Alright youngin's pull up a chair. It is story time with Grandpa Tom. We are gonna talk some OLD SCHOOL!
I remember back in the days before the internet existed, when I was just a young lad. Back then, when purchasing a video game, you had very little to go off of. You could read the information on the box, but that was about it. There was no online jounalistic websites that offer reviews to the latest titles. Luckily for me, there happened to be a liquor store/movie rental business just down the street where I grew up. This store dealt primarily in movies, but had a small rotating section of Super Nintendo titles available to rent for 2$ a week. That's right, two greenbacks. Because of this, I was able to experience all sorts of games that I would never have actually purchased. (or, in this case, begged my parents to purchase) In a way, I sort of miss it. There was the thrill of not knowing what sort of experience you were about to have. No idea whether the game would be brilliant or suck. (The latter, usually) And if you got stuck, there was no GameFAQs to help you out. Ah, those were the days! Below are a selection of these titles I played for days back then. Now appreciate what you have now, you young whippersnappers!
1) Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City
MJ is the house ya'll! Actually, instead of house, make that the Dungeon, Labratory, Ghost Train, Evil Circus, etc. Now this game had an absolutely ridiculous scenario. You play as Air Jordan, whose teammates have all been abducted by some sort of evil scientist guy thing. GET EA A PULITZER NOW! But in all seriousness, the gameplay was actually really good. This game was essentially a platformer with all the conventions. As MJ, you throw an unlimited amount of basketballs to defeat enemies. You can also get powerup balls that are limited. These included Flame Balls, Baseballs, Freeze Balls, Bouncy Balls, Homing Balls, Earthquake Balls, and so on.........Balls. There were also plenty of basketball hoops scattered throughout the levels that MJ can dunk into. Doing so releases vital health replenishers such as Wheaties and Gatorade. And no, I am not joking about any of the above.
2) Mario is Missing
Super Mario and the Holy Roman Empire
I am not a fussy game player. Give me something that lets me escape reality for a few hours and I am all set. This is why Edutainment is such a horrible idea. Especially for kids, kids do not want to learn from videogames. They do it all day at school. What's worse, the fiendish marketing people are aware that kids are attracted to franchise characters. Combine this misleading marketing with the horrors of edutainment and you get Mario is Missing. As a kid, of course I rented this game because DUH it had Mario in it. To my horror, I found myself not jumping around smashing bricks, throwing fireballs, and eating mushrooms. I found myself walking through famous cities, talking to boring NPCs, and answering 80 MILLION trivia questions. All because Bowser kidnapped Mario or something. Ugh, the worst.
3) Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Oh look, they are going to fight over the pink one. How adorable!
If you grew up in the 90s like me, you know how huge Power Rangers was. Don't act like you didn't watch it. You watched it, and you loved it. And this game was like a dream come true for me. This game was primarily a side-scrolling beat-em up. Each level had you go through a first boring stage as your lame human self, then you got to MORPH into your slightly less lame Japanese Cartoon Ranger self. The gameplay wasn't terrible, but it was incredibly repetitive. Fighting through waves of enemies until reaching the end of the level, then doing it again.
4) Kablooey
It's Dy-NO-MITE!
Kablooey is a puzzle game in which you navigate around a grid in frustrating isometric view and attempt to disarm all the bombs on the level without blowing yourself. There is all sorts of hijinks in the later levels that make it more difficult and so on. This game was actually pretty fun and challenging. However, the designers decided against a save system and elected to use an elaborate and retarded password system. But wow guys, this game. Innuendo City! The fact that it is called Kablooey and the main character is shaped like a testicle nonwithstanding, the in-game announcer begins each level telling the player to "Get Ready" in a sultry sexy voice. Also there is a level called Blow the Load, and yes this is really happening.
5) Bugs Bunny: Rabbit Rampage
I confess, this game I actually didn't rent. This was one of those unfortunate Christmas gifts from a distant relative where they know you have a Nintendo but have no idea what sort of games are considered good or bad. Regardless, this game was actually pretty cool. A pretty much blantant rip off of Mario, the game had you play as bugs bunny as you traversed different worlds based off of famous Looney Tunes shorts. It was also exceedingly difficult. You can see from the box art above that Sunsoft was STOKED about having 12 MEGS to work with. With this incredible space, they decided to insert as many enemies as possible into the game, which made it a trite difficult to get around. Also, Daffy Duck makes for a lame final boss.
