Dark Souls 3, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Praise the Sun

Game: Dark Souls III
From Software, 2016 (PC version reviewed)

Dark Souls 3 is Dark Souls 2 at heart. Not the Dark Souls 2 that actually exists, mind you - a great game but flawed sequel in many of the ways it parted from its predecessor - but the Dark Souls 2 that might have been had it recaptured the essence of the first and built directly upon its successes. Sometimes it does a bit too much recapturing and a bit too little building, sure. But it gets the balance right where it matters most, and it’s tough to imagine any fan of the series coming away disappointed with its conclusion.

DS3 isn’t shy about its sequel status; in fact it’s constantly celebrating it. From the moment the familiar title screen appears and the music begins, the game revels in its place in the trilogy. Where the first Dark Souls featured only quiet, cut by the harsh slashing noise of the player pressing “any button to continue,” and the second introduced a soft, pensive chorus, DS3 bursts into a full-blown choral requiem not-so-subtly indebted to Mozart’s. It’s a fitting crescendo for a game that is in every way aware of its derivative nature as a sequel while simultaneously being determined to take those familiar elements and push them to their extremes. 

Hello, old frenemies.

The very first boss epitomizes this, a beautiful little fight combining elements of DS1’s Artorias battle with a very Bloodborne-esque transformation phase. It’s hard to think of a more exciting way to welcome veteran players to this new yet familiar chapter while teaching newcomers the core principles of the series, its combat, and it’s themes. On that front, the developers took criticisms of the infamous Souls obtuseness to heart and deigned to supply in the new Firelink Shrine the most helpful and accessible tutorials of the series. The game is probably still opaque as hell to first timers, don’t get me wrong, but it’s nice to see From Software making some basic concessions to mechanical guidance while still leaving plenty of room for discovery where more advanced aspects of DS3’s systems are concerned. 

Bloodborne’s grandiose Gothic architecture returns in spades.

Not all the changes are for the better. It’s hard not to be disappointed that DS3’s Firelink Shrine has reverted to the abstract teleportation hub that is the Nexus of Demon’s Souls, rather than DS1’s central axis from which the surrounding world is unlocked like a puzzle box. But while large stretches of DS3 at first seem to unravel in a fairly linear fashion after Firelink, it quickly becomes apparent that the world is as massive and full of alternative routes and secret paths as DS1, if not more so . The areas are gorgeously crafted, each evoking memories of prior Souls entries or Bloodborne while building something entirely new on those memories. The introductory High Wall of Lothric and the Undead Settlement, for example, while instantly reminiscent of the Undead Burg, turn out to have much more in common with Bloodborne’s terrifyingly hostile Central Yharnam. Rather than the staid, largely passive undead guardians of DS1, these areas are full of frenzied religious mobs, packs of hounds, and nightmare creatures that burst from the shadows, all pushing the player toward Bloodborne’s much faster pace of combat and crowd control skills than DS1’s “Try luring them out one at a time” duel-like approach to encounters. These areas are still meticulously designed puzzles to be unlocked through careful exploration, creativity, and plain old trial and error, but the frenetic new pace and variety of enemies succeed in injecting Bloodborne’s excited fear into the proceedings in a way that DS2’s tedious clusters of identical sword-wielding humanoids so frequently failed to do.

For all the allure of Fashion Souls you might be surprised to see half the player base running around dressed as Raggedy Kylo Ren.

The nods to previous From Software titles can feel overbearing to the point of fan service at first. My emotions at rediscovering old allies and locales peaked in the first hour and almost immediately ebbed after that when I started to worry DS3 was content to be the sequel that rehashes the best moments of its predecessors, then calls it a day. That worry didn’t last long. Without spoiling anything specific, the frequent throwbacks and nods to history do turn out to serve an important thematic purpose that pays off big dividends in the second half of the game, when I was surprised to find myself affected and even disturbed by the places DS3 proves willing to go to both to fulfill and to subvert the themes established by the series. I know this spoiler-aversion makes for a horribly vague way to discuss story, and I’m aware that the effectiveness of these narrative moments is often limited to those who have obsessively explored previous Souls worlds and their surrounding lore,* but all I can say is that I found them deeply satisfying and as appropriate a conclusion to the trilogy as I could have hoped for. 

DS3’s bosses come in all shapes and sizes, but the biggest and baddest are the biggest and baddest of any Souls yet.

