The Kiind of Plug That's Shameless

YouTube has been one medium that has grown tremendously in the past decade. Channels for every topic under the sun have sprung up, with just as many personalities behind them. Some offer educational resources, others offer topical conversation, and others just pure entertainment. Yet, one area that has seemed to rise to the top of the heap is gaming. The top 100 gaming channels have brought in billions views, the top of THAT heap belonging to Felix Kjelberg (AKA PewDiePie), who has 39,308,823 Subscribers and a total of 10,102,088,800 views. For comparison, the official YouTube channel has only around 23 million Subscribers. 

So, clearly, there is something to this. There's something to this new form of entertainment, wherein viewers watch other people play games.What pulls so many toward it? Is it the personalities behind the channels? Is it the fact that gameplay is being shown? Is it the idea of it being akin to watching a friend play a video game? I would wager that it's some combination of those ideas. With that being said, it is here that the titular "Shameless Plug" comes out. 

I actually have a YouTube gaming channel. Granted, I'm no PewDiePie, but the intent to entertain is the same. Actually, I've technically had two channels, though this is by renaming one. Initially, it was called "FREDHEADEDED", and I played a small variety of games with a fairly dubious recording equipment: my IPad, in a case, sitting on a box in a chair, and with the camera facing my television. The video quality was awful, and was always somewhat off-center. All the same, I had quite a lot of fun with them. I learned a lot about the editing process and working with a limit on time and resources, and gained a great deal of knowledge on efficiency. After a while, though, it became impossible to continue due to greater restrictions on resources (my IPad wouldn't store data properly). With that came a bit of a hiatus for several months.

That is, until this past month. Thankfully, I was able to acquire a laptop, video recording software, and a fairly decent microphone, all dramatically improving the quality of my videos. I even renamed the channel from "FREDHEADEDED" to the simpler "Fred Head" (SHAMELESS LINK TO MY CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCja8slhpiCV6je5T4wZDxoA )  This came from more research on marketing analytics, an area of immense importance if one is looking to create and promote content on YouTube. I'd imagine that, as I continue to do this, I'll eventually do a write up on the nuances of YouTube gaming and Streaming gaming (like those done via Twitch, another outlet specifically geared around streaming video of people playing games). 

These channels are everywhere and increasing rapidly. In fact, they are growing so much that I could no longer ignore it and had to at least make an attempt to take part. With that, It is my hope to learn more about the intricacies of a thing like YouTube, while also creating content that I would also want to watch.  

Micro Review: IT FOLLOWS and EX MACHINA

The power of IT FOLLOWS lies in how well it uses every element of itself. The blocking, music, lighting, acting, camera movements, and editing work in a way many films don't, making everything in it all the better as a result. Maika Monroe stars as Jay Height, a girl who, after having sex with her sort-of boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) becomes haunted by a creeping specter that can take the form of anyone. Only she can see it, and the only way to get rid of it is to have sex with someone else and pass it on. The catch is, if that new victim gets killed by it, the specter will come back to Jay, then to Hugh, then on and on to the very first person.

We are put right into the seat of the tension of the characters from the very first moments of the film. A camera sees a house in the distance and we sit in the street. A girl exits the home and begins running to the right, as Disasterpiece's dark, synth-heavy score purrs in the background. The camera follows her in one slow, deliberate movment, turning as if on a carosel. She stops in the middle of the street and stares back at the home, fear obvious on her face. She then runs further to the right and back around to the house and then inside. The carosel the camera is on continues. She exits the house again with keys, jumps into what can only be her father's car, and speeds off, the camera pursuing slowly. Disasterpiece's score goes from a purr to a roar. Next, we see her sitting on a beach, back to the water, and illuminated by the headlights of the car. She's talking to her father on the phone, appologising for making various mistakes. We cut to her P.O.V. and we can see the woods near the beach illuminated with red light by the break lights on the car. The score begins to pound and knock, growing in volume until near bursting. Just before it becomes too much, we cut to the same girl in the daytime on the same beach, but she is pale and very dead. She lies upon her back, legs snapped so severely that the bone is exposed. 

This sets us up for the rest of the film. The camera serves to put us in the seat of the specter as well as the characters, while also functioning to provide tension. Slow pans to suggest the specter is moving, showing the specter just out of sight of the characters but completely in sight of the audience, and providing just enough information at any given moment to open the audience up to wild speculation of what will happen next. IT FOLLOWS serves as a master class in modern suspense and horror. 

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EX MACHINA is a film comprised of questions, and it isn't entirely keen on answering them.   

Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, an employee of the world's largest tech company, who is chosen to fly to the island of the company's CEO. While he thinks he is merely there as a sort of vacation, the CEO, Nathan (Oscar Issac) reveals that Caleb is actually there to perform a modified Turing Test on an A.I. he's been working on. That A.I. is given the name Ava, and her performance by Alicia Vikander is the focal point of this film. 

Vikander finds a way to imbue Ava with so much: joy, sensuality, fear, power, and some combination of them all. It's this very performance which fuels the main questions it asks of the viewer, namely "Who is the 'good person' in this film?" Since Caleb is the protagonist, wer're inclined to empathaize with him and his perspective, but there is a strong reading that suggest that he may not as pure as he seems. Often we see full-body reflections of the characters upon glass surfaces, and that happens enough that I think there is thematic meaning to it. 

Every character has a duality to them. Nathan claims to want to create the latest form of A.I. but, by doing so, reveals his toxic view of women, as he makes every model of the A.I. as a conventionally attractive woman that he deactiviates when they deviate from what he wants and he turns them into objects of his pleasure. Caleb, our protagonist, seems to be a "good person" who takes issue with many of the things Nathan does...but remains somwhat neutral (which is totally a form of action) except in the case of Ava. Through a dream sequence, we see that he sees himself and Ava together romantically, even though he has only known her for less than a week, and has spoken to her less than five times. Even more, Ava is a composite of his internet search history, so she's literally a projection of his desires. In his desire to save her, he strokes his ego, especially since he doesn't have the same desire to save the other A.I. that also exists. Finally, with Ava, we have a wholly different perspective. While Nathan and Caleb had their own projections they put upon Ava, she has one desire: freedom. Nathan keeps her in a litteral box, and Caleb only sees her personhood within the context of a romantic relationship, so her rebellion and the means through which she does it makes complete sense to me. 

Is what she does at the end totally warranted? Does Caleb deserve what happened? Were there an abundance of similarities between Caleb and Nathan that Caleb subtly accepts? The film doesn't make any of it too clear, and I'm inclined to think that your answer to these questions says more about yourself than the film. 

Level Grinding, Grinding Gears

I can say with certainty that I have a deeply rooted love/hate relationship with "level grinding" in RPGs (Role playing games). On the one hand, I can see the intent. It seems to be an extension of tabletop games, like "Dungeons and Dragons", what with all the the numbers representing different attributes of your character. Those very numbers can be increased through myriad activities within the game. In the case of many RPGs, it's through combat and the use of those abilities that does this.

Then, there's the aspect of it being the means through which the player interacts with the content of said game. Interactivity is the way we engage with a game (moving characters around, going through menus, etc..) and, in the case of RPGs, represents the growth in skill. For example, let's take the game "Final Fantasy VII." In it your characters move around the larger part of the game world viabin what's called and Overworld (or at least, I call it that), and within each town or cave there are smaller areas as well. On the Overworld and some of these smaller areas, moving the character around the screen can trigger random moments of combat from unseen opponents.

Each battle uses menus and statistics (the amount of health characters have, any negative effects that may have come upon them, when it's their turn to attack) to allow the player to have an easily observable means of keeping up with what's happening. From here, it can even be argued that the random encounters serve to metaphorically refer to the journey the characters are going on as an almost short hand. Grinding then is the focused effort to use all of these means to increase the combat viability of the characters you control.

On the flipside (because you know there was going to be one), there is a distance between this and the story within the game. It almost feels as though I'm engaging in two wholely different activities: I'm engaging in a game similar to older tabletop games, and I'm viewing this story being told. Obviously, the gameplay and story relate to each other, as I'm playing as characters from the story, but for characters to not even mention all the progress they're making in their abilities and physicality only seems to alienate the two. I can fight a boss, almost lose, escape, level grind, come back, then beat them. After all that, not one character will mention the near death and act of focused training. The player has to engage with and disengage from the story to interact with the menu based portions, then vice versa.

Now, that isn't to say I'm wholey against any of this (as FF9 is one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and it has some of the same issues as FF7), but more to say that I have some frustrations with the way it's done. There have been games that have attempted to find a unity between the story aspects and the menus. "Infamous: Second Son" comes to mind as a more recent example. The main character in it can upgrade his different abilities, and the player ineracts with this aspects via a series of menus. The thing is, the character actively acknowledges that they can upgrade their abilities and even mirrors the player's desire for more strength and capability. It's a small thing, but it has a huge impact.