So there you have it youngin's. See what you missed out on what with your 3-Ds and your 1080p's? No school like the old school.
In 1986 I was born, and young rookie named Joe Sakic was having a stellar year for the Swift Current Broncos of the Western Hockey League. Amassing an incredible amount of points on his way to an easy Rookie of the Year crown, Sakic was being hailed as the next Wayne Gretsky. On a chilly night in December his team was headed to a game against the Regina Pats when the bus hit a patch of black ice and crashed. Sakic was unharmed, but 4 of his teamates and friends died in front of him. He has never spoken about the crash, only saying that he would honor them in himself.
And he did.
Sakic was drafted 15th overall to the Quebec Nordiques, a dismal franchise that was in financial ruin. Sakic never wavered. His first NHL game he scored an assist, the very next one, his first NHL goal. In 1994, a mere 6 years after entering the NHL, Sakic was promoted to captain, a title he would not relinquish. Under his leadership, the Nordiques made the playoffs for the first time in 6 years. Alas, the Nordiques were doomed, and the club was sold to a businessman named Stanley Kronke. He moved the team to Denver, and renamed them to Colorado Avalanche. Kronke poured millions into the team, and was instrumental in the Avalanche signing Patrick Roy, the greatest goaltender of all time. With Roy at his back, Sakic led the Avs to a Stanley Cup in their first year. Sakic exploded in the playoffs and was clutch. His play earned him the Conn Smyth trophy for playoff MVP and established the Avalanche as an elite franchise. The rest is history.
I will not call Sakic a hero. In my opinion, anyone who plays a game for a living cannot be called that, but for the countless people who bestow that honor on him, he completely deserves it. Sakic is a complete player in every sense of the term, but I'll start with the numbers:
2-time Stanley Cup champion (1996,2001)
Conn Smyth award (Playoff MVP)
Hart Trophy (Regular Season MVP)
Lady Byng Memorial Trophy (Best Sportsmanship)
13 time All-Star and 2 All-Star MVP awards
2002 Winter Olympics Gold Medal
2002 Winter Olympics MVP
6th place for points All-Time
Most overtime playoff goals in history
Longest tenured Captain for one team in history
Obviously, Sakic has won about every single thing a single individual can do, and since hockey isn't a wussy sport, he also got in a fight. That's right, one fight, in 20 years on the ice. And he beat the shit out of Doug Gilmore:
How do you like them apples Gilmore?
But all the numbers and stats don't do Joe justice. There is a reason people in Denver simply call him Super Joe. Ask anyone who led Denver to it's first major sporting championship, and I guarantee that most people will say John Elway. But Sakic raised the cup for Denver 3 years before Elway did. Joe had incredible skill, he wasn't very big, but his conditioning was on another level. Goalies have always said that Sakic moves slippery. Sakic could also play defense with the best of them. But everyone knows him and will remember him for his crippling, Goalie-destroying, missile of a wrist shot. Almost impossible to defend against, Joe could score with this shot from anywhere.
Sakic fakes it...takes it....Score!
But the best thing about Sakic was his loyalty and his humility. In the dog days of the Nordiques, he was getting offers from major teams for huge salaries, yet he felt that his commitment was to the team that drafted him. One year, the Nordiques drafted a young prodigy named Eric Lindros, who promptly held out in hopes of going to a winning team. Finally disgusted with having to answer questions about him all the time, Sakic said "We only want players who have the passion to play the game. I'm tired of hearing that name. He's not here and there are a lot of others in this locker room who really care about the game." Sakic stayed loyal to the Nordiques/Avalanche, becoming the longest tenured Captain in league history for one team. He was the heart and soul of the Avalanche. Ask any young player now days about their favorite players, and Sakic will come up in almost all of them. Joe was not the kind of Captain who was loud and boisterous, giving rousing intermission speeches to his team. Joe never said much at all, because he didn't need to. After a terrible game, he would tell everyone they did a good job and tell the media it was his fault. The next game, he would go out and play incredible hockey and his teamates would follow suit. That is a TRUE captain. I cannot imagine how weird it will be this October, when the Avs take the ice for their first game without #19. There are other veterans on the team who are deserving of the C on their sweaters, but for this season, they should skate without a captain. Because there will never be another Joe Sakic.
