I have moved!

I am now using Tumblr. You can find me here:
http://schneid-remarks.tumblr.com/

All the stuff I have posted on this blog has been posted again on there, and any new posts will be posted over there exclusively. I already have one up! Go check it out!

...Sorry Blogspot. Your stat-tracking was cool. I'll miss it. It felt gross but also kinda cool to know things about your audience you had no right or reason to know.

Why Oblivion Is Better Than Skyrim

I’ve decided to try to stick to a bi-weekly release schedule, which means I'm late. While there’s a number of things I could review (Divekick, You’re Next, Now You See Me, Stoker, Kick-Ass 2, Jeff Who Lives at Home, Visitor Q), I just don’t feel like it. So I figured I’d try something else and see how it goes.

Before I go into why it is that Oblivion is superior to Skyrim, I think it’s important to establish how I feel about the Elder Scrolls series as a whole. Theoretically, I’d say The Elder Scrolls is the most appealing, ambitious, awe-inspiring idea in games (that's not to say it's the most creative or interesting or anything else that actually deserves acclaim). I’d say we can all agree that what we ultimately want from The Elder Scrolls is a perfect simulation of life in a fantasy realm. I’d say we can also all agree that none of the Elder Scrolls games have come even remotely close to achieving this. Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect such a thing with the extremely limited technology of today. We would need computers a hundred thousand times stronger than those we currently use to be able to run such a game. If we ever do get this game, it would be more than just a game, it would be another reality. Because it would be another reality, we wouldn't want it to adhere to game design philosophies because we wouldn't want to notice the fact that it was artificially created. Unfortunately, we don’t have that game, so we'll have to make do with The Elder Scrolls as we currently know it. And while it is a game, it should approach its gameyness cautiously. It should strive for immersion, but not realism. Realism is hard to do. Perhaps it should not try to create an illusory living, breathing world, but instead create a world that functions as a vessel for good gameplay.

I'd also like to say I'm not going to address the many, many flaws with the Elder Scrolls franchise. That's not what I'm writing about.

Let's begin. 

If I were to put my reasons for liking Oblivion more than Skyrim into one word, it would be “smooth”. That’s it, really. Oblivion is damn smooth. It’s really the only smooth Bethesda game.

Ichi the Killer (2001)

IMDb Page

It's interesting to see how desensitised we've become in just over a decade. When Ichi the Killer (Japanese title: Koroshiya Ichi) was initially released, it was banned in several countries and was released after strict, heavy edits were performed in others. In 2013, I, an 18 year-old who looks his age, walked into a shop in Melbourne, Australia and bought an unedited director's cut of the film without being asked for ID. When I watched the film, while I certainly found it extremely violent and, at times, quite uncomfortable, it never even crossed my mind that this movie would have stirred up any controversy upon its release. While I don't think society's growing tolerance for ultraviolence ruined the film for me at all, it would have been fascinating to have watched it while living in the context of the values of the year 2001.

World War Z (2013)

IMDb Page

Once again, it's been a while. I'm bad, I know. I was actually going to release this review the day after World War Z came out, but I just never got around to finishing it. I'm not sure if it's even playing in cinemas anymore.

Whether you've read the book this was based on will strongly affect your reaction to this film. It could be argued that that's a bad thing and that this should be examined as stand-alone from the book. That's a completely legitimate argument, but I'm afraid I disagree.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

IMDb Page

Hello. It's been a long time.

I can't say I was excited for Iron Man 3. The trailer looked a little too "let's be Batman" for me, and Shane Black directing it doesn't get me excited. Having said that, it's not like I was dreading it. (I mean, I did see it). Having now seen it, I can say that I care about it far more than I did before, although not for the right reasons.

Top Ten Films of 2012

Hello again! It's been a couple weeks, I know. But the Oscars happened and that inspired me to finally throw this list up, so here we go! I'm going to give 3 reasons why each film deserves to be on the list. I'm doing it this way partly because I'm lazy and partly because I've reviewed some of these films and don't see the point in repeating myself. Also, these aren't in any particular order.