At the end of the day, I will engage in level grinding if I enjoy the overall experience of the game. At the same time, I can hope that more efficient means of combining gameplay and the more straightforward storytelling are found in addition into what we already have.

A Look Back: The Fast and the Furious

I'm more than a little inclined to think that the "Fast and Furious" franchise is fairly remarkable. Somehow, an entire mythos and complex chronology was created out of, what essentially was, a "Point Break" remake. I found this so interesting that I decided to rewatch every film in the series (excluding Furious 7) in an attempt to better understand what makes it what it is. It should be noted that I am a person who is very much so into these films, but I had never sat down and watched them all in an attempt to see what they are and how they all work. So, I start this trip with the first film, "The Fast and the Furious."

"The Fast and the Furious" serves as an interesting psuedo-remake of "Point Break." An undercover police officer infiltrates a group of people engaged in some sort of extreme activity (in the film's case, underground street racing) that are also suspected of some sort of illegal activity. The officer then begins to, sincerely, become close to them emotionally. From here, he is faced with a dilemma: turn them in, or let them go? What's interesting isn't its nature as an almost remake, but in the way it plays itself out. By no means is it stellar, for flatness in acting and characterization are everywhere, but it plays itself very well in a few areas.

The most articulated characters are Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto, Paul Walker's Brian O'Connor, and Jordana Brewster's Mia Toretto. These three stand out the most because, well, they're the only ones with any real development. Every other character is basically the same throughout the entire film and only vaguely defined. Even so, this film excels on a number of other levels. I should say that it's important to note the film's place within the Fast and Furious franchise. I would dare say that the impetus of many of the car-based stunts in later films are built off of the truck heists within this one.

This is its greatest accomplishment, for what it lacks in quality of dialogue it more than makes up with well choreographed stunt work. The largest of these is on of those said truck heists towards the end of the film. It's one that happens multiple times throughout the film, but at this point we see it in daylight, with all the identities of the players revealed. Dom and the rest of the members of the heist encircle an 18-wheeler with their cars in an attempt to highjack it and its cargo to sell to a fence. We are given clear geography of the scene; at any given moment we know were each person is. It's pure cinema, with each action leading to the next, telling small stories that are mostly visual. This is the case for the majority of the film.

One important aspect of this movie that was echoed throughout a few of the other films is the theme of family. Dom serves as the patriarch (resonating even to his prized possession, a car he and his departed father built) and the sincerity of his concern for those in his family (read: gang or crew) is palpable. Dom, and many of the other characters work much like Rocky. Particularly, from the first "Rocky", that is to say they are dopey but emotionally sincere. For me, Dom's strongest moment with dialogue comes when he is giving Brian the history of the car he and his father built. He describes the tragic death of his father in said car, which he renovated in the years after, his nearly beating the driver responsible for the car wreck to death, and all of the subsequent trouble from that. Dom concludes by describing how his worldview has changed since the accident, saying that he lives life "a quarter-mile at a time" and that "during the ten seconds in that car, in a race...I'm free."

The entire movie thematically stems from that line. The people who race in the movies are not merely people who drive cars very quickly, but people whose cars are an extension of who they are. When they race, they feel alive, much like an athlete would when performing in their sport of choice. It is a blend of practical movement with artistry, each driver learning the ins and outs of their vehicle to better perform. A very likely reading is that each car represents some aspect of each character driving it. Perhaps, it wasn't intended and just happened to be there. Either way, it elevates the film from a mere film about racing to a film more about why they race, though only slightly.

The Tyranny of The Spoiler

Dear America,


At this point, all of us of have encountered the dreaded specter of The Spoiler. So frightening is this beast that it forces us to preface numerous articles and comments with the tag "spoiler warning", as though revealing such information will traumatize the reader beyond repair. It seems to have the power to ruin entire television series and movies, books, and even video games. It tempts us with desires to wander over to Wikipedia and peak ahead in a series. It even frames how we conduct ourselves in conversations, making whole chunks of information unmentionable. Well, folks, I'm here to tell you that we don't have to fear being haunted by this vision anymore. The reason for that, quite simply, is because spoilers don't matter.

I've put a lot of thought into why we care so much about spoilers, and I've settled onto a few things. For one, we may worry so much about spoilers concerning a certain character due to our  attachment to said character. Knowing that they die, or that some other unfortunate circumstance finds them, may lead us to not consume said media anymore. Folks, I'm here to say that we're mistaken in doing so. We've put our emphasis on the wrong thing, for when we place all our emphasis on the one character, we neglect to acknowledge the whole of the narrative. This is crucial, for to do so is to neglect the extent of the story being told. We must place that character in the context of the story, for the character is a part of the story. We may then see that the series or movie was quite different than we originally thought.

