The Enter the Void experience

Enter the void is a 2009 arthouse film by Gaspar Noé who, in the past, made the disturbing film Irreversible. In this day and age the term "visionary director" is thrown around way too much, but trust me when I say Gaspar Noé is a true "visionary director". That said though, I say he specializes in movies you absolutely do not want to watch more than once. Irreversible made you the witness of a nightmarish event and the follow through. As shocking as that was, Enter the Void actually makes you experience it yourself. How? The entire movie is first person, usually with pure silence. It is you yourself and your "avatar" Oscar floating around experiencing twisted events around every corner.

The set up is simple. Oscar talking about how he's reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead and doing lots of DMT. The DMT of course leads to him massively tripping out and seeing bizarre hallucinations. Then some of the longest most strategic shots I've ever seen, likely with cuts, but I really couldn't tell when they were happening. He walks over to a place called The Void to make a drug deal, but it turns out it's a bust and he runs into a water closet (did I mention it happens in Tokyo?) and flushes the drugs. The police shoot him through the door and he falls dead. Suddenly the eyeline starts to move up to the ceiling and when it turns around and looks down to see his own dead body. The movie all goes from that with various bizarre flashbacks as well as checking on certain people in the moments following his death.

I planned to write a review of this movie before watching it but after watching it I didn't really know how. This is a hard movie to talk about. It is literally entirely muffled sounds and bizarre bright colors jammed into disturbing memories and scenes. The plot isn't terribly important either, this movie is in essence, an experience.

It's easy to dismiss this movie as a drug trip movie, and I feel bad that the main thing this movie will be used for is getting baked and watching it, but what I love about it are the various plausible interpretations. It really makes you think. Is the whole thing a drug trip or is it his life flashing before his eyes, or is it actually happening?

Overall, this is one of the most visually beautiful movies I've seen and I wish I had it on Bluray. It was a really amazing experience for the first 90 minutes or so, but the last 70 minutes (yeah, it's 161 minutes) just tend to get old. At that point, the novelty of floating through shocking images, just isn't shocking anymore and if they would have maybe cut out about 30 minutes of the hour of trippy images the movie would have worked better. Oh, by the way, there is a camera inside a vagina... just thought I'd throw that out there. Also I challenge you to find a better opening credits sequence than this...

Below is my spoilerified interpretation of the movie. Only read this if you don't plan to watch it or have already.

As a forward, DMT is released from the human brain during deep REM sleep and when the body dies. It gives VERY realistic hallucinations and some even say that alien abductions are actually DMT caused.

To me the second he is shot, the DMT starts releasing, and right away he starts having visions to help him sort out his thoughts (that is what DMT is mostly used for, very interesting drug). Ultimately, I would go as far as to say that the whole movie from the point of him getting shot on is all in his head, taking place in seconds but feeling like a very long time. First off the fundamental idea for the hallucination really meshes with the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in which the basic idea is to have experiences and then be reborn. Of course him having been reading the book it was fresh in his mind and thus influenced his experience psychologically, ultimately leading to him being reborn inside of his sister (hence the vagina cam I was talking about) and connecting to a sperm that enters the egg.

Ultimately I feel that it didn't actually happen and thus this movie is a bleak and cynical experience for me. Thankfully it remains open to interpretation, and that's why I feel so good about this movie.
Give it a watch if you are cool with prostitution, drugs and really special film making. If you are a casual movie watcher, or looking for something fun, just move along.

Loaf of bread, check. Milk, check. Exciting novel... wha?

I love to read, and tend to go through quite a bit of books in the course of a month. With my current job of being a Security Guard, it doesn't take much imagination to see how I'm able to do that. Long nights of sitting in a quiet place with the occasional patrol can lead to two things: Keep your mind busy, or fall asleep and lose your job.

This post is not me saying I like to read though. This is about something much more sinister. When people see me reading they automatically jump to the conclusion that I need more books in my life and not just any books. I swear, the only people who lend books in this town think the local supermarket is a book store. I have been brought 7 different books now, and they all were a generic mess. Also, no wonder these things sell so well, they are ADD proof! Every chapter is 4 pages long, ending with a supposed cliffhanger that doesn't work cause the characters have no development. The best reason I can figure for that is so people can imagine themselves as the characters. Don't even get me started on the length either! These books are usually over 400 pages, which is sad because I can tell you what it's all about in 2 minutes. Perhaps if they spent less time explaining every thought to you, we could cut it down to 200 pages?

Here is the formula:

1. Something happens that is shocking.
2. Inexplicably the main character of several of these books is called immediately and asked to look into it. Let me make this clear, they have no personality, they are just written to always do the right thing.
3. Characters around these main characters all have no clue how to deal with it, and talk about how great the main character is all the time.
4. Main character has real life issues going on while this is happening, whether it be a sick loved one or a tragic past. This can be used to bring the plot to a halt and make the book longer.
5. They write in some big ending thing where the main character is the center of a crisis that would destroy the world or something foolish like that.
6. The President calls the main character and knows him on a first name basis, proudly telling him good job.

There, I just made it so you don't have to read any supermarket books. That's all of them.