But Joe is probably the most famous for his humility. Reports frequently asked him about his many individual records and accomplishments. His response is always the same. He blushes and lowers his head and quietly says "I've been lucky to play such a long time." This coupled with the fact that he always would never say anything controversial or newsworthy lent him the nickname "Quoteless Joe." But if they asked him about a certain teammate, one who played well, Sakic would talk for lengths about it. In the late 90's and early 00's, the Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings were the greatest rivalry in sports. Both teams had immense hatred for each other and would denounce each other at the drop of the hat. But not one, not a SINGLE person on the Red Wings ever had anything but praise for Sakic. In fact, I have never heard anything negative said about him. Ever.
I can't possibly stress how humble he is in words, luckily, I can show it. Hockey is steeped in tradition, more so than any other sport besides maybe Soccer. One of these traditions is that, upon winning the Stanley Cup, the Captain takes the cup and skates around the rink alone with it before handing it off to his teammates. In the 00/01 season, looking for an extra edge, the Avs made a late season trade for a defensemen from Boston named Ray Borque. Ray had been playing for the Bruins for 21 years without a cup, and held the record for most games played without winning it. That season, the Avs won the cup for Ray, Sakic went to the podium to accept the cup from the commissioner, and then this happened:
Raymond Bourque!
That sums up Joe Sakic right there, the classiest guy in sports. Wayne Gretsky once said "Good players go to where the puck is. Great players go to where the puck is going to be." Joe is a great player, and so much more. His #19 will be retired on the season opener. He will be a first-ballot hall of famer without question. But to us Avs fans, he was our pride. They will eventually erect a bronze statue of him in front of the Pepsi Center in downtown Denver. To remind people of the Captain. To remind us of OUR Captain. Thank you, Super Joe.
I was somewhere in my early teens when I received my first PC equipped with cutting edge technology such as a Pentium III processor and a 32 MB video card and a fresh copy of Windows 95. Excited, I struck out to my local Walmart, eager to find a suitable game for my sweet rig. I had several choices in mind before I found, in a corner, a game called Baldur's Gate. Honestly, the only reason I bought it was because the game came on a whopping 6 CDs. My logic at the time was "Dude this game only fits on 6 CDs? It has GOT to be awesome!" Luckily for me, I was right. Though certainly not perfect, Baldur's Gate consumed massive hours of my free time that was spent wandering around its massive open world. This is the start of my love affair with development studio BioWare.
A few years later the sequel to Baldur's Gate released. Improving on the first in every way, it is to this day my favorite PC game of all time. All my friends were playing Diablo, but they had no idea what they were missing (A much better game). BioWare made it OK for western developers to make great role-playing games and was one of the first studios to break the stranglehold the Japanese had on the genre. Baldur's Gate was followed by Neverwinter Nights, another development milestone. BioWare then moved to consoles with Knights of the Old Republic, which made Star Wars games cool again (And had a better story than the actual prequels). With the release of the Xbox 360, BioWare was given greater resources and power to develop. They turned this into the massive Sci-Fi game Mass Effect.
I can wax hyperbolic about this game forever so I'll get to the point quickly. Mass Effect is incredible. Incredible is not an incredible enough word. Mass Effect is transcendent to the medium. It is an epic space opera tale inhabiting a simple video game. BioWare has always had top notch writing talent, but this is something different. Baldur's Gate 1/2 was a story built upon a foundation of Dungeons & Dragons. Good, but not terribly original from other medieval fantasy tales. KOTOR was obviously built on the well-established Star Wars mythos. Even so, the story in KOTOR is more interesting than the story in the 3 prequels. But with Mass Effect, BioWare takes all their influences and weaves them together into an original story that is better than 95% of books, movies, television, and other games.
Mass Effect puts you in the boots of Commander Shepard. Shepard is a human, whose appearance, gender, and entire back story can be customized by the player. I played as a female named Sarah who was Earthborn and who was a hero in a past mission. Some might think that this much detailed customization would dehumanize the character of Shepard. In fact, the opposite is true. I am so accustoms to my version of Shepard that when I see versions other players have created in videos it seems wrong to me. After Shepard is created, you get to pick the class. This is a big decision, because it dramatically affects the way you will be playing the game. You can choose from Soldier, Engineer, Adept, or a hybrid combination of two. Playing as a soldier is as close to a Gears of War as you can get in this game, with the emphasis on shooting. An Engineer is more valuable for its Tech abilities which wreck havoc on synthetic enemies. Meanwhile an Adept is the "wizard" of this game, able to use biotic abilities similar to magic.