Even sixty hours and one ending in, it’s too early for me to speculate where the game stands among the From titles. The full potential of these games isn’t always apparent on a first playthrough or before having had some time to reflect on and live with the experience. Some initial disappointment aside, I had a blast with my first DS2 encounter, and it wasn’t until revisiting DS1 and returning to DS2 that I realized how much less satisfied I was with it as a Souls game, and how much less interested I was in plumbing the depths of its world than I was with its predecessor and Demon’s Souls. But I can confidently say some superlative things about DS3. The bosses are beautiful, hulking creations that prove a thrill to discover and a joy to master, providing challenges to match the most memorable fights in the series. More than in any previous Souls game I found myself not wanting to move past a given area until I had engaged in jolly cooperation with other players dozens of times, learning the ins and outs of these titans and vicariously re-experiencing the pleasure of besting them. A friend I recently introduced to the series pointed out that some of these battles reminded him as much of Shadow of the Colossus as they did of DS1, and I can think of no better compliment to From than that they have succeeded in wedding the titanic scale and puzzle-like design of those creatures with the intense combat intricacies of Souls, accompanied by the simultaneously most sweeping and most personal orchestrations Yuka Kitamura and Motoi Sakuraba have yet composed for the series.

Papers could and have been written on the From design philosophy and what makes their worlds tick so distinctively. We can point to numerous core elements and speculate to what extent they’re the “secret sauce” imparting that unmistakable Souls flavor no one else has yet managed to imitate. The brutality of the combat and the careful precision it demands. The unique sense of accomplishment that comes from mastering something so challenging and precise. The mystery of an ancient world largely uninterested in the player character or in giving away its secrets. The thrill of putting together the pieces of those secrets and beginning to discern patterns in the dream-like chaos. The visual design that is equal parts familiar and alien, historically gothic yet otherworldly in its proportions and inhabitants.

You won’t want for excuses to stop and take in the view...

Maybe it’s some of those things; maybe it’s the careful combination of them. I haven’t even touched upon the multiplayer component that, PVE and PVP alike, is so singular to this series in the ways in which it seamlessly integrates with the “solo” game experience, now expanded and perhaps even perfected in DS3. I certainly haven’t spent the time I should have complaining about the state of the PC port, which a month after its initial Japanese release remains as plagued by network bugs and online instabilities as on day one. 

...buut you’ll be taking in this slightly less welcome view quite a lot as well.

But I could talk about one or another aspect for this game for pages and still have volumes to write,** so on some level this review was always going to be a half-assed summary. I haven’t made any secret that Dark Souls was my favorite game of its generation - and maybe ever - so maybe it’s enough  to say Dark Souls 3 is the sequel I always thought it deserved. If last year’s Bloodborne wasn’t evidence enough of the difference it makes to have Hidetaka Miyazaki at the helm, this should be plenty for anyone. It may not be as exciting to see the director retread familiar ground as it was to see him build an entirely new world, but it’s remarkably fulfilling to experience the way he puts an end to the old. 

* A not-small percentage of the Souls fan base, to be fair.

** And hopefully will, one of these days.

Game of the Year #10: A Garbage Land of Sand and Sadness

10. Tales from the Borderlands

Telltale Games, 2015 (PC version reviewed)

It’s that time of year again: the time when everyone who writes about games feels compelled to catalogue their experiences into top ten lists and award some lucky contestant the meaningless title of Game of the Year. It’s a fun way to collect our thoughts, reflect on how the medium advanced (or didn’t advance) since the last time around, and, most importantly, argue endlessly about why everyone else’s list is wrong. So without further ado, here’s the #10 title on my personal countdown: Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands. 

It can seem impossible to talk about a Telltale title without landing yourself in a preliminary debate about What It Means to Be a Video Game. On PC and consoles, anyway, Telltales’ particular brand of Adventure Lite has, rightly or wrongly, come to symbolize the extreme edge of what constitutes a “casual” game or - somewhat absurdly - something not a game at all. Phrases like “interactive television” get thrown around as if they were pejoratives, and self-styled “hardcore” gamers feel seemingly compelled to let you know that, however much they might enjoy the occasional Telltale, they ordinarily only ever play “real” games.

If this all sounds a little ridiculous, that’s possibly because it is, and I promise won’t spend much more time on it. In a medium as fluid and expansive as games, the notion of policing titles for purity feels as absurd as it is restrictive. At the end of day, all I know is that my experience with Tales from the Borderlands was wholly different from any I’ve had in other media - tv, books, or otherwise - or any I can imagine having elsewhere. It’s a game about choice above all else - genuinely moreso than any previous Telltales - and the player’s ability to mould the characters and narrative into a version of the story they’d like to tell. And if that doesn’t get at the heart of what makes games unique, I don’t know what does.

