Cybertronian Vertigo

My head hurts. All day the apps that I open whenever I use my computer for productive reasons, including today, were left just opened: no new files were saved, nor old ones modified. I can’t think. Try as I might, I could not for 8 hours progress on my work projects, and then I shut them down. A specter is haunting my brain; the specter is not communism (my brain isn’t Europe).

The specter is the aftereffect of watching a Michael Bay film. It puts the cerebrum to sleep, and reverberates noxious sounds of explosions in all nerves. Those who want to replicate the sensation without watching the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) can go to an amusement park. Ask its personnel to surround an octopus ride with giant replicas of the robots. Put on a loudspeaker and have it loop the sounds of explosions at the highest volume. Gather all the casts, including the motor-mouth Shia LaBeouf, and let them shout nonstop. 

Then for 149 minutes ride the octopus that never stops except for the 2 seconds pauses whenever you’re near Megan Fox and could take a peek at her cleavage. The breasts may make it sound like the resulting dizziness is a small sacrifice for a reward so ample, but, trust me, when you’re reading Maxim you never have to swirl it.

Now showing: Lensflaremers Revenge of the Brightened

…but let’s go backward in time a bit. Before I saw ROTF, I was aware of the hordes of criticisms it garnered. Responses are not tepid; they’re near-universal disgusts. I’m not a fan of director Michael Bay and I disliked the first movie, but my skin crawls anytime I see anyone gets punished by a crowd. Almost out of pity, I approached ROTF with faint hopes that I would vindicate the director, even if only in the eyes of those who respect my opinions, with a blog post that states ROTF being not as bad as critics say. If it turned out bad, at least it would have satiated my appetite for the classic robot rock-‘em sock-‘ems.

However, my perspectives overturned half an hour into the movie. The critics weren’t the prosecutors; they were the victims, and Bay sits at a throne commanding his minions – in the form of toilet humors, infantile sensibilities, ethnic stereotypes, misogyny, frenetic camera movements, rampant militarisms, Bush League jingoisms, and explosions fetishisms – to pound his critics repeatedly and unrelentingly while he screams his authoritative power like bullies do in schoolyards. Not a single time in ROTF did I feel that Bay aimed to please anyone besides the zit-faced mouth-breathing pre-pubescent crowds. Certainly not the audiences with ardor for good plots and/or the transforming robots themselves. And you know what, he doesn’t give a hoot about it! When pressed to answer the flaws of his movies – most of all his utter incompetence with the medium - he always, always use the box-office numbers as his defense. He doesn’t understand that people see Transformers because of its association with an 80’s cartoon and a Hasbro toyline (who cares about The Island?). Guilermo del Toro could direct it and it’d also be a hit.

There are myriad flaws in the movie, flaws so fascinating it’s a wonder Bay ever gets paid to direct a film. Directors may not be the ones writing the script, but it’s their job to film the scenes, evoke the appropriate acting, cut off the superfluous bits, and arrange the sequences so that the story makes sense. According to michaelbay.com, Bay himself added the fillers, which do absolutely nothing but bloat the movie to twice its necessary length. In the intervals between the fights there are all these scenes of unfunny comedy and uninvolving drama. Nobody ever shuts up, the background music never stops playing, and I’m just stupidly watching Bay vomit one cue card after another:

Here’s a plot exposition card. Pay attention Allspark shards Signs Matrix of Migraineship okay it’s over. Here’s a drama card CRANKS UP ROUSING INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC AMERICAN SOLDIERS WALKING IN UNISON CLOSE UP SHOT OF MEGAN FOX ACTING SCARED FOR NO REASON. Now let’s take a break with a comedy card. Dogs humping Bumblebee goop John Torturro thong robot farts minstrel showbot HAHAHAH THIS IS HILARIOUS!!!! Now, fight card RUN SHOUT KABOOM!

Speaking of the fight scenes, I’ll be shocked if anyone could make the heads and tails of what’s happening to whom. The robots all look like Stickfas made of magnetic parts thrown in a junkyard, and what emerges is a Bionicle that transforms …kind of. They don’t have distinctive designs or colors. I’m not even sure if Soundwave or The Fallen transformed once the entire time. Isn’t the point of the movie about transforming robots? The much-ballyhooed master of explosions couldn’t even pull off a palpable choreography for the actions occurring on screen.