Another reason we may hold so dearly to spoilers is our elevation of the freshness of our experience with a piece of media. This one, I think, is the easiest to see as misplaced. The truest and deepest sort of spoiler is the first time we consume the media, for all context is gained then. All of the nooks and crannies of the story unfold themselves in the immediate viewing and upon our time looking back at it. We can clearly see character motivations, and the little details of each moment, and we are armed with this knowledge the subsequent times after. The obsession with the sanctity of the First Time holds us back from, again, taking in the whole of the narrative. We focus upon the possibilities of what may happen within the story, and not the story itself.

So, what would it look like to put this greater vision of the narrative into play? The best place to start may be a very well-known film: The Empire Strike Back. One of the most famous moments from this film was the line, "Luke, I am your father." At this point, I hardly think we would consider this to be a spoiler since this line has permeated so much of our culture. Yet, I don't doubt that some of us would feel inclined to offer some sort of protest as to not spoil the moment. Well, I can tell you that we should not worry, and we should not protest this piece of information. For, this piece of information is not the most important part, on its own. Its power is granted by the context gained by observing what came before, and reflecting back upon it by seeing what came after.

Luke, a farm boy on a desert planet, learns that he the latest in a line of intergalactic warriors known as the Jedi. He also learns that one of the leaders of the Empire, the oppressive force dominating the galaxy, is also a Jedi, though an evil one. Luke develops as a warrior over the course of the first film, even going so far as to destroy the Death Star, a massive space station that the Empire uses to destroy planets. The second film, The Empire Strikes Back, finds Luke continuing to assist the Rebel forces in their battle against the Empire. He continues his training with the Jedi Master Yoda on the planet of Dagobah, where he learns to confront his own fears and learns of an element of this dark Jedi, Darth Vader. While training, he learns that Vader has his friends held hostage, so he rushes to Cloud City to rescue them, all the while Yoda tells him he is not prepared.

He arrives, attempts to fight, and is promptly defeated. One of his hands is cut off by Vader's lightsaber, and he is dangling for dear life upon a spire. Vader looks down at him and asks him if he knows of his father. Luke says that he knows enough; that Vader killed his father. Vader then says "I AM YOUR FATHER!" Luke is distraught, crushed, and dumbfounded. He screams out in rage and pain. This man, his actual father, is responsible for the death of millions and the death of Luke's adoptive parents, his uncle and aunt. All of Luke's search for purpose and meaning contained an element of the search for where he came from, and now he knows: he comes from the darkest source of all.

Now, it should be clear that the importance of the moment wasn't in the moment itself, but in what lead up to it. The important part wasn't the iconic line by Vader, but what that line meant for Luke. Knowing that Vader is his father means nothing in the first film since we haven't had the context of both films. The line is a culmination of moments that requires the moments before for meaning.

So, good people, we need not bow to the Sacred Cow any longer. It has chained us down, and held us back. The only reason spoilers have any power is because we give them such. Stories are made of many parts that work in conjunction with each other that lead us to feel something and to say something to us. Disproportionately elevating one part of this Whole only serves to, in the long run, cheapen the experience. Due to the interplay of our consumption of stories and the artists that create them, embracing stories based only on shock or stories based on their ability to trend (the kinds of things that seem to really fuel the idolatry of the spoiler) can suggest to the artist and the patrons of the artists that this is what works. We deserve better. We can have stories that resonate with us, while being tightly plotted, while also being fun. We can learn more about the language of storytelling so that we may be more educated consumers, thus being more open to the whole of a narrative. It may be a hard road, America, but I think that it's possible. I've come to melt down this Golden Calf, Spoilers, and remold it into a throne. Upon this throne, we shall place Elevated Narrative Appreciation. It certainly makes for a much more worthy idol.


          Sincerely,
               Your Baby Boy,
    Fredrick Maxwell

Growing Pains in Art Criticism

Yesterday, I attempted to write up a review of the first season of Netflix's "Daredevil." I say "attempted" because, after two hours, I had only two paragraphs. That's certainly less than anticipated, and it lead me to wonder why it seemed so difficult. I had watched every episode, fully intent on catching every detail and plot point. What was it that kept me from producing a review of resonable length that I felt satisfied with? Eventually, I came to a conclusion: I was attempting to review an entire season as though I was reviewing a movie. The two have totally different formats that just don't lend (at least for me) to similar reviews.