In some ways, Tales from the Borderlands is the most Telltale game out there. We’ve clearly reached some critical point where they’ve ceased to be adventure titles in the oldschool sense, for starters. There are exactly two moments in all of Tales where you’re required to rub an item on something to advance, and if you blink you might miss them. Inventory, consequently, feels almost vestigial, with the exception of a couple key items that will automatically be available to you in relevant story moments. Exploratory free movement sections are few and far between, to the point that it feels almost strange whenever the cinematic camera cuts to the flat, classic adventure perspective. The only major element that still clearly hearkens to the genre of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle is the EchoEye™, a cybernetic eye implant that allows Rhys (protagonist #1 of 2) to scan objects and characters for no reason except to read some of the most hilarious faux-corporate-wiki captions ever written into a game. It’s a cute excuse to get some Hitchhiker’s Guide color commentary layered into the whole thing, and it never fails to amuse.

The vast majority of the game, however, is spent in a cinematic mode that feels closer to the story beats of modern BioWare than anything in the adventure genre, peppered with thousands of dialogue options and quicktime event-like action controls. So, the usual Telltale stuff, but more of it than ever before. Unlike most previous Telltales, however - and unlike BioWare’s recent titles - the choices present a lot more variety than the “Good Guy, Bad Guy, Sarcastic Asshole” selection we’ve all come to roll our eyes at. Perhaps partly because *everyone* in the Borderlands universe is a sarcastic asshole, the choices in Tales typically reflect four or so distinct varieties in approaches to a conversation or decision that could *reasonably be outgrowths of that character’s personality*, allowing the player to decide who Rhys and Fiona will gradually become in the course of their adventure. I don’t know how better to describe the improvements here than to say that this is the first Telltale game I have a strong desire to replay, and that nearly every available option was so interesting, funny, and dynamic that I almost immediately wanted to rewind each chapter to try different routes.

Did I mention this game is funny? Well it’s not. It’s the funniest. No, really, it is. Even in a year boasting Undertale, this may be the most consistently drop-dead hilarious writing in a game since the point-and-click Lucasarts heyday. The vocal performances are spectacular, with voice-over veterans from Troy Baker to Patrick Wharburton to Laura Bailey giving 110% over the most cartoonishly expressive comic book facial animations this side of Venture Bros. The script itself feels like the kind of story that Borderlands was always meant to tell but never had a chance to within the confines of a first-person loot-em-up. The series’ signature ultraviolence serves here not only as a source of clever commentary but as a legitimate key ingredient of the narrative and its broader themes.

And that, more than anywhere else, is where we begin to get at what makes Tales special. Telltale has told rich, mature stories before; A Wolf Among Us took all the most interesting character elements of the Fables comics and actually brought them a layer deeper. But in Tales they’ve managed something even more impressive. Every character is a source not only of their own unique punchlines but of genuine human feeling and conflict, even at their most caricatured. Your average Great Game is lucky if it can give us even one, maybe two lasting, memorable characters who stand out in our thoughts of the game long after we’ve finished it. Not so with Tales from the Borderlands. Like Undertale, there’s not a single damn one of the cast I don’t already want to spend more time with or have the opportunity to see another side of on replay. Even the many antagonists - only one of whom is a genuine villain and murderous psychopath - are either downright likable or at least empathetic personalities in the mad, mad world that is Pandora. I spent most of my time with Tales (literally) laughing out loud, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I shed more than a couple tears at the more somber moments.

So call it a “casual” game, call it interactive tv - I don’t give a damn. Tales is among the best examples of what big budget storytelling has to offer this medium, and I for one love that that medium affords us narrative experiences as diverse in one year as The Witcher 3, Dark Souls II, Her Story, and Tales from the Borderlands. It’s a big tent, and there’s room for everyone who brings something to the show.

Out of the Shadow of the License

Game: Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor 
Monolith Productions, 2014 (PC version reviewed)

Who would’ve thought a licensed Lord of the Rings film tie-in would handily surpass both Assassin’s Creed and the Arkham series as the king of the Open World Action Rhythm Combat Stealthy-Stabby Things, or whatever we’re calling this genre now? Shadow of Mordor not only perfects the crowd combat and parkour mechanics that have become the core signifiers of these games but introduces the remarkable “Nemesis” system to bring its open world to life. Without going into much detail, since it’s been written about extensively elsewhere, Nemesis essentially creates a procedurally generated army of orc leaders each with their own personality and personal history with whom you as a player develop your own stories and conspire to infiltrate Sauron’s forces using a kickass set of magical mind control powers. However simple the mechanic sounds on paper (and it’s not; the tactical variations of your abilities are nearly limitless), it animates and elevates every enemy encounter in SoM into a piece of your own epic narrative and keeps Mordor’s mooks from ever feeling like the mindless masses of the Assassin’s Creed series or the inconsequential overworld encounters of the last few Arkham titles.