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It is also loaded with characters that don’t do jack and squat besides turning the movie based on the Toy property less kid-friendly. Hasbro sponsored this film, right? Great, so please tell your young customers about marijuana, swearing, cutting classes, gawking at Megan Fox’s cleavage, and Megan’s legs being humped by robots (we get it, Megan’s hot!). Nobody in the movie is likable – and this may even be the first time I was indifferent with Optimus Prime and his preachy lines whenever he speaks – not the least of which are the human characters, all of them looking so bored. The returning actors, Shia LaBeouf Sleazy LaBlip Spastic LaBarf and Megan Fox, have lost their charm, and the new ones like Ramon Rodriguez should’ve stayed in The Wire. Yet none of them comes anywhere as bewildering as the new autobots Skids and Mudflap, who might as well be called Shuck and Jive.

Look, Bay, critics rag on you because you got a huge ego such that when people take issues with your racial caricatures, you dismiss them as mere naysayers. You go to the presses and whine about your critics. Because you lack the humility to say you’re sorry, you should’ve done things differently, people tape your picture in their punching bags, heaping insults in you, sometimes getting downright ugly (see: Pajiba.com’s “Small Penis Humiliation”). Directors like James Cameron and Sam Raimi are masters of spectacles too, and they don’t get “naysaid” on because they give us humanity and story coherency without shoving fanatical patriotism and pornography down our throats. By contrast, your ROTF is shallow and devoid of acting talents, funny bits, subtleties, emotions, and nuanced characterizations. It deserves all the scorn it gets. Only you can make an escape so deprived of joy, but why does that matter if it’s grossing millions of dollars? Right, Bay?

Turtle Power!

I was doing few vector illustrations since the beginning of the week, and out of nowhere I created something that I liked very much.

Isn’t he the cutest thing ever?!

Wii

I don’t want you guys to think that I’m always gonna write about my Wii whenever it gets a month older. Ugh! I’m not such an obsessive Nintendo fanboy that I mark each “monthsary” date in the calendar with a red pen or, heaven forbid, red lipstick. Not that I have one *shrugs*. See, the one thing I like about myself (and I’m not a Randian objectivist who always think of stuff to like about myself) is that because I own videogame consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, I can examine the games coming from all pipes without any personal agenda as to defend one of the three companies while blasting the other to death. This is not to brag that I’m rich, but that I waste a lot of my disposable income on diversions that are essentially virtual worlds rendered by dorky programmers. As for my Wii, I got some people telling me that I just wasted my money on a videogame console that will eventually be collecting dust. Have the doomsayer’s prophesy been fulfilled now?

Well, nope. My Wii is doing fine thanks to the titles I bought since I’d gotten it.

First, there’s this game called Super Mario Galaxy, and it just happens to be the best game I’ve ever played since I last cut my hair. Even if that is just a month ago. But seriously, spectacular does not even begin to describe Super Mario Galaxy. A bit of history here: in ‘96 Nintendo released a game that set the blueprint for all 3d games to come: Super Mario 64. It changed the objective of a Mario game, which in the 2d predecessors was going from point A to B without dying, while in 64, it was collecting Stars, whose appearances would depend on various conditions. The camera control and the freedom of exploration become two areas that other games have since tried to emulate. Super Mario Galaxy refines everything Super Mario 64 did, with intergalactic travel as a very welcome change of scenery, and the breathtaking soundtrack sure made the game even more of a pleasant flight.

106 The Comet Observatory

Next, there’s Punch-Out!! I still haven’t beaten this game, but anything Punch-Out!! strikes a chord with me. Wii’s Punch-Out!! remakes the original NES game, and includes a few boxers from its underrated sequel Super Punch-Out!! (which you can download and play in Wii’s Virtual Console – I’d do it if I were you). Winning games in NES Punch-Out!! rely on memorizing the patterns of your opposing fighter so that you could evade their attacks. The same rule applies with Wii’s Punch-Out!!, so if testing of reflexes sound like great fun to you (it should be, or you shouldn’t call yourself a videogamer you softie!) you’ll have a blast with Punch-Out!! Oh and stop correcting me on the punctuation of the exclamation points; that’s the original title, you grammar-obsessed schoolmarms!