Les Misérables (2012) - Mini Review

IMDb Page

I went into Les Mis cautiously optimistic. On the one hand it won pretty much every Golden Globe award, but on the other hand it's a classical period-piece musical set in France with a primarily non-American cast directed by the guy that did The King's Speech, so of course it won those awards. I'd just seen Silver Linings Playbook a few days prior, so I was excited to be surprised again by a film of a generally low-quality genre. To put it simply, Les Mis didn't exactly do that for me.

Rambly Videogame Theory Ideas

I thought I’d try out a more traditional blogpost just to see how I like it. If I do, I might sometimes write these up if I’m thinking about something. This is will likely be completely nonsensical and meaningless. Don’t read it.

This morning I just started thinking about how if you drew a graph that showed the amount of people playing games since their creation against the amount of artistic development in games since their creation (somehow represented in a numerical form), the amount of people playing games would be vastly larger than the artistic development. I mean, gaming is (arguably) bigger than film, yet the amount of art theory for games is minisule in comparison to film. I know that this is obviously due to the fact that film has been around for about a hundred years and gaming for only about 40, but it’s still amazing how quickly gaming has become so popular.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Mini Review

IMDb Page

Hello everyone! Sorry for not having written anything for so long! I'm currently on holiday and want to post reviews again because I haven't in so long, but don't really have the time to post full-length ones, so I'm going to do some mini reviews. If I like the way these go, I might start doing this kind of thing whenever I'm really busy so that I can still be releasing content.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

IMDb Page

I’m going to preface this review with a confession: I’d never seen a Wes Anderson film before this one. Not even The Royal Tenenbaums. I know. Some film buff I am. But anyway, just keep that in mind while reading this.

Had this movie not gotten the supremely high critical acclaim that it did, I probably wouldn’t ever have seen it. The trailer showed me a quirky family romantic comedy about a boy scout, Sam, and a “troubled” girl, Suzy, and their journey as they run away so they can be together. Does that sound like a movie I would be even remotely interested in? No. However, I had a free movie ticket and Moonrise Kingdom was the most interesting thing that was screening. And now it may well be one of my favourite movies of the year.

Cosmopolis (2012)

IMDb Page

I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad idea to review Cosmopolis right after having finally overhauled this blog. It’s by no means a mainstream film, and my opinion is sort of controversial. Or maybe that’s a good thing. We’ll see.

Just Cause 2 (2010)

Why is it that most gamers determine whether a game is casual or hardcore by either its price tag or the “maturity” of its subject matter? Just Cause 2 is a perfect example of a full price (well, at launch, at least) game that has “highly mature” subject matter but is in every sense of the word a casual game. And that’s something more games should aspire to be.

Chonicle (2012)

IMDb Page

When the trailer for Chronicle came out, I remember immediately despising it. It showed us a bunch of arsehole teenagers getting superpowers and becoming bigger arseholes. It had terrible music, cheesy moments (that cross-legged car-crushing shot that’s in the trailer is still the worst part of the movie) and used the found-footage technique, which I really wasn’t a fan of at the time. It was because of this trailer that I never bothered seeing it in the cinema. Despite the great reviews it got and the numerous recommendations from friends, I just didn’t give a shit. So, after finally watching it upon its DVD release, did it live up to the hype or did the trailer, for once, not lie? Let’s just say I’ve watched it three times since buying it.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

 IMDb Page

I’m going to just rip the band-aid off quickly before it becomes too excruciating. The Dark Knight Rises isn’t very good. There, I said it. Before I devour all the faults of the film, I want to make it very clear that it’s not awful. It’s an okay movie, and had it been the first film in the series (even if that would have made absolutely no sense) I would have been a little less harsh on it. But the simple fact of the matter is that I couldn’t walk into this movie with an objective point of view because I’ve seen the first two Batman movies and I love them to bits. It is humanly impossible for me to detach those two movies from my mind while viewing this one, and I don’t see any reason why I should. A precedent was set, and said precedent was not lived up to. I would also like to clarify that precedent is different to hype. I actually wasn’t very excited for The Dark Knight Rises. I tried very hard not to think about it and let it creep up on me. I remember talking with a friend of mine and saying “when we see The Dark Knight Rises” and subsequently realising we were going to see it the following week! I was more hyped for The Dark Knight than for The Dark Knight Rises, and I was far more satisfied with it than I was with this. Here is why.