Slip of a story notwithstanding, SoM’s presentation actually succeeds in making Lord of the Rings’ lore compelling in a way I can’t remember any of the other games doing in a long time, even if it does behave over-seriously about the whole affair. It certainly helps that (a) the world actually feels lived in and (b) it doesn’t litter everything up with cutscenes from the films or tangential tie-ins to the actions of the Fellowship characters, some unnecessary Gollum cameos notwithstanding. SoM avoids Assassin Creed’s cardinal sin of becoming an endless icon hunt by being confident enough in its core gameplay to eliminate nearly all the half-baked minigames that have become unfortunate staples of the genre. It’s also not afraid to steal the best elements of Far Cry 3 and 4’s base design and wildlife interactions, which add even more exciting variability to the whole affair.

Despite offering two massive open world battlefields, SoM doesn’t overstay its welcome, offering enough content to keep you coming back potentially forever but wisely keeping its core story trim and free of fat. I comfortably completed the main quest in about 15 hours while taking advantage of a good chunk of the side content, which felt like exactly the right length for this kind of game and a refreshing change of pace after the endless bloat of the last dozen or so Ubisoft open-world titles. The campaign does conclude rather abruptly, but it’s more a factor of the final mission feeling a bit rushed than any problem with the narrative, which wraps up rather nicely even while leaving open a clear path to a sequel.

I could go on about SoM’s other strengths endlessly - the near-perfect pacing and challenge scaling, the almost total lack of load times, the smooth introduction of all its systems without obnoxious tutorializing, the extraordinarily competent cutscenes, the beautifully fluid character animations - but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention at least a few of its shortcomings. A few of the unskippable cinematic conventions, like the theatrical WWE-style introductions of the orc captains, get tiresome really quickly and can royally fuck up the flow of combat. Although the parkour mechanics manage to be far more reliable than Assassin Creed’s, there are still those inevitable moments of frustration when you try to scale sideways from wall to corner and wind up lunging fifty feet down to a waiting army because the contextual pathing misinterpreted your command. Stealth is a bit too forgiving, offering a temptingly simple way to undo careless mistakes and avoid the very interesting procedural consequences of player death (upon which the world advances and Sauron’s army grows and evolves while you spend some unseen downtime in the grave). And despite some gorgeous environmental design, Mordor’s fortresses can get a bit samey, with frequent deja vu confusing your infiltration strategy.

But while SoM may not be perfect, it’s as damn near perfect as any triple-A studio title of last year or this one, learning all the right lessons from its inspiration sources and introducing radical innovations so successfully as to become the definitive new standard for the genre. In an era defined by big budget failures and genre stagnation, wherein tiny indie titles have come to dominate the market of inventive ideas, Shadow of Mordor is an excellent argument that there are still some things money can buy when it’s thrown at the right people.

I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire

Two weeks in, I think I'm ready to call Fallout 4 a broad failure. Beyond the usual Bethesda technical mess that's becoming less and less acceptable with each passing decade of this engine, the game is so regressive in terms of writing, quest design, and NPC interaction as to make me wonder what on earth the studio has been doing with the seven years and hundreds of millions (billions, by some estimates) of dollars in income they've been raking in since Fallout 3. 


***Minor early-game spoilers below the jump***

Less Miserable Than Other Shows

Film: Les Misérables

Tom Hooper, 2012

One month to the day since my first viewing and a week since my second, it doesn't seem as though there's much left to say about Les Mis that I and others haven't elsewhere. Still, I am finding it difficult to stop talking about Tom Hooper's gift to fans of film and theatre, so I will say a little more.

Already counting Hugo's Les Mis on my shortlist of greatest novels and Natel/Schönberg/Boublil/Kretzmer's adaptation among my favorite musicals, my expectations on entering the Christmas premiere were unrealistically high, /GrossUnderstatement. As impressed as I was by the cinematography (18th Paris on film has rarely looked simultaneously so grungy and so gorgeously rendered), the definitively re-orchestrated score, some stellar performances (particularly from the Broadway and West End grafts, and particularly particularly Samantha Barks and Aaron Tveit), and spot-on editing, I was distracted endlessly by the strained (Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway) and often just plain terrible (Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried) singing, shaky-cam, and (as I then conceived) disastrously misguided close-up tracking shots. To belabor the point, Russell Crowe's voice is an abortion of the eardrums which, for the sake of public safety, should never again be permitted near recording equipment. Worse, his "acting" is nonexistent, save a consistently constipated expression of the strain of singing, and therefore incapable of improving the performance even to the level of sub-par. At least I could understand what Hooper was going for with the apoplectic handycam and  unforgiving close-ups, even as I disagreed vehemently with the decision, but I could not forgive his casting nor account for it except as commercial calculation. 