Speaking of downloadable games, I hope you guys have heard of Megaman 9, Capcom’s attempt to send to franchise back to the grassroots. Nevermind that there’s nary a villain named Grassroots Man. Anyway, I’m not gonna bother giving you a primer about Megaman because if you don’t know who Megaman is, you’re in the same position for videogamers that I was for rock enthusiasts when I admitted to not knowing about Radiohead much (see previous post). That is, you should be so utterly ashamed of yourself you might consider paying Viki Belo a visit, preferably so that after you’ve made your face unrecognizable to everyone (even by your own mother) you could bombard her with inquiries about her former boyfriend’s sex scandals. Current issues all put aside, though, Megaman 9 ditches all Megaman’s abilities from Megaman 3 onwards, which means he can’t slide and charge his shots. The developer’s intent for this decision is so that the true spirit of the Megaman games will shine in this game; that is, players would have more reasons to use all the weapons Megaman acquire. Maybe you should ask about how a spirit could shine, and we’ll start a philosophical discussion, but as for the usefulness of weapons, a couple of them still aren’t; otherwise Megaman 9 forces the use of certain weapons more often than other games of the series. Gaming media like Gamedaily often cites Megaman 9 as being one of the most difficult games ever made, but the only conclusion I can draw from that claim is that they’re wussies who are so averse to hardship they sound like people from the suburbs (which they probably are). It’s not that hard! Sure, the stages are filled with cruel obstacles – what Megaman game isn’t? Don’t believe in the hype; Megaman 2 is way harder than this. Still, the difficulty level put aside, Megaman 9 is a great game especially for people who grew up playing Megaman and were otherwise lamenting on the decline of quality of those games.

Finally, I’ve finished Resident Evil 4 for the first time, on the Wii. I also have a PlayStation 2 copy of the game, but the CD got cracked while I was midway. Having played both versions, I can assert Wii’s version as the one with the best control; using the nunchuck for movement and the Wiimote for aiming and for shooting doesn’t sound like much on paper, but in reality they’re very intuitive – and if you don’t believe me you should try playing Resident Evil 5 after this game. It always feels great to point the Wiimote to the TV while shooting zombies in their heads, but this is where I complain about the Wiimote – my hand gets sore for holding it up for more than an hour. I tried to finish RE4 in one sitting, but after reaching 12^th hour in one day I gave up with the “one sitting” plan. The whole game took me 3 days to finish, which highlights both my problem with using Wiimote for too long, as well as a problem inherent to the game: it’s way too long. The game loses a lot of the steam by the midpoint when zombies are replaced by corny religious hooded zealots. Shooting zombies are all very fine, but it’s not an experience that should go for 16 hours, for all I know.

And now that we’ve gotten my Wii longevity problem out of the way (for now), the greater question remains: is it good at what it sets out to do? Remember, Nintendo touted the Wii as a revolutionary console that uses motion sensing technology as a way of adding new levels of immersion to the game. Here’s where I drop my optimism for a bit: the motion thing often gets overpraised. In reality, only a few of Wii’s titles use it in a way that makes you say “Hmm, I can’t imagine this game being any good without the motion controls”. Of the four games I mentioned here, only Super Mario Galaxy and Resident Evil 4 has a good implementation of motion controls, and even then, they aren’t very conducive to long play sessions. Just try to imagine the pain of holding up your tv remote for more than an hour, with constant movements during that length of time. As of now, the only game that seems to have completely understood the Wii motion sensitivity is Wii Sports, not only because it’s a great demo of how the Wiimote can be used, but also because you don’t have to play it for very long to get the most out of it.

Nevertheless, I’m still a happy owner of Wii, and I won’t be resting it anytime soon since a few promising titles (The Conduit, Muramasa Demon Blade, New Super Mario Bros Wii) will be released later this year.

Dabbling on 1001 Albums

One blog that I regularly visit is Francisco Silva’s 1001 Albums. Sort of a companion blog for the book entitled 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, the intrepid music critic sets out to listen to all 1001 and review them individually. And as of today, three years running, he has heard 887 albums and wrote about them. Quite an impressive feat for a task so formidable, if I may say so myself.

Anyway, last week I also got my own 1001 Albums book. And then after reading it for a short while, I said to myself, “I think I might as well listen to all 1001 albums too” (so far I’ve only heard of 100+; shamed that I am to admit that). Thus a new endeavor began: I will comment on all 1001 albums from this point onward. Of course, this nightdreamer.i.ph blog, aside from chronicling my “history” with all the selections, remains a repository for all other stuff I write about – videogames, movies, my life, random crap. I will just add more music to the mix. Oh, and you can read the catalog of all 1001 albums here (it’s a .xls file, so use appropriate software).