Liquid Rising (2012)

Official Site

Before I begin this review, I’d like to apologise that I haven’t posted any reviews for the last two weeks. I have had some important exams on and decided not to write any reviews until they were over. I’ll release two extra reviews to make up for the two weeks that I missed. Anyway, let’s get to it.

Liquid Rising is a really niche documentary, to say the least. Funded by online pay-what-you-want donations, it tells us about the members of Team Liquid, arguably the biggest non-Korean professional Starcraft 2 team. Their lives in Team Liquid, their tournament careers, and their personality are all shown in detail here, through a bunch of cut-up interviews with all the Team Liquid members and other big Starcraft community personalities. I’m going to say right now that if you are against the prospect of gaming being considered a sport, you’ll find no enjoyment here. In fact, unless you already have some level of interest in Starcraft and E-sports, you probably won’t find anything to like here at all.

Careless Love (2012)

IMDb Page

This marks my first  review for an independent Australian movie. I'm not really sure if I want to do a lot more of these. On one hand I'm supporting my local film industry (my monumental pool of readers would make such a difference, right?), but on the other hand I'm potentially alienating my international audience (that is to say, most of you) by reviewing something you guys will probably have a very hard time finding. I mean, I hadn't even heard of this movie before I walked into the cinema and I live literally 10 minutes away from the vast majority of its locations! Although maybe I shouldn't take this kind of stuff into consideration and should just review whatever I feel like writing about.

In any case, Careless Love is directed by John Duigan, who I hadn't heard of before but apparently  is a pretty big name in the Australian film industry. It follows Linh, a student at the University Of Sydney who has a secret night job as a prostitute. The story is made up of several subplots, each revolving around her interaction with another individual. 

Dear Esther (2012)

Official Site

Alright, my first game review! I hope to do more of these in the future, as reviewing games is ultimately where I want to be at in 10 years or so. Hopefully I don't do too bad a job.

So Dear Esther was originally a mod released in 2008 for Half-Life 2. It has recently been remade into a proper game, and, as I understand it, something quite different from the original mod. It's on Steam now, and it goes for $10 AUS. However, if you're reading this around the time of my writing it, the Steam summer sales should be starting any day now, so I'm sure you'll be able to grab it for $5, or maybe even less.

The Hunger Games (2012)

IMDb Page

Before I begin this review, I'd like to make it clear that I had read all 3 books in the Hunger Games trilogy before I saw the movie. I do not believe that an adaptation should try to mirror whatever it is based on. It can be as identical or loosely-based or somewhere in-between as it likes, as long as it can be understood without any knowledge of the original material. However, I generally believe that the adaptation should not be exactly the same as the original, as a change in medium almost always requires changes in the text for consistent quality to exist. I ask you to read this review with this in mind, as I will be criticising the film with this perspective. This will be the case with any future reviews of adaptations also. So, let's review The Hunger Games!

I came into The Hunger Games expecting a mediocre film. I saw it a few weeks after it was released, and had heard a lot of things that didn't sound promising. Having said that, I was still excited to some degree, being a fan of the books (the first one in particular), and was interested in seeing the story come to life in a new format.

Melancholia (2011)

IMDb Page

Melancholia is a special film, to say the least. It is a difficult film to review, primarily due to its story structure, because the generally accepted and unspoken rule that the reviewer may not spoil anything that happens after the 1^st act cannot apply to such a film. Luckily, I’m writing this review almost a full year after its release, so I can simply follow the method of the reviewers before me.

The film opens with a sequence of extremely slo-mo shots depicting the end of the world, and the film (don’t worry, not a spoiler), through the collision of two planets. There are around 16 shots altogether, and they are all some of the most beautiful images I have ever seen in my life. They really are. The only quarrel I have is that one or two of them lean slightly too much towards photography, rather than cinematography. They just don’t really have enough movement to be considered actual cinematography. But this really the most minor of minor complaints.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

IMDb Page

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a British-made comedy-drama by director John Madden, famous for the largely adored Shakespeare in Love. We follow seven British retirees as they travel to India for one reason or another, headed to the hotel that gives the film its title. Upon arrival, they discover that the hotel is far less luxurious than advertised, and their experiences transform them all in one way or another.