I left the theater satisfied but lukewarm in my affection, counting the project a mostly successful but heavily flawed adaptation. It took a second viewing to remind me why I so deeply love Les Mis, and to recognize Hooper's adaptation as the faithful and independently successful film it is. 

It is not that I recanted my criticisms upon that second viewing so much as that I came to realize I had missed the forest for its most blighted trees. Les Mis more than merely "succeeds" in spite of its flaws: it flourishes, and stunningly so. Melodrama it is and has always been, but contra the myriad critics who have seen fit to consider that a mark against it, Les Mis's sentiment is its heart and life, a violent reawakening of raw feeling at the end of a decade characterized by smug self-awareness and postmodern ironization. 
Hooper captures Hugo's love and understanding of humanity in its full spectrum of color and contrast. An opening shot of a titanic galleon hauled by hundreds of prisoner-slaves through sea and storm to the swells of Schönberg's revitalized overture is the very definition of breathtaking. A near-unrecognizably emaciated Jackman as Valjean is cast in constant darkness against a lit cross or icon of the Christ in opposing corners. Hathaway's Fantine sings of her living death in prostitution as she is ravished in a literal coffin, and if that imagery is heavy handed it packs a punch just the same. The starving poor huddle together at the shadowed edges of the frame, their diseased and filth-ridden complexions only occasionally lit by scraps of lights through grates and crumbling walls separating them from the few and beautiful elite.

This flood of imagery reaches its crest in the second act, which pummels us with the raptures, follies, and tragedies of humanity in Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and Cosette's (Amanda Seyfried) infatuation, Eponine's (Barks) loss and longing, Enjolras's (Tveit) passion and principle, Valjean's awakening to compassion and forgiveness, Javert's (Crowe) inability to cope with a loss of identity in a changing world, and virtually every other facet of what it is to live and suffer and love and lose on this earth, all in the span of 158 minutes, making Hooper's one of the most compact and yet complete retellings of Hugo's material in its adaptive history. The word "epic" is thrown around a great deal too often (including by yours truly) in describing scope and significance, but if it ever held applicable meaning it is for Les Misérables. Whatever the cynical may label "manipulative" or "cloying" in the narrative is from my perspective a defensive reduction of what Les Mis really accomplishes here, which is to say the genuine impartment of genuine feeling. And Les Mis can cause feeling of a magnitude rarely matched, whatever its faults or whatever its methods. 

Or so, at least, the theater restrooms full of sobbing men of every age seemed to testify.

Grade: A

Of Recent Random Ramblings

Welcome to this edition of the Micro-Review Roundup, which for the most part comprises aggregate expansions of recent ramblings on my Twitter feed. And yes, I've been on a bit of a Horror kick recently, for anyone who somehow had any question on that. I suppose it's just that time of the month...
...by which I of course mean the recent full moon phase.

Film: Ted

Seth MacFarlane, 2012

An overly long and relatively restrained Family Guy episode with enough laughs in the first act to make the latter slog worthwhile. As always, could benefit from significantly more dark absurdism and significantly fewer 80s pop cultural references (though the balance of non-sequitur sequences is just about right this time). With a revamped second half, some much-needed editing, and more directorial experience from MacFarlane, this could have had the makings of a more notable comedy gem, but in its present form it's fairly disposable network TV fare scarcely worth comparing to animated raunch comedy classics like South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut or even the mixed success of The Simpsons Movie.

Grade: C

Film: Hellraiser

Clive Barker, 1987

A minor classic of Lovecraftian body horror equal parts the love child of Stephen King and David Cronenberg. Thoughtfully disturbing in its visceral dissection (pun intended, and forgive me for it) of human psychosexuality and the extremities of carnal desire, occasionally marred by some shaky cinematography and loose editing. Still as unsettling today as it ever was, and easily one of the greatest genre works of the 80s (not that its competition was particularly stellar).

As a bonus, also boasts the most frightening appearance of Plastic Jesus in cinematic history.

Grade: B

Film: Hellbound: Hellraiser II

Tony Randel (Heavy creative oversight from Clive Barker), 1998

That rarest of creatures, a Horror sequel worthy of its predecessor's dark legacy. Struggles with initially glacial pacing and some ill-conceived re-imaginings of Hellraiser's characters and creatures, but atones for those shortcomings with stronger cast performances, an unnerving new villain, and a uniquely memorable vision of hell. Where Hellraiser may torment your waking imagination, Hellbound is the fel stuff that will haunt your dreams. Bonus points for its practically overnight production and release within a year of its progenitor, all managed on a functionally microscopic budget.