But lets get to the story. I am a sucker for a good sci-fi romp. Video gaming is especially fruitful in this genre. Without delving into spoiler territory, the Mass Effect universe is as fleshed out as Star Wars or any other iconic fiction. Space is perhaps the last great mystery to us homosapiens. The scope of the universe and the vast amount of unknowns that still exist spark our imaginations. Mass Effect tickles this wonder while delving into greater issues that are common to our society but transplanted to a galactic stage. We are always searching for intelligent life in the universe, and yet, what happens when we find it? Mass Effect presents a unique scenario. As the dominant species on Earth, we are used to being the highest on the food chain. We are the masters of our domain, we control our universe. Mass Effect presents humanity as a stumbling bunch of naive creatures who colonize the new planets of the galaxy because, well, we can. The question Mass Effect asks, is what if humanity was suddenly knocked off their high horse? Humans in Mass Effect are regarded as a lower class species to the ancient races of the Citadel Council. As Shepard, your mission is to prove to the galaxy that humanity is not insignificant. All of this is presented in set pieces that are so well put together you'd swear you were watching a movie. Observe:
The characters make this all work. As I stated above, Shepard alone provides a deep bond with the player, but the supporting cast is just as well done. The dialogue is all sharp and spot on. You will grow attached to the characters in the game, and your moral choices will influence them as well. Morality in this game is one of its key strengths. Unlike past BioWare titles, the morality scale is not one meter. Paragon (Good) and Renegade (Bad) are separate, which means there is no consequence for the occasional evil choice when trying to be good or vice-versa. I found that this system made me choose based on what I truly thought I should do, rather than what I thought I should do to keep my morality scale tipped one way or the other. And believe me, the choices in this game are not light or easy. Towards the end of the game, you will be forced to make choices that have enormous impact on the entire game. They are emotionally charged, and there is no clear cut line between good and evil. This is true of the villain as well. Not only did I feel sympathy for the villain's plight, I actually sort of agreed with him. Also, apparently being a renegade equals punching a lot of people in the face:
The haunting soundtrack is another part of this game that was nailed. Epic themes and sounds echo such sci-fi classics as Star Trek and Dune, while retaining an almost retro sound of its own. The standout track is the somber tune played while navigating your ship's galaxy map. It's eargasmic.
Yes, the game has its flaws. While the story planets are all gorgeously designed and excellent all around, the optional planets feel very randomly generated and bland. Similarly, most of the side quests feel lame and standard. There are literally only three different places side quests take place. An underground complex, a standard building, and a mining complex. And you visit these nearly identical rooms many times. I mostly blame Microsoft for this. The game probably was rushed, as Microsoft needed as many AAA titles for the 360 at that point as they could get. A couple other minor peeves such as your exploratory vehicle handling like shit and the guns not really feeling like powerful weapons exist, but they aren't deal breakers by any means.
I actually bought Mass Effect around a year and a half ago, yet never played it until now. Now, I am working on my third play through, and could probably play through several more times. It will drawn you in and never lose its magic until the end, it's that good. Don't make the same mistake I did. If you haven't, play this game now.
5 Krogan Testicles out of 5
*Oh and the much ballyhooed love scene? Completely tame. I cannot believe people were in a tizzy over that. The media is full of retards.
I have been a lot of cool places during Spring Break. Florida, Washinton D.C., and Hawaii have been past destinations for my family and I. But this year was different. I was going to Phoenix...for the first time since I left after living there for a solid 4 years. I swore I would never miss Phoenix, but now that I live in the middle of rural Mormon nowhere, boy do I wish I still lived there.
A well-known fact about Arizona is that during the summer season, there is a tendency for the temperature on the ground to resemble the surface of the sun. Indeed, sweltering is not accurate enough. Yet it is a dry desert climate, which means that in the winter, it can actually get quite cold there. Spring Break time however, is the median between the two extremes and during this time you will not find better weather anywhere else. Luckily, this is exactly when I was there.
