathsome individual), but this movie is less about the truth of Elizabeth Holmes than the choices Fielder makes in making the movie itself. Which is an artist’s prerogative, but to portray complexity he ignores the existence of simplicity — the second half is very well constructed and manipulative in this regard, everything involving the surprise co-star is structured as exploration and inevitability (and interestingly lets Fielder use typical doc tropes of narration and re-enactment in a way that makes them seem less cliched than they are) — and this gets annoying after a while. Oh well.
The Devils — Ken Russell is a believer, he would not be so upset at the Catholic Church’s depravity if he did not see other possibilities. I’d seen this before but the NC-17 version certainly adds a lot in terms of depravity and it really does make the movie stronger — ecstasies channeled into perverse forms because they have no release elsewhere, hypocrisy is better than bent rectitude. But it doesn’t change the fundamental problem of horny and naive goodness versus patriarchal and political evil, these things are what they are and Reed’s magnificent bluster doesn’t change the passion play of it all that is confident in its rightness. It is pretty funny how the witch hunter is coded very modern in dress and look, John Lennon as bloodthirsty maniac, more of this would have been better than Reed doing the faith-based version of being one day from retirement. This looks great on the big screen, Witchfinder General is still better. Oh well.
Live music — friend’s band CD release party! Railyard Haunts play 90s-ish rock that is in the Buffalo Tom vein but can also throw in a Misfits cover, lots of fun. The opener had an excellent female vocalist in the rougher Debbie Harry mode, always good to hear, although they had the extremely vomas-friendly name of Cat TV and neither cats or television were present, Stoner’s Pot Palace chicanery. Oh well.
At last a negative review of You Can See Everything. Honestly, it sounds like something I would find annoying quickly, the way I do Michael Moore. And is there anything I need to know about Holmes other than she’s a crook?
I am like this about documentaries in general, so take my negativity with a grain of salt. I don’t feel the need to know anything more about Holmes than her crookitude and I don’t think the movie makes a case otherwise. EDIT: There is a very funny moment in the movie where Fielder is talking to Holmes about something and is frustrated/confused but engaging with her, and Evans chimes in with “I know what you’re thinking” and Fielder (who obviously dislikes Evans) immediately shoots back “No you don’t.” He’s right! But that’s the movie.
I love nonfiction books. I have little patience with documentaries. I think a lot of that is the kind of book I like is straightforward and rife with footnotes and demonstrably a product of research. And even the best documentaries, because of the nature of the beast the time constraints, never mind the sort that has to find some way to keep general audiences watching, are not going to be as good as books to me.
Or maybe I am just a snob. (Nonfiction books without footnotes and bibliography annoy me as well.)
Very much with you on books vs. film and the footnotes aspect is a big reason why. I can see the sources if not go into those sources with the same depth as the nonfiction writer, there is a level of trust to start with. I generally don’t have that with documentarians! Their seams are too obvious, their assumptions too clunky. At a certain point this becomes uncharitable but at a certain point these filmmakers should just be better. What I do like is style, I can trust someone who is upfront about their choices — Wiseman works for me in this regard. Fielder is much cleverer about what he’s doing but is still being coy with his choices (annoying) or purposefully limiting them and pretending otherwise (more annoying).
Is it bad to be coy with your choices? Orson Welles is pretty damn coy and deceiving in F For Fake. The joy of the magic trick is a kind of consensual lie; you know you are getting some bullshit and you agree to it.
I should see F For Fake! The magician metaphor throughout the movie is useful and I agree there is a consensual lie with magic. That cuts both ways — you have to show me magic. I will go along with a magician who pulls a rabbit out of a hat, I will not go along if there is a rabbit cage at the magician’s feet he’s just not talking about.
I think the idea is more, if we’re clumsily extending this analogy, that the magician himself might be getting tricked to some extent, that the rabbit is pulling the trick. And maybe the magician should know that, but the rabbit has tricks upon tricks.
Don’t talk nonsense! The rabbit doesn’t have tricks, tricks are for kids.
Woo, live music!
Skinamarink – Scared the shit out of me despite a sluggish pace I’d attribute to this being the director’s debut; truly Lynchian in how it grasps dream logic and stillness as a source of terror while weaponizing a key strength of cinema – faces – by depriving us of them, making them sparse and at one point, depriving them of key empathetic attributes. I can only echo other comments about how it captures the feeling of being a child, lacking power, unsettled, unable to fully grasp a situation until it’s too terrible to wriggle out of. Heartbreaking too, especially at the end that makes this, to me, occult cinema. What is a name, after all, but a form of power?