Grade: B-

Film: Bram Stoker's Dracula

Francis Ford Coppola, 1992

By far the most faithful adaptation to Bram Stoker's original work, at least where tone is concerned, Coppola's Dracula remains relevant as perhaps the most wholeheartedly authentic visual realization of the Gothic genre to date. The film is a tour de force of lavish sensuality, oozing more style in every operatic scene than all the gallons of blood spilled in its breathtakingly brief 128 minutes running time. The cast is just as committed to the raw theatricality on view here, Gary Oldman entering the annals of vampiric legend as an utterly convincing incarnation of a passionate and tragically accursed Dracula, Anthony Hopkins devouring the scenery with all Van Helsing's eccentric excitability, and Tom Waits lurching about as the most entertainingly unhinged Renfield yet seen on screen. Keanu Reeves is the sole chink in the film's illustriously decorated armor, delivering in place of acting not only a constant mugging that would put the comic reaction shots of Hammer to shame, but also perfecting the most exquisitely tortured approximation of an English accent in living memory.

"LOVE NEVER DIES," promises the appropriately lush theatrical poster, and neither shall a film as lovingly devoted to its vision as this Gothic masterpiece.

Grade: A-

Film: Night of the Living Dead

George Romero, 1968

The Ur-Zombie grandfather of them all, still just as unsettling in its high-concept exploitation even after fifty years of imitators. Brutish, nasty, and short, Romero's original remains as effective as it is primarily for its single-minded devotion to the desecration of all that is sacred in human society, playing both on the cultural fears of the Cold War and our more timeless aversions to death, decay, predation, destruction of identity, incest, cannibalism, and virtually every other primal fear or unthinkable taboo to haunt our psyches across the boundaries of community. A community which is so violated here as to leave generations pondering our own hypothetical reactions to such a loss of basic humanity.
Ever tense in its craft and composition, well-acted across the board (particularly by the now iconic Duane Jones), and marred only by its nonexistent effects budget and rampant misogyny (even for its time, judging by a few  historic critical reactions), Night of the Living Dead remains the purest codification of its genre, surpassed in overall quality only by the tiniest handful of its successors, if ever at all.

"They're coming for you, Barbara. They're coming to get you, Barbara!"

Grade: A-

Film: The Exorcist
William Friedkin, 1973

(And no, I will not be commenting on any of the differences in editions except to say that, as someone familiar with each, the cuts are not distinct enough that I would consider them worth contrasting in so small a space.)

On recently revisiting Friedkin's The Exorcist and Kubrick's The Shining after aeons, my initial reaction of re-appraisal was to note that, while both are near masterpieces of cinematic art, but both are minor failures as horror films. The Exorcist is tense, no doubt, paced with near perfection in the mounting terror not of the demon but of Chris MacNeil's (Ellyn Burstyn) increasingly helpless concern for her daughter's soul. I would hardly be the first to note that Pazuzu is not a particularly threatening villain from a secular perspective – certainly not compared to his Cenobite siblings or even the Paranormal possessor – but the horror at play is still somewhat effective empathically, again through the cypher of Burstyn's preeminent portrayal of a parent's deepest fears.
Though light on frights no one could claim The Exorcist is slim on style, and unlike the plethora of progeny it spawned it is just as profoundly substantial, both as well-crafted cinema and as a study of familial psychology. I care much less than I once did for the vague spiritual struggles of the auxiliary Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) and his Catholic cohorts, too often recounted as the foci of the film, but their priestly presence certainly lends the climax its memorable dramatic weight. Nor can enough be said of Regan/Pazuzu's brilliantly executed joint performance by Linda Blair and Mercedes McCambridge.
Grade: B+

Film: The Shining
Stanley Kubrick, 1980

Few times have I desired to love a film as much as I would like to love Kubrick's celebrated classic The Shining, but alas that I must be content to respect it. The Shining is a beautiful film no doubt, an exercise in compositional perfection out of which I could probably pick more favorite shots than any dozen other such films combined. From the jaw-dropping grandeur of its opening mountain credits to the skin-crawling spectacle of the flooding elevators to the unforgettable focal clash of the baby-blue Grady girls with the sickly-hued halls, The Shining is a display of Kubrick's mise-en-scène at its absolute most effective.
Such a pity, then, that it suffers more from Kubrick's clinical detachment than any of his other works to that date. So abstract is Kubrick in his surreal approach to setting that he leaves behind both his actors and the characters they are so desperately (over)working to present. Jack Nicholson's iconic turn as Jack Torrance is unforgettable, yes, but as entertaining as it is to watch the King of Crazy go axe-frenzy out of cabin fever, his performance is too ridiculous to find frightening on any serious level. Shelley Duvall's Wendy too is a mess of mewling hysterics, and the only moment of any palpable tension between the two – as well as the only truly terrifying moment in the film – is found when Jack is mercifully off-screen and Wendy discovers the horrible truth of his manuscript (which, of course, the viewer had surmised a near two-hour's time earlier in Nicholson's mad mugging).
As gorgeous as is Kubrick's imagery and as indelible is Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkin's baroque score, The Shining is less successful as a sum narrative than as a collection of spectacularly effective imagery. And who knows, given that we're dealing with Kubrick here that may just have been the artistic intent all along.
Grade: A-