Why I was there in a different matter. My brother is considering Northern Arizona University as his beer pong headquarters and therefore a scheduled visit and tour was in order. Commence pretty old campus building picture dump.
While our quite attractive student tour guide led us around the fricken huge campus (it's seriously 1.5 miles end to end) I admired the scenery. The campus is beautiful, in a Smoky the Bear kinda way. Lots of trees and what I can only imagine as lots of furry woodland creatures. You'd never know you were in Arizona. Their mascot though? Could've used a few more brainstorming sessions.
Nothing like running around campus shirtless with suspenders and flannel pants am I right? Mascot aside, I'd seriously go there, you know, if they offered any degrees that interested me. Anyway, since NAU is in Flagstaff, it's just a hop down to Phoenix, our next destination. Nostalgic, I was looking forward to roaming the urban landscape in my vehicle once more. Then we arrived just in time for rush hour and I remembered again why driving around Phoenix during this time is a special circle of hell.
Eventually we arrived at my grandparents house in Surprise. Yes, they named a suburb Surprise, and no, there is nothing surprising about it. Unless an abundance of old retired people is your idea of a surprise. Surprise, like fellow 'urbs Peoria and Tempe, is home to various professional baseball teams spring training facilities. My mother, being a devoted Colorado Rockies fan (I know, weep for her) timed our visit to coincide with a spring training matchup between the Rockies and the Royals.
I can't stand watching baseball on TV, mostly because it's too slow and games go on so long. And there is so much lull in the action that the announcers have to make small talk with each other, which is cancer for my ears. On the other hand, I love going to the ballpark. Something about the atmosphere at a ballpark I guess. Spring training games are actually awesome to go to because for 10 dollars you get really awesome seats. This was my view of the "action"
The Rockies lost of course, because they suck, even compared the greek tragedy known as the Royals. I conforted my mother with the knowledge that this game means absolutely nothing and that she still had a few more weeks before the losses actually counted. (Why does baseball go on for so long? Seriously MLB, cut the number of games in half and don't start until June or something.)
The next day I was planning on meeting my old work cohorts for lunch. Of course, they all lived and worked in the Tempe/Chandler area, about as far away from Surprise as possible. Lunch was at a mongolian place where you pay for a bowl which you then proceed to fill with various raw meats, vegetables, and noodles. My friends taught me the proper technique, which detailed how to smash everything down to get as much in the bowl as possible and then constructing a sort of meat tower. Once you selected your ingredients, you handed your bowl over to several "cooks" who I can only assume were Mongolian (I mean, they have to be right?) and they throw your stuff onto a giant wok for a few minutes then hand it back to you. My old boss Nate, suggested I go with the orange Fanta as it complemented the food. His words were, "Fanta is ridiculous". I can only imagine the aspiring chefs in Mongolia taking sips of orange Fanta in between throwing random foodstuffs in a wok..."Oh yes, this beverage coupled with this food is most satisfying to the palate."
After lunch, my brother and I visited some old familiar places to reminisce. Arizona Mills mall was one such destination. This mall is so big, it's shaped like a race track, and it actually has numbered zones in it.
Mmmmmm, Capitalism!
And for the grand finale...
I used to live at a magical place. A magical place known only as Beautiful Lane. This fairytale cul-de-sac was the site of many shenanigans. There was the time I stained the driveway with car battery corrosion (see above). There was the time Rock Band was played so loud it shook the walls. I cannot begin to imagine the number of brave crickets felled on the premises. There was the man who only lived there a few days out of a month. But mostly, there was good times. Maybe TOO good.
Despite it being in Laveen, and Laveen being far away from anything interesting, I miss that place. I wonder if the new tenants have any idea what sort of crazy stuff my fellow authors and I inflicted on the property. Perhaps they wonder why the stairs have not one but two ass imprints in them. Maybe they wonder why the upstairs loft floor seems bent downwards. Why there are so many balls in the backyard? Why do only half of the lightbulbs in the entire house work? There is an answer to those questions, and the answer is: Awesomeness.
Imagine this picture, but with a LOT more weeds
And thus my great Phoenix road trip came to an end. But the adventure wasn't over yet. As we arrived at Flagstaff we got word from my dad that the way we usually come home is getting pounded with snow and will likely be closed. The only other way is to go east to New Mexico and then back north. So we do this, and run into the mother of all Haboobs. (The Native American term for sandstorm, and possibly what you are thinking) One sandcloud hit us so hard the sand came pouring through the car vents like smoke. The wind was blowing in gusts up to 90 mph! That's hurricane speed. It was absolutely insane. A trip that should have taken us 8-9 hours ended up taking more than 14 hours.