It took me breaking it down on a basic level. A film is, usually, an entire story that is told and concluded within one sitting (clearly this excludes franchise based films). This can run around a maximum of three hours, and is easily consumable. A television series, on the other hand, takes much more time to consume. For Daredevil, that would mean around thirteen hours of material to sort through, and that certainly more difficult than a mere three.

Going further, television is in the business of longform storytelling. Each episode can be seen as a chapter that is also self-contained. For example, something like "Game of Thrones", may function as a minature film during each episode, telling an entire story but functioning within the larger picture of a season. Reviewing such a thing would take my looking at the first episode and the parts within, then doing the same thing with the second but putting it in context with the first. This would go on and on until the end of the season.

Now, I've heard a variety of suggestions of how to "correctly" watch television. Some have suggested waiting until the end of a season to decide how I feel about it. That means watching up to twenty hours of material just to decide something that could be decided in the initial three. Even more, that would mean that one mindlessly consumed nearly a day's worth of material before beginning to have any sort of critical thought on it. That seems too close to "turn off your brain" media consumption for me to even begin to take that seriously (I mean, honestly, why on Earth would someone think that "turning off your brain" is an appropriate way to consume media...that kind of thinking is literally the fuel for the majority of reality television, something I will go on record as saying is garbage). Perhaps, it relates more to the reality of the majority of people that consume media not really understanding the language it uses.

At any rate, my official stance is to view a show a few episodes at a time, then review those chunks. I concidered doing one episode at a time, but I don't really have the time to review each episode in the detail I'd like to. Then again, this may change tomorrow, as I'm prone to wildly changing my mind on certain things. I chock this up to my still being a bit green when it comes to this whole "art criticism" businesss. The best thing for me to do is to keep consuming all sorts of media, write a lot, write a lot, and write a lot.

Pushing Aside Nostalgia: The Act of Criticism

I can say, with certainty, that I am only nostalgic towards one thing: Super Mario Brothers on the NES. I remember plenty of times as a a five-year-old when my cousins and I, or my parents and I, or my brother and I would get together and just dig into that game with the intent to wring everything out of it we could. We would search for every secret, get as many extra lives as we could, and even beat our own speed records. These were good times.

That being said, my fond memories attatched to that game in no way influence my feelings on the game's own merits. Don't get me wrong, I think it's an amazing game that saved the video game artform, but that's because of the work done by the game itself. I say this, because it seems we live in the Age of Nostalgia, an age of revisiting old works from one's youth and attempting to judge them not in light of itself, but in the light of our fond memories surrounding it. 

I'm more than inclined to think that any attempt at objective criticism will be hurt by the attempt of the person making the criticism trying to include their own sense of nostaligia into their final asessment.** A good example of this sort of thing is some people's reactions to the "Transformers" films. I've heard many a person say that "it's like all the toys and the cartoons, come to life!" and that, seemingly, be their only assessment of the film, as everything else they say about it ends up revolving around that initial statement. To say what they said, and to mean it, says that they ignored massive sections of the films in favor of the (rather poorly done, dramatically) action sequences. They ignored the character inconsistencies and "maturity" (sexual innuendo, tough-guy posturing, borderline R-rated violence) in favor of the identification with their childhood. 

To state a critique of anything, the best rule of thumb is to take it on its own terms. It doesn't particularly matter if some older iteration of that thing was something you loved as a kid, because this new iteration is just that: a new iteration. It's something different. I don't see any real way to give a film, or movie, or book, or whatever a fair shake if we weigh them down with our nostalgia. 

The same can be said with updated versions of older childeren's works (looking at you again, "Transformers"). It seems some of us wish to age them up with us. As though we aren't content with them simply being works intended for children that we can enjoy as adults (I don't really see anything wrong with that), but that since we are mature then the work itself  must also be mature. That's simply not true. Pixar makes a killing off of creating works aimed towards families, as in, many different age groups. There's the superficial layers of their films and those appeal more to the children. Yet, there are deeper thematic layers for the older ones in the audience, and these things work not with posturing, but with emotional sincerity. 

You have to be willing to look at something you enjoyed as a child and say that it's not so great. If your own emotions towards the piece are stopping you from seeing the possibility of you not particularly thinking that thing is that great, then you are going about critique all wrong. There has to be an openness to reconcideration. Otherwise, you're essentially refusing to grow. 

** Of course, by "objective criticism", I mean approaching a work and judging it on it's own terms.