Song: What Makes You Beautiful

One Direction, 2012

So catchy it should be criminal, but the lovable kind of criminal like Robin Hood or the Artful Dodger, "What Makes You Beautiful" is an adorable chart debut by X Factor finalists One Direction and probably the least offensive ear worm of the year to date. WBYB is a pristine example of everything there is to like about boy bands – yes, even they have their redeeming qualities – what with its uplifting, heart-baring lyrics, its flawless rhythmic structure (for which, it has been noted, a great deal is owed to Pink), and an infinitely hummable bridge practically guaranteed to send all nearby victims bursting into the chorus whether willingly or unwillingly.

Yes, in terms of depth it's still the musical equivalent of a two-foot wading pool, but I challenge anyone to make it through a full listening without cracking a smile, or at least the hint of an acquiescent grin.

Grade: B+

Song: Good Feeling

"Flo Rida" (With emphasis on the quotes), 2011

Yes, this one is more than a little late, but I feel justified in reviewing it given that it's still topping charts and that no one seems to be calling this clown on his tripe. Content to prove himself the most shameless hack in the music industry, Flo Rida once again samples a refrain from an old classic (in this case Etta James's "Something's Got a Hold On Me" already resampled as Avicii's "Levels"), surrounds it with the most disposable flavors of rap on the radio, and calls it a day. Sure, the end product still retains some residual quality, but rather than support the cretin who led an entire generation to believe he was responsible for "You Spin Me 'Round," why not spare your own dignity and give this trash a pass in favor of a more honest club remix of the original Etta James?

Grade: C+ (Though artistic integrity here would merit an F for plagiarism, were we to carry the classroom metaphor.) 

Valar Morghulis

There's something about the Game of Thrones pop cultural phenomenon that awakens in me an inner demon, a loathsome creature with lensless horn-rimmed glasses and ill-matched vintage sweaters which pauses from its task of cataloging musical esoterica to rise up from my bile at scream to the heavens,
"I LOVED THESE BOOKS BEFORE THEY WERE MAINSTREAM, YOU POSERS!"
That demon be damned to the depths from which it crawled, and cleansed of its wicked influence I shall rise to the task of explicating George R.R. Martin's works for the world.
Valar morghulis; valar dohaeris.

For our beloved rock-dwellers, A Game of Thrones is a now hugely popular HBO television series based on the Song of Ice and Fire saga – the first of which, of course, is A Game of Thrones – by aforementioned author Martin. The books and show alike – for, as we will find, there is virtually no distinction but in medium – are a low (i.e. non-romantic) fantasy set in a crapsack medieval world strongly reminiscent of the British War of the Roses and devoid of most of the standard (read: Tolkienian) trappings of the genre. The world of Westeros is a place where the weak perish, the fittest thrive, and dreams go to die. So, you know, rather not unlike real life for for the vast majority of humanity throughout  our history. Principal to this nihilistic thrust is Martin's stern dedication to authorial objectivity, the end result being that he writes with no guiding set of ideals or thesis save perhaps that of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan: total, abject realism. Not even cynicism, in truth, for there are indeed heroes in Martin's world, men and women of virtue and honor who fight for their beliefs...and die painful deaths for their inflexible idealism. But more on that later.

Martin's greatest gift as an author, and now screenwriter, has always been his extended world- and character-building; though he has certainly contributed fine entries to the fantasy and scifi genres in the form of short stories and novellas, few have ever disputed the status of A Song of Ice and Fire as his magnum opus – assuming he ever gets around to finishing it. The TV adaptation is strong evidence for the stature of the characters: despite there being already dozens of principals by the end of the second season/book, all are so distinctly well-drawn – and now well-acted – that one encounters little difficulty keeping them all sorted out mentally even in the midst of what is possibly the most complicated political intrigue to appear on screen since...well, I'll be damned if I can think of anything else even close to as complex. Though no one character or set of characters can claim preferential authorial treatment as they struggle through this web, there are certainly standouts that will probably go down in the annals of the great literary creations of history.

