Thom Yorke: Pretentious

A wee while ago I wrote an album review. It’s not something I do very often, but I prefaced the actual review with my reasoning for not liking music reviews in general. I’ll not repeat it, but you can read it here - http://jcthefirst.blogspot.com/2011/10/album-review-noel-gallaghers-high.html

However, despite all the pretentiousness of album reviews and music magazines in general, sometimes it’s the artists themselves that are the guiltiest of it. And even without having read the following quote, I reckon most people would consider Thom Yorke to be at least at little pretentious. I mean, just listen to the albums if you don’t believe me. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great albums (well, some of them) but you can’t deny Thom is a pretentious fella.

So, for me, anyone that spews this kind of bollocks doesn’t deserve to actually ever speak about his own songs ever again.


"'Street Spirit' is our purest song, but I didn't write it. It wrote itself. We were just its messengers; its biological catalysts. Its core is a complete mystery to me, and, you know, I wouldn't ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve. 'Street Spirit' has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song. It's called detachment. Especially me; I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn't play it. I'd crack. I'd break down on stage. That's why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning. I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together. That's what's meant by 'all these things you'll one day swallow whole'. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn't have it in me to articulate the emotion. I'd crack...

Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don't realise what they're listening to. They don't realise that 'Street Spirit' is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes, and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he'll get the last laugh. And it's real, and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I'd crack.

I can't believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song. That's why I'm convinced that they don't know what it's about. It's why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you're going to have your dog put down and it's wagging its tail on the way there. That's what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn't picked us as its catalysts, and so I don't claim it. It asks too much. I didn't write that song."

Fuck off, Thom. You wrote a great song that sounds a little depressing. Get over it.

And yourself.

After all that I feel this little comic sums it up even better.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyLmJeTmvB8r5sY0Bngek8gtnxc0OcDl7KkASZh2XoIOJ1RyUcq_hjzmpD34oSGnUJVjj2sRjH8Sxk1jNiapWn0Cq7h6-52sAcPrMAlCn7nmVktrB-4xs2reb8dvpSihD5slZmBD2w2yw/s1600/1289656223384.png

And besides, The Bends is your best album. After that, it all went downhill and people are just kidding themselves that your albums are still good.

Here's a wee funny Thom gif to let you know he's not all bad. It really makes me smile.

Cheers
JC

GAME REVIEW - Batman: Arkham City

Back in 2009, Arkham Asylum was released and was easily the best Batman game there had ever been (not hard), and was possibly the best game of that year (slightly harder). With the weight of expectation for a sequel that was just as good, developers Rocksteady were under a lot of pressure. Thankfully with Arkham City, they’ve created a game that is every bit as good as its predecessor.

Starting off with Bruce Wayne getting thrown into Arkham City, a slice of Gotham cordoned off and being used as a prison, you have to escape from Hugo Strange, suit up and get to the bottom of whatever the not-so-good doctor is up to. Eventually you find out he’s up to something called Protocol 10, but this main campaign strand is only one small part of the game, which has so much more to offer.

Essentially, City is exactly the same as Asylum only in a bigger playground. While it adds nothing completely new gameplay wise, the open world is a nice touch meaning you don’t have to do the story missions until you want to, and can just fly about the city beating up thugs and solving the riddles that have been scattered about the city. With the bigger game world, Rocksteady have room to add pretty much every Batman villain you could think of; all the big hitters are present (Joker, Penguin, Two Face) as well as some 2nd tier Batman villains (Mad Hatter, Zsasz, Deadshot) and each of these villains have their own distinct missions for you to complete. These extra side missions add hours of extra gameplay that you can complete or choose to ignore. Many times though, these missions are far more enjoyable (and harder) than the main game. The Riddler challenges are back as well, and form the biggest non-campaign part of the game. There are about 3 times as many as there were in Arkham Asylum, and they’re a lot harder as well. In fact this time, the Riddler has captured some hostages this time and it’s up to you to save them by solving a series of his puzzles. These quite often were my favourite parts of the game, having a different flavour than just punching a whole load of guys.

But punching a whole load of guys is still awesome fun, by the way.

Also, included in all new copies of Arkham City is a downloadable code for some Catwoman side missions which are intercut into the game’s plot at certain points. This adds another few hours of gameplay as well as new Riddler trophies to find as Catwoman. It’s a nice change of pace to play as another character every now and again, and certain missions as Catwoman are easily better and more fun than some of those you play as Bats.

The fighting mechanics are the same as they were before, but which some extra moves and gadgets thrown in as well all with easy quick fire button commands which enables you to use them in combat without ever losing your combo. Thankfully Batman has all of the gadgets he spent so long trying to get in Asylum, so at the start of the game you have all your tools at your disposal.

With the bigger playing area traversing the city quickly is a necessity, and there are some new gliding mechanics designed to make flying about Arkham City as fluid as possible, especially when you combine it with your grapple hook. In fact, if you perfect it you can get around the whole city without ever having to touch the ground although it is a lot of fun dive bombing from a great height and scaring the crap out of a group of thugs, before knocking the crap out of them. The city itself is beautifully realised with familiar locations scattered about (Crime Alley is there as well, and it contains a quite frankly lovely moment) as well as buildings that can be (and in most cases have to be) explored. In fact, just as with the first the greatest triumph of this game is that it really makes you feel like the world’s greatest detective. And that’s all I ask of it really.

If I had one complaint, and it’s a silly one really, it’s that it doesn’t feel as fresh as Arkham Asylum, and there are no real surprises like the Scarecrow sections (although Ra’s Al Ghul’s demon trials and the Lazarus Pit come close) but as a sequel it’s going to be hard to do that without changing everything that made the first game so special.