It is absolutely amazing how paranoid April Fool's Day makes everyone. When I got off work at 5 p.m. on that day so did most of the people I work with. Well everyone was walking to their car and everyone did a walk around of their car. They were looking for any sign that a prank had been pulled on their car. Rightfully so, there were several pranks pulled on people. I managed to sneak through the day unscathed. I played the role of assistant to the prankster. I managed to help people arrange keys on keyboards, change mouse button configurations, fill peoples lockers with shredded documents. One person was even fired, complete with his access badge losing its privileges. I also helped in a failed attempt at a scavenger hunt for the bulbs for the desk lamps. The scavenger hunt was for the night crew who like to use the desk lamps. They weren't in the mood to go hunting for the light bulbs. Which means people are going to be finding random clues around the office for the next week or so.
Back to the paranoia caused by this day. It's a given that what you read on the Internet on 4/1 is 98% a lie. It was carrying over into the work place, at least where I work. When a manager would call and ask one of us to do a job, we would question whether it was a real task or a prank. Unfortunately, they were asking us to do work. Oh well, there's always next year.
Only 3 months after receiving my Zune the screen cracked for no apparent reason that I can fathom. I was listening to it in my car on my way home from work, and took it out and put it in my pocket when I got home. Then I took it out of my pocket when I got to my dresser and set it on top of that next to my keys and hat. I grabbed it a couple days later to take it to work with me when I noticed the crack in the screen. There is an area in the center about the diameter of a quarter with cracks radiating from it. It almost looks like someone put a quarter on the screen and smacked it with something.
Fortunately, my Zune is still under warranty so I just sent it in to Microsoft. They were sporting about it as they sent me a box and pre paid address label to ship it back to them. Unfortunately, I got my Zune back last Friday, I was at work so my fiancé opened it up and was shocked to see that the screen was still cracked, with a letter saying they do not cover damage to screens.
I decided to look into the issue further and as it turns out the battery is right behind the display screen of the Zune. When they are charged for extended periods of time the heat generated from charging can cause the battery to expand enough to crack the screen. So after reading this it reminded me of another issue Microsoft had with a piece of their hardware that they knew about before it was released on the teeming masses. Most of you are familiar with the red ring of death (RRoD) problem that Xbox 360's experience at a pretty steady rate. I’ve also fell prey to this gem as well. Microsoft was a little more understanding about this issue as they took care of it in about 2 weeks, under warranty. So, why would they not fix the Zune? I think the answer is fairly obvious.
They don’t want to dole out the bucks for ANOTHER recall on a faulty product. I can understand that, after all the economy is in a downward spiral. Maybe I just found my way out of this sink hole of an economy we’re in. I’ll start up a website and start repairing screens for people who have been turned away by the people pleasing entertainment gods over in Redmond, or Microsoft for the layperson.
I am preparing to go the DIY route to fix my Zune, if it works out maybe it's time to see if I can turn a profit. I’m afraid I may void my warranty, ok I can't even say that with a straight face. Warranty Schmarranty.
Before I start this review, I want to make a point about the Oscar's. To do that, let's take a look at some of the recent films that have won the Academy Award for Best Picture:
2002 Winner - Chicago
Now I will confess, I never saw Chicago. It looked like a boring musical with Queen Latifah, need I say more? Although this year was a rather weak year for the nominees, I would have probably given the award to Gangs of New York because it had Daniel Day-Lewis and the Academy had scorned Scorsese for so long.
2003 Winner - LOTR: Return of the King
I liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I really did. But the key word here is trilogy. And not only a trilogy, but one that was filmed as a cohesive whole. So why does the final one win while the other two were only nominated? Did the Academy feel that they were obligated to give Peter Jackson something for all the work he put into the films? Or did it win because it wrapped the series whereas the other two were only buildup? It seemed to me that they just gave this one to Jackson since he was nominated for the previous two. To be honest, I never thought this film would win, simply because the Academy is reluctant to give even best picture nominations to Sci-Fi or Fantasy films. I would have voted for Lost in Translation without a second thought and am still mad it didn't win.