Why are these books so successful? That's an easy one. If you read you are smart, at least that's what people tend to think (seriously I'm told I must be brilliant everyday when people see me reading, based only on the fact that I'm reading). Everyone wants to seem smart, but let's face it, not everyone really can dedicate the time to reading, so once they try these books they realize, wow I've read 400 pages in 6 hours, and understood all of it easily, I really like reading and I'm smart. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there, listening to these people gushing about the newest Alex Cross story while I'm trying to read something actually interesting like Atonement, or
The Remains of the Day.

These books can be found at a book store too, so how do you avoid them? It's simple, they will have the most generic names you've ever seen in your life. The one I'm "reading" right now is called The Panic Zone. Previously I've "enjoyed" Pirate (this is the worst offender), Roses Are Red, Violets are Blue (yeah, two separate books), Wicked Prey, and so on.

To make matters worse, the other day I was reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, (which you should be reading right now, as opposed to my stupid blog) and a really smarmy older lady, with lots of tacky jewelery and more money than brains came up to me. She said, "What are you reading?" I replied "Slaughterhouse Five." She rolled her eyes and let out a laugh as though to say, oh how quaint, you have poor taste in books. I bet if Fabio was on the cover she would have praised my taste.

Anyway, the moral is, that if you see someone reading a book, it doesn't mean they like all books. If you know the book they are reading and you know of one that is similar, go for it, offer to lend it to them, but don't pressure them if they say they have too many books on the go.

I'm just tired of being pressured into boring books when I have so many great ones still ahead of me! What makes it worse is that it is only a product of good intention and I really wish I didn't feel so guilty that I had to read them once they were handed to me.

Green Lantern (2011)

Martin Campbell's Green Lantern movie is a strange thing to me. On one hand it got me excited in a way that only Iron Man has done before it, but on the other I have to roll my eyes about certain things. In screenwriting one of the best pieces of advice I have been given is the old "show and don't tell" trick. Apparently, no one has shown or told the writers of this movie.

My biggest issue with the whole movie is the Blake Lively's Carol Ferris. I'm not complaining so much about the casting, though she was an odd choice for the character, nor am I complaining about her painfully sub-par acting. My issue, is that her character seems so weak and helpless, very much unlike the Carol Ferris I know from the funnybooks, and yet they try to keep convincing us that she is strong with unconvincing dialogue. I call this Rachel Dawes syndrome and can not in good conscience say this hurt the movie that bad.

Other complaints, would be that there are certain plot holes, characters constantly outright saying how they know eachother, Tim Robbins having absolutely nothing to do and Hal Jordan's annoying best friend. Either way, I don't remember him from Hal Jordan mythos but he reminds me of Kyle Rayner's (a different green lantern from the comics) best friend. Either way this best friend character adds nothing and suffers from Kat Dennings in Thor syndrome in the respect that he is only there to make funny comments and slow the plot down. Also early on there is an awkward scene involving some supposed family members that goes nowhere at all and could have been shortened or even removed outright pretty easily.

There, that's the negative side of things, now onto the positive. First off, it's incredibly entertaining and I'm baffled how people can give a terrible movie like Transformers a pass but not this one. The effects looked pretty great and Ryan Reynolds made a believer out of me, when I thought he may have been a bit miscast. For a superhero who uses his own creativity to fight evil, the filmmakers surprisingly found several ways to surprise and even amaze me. Mark Strong as Sinestro is great casting but everyone knew that from the trailer, and he proves again that he is one of the most underestimated actors working today.

Now, the one reason everyone should see this movie... Peter Sarsgaard. His performance is so fun and interesting but real at the same time. I found myself smiling everytime he was onscreen.

Overall, despite the flaws mentioned I hope people see this movie. It's a lot of fun and I hope it does well enough for there to be a sequel, we have a lot set up now for the perfect Green Lantern story to play out.

E3 2011 thoughts.

For those who don't know I'm a pretty big fan of the electronic video game. With this in mind, I was inspired to chime in on the happenings at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). If I was to sum the whole thing up it would be with a defeated sigh. When the big three console gaming companies (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) come out on stage and open a window to the gaming future I usually feel like a child looking through the toy section of a catalog before Christmas, but this year something happened; I realized that gaming and I may be growing apart.

The industry suddenly has this idea that if it's not different we won't be interested in gaming anymore, but what ever happened to innovating the game itself as opposed to the way that it is played? I don't need to wave a controller/hand or any other thing in front of my TV in order to feel connected to a game, nor should I ever have to look at my controller while playing.

I remember a time not so long ago when the best of the gaming experience consisted of you feeling like a specific character, or group of characters in a compelling situation with a decent story around it. Gaming was becoming more cinematic and evolving to a point of being true art. Connection between the player and the character was at an all time high. Now, imagine sitting down to watch Citizen Kane, but in order to make the movie actually play, you need to wave your hands in front of your face. By the end, you wouldn't have experienced the movie at all, you would only have focused on moving your arms around for 2 hours.

People like President and COO of Nintendo North America Reggie Fils-Aime would tell me that I am afraid of change, however I would counter that these so called change bringers are literally remaking 20 year old games with a gimmick attached to stay afloat.

Will my saying this change anything? Probably not, but at the end of the day as long as some developers are still making experiences as opposed to activities, gaming is a medium still worth fighting for.