The Lowdown S2E1 – If Hawke is swimming in the river of ham here, that’s kind of the point. Lee is high on his own supply (and shrooms), and who better to bring him down than his daddy? Pretty sure Tommy Lee Jones isn’t wearing makeup here and is just that old. (With all due respect to the man.) Loving Betty Gilpin as an addition to the cast, so good at playing scared and exasperated.
“weaponizing a key strength of cinema – faces – by depriving us of them, making them sparse and at one point, depriving them of key empathetic attributes” is a fantastic insight. And it’s interesting to think on in the context of You Can See Everything and its three hours of faces filling the screen.
“River of Ham” is my favorite Billy Joel song. Just finished season one, so need to start season two.
Heh, it’s a paraphrasing from Kenneth Branagh about Thor of all things.
What did we play?
Gears of War, Act One, Chapter Two, “Trial By Fire”
This opens with Marcus being flown to his new commanding officer to receive the squad’s mission. For this project, I’m fully expecting to point to some things and say “they’re good” and others to say “they’re bad”, and it’s funny to me how they come from the same naive place. This game/story actually has a very solid pair of very specific and practical goals for the characters: find a device called the resonator (which will allow them to map the Locust tunnels) and find Alpha Squad, who were supposed to have it. From this, you get a bunch of ideas that will define the tone of the games moving forward, to wit: a Shield-like sense of cynicism and belief that the worst possible thing will definitely happen.
Gears expresses these in ways that, as I said, come off as naive, mostly through big blunt statements from the characters. My favourite here is very early on, when the CO explains he’s found a way to end the war, to which Dom literally responds “Yeah, right.” Though another extremely cheesy example is when Dom remarks that he’s afraid of seeing a specific character’s body because “His little boy just turned two last week.” It comes off so corny and trying so hard to be taken seriously, especially this early in the game. We’ve never met this ‘Rohaz’, and we’ll never see the effect his death has on anyone.
Layered in with this are a few other extremely blunt story tropes, like a character named Carmine (three guesses what happens to that guy later) who asks Marcus about his backstory, which leaves Marcus unimpressed. The remarkable thing about John DiMaggio’s performance is that he lives up to the teenaged cynicism of the story and makes it feel real and lived-in; Marcus is vaguely embarrassed about it even being brought up, and a young man who would love to be thought of as world-weary (and thus experienced) can easily project on him. I do actually love a whole backstory covered in two sentences, particularly one as obvious as this. You get the same thing the other way, when Hoffman (the CO) is unimpressed by Marcus and dismisses him as a traitor – and Marcus isn’t particularly impressed by Hoffman either, setting up a clear dynamic and conflict (this is actually one of the few ideas that’s paid off in an interesting way).
We also get one of the early flaws of the series: the setting is generically beautiful, which is to say it’s generically Roman. I feel like this speaks a lot to the limited understanding of a certain kind of nerdy guy who gets all his cultural knowledge from about four or five video games; like that whole “men think about the Roman Empire all the time” thing that goes around every now and again, it shows how your Generic Guy has this vague sense that Rome is the ultimate beautiful society. There’s no real sense of people actually living in any of the spaces you move through, though. No individual culture or personality, no sense people lived here.
That’s not to say there’s no personality at all. There’s a great thing this chapter where you spot the bodies of Gears from a bridge and have to make your way down, so you do get at least the sense that people are fighting through the city even if nobody really lived here before. And there’s one other little gameplay detail that really shakes up the game from generic gameplay roots: emergence holes, where enemies will come out of the ground in waves unless you throw in a grenade early. I always liked this aspect of the first game and was disappointed that they never really followed up on it; it gave an extra element to fights with a problem you had to solve outside immediate survival. There’s also early signs of the games’ awesome and cheesy music; there’s a guitar chord they use to end fights that’s pretty cool, and there’s a vague sense of the circus in the music, especially the between-fights music.
Tennis! First time in years! And wow am I rusty. Didn’t really play an actual game as much as hit balls back and forth. At least my serve is still pretty good when I can connect with the ball.
Year of the Month updates:
This November, you can write about anything from 1968 — here’s some lists of movies, albums, books, and TV to get you started.
Nov. 8th: Tristan Nankervis: Night of the Living Dead
Nov. 22nd: Tristan Nankervis: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
And there’s still time to write about any of these movies, albums, books from 1998 this October.
Oct. 30th: Gillian Nelson: Halloweentown