For most fans no one better identifies this than Tyrion Lannister, now brought even more largely to life by the incomparable Peter Dinklage, Americenglish accent notwithstanding. A heartfelt finger to all stereotypical dwarven roles of fantasy and fiction yore throughout the ages, Tyrion stands tall as a masterful player of the Game and one of the most deeply noble – yet resourceful – souls in the series, a sharp mind and sharper tongue his primary defenses against a world full to 'flowing with hatred and prejudice. Tyrion is no saint, for he has seen saints like Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) fall faster and further than any sinner, but his own suffering has, despite hardening his will, softened his heart to the plight of those around him. Noble Ned Stark may be the hero the world deserves, but Tyrion Lannister is the one it needs.

Of course, Tyrion is but one man, a "half-man" at that, and the remainder of the dramatis personæ, whose casting could not have been more immaculate in a nerd's wildest dreams, are as colorful as their collective morality is grey. Any given episode of GoT packs more intrigue and sexual drama into its one-hour slot than half a season's worth of Rome, and Cersei Lannister could give Atia of the Julii a run for her incestuously-acquisitioned money any day of the week. Sean Bean is the embodiment of stoicism as Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark, a hard yet just and loving vision of a Boromir that might have been had he possessed Ned's indomitable fortitude to resist the lure of the Ring. Catelyn Tully (Michelle Fairley) is every bit his match, a driven woman who upon losing her children sets her eyes against all tears and marches south to war for her family, aspersions cast upon her gender and motherhood be damned in the face of her dedication. Cersei (Lena Heady), similarly, refuses to be constrained by the social limitations on her womanhood, seizing power for her and her beloved children with a ruthlessness to rival Machiavelli's prince. Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and his half-brother Robb Stark (Richard Madden) are two sides of their same father's coin, one struggling to find his identity in Ned's legacy of honor against an eldritch foe more primal than any petty human mores, the other striving to be be worthy of the crown his father died to defend without fully understanding its implications for himself and for the kingdom as a whole. Joffrey Lannister (Jack Gleeson) is as vile a villain as any spoiled psychopath ever to be thrust by privilege into power, and his twice-grandfather Tywin (Charles Dance) dominates his every scene with the calm, dangerous dignity of a lion on the hunt, assured in his power over his pride and prey alike...

...and there must I stop, for even a cursory survey of the remaining players of the Game, kings and pawns and all between, would take far more time than I have available for present discourse. Suffice it to say that if there has ever been a richer pantheon in a TV drama, I remain wholly unaware of its existence. Of the plot, I can say even less without inevitably spoiling myriad surprises of which I would not presume to deprive any poor soul still stranger to the series. Sibilance.

Not much, therefore, remains to be said on the subject of characters: they are legion, and they are humanity. Structurally, despite its perpetual balancing act of literally hundreds of plots and subplots, GoT achieves virtual perfection. Though it has received notable criticism for its reliance on long exposition to convey important plot and character elements (frequently labeled "sexposition" for its tendency to occur during intercourse), the device is both necessary and effective as a means to tell a story so complex and of so many agents that viewers could not possibly be expected to keep track of them otherwise. Its frequent portrayal of women as objects of sexual gratification, however, is a trickier issue despite the accurate sexism and misogyny of the source period. Certainly there are feminist elements to be found in many of its characters and situations, but there's also an undeniable sense of HBO playing up the titillation angle wherever and whenever they think they can get away with it, despite some occasional and blatantly concessional male nudity for "balance." In spite of the show's fantastic quality in all other departments, GoT is doing less than nothing to alter its studio's traditional reputation as a "boob tube" content provider.

Any other possible complaints tend to be minor and episodic in nature. Not even a series with as high a murder-per-minute ratio as GoT can escape the odd transitional episode drag, not to mention a few tricky plot holes they've managed to dig for themselves in departure from Martin's more carefully crafted original narrative. Thus far they've done an admirable job justifying and filling those accordingly, but it could certainly be a problem down the road as altered butterfly currents beat up hurricanes in the time stream (though nowhere near so badly as the butchery of that metaphor).

And on that note, I misled when I earlier lauded Martin's objectivity, for in actuality he has none: his craft is defined, rather, by a mastery of authorial subjectivity, in that he inhabits his various characters so fully that his voice is drowned out by their own. Great writers of prose have speculated on the phenomenon of losing control of their work to their characters, and Martin holds the artistic distinction of never having tried to secure control in the first place. He has built the stage to dramatic perfection and set the players upon it, but like the best directors he has allowed them to move freely through the tale in exploration of their impulses, living and choosing their fates even as they entwine one another inexorably in those choices. All his world's a stage, a tale, a game, and all the players are but pieces with'n it.

What else can I say but hic sunt dracones? Go watch the show. As the most visceral political drama since Battlestar Galactica and the the finest fantasy adaptation yet to grace the small screen, Game of Thrones is literary and television history in the making.

Grade: A+