2007 Winner - No Country For Old Men
I actually have no qualms with this choice, it was a good film with an excellent villain and some stunning cinematography. But would I have picked it to win? No, I would have picked Atonement, simply because that is the kind of the film the Academy seems to adore.
So what point am I trying to make? That I'm a terrible guesser? Sort of, but also that the Academy is hard to predict. Even when all the other award shows beforehand like the Golden Globes shower a film with awards, there is no guarantee that the Academy will follow. Indeed, it seems at times that the Academy purposely doesn't conform to expectations. Brokeback Mountain is a sure example of that. Which brings us to this year's awards. Slumdog Millionaire was cleaning up like Brokeback did, which was one reason why I didn't think it would win. When it did, I decided that I had better go see what all the fuss was about.
A phrase you will hear tossed around among critics and movie aficionados is "Oscar Bait". This refers to films that are based on themes that appeal to the Academy voters. A film like The Reader or Revolutionary Road are obvious Oscar Bait films. Not to say they aren't good, but that's just the category they fall into. When I first heard of Slumdog Millionaire, I assumed it to be Oscar Bait. A plucky hero trying to get the girl, with the whole game show thing as a sort of gimmicky plot device.
Boy was I wrong. Slumdog is a brilliant film that leaves the audience feeling satisfied. It is the quintessential love story that is so well built up within the conflict of the plot that makes the whole machine go. Slumdog tells the story of a former Mumbai street urchin named Jamal who goes on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in the hope that his lifelong love will see him on the show. Jamal is the perfect protagonist, a sort of Indian Romeo, in that he isn't perfect but instantly relatable. The victim of poverty and orphaned with his brother at a young age, we see Jamal's life through the series of questions on the game show.
The overarching theme to the movie is the prevalence of destiny above all obstacles. It's a little cheesy and far fetched, but this is a feel good movie, and destiny is shown not as divine influence, but rather as a series of fortunate coincidences. Take the game show structure. A lesser film would concentrate more on Jamal as a contestant, using cliche Deus ex Machinas to explain how he knows the answer. Pay close attention to the way the reason Jamal knows the answers is given in the film. There is some expert screenwriting going on here. Instead of showing the answers to the questions to the audience as if they are children, they are subtle hints that Jamal, and the audience, get to figure out on their own.
The reason the film works is because we care about the characters. Jamal is extremely likable and is more of a real person rather than a simple character archetype. Latika, Jamal's destined love, is mysterious and beautiful. Another character is almost universally hated at one point in the film, before his inevitable redemption. The point is, we care about these fictional people, and want them to succeed. Once a director can get an audience to feel genuine emotion for the characters, they have the puppet strings in their hands.
As I watched the film, I was constantly amazed by the seamless and breathtaking editing in the film. It deserved the editing Oscar hands down. The film is not a minute too short or too long, and the cuts and edits are so ingrained in the plot that the movie feels alive. It is truly a spectacle to behold. I have debated with myself whether the setting has something to do with the magic of the film. When boiled down, this story is a simple love story told through a game show. It could be easily adapted to other lower class settings in the world. It could have been set in Skid Row, or Somalia, or any number of places. But would it have the same magic that the Indian setting provides? I cannot say for sure, but I'm leaning towards no.
Part of that magic comes from the soundtrack by A.H Rahman. An eclectic mix of Indian flavored music, it evokes the right emotions at exactly the right times. Director Danny Boyle told Rahman that he hated sentiment, and that he wanted no cello in the score. Rahman instead provides and upbeat and fantastic soundtrack that is refreshing and innovative. Of course, M.I.A makes several appearances, which actually fit the film very well. There is the requisite love theme that is beautiful and solemn at the same time. But the real showstopper is the final song "Jai Ho". This bombastic song appears during the end credits, when the cast performs a flamboyant dance number in true Bollywood fashion.
There are only two films I saw in the last year where I actually cared about the characters on a very personal level. One was WALL-E, and the other is Slumdog Millionaire. Sure it's a cheesy love story, and sure it is heavy on the cliched destiny. But you know what, it doesn't matter. It is a terrific film, and you should go see it. Now.
Super Mario and the Holy Roman Empire
Oh look, they are going to fight over the pink one. How adorable!
It's Dy-NO-MITE!