So, in conclusion, a worthy sequel to one of 2009’s best games and one of this year’s best as well.

4 stars

GAME REVIEW: LIMBO

[This short (but brilliant) game shall be getting a short (and hopefully brilliant) review.]

Games very rarely astound me.

Games very rarely astound me for reasons I cannot explain.

LIMBO astounded me.

I cannot explain why.

No cut scenes, no explanation, no words, no instructions. Just you, an impressively realised black and white world and some of the best sound design I’ve ever witnessed.

You start the game waking up in what looks like a forest, you walk right, you have a lot of different and treacherous terrain to cross and only the environment around you to help you. Or kill you. You’re looking for your lost sister. Everything else wants to kill you, for reasons unknown.

The joy of LIMBO is that it doesn’t ever treat you like an idiot. There are no hints or tips on how to progress; you just have to work it out for yourself using the environment. And if you get stuck, well, just keep trying. The solution is there, you’re just too dumb to see it. The only other game I could compare it to is Portal, which is kind of similar with all the puzzle elements, but at the same time it’s nothing like Portal.

It’s very rare a game offers up no definite resolution. Without spoiling anything, I’m still thinking about the end of LIMBO three days after completing it. There are a lot of theories on what the game world of LIMBO actually is, and what actually happened throughout the game, but I was incredibly impressed with the bold ending and its implications when you consider it in the context of the entire game. So, an existentialist game that causes you to think, as well as solving a series of devilishly difficult puzzles.

And it has a giant spider. Aces.

To paraphrase Morpheus, you cannot be told what LIMBO is. You have to play it for yourself.

5 stars, easily.

Movie Sunday/Sundae

So, yesterday, I decided I was going to watch a few movies that I'd been planning on watching but for whatever reason had been putting off, on what I have christened Movie Sunday/Sundae. Here's my thoughts on them:

[REC]2

I loved the first [REC]. When I saw it for the first time almost 2 years ago, it was probably the scariest movie I’d seen for a long time. My dad will probably agree with me. I bought the sequel the day it came out.

And while it doesn’t reach the heights of the first, it’s still a solid entry into what I hope will become a strong franchise ([REC]’s 3 and 4 have already been greenlit). The story picks up minutes after the first ended as we follow a group of heavily armed soldiers entering the building to find out what’s the hell is going on. Cleverly, instead of following one camera for the whole movie, each of the soldiers has a little headcam so we get lots of different viewpoints throughout the film, whether it’s following a soldier as he crawls through a vent (terrifying, by the way) or watching the other soldiers patch in to a missing soldier’s headcam to find out where he is.

However, it does add some story elements that, while expanding the universe, make it a little less believable. In the first, everything just seemed so random, shit-hitting-the-fan for no reason. In this the outbreak is explained away as almost a conspiracy; a conspiracy involving the Vatican(!). It loses some of the realness that the first had. And the whole night vision revelation is a little too far fetched for my liking.

However, it’s still scary and it’s still awesome, with a killer/disgusting last scene that makes me hungry for the next installment.

4 stars


Catfish

If you’ve seen the trailer for this, you’re probably expecting an unsuspecting man to become friends with a girl on Facebook, who then flies out to meet her only to discover she, and her family, are a bunch of serial killers or something.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Well, actually it is mostly true. Apart from the serial killer part. A young photographer (Nev) meets a little 8 year old girl on Facebook after she has been sending him her paintings of some of his photos , and begins corresponding with the girl herself, her mother and her attractive sister (see below). As time goes on, an almost romance blossoms between Nev and the sister, entirely via Facebook, telephone, text and email. When Nev discovers some discrepancies in what his online ‘girlfriend’ has been telling him, he flies out to meet her. And that’s when things get really interesting.

I’ll not say anything more so as not to gave the game away, but this documentary is a great insight into the power (and perils) of the internet, and one that will have you constantly changing your mind about the people involved right up until the end.

4 stars


Attack the Block

The directorial debut of Joe Cornish (of Adam and Joe fame) set in a council tower block which comes under attack from aliens was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There were a few things I liked about it, but at the same time there were a lot of things that brought it down.

Firstly the good. I loved loved loved the design of the aliens; just pure black with rows of luminous teeth. An inspired design, and while never out and out scary they make a lasting impression, like a furrier version of the xenomorph, all teeth and no eyes.

However I could not enjoy the film wholly, due to the fact that the main characters are such scumbags for most of the running time. When you introduce your characters by showing them mugging a woman you have to do a hell of a lot throughout the movie to make them seem like redeemable characters. The leader of the gang, Moses, while having somewhat of a redemptive arc during the movie didn’t really have enough of one to convince me that this guy is the hero, and that I should be rooting for him.

Reviewers have noted that the film has some scathing social commentary within it. Well sorry, but when the only social commentary is “some hoodies are just products of their environment and not really that bad” it’s not enough for me. Especially when at the end, it doesn’t seem as though Moses has changed any. Just that he saved the day after feeling guilty for causing some of the deaths of his friends; if anything, to me, the film suggests that he’ll not change at all with the residents of the block (who didn’t all know about the aliens) basically cheering him on for blowing up his flat and for being arrested by the police.

I also didn’t think the film was as funny or as scary as it was advertised as being. I can forgive it for not being funny, as that seemed like the marketing people advertised it as such, not really a fault of the film. But it wasn’t scary either which I believe was to be the point of it.

So overall, it’s a technically accomplished film with fine performances, but ultimately for me kind of a hollow experience, blud.

2 stars

Anyway, I hope to do another Sundae next week.

Bye, JC.