Mono!

Hey, remember when I said month wisdom! Aren't I funny.
Here's some catching up with me (brace yourself).

• I suck at any kind of timed thing, challenge or even something as leisurely as a blog post, so I'm going to schedule the next three months of the monthly wisdom to release over the next three weeks.
• I also have been watching lots of movies, playing lots of games, so I'll be talking about all the hype, all the cool things, and maybe even with it being relevant, a little about Bond. (or not, by the time I get round to it, it won't be relevant anymore)
• I'm doing game development, since it's a major hobby of mine, hopefully a future career.

So there's something to dread if you didn't know it already.

The game I'm currently making (there are two, but one's more of an assist job) is called Mono. This is a project that is currently being forged from the blood of the ancient Greek gods (whom I personally slayed) and is due to release about quarter-past never.


For the moment, there is no downloadable version.


So yeah. Have fun with that.

Monthly Dose of Pretentious Wisdom: #1

Picture Pet Peeves (yay, alliteration)

Checklist for an tolerable photo/video:

  - Is it vertical video? If so, delete.
  - Is it a Vine? If so, delete.
  - Is it supposed to be making people tilt their heads or turn off auto-rotate? If so, delete or rotate to normal.
  - Is it a selfie? If so.. is it stupid? If so, delete.
  - Is it pretentious? If so, post it to Imgur. Because who gives a shit about Facebook, or Twitter or Instagram. (Shh...)
  - If it does not meet those requirements, read the above again.

P.S. I originally said this was weekly. Ha. I'm so funny.

Obligatory Psuedo-Pretentious Film: Punch-Drunk Love

This is the first post of hopefully many where I will be choosing a film to rant about for a page in a semi-scheduled basis. Once every month, me thinks.

This June, we have:

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) 

Directed by P.T. Anderson (of Magnolia, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and The Master fame). Also, he won the Best Director award at Cannes for this film.

Mandatory Wikipedia page here.

Starring:

• Adam Sandler (yes, don't piss yourselves)
• Emily Watson
• Philip Seymour Hoffman
• The omnipresence of a box office bomb.

Yes, this was in fact a box office bomb. As Adam Sandler's (of Grown-Ups 1/2 along other shit-stain fame) first comedic departure (something he's actually rather good at - departing from comedy, not being comedic), this film failed horrendously, and I guess as such he did very little else other than comedy except Reign Over Me and Funny People. Despite this, this film was well received (critically at least), getting a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. That makes this the highest rated Adam Sandler film to date on Rotten Tomatoes (not including cameos, like Top Five).

Plot:

Spoiler free here, there may be a spoiler version, but there isn't an awful lot that I can spoil that means anything without watching the whole film. Also not necessarily entirely chronological here. While the film is told chronologically, it would seem that I'm an imbecile who doesn't know how to write. Would explain some things if I'm honest.

Barry.

So, Adam Sandler plays Barry Egan, a quirky but seemly friendly guy who makes a meagre living selling novelty plungers, or as he calls them, 'fungers'.

Constantly agitated due to his seven sisters (seemingly light-hearted) verbal abuse, and generally confused to 'normal' society, he is approached by one of his sisters (Elizabeth, played by Mary Lynn Rajskub) about bringing a friend to a birthday party taking place for another one of Barry's sisters.

Elizabeth.

Earlier that morning, Barry meets a woman (played by Emily Watson) after she arrives at his work in the morning, leaving her car and keys with him so that the mechanic can work on her car while she's away.

Lena and Barry at dinner.

After some work, Barry does arrive at the party, but only after four calls from his sisters ensuring he'll be there. Luckily for Barry, the friend Elizabeth was planning on bringing couldn't make it.

I can't really describe what happens here, but the work scene shares this too.
This film builds tension here. Mainly through social anxiety, something Barry would appear to suffer with. I can't reveal what does happen here, but it allows Sandler to really show his actual talent.

Please don't shoot me, but it's true.
Sandler can act.

Actually based off a true story. A person did this. Honest.

Upon discovering a promotion for Healthy Choice and American Airlines, Barry notices that any 10 products from Healthy Choice that he buys, he gets 500 frequent flier miles.

Although earlier, Barry does call the company to inform them of the monetary value and the potential exploitation of the offer, Barry finds that the pudding, which is $1 for 4 cups, allows him to rack up miles like no-one's business. 

Unfortunately, he doesn't travel.

Unfortunately an impeccable actor who is now lost to us.

There is a story arc here that involves a phone sex line, some gangs and Philip Seymour Hoffman yelling very loud down a phone a lot.

That's not placeholder text, but instead I think that it would be worth watching the film to experience it. It is quite a sub-plot.