The format I’m using will be different from Silva, because I don’t want to look like I’m copying his style.

1. Four or five albums in one post, once a week.

2. Albums will be selected randomly, by use of the random generator from random.org (which is superb at what it does).

I don’t assume to be anywhere as educated as your average music critic, so feel free to tell me more about the artists that I mention (their backgrounds, inspirations, influences, musical styles, etc).

So without further delay, my inaugural 1001 albums post. All photos taken from Amazon.com. 

1. War – The World is A Ghetto

The title reads like one of those sociopolitical albums of the 70s – the same decade this album got made – but it’s far from being full of protests, for better or worse. Instead, it’s a celebration of everything that’s fun with funk –the goofy lyrics, the emphasis on percussions, and the meanderings. Those familiar with Sly and the Family Stone can easily think of War as how Sly’s songs would sound like if they were infused with some jazz, afro-cuban and reggae. This also means that War’s music is more complicated-sounding and, as a result, has fewer hooks, which make it less memorable than Sly and the Family Stone. I’d take Sly to War any day, but really, this album is pretty good. Wonderful cover art too.

2. Ms Dynamite – A Little Deeper

Despite being a moderate fan of R&B, I’ve never gotten to love The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill despite the media constantly heralding it as a masterpiece. Since that album is part of the 1001, I will eventually give it another listen, so there’s a small chance that my opinion of it might change, but as of now I find it overall uneven. Most of the tracks where Lauryn sings are okay, but I’m not a big fan of her rapping.

Lauryn Hill has gone crazy after The Miseducation…, disappearing from the music industry for a while, and when she came back with an Unplugged album, reactions were mixed at best. Fans of Lauryn Hill frustrated by her turn to acoustic over-indulgence could, thankfully, seek solace from Miss Dynamite. She is pretty much a Lauryn Hill sound-alike from UK, minus the rapping. Her debut album, A Little Deeper has the angry criticisms about how romantic relationships are abused by men, and more of the same soulful singing that made Miseducation… a massive hit. Still not a Miseducation fan and A Little Deeper isn’t my favorite R&B album either, but this is good stuff nonetheless.

(As I can’t embed videos of Miss Dynamite’s “It Takes More”, which is a hit single from this album, just head over here to hear it.)

3. Radiohead – OK Computer

This confession is going to out me as very ignorant when it comes to certain genres of music, but for the longest time I’ve been oblivious to Radiohead’s career, and the only single that I knew was made by them is Creep. I can already hear people crying “madness!” over this, and I make no excuses: missing out on Radiohead is an incredibly awful oversight. This ignorance is one thing that motivated me to go through  catalog of 1001 (still trying to forget that Limp Bizkit is in it too. Ugh!).

Thanks to the random generator I jumped into the middle of Radiohead’s discography instead of taking them in chronologically, so the part where this album marks a turning point of their career or has become their new landmark is lost to me. That aside, I can now imagine myself liking Radiohead more. The best way I can describe their songs here is that they rely more on creating landscapes or textures of sounds (or set “moods”) than on melodic hooks. Subtle stuff, for sure; I don’t want all rock music to beat me over the head repeatedly with anthemic guitar solos and wailings anyway. The lyrics are top quality stuff too, if a tad on the pretentious side. My favorite track here is “Paranoid Android”.

4. Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic

From the moment I heard the first song “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” I instantly became a fan. Steely Dan is, of course, a rock duo that, according to music critics, “doesn’t like rock all that much”, so they perform their songs with a tone of irony. How they’re ironic tends to be a subject that highbrow armchair music critics each with a glass of martini in their hands indulge in for 50 hours – some of them actually said “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” is about drugs. Of course Steely Dan rejected the idea, saying it’s just a love letter written for their high school crush. Oops, failure in over-analysis!

Anyway, their boring discussions aside, what I dig about Steely Dan is their obvious leanings on jazz (always a plus, as jazz is, of course, my favorite genre). The lyrics, like those from the song “Pretzel Logic”, are based on blues poetry that dominated the era of The Great Depression, if wryly written. Steely Dan’s music reminds us that rock musicians don’t always have to take themselves so seriously, and that it’s fine to rollick like people did in the ragtime days of Art Tatum (since when did they have to take off the “roll” in the rock n’ roll?). Get it and just live with it night by night.