In the morning, Elizabeth approaches him with her friend, none other than Lena, the girl he met with the car near the beginning. This once again, is teeming with social anxiety. I feel like this is the epitome of social anxiety portrayal in film, through visual metaphors and actual awkward dialogue. Turns out Lena will be going to Hawaii very soon. What a convenient use for pudding.

Soundtrack:

So, with the main setup for the plot covered, I figured I'd move to something really impressive, which is Jon Brion's soundtrack for this film. It's amazing. There is a track called 'Hands and Feet' (for some reason) which is used in the scene mentioned above, and while it feels a little out of place on its own (and that's an understatement), you can get the idea of how odd yet charming this soundtrack is. The trailer especially makes use of the soundtrack in a way that really sets the tone.

The soundtrack and film has the harmonium somehow involved in most tracks and in a couple scenes, especially near the beginning and end.


Cinematography:

It's a P.T. Anderson movie with the cinematographer being Robert Elswit.

[Translation: The cinematography is stunning, using camera techniques to echo Kubrick and using lens flare and colour uniquely to represent development or emotion. It also is using long shots and long tracking shots to add a sense of fluidity to the film. Kudos to Robert Elswit, seriously.]

Overall:


Punch-Drunk Love, while a box office bomb, really shines to me as a film about sweet love and issues that we may try to mask for the sake of appearances. Adam Sandler is stunning, as is all the cast, and I really wish Sandler did more stuff that wasn't crap*.










* For the record, I like Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer, but they aren't exactly masterpieces.

TL;DR: This appears on screen and shifts for > 40 seconds.

You know it's an art-house film when you sit through approximately 40 seconds of moving colours and other video artwork by Jeremy Blake set to a messed up soundtrack of... kinda foreshadowing? I don't know.

Hurrah for Jeremy Blake, I suppose?

Videos (in links) belong to 'zenbullets' and 'Art Dater'. Don't sue me please.
Fair Use? Is that a thing?

Lack of Activity

Due to mandatory scheduled maintenance*, there has been no content.
Hopefully I can resume soon.

*Maintenance = laziness.

Deemed Tolerable by Me: Portal

So, I've decided that I will be doing reviews now. Could be of anything. Films, games, anything that a perfectly average pretentious geek would run into. Except Amnesia - not reviewing or touching Amnesia. Only criteria is that it has to have some sliver of a redeeming factor - so no Ride to Hell either.

Starting off yet again with one of my favourite if not the favourite game in my Steam library, Portal.

My first skirmish with Portal was brief - I saw it mentioned quickly in a record book and then never seen again. It, of course, being a Valve game, piqued my interest and before long it had me invested in its entire whopping 20 minute duration. Yet somehow, while it feels so easy to slate the game for having a running time about as long as a Twiglet, and don't sue me for saying that, I still adore this game - which kind of means all signs say I should have picked another game for the first in a "deemed tolerable" list. I think it's the joy of finishing the tests and finally getting the satisfaction which to some extents the player could crave. Portal 2 briefly touches upon this subject in its 8th or so chapter, "The Itch", in which {spoiler} becomes so increasingly desperate for satisfaction (scratching the "itch") that they ask you to do the test over and over again to make them feel the pseudo euphoria that sweeps them when you finish a test. This did not work for them by the way, which is probably why people stopped enjoying Call of Duty recently, and more topically the new Battlefield Hardline beta, AKA Battlefield: Chemical Brothers remix.

Back from tangent land, I think not only the way the tests feel when you complete them, the flow of the tests (save some of the last chapters, which flow about as well as me trying to rap) are really, really nice. It just clicks in a weird, lovely way. The momentum mechanics (Source Engine strikes again), the dialogue monologue, storyline and atmosphere all blend well together to form a lovely pile of cake and cubes, one of which is a lie. 

(No, I'm not even slightly sorry.)

(This better not be in Times New Roman for you.)

Portal 2: PTI Misadventures Introduction

I've been kind of stumped for ideas to post here, which is kind of bad, since blogs needs ideas. I guess I must have really wanted this name before anyone else. So, with some help from some people (who definitely aren't/isn't just my sister), I decided to start with something I love. Portal 2. Although I prefer Portal to Portal 2, Portal 2 has a nice editor, and while I personally am no stranger to the Source SDK, alienation on post no. #2 isn't something I particularly desire to achieve. So indeed, I've decided to start a little 'PTI Misadventures' series, where I misadventure into the... PTI. Kind of self explanatory I guess.

(Did I tell you how the first instalation of this was ready and then I deleted it by accident? Now you know.)

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome.
Wait, no.

Hello and welcome to Pretentious Geek - bringing you font family problems since 2015.
Quite young, really.