Under My Skin

Oh man. Look, I’m getting really embarrassed by all these blog posts that begin with me saying “It’s been a while since I last wrote here”. Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it all before; probably nobody cares. Still, my tight schedule (and by tight I don’t mean “we tight!” kind of tight) has allowed me less and less time to update my blog regularly, and when I do get the time I use it for zoning out on a random garbage reverie that has nothing to do with my life – I’ll have to talk about that someday. That, plus videogames – hey, my Wii is still new – kept me very preoccupied that writing has been shoved aside to the fringes of my priority: you know, like those hobbies anyone claims to get around to doing someday, probably when they retire. In any case, I hope this is just a phase.

So anyway, I just came back from my 3-day trip in Boracay. For those of you who have never heard of it, Boracay is the top tourist destination of the Philippines. An island located somewhere in the middle of the archipelago that is our country, its main attractions are the white-sand beaches (notably the creatively named White Beach; I lost count of how many “White Beach” there are in the Philippines) where you can swim, do watersports, or just lounge around in. There are also many kinds of shops, bars, and restaurants nearby.

That was a fun weekend, but right now I’m irritated by my sunburn. My skin flays all over the place, and since part of my face is sunburnt too (the cheek, especially) I look like some kind of science experiment gone wrong. Gee, I hope I’m not becoming a zombie; crass commercialism and Hollywood movies certainly aren’t helping to remedy that paranoia.

Although I enjoyed my stay in Boracay this time – which is the second time – I can’t help noticing that the place is becoming worse or that at least it’s not becoming any better; and if I come here again in the next two years, I might get sick of it. What’s telling is that although I often am alone in thinking negatively about most things, I don’t seem to be the only one pessimistic about Boracay — the travelers seated next to me while I was traveling home certainly shared the same sentiments, complaining loudly amongst themselves about what they’ve experienced. The thing they ridiculed the most is the Environmental Fee for tourists. Doubtless, most of us who come here could spare a P50 (1 US Dollar equivalent), an amount we have to pay so that presumably the government – particularly Department of Environment and Natural Resource (DENR) - would have the funds to make the place cleaner; and nobody would’ve been complaining had DENR been doing their job well enough. Even when I first went there, I saw a lot of garbage among the plenty of driftwoods and seaweeds washed ashore. Two years later, and it’s just as dirty, if not dirtier. Heck, right now there is even some garbage floating at the sea. While I was swimming, I saw a plastic thing that looked like a used condom floating nearby. Ech! By the way, does anyone want to give me a hug?

Let’s do the math shall we? There are at least around a thousand per week of tourists going to Boracay (ten thousands during the peak seasons). If you multiply P50 by 1000, you get P50,000 per week, and that’s a generous estimate! I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject, but isn’t that more than enough to keep the place clean? Or shouldn’t DENR be finding ways to encourage our citizens to pollute less? So what is DENR doing with all the money it gets from the tourists? If the dirtiness of Boracay. as it is everywhere else here, is any indication, nothing!  I guess DENR Secretary and renowned sycophant Lito Atienza is more interested in using all those funds on organizing wasteful Manny Pacquiao victory parades than in actually cleaning up this already-polluted stink-pit of a country.

My 10 All-Time Favorite Fighting Videogames

People tell me that they write blogs or microblogs for catharsis. While I respect such opinion, I’ve always considered fighting games as a better stress-reliever. There’s no problem so severe that it can’t be made better by beating people up, as long as the kicks and punches are all in the mind – or TV. Wait, I said TV! Please drop that fighting stance!

Perhaps the most straightforward genre of videogames, fighting games always follow the same format: pit a fighter against another and have them beat each other up until one falls (or sometimes until the time runs out). Since the game would’ve been too short had it ended after just winning one fight, there’s usually an arcade mode (or “career mode”) where I choose a fighter and run him/her through a tournament, fighting with set number of opponents until I become the champion. Oh, and it’s usually possible to compete against an opponent controlled by a second player, as a test of who has a better “fighting instincts”.

Essentially, all fighting games play like that; they only differ in what can be done in their battlegrounds, but then, those differences dictate why some fighting games are better than others. See my 10 favorites in no particular order after the jump.

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