V.G. Movies #47: Second Skin.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

(Special Note: This was originally supposed to be Ace Attorney, but that movie proved impossible to find. So I had to go back a few years and pop in another documentary.)

THE HISTORY

This year I've talked about films based on practically every type of video game: fighters, platformers, first-person shooters, simulators, horror, action/adventure, side-scrollers, volleyball, mission-based, puzzles, and role playing. I've talked about everything from arcade to console and at least one computer-based. But in this year, I have not talked about one of the biggest and most addictive genres currently available (next to first person shooters)--MMORPGs.

The Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game genre is for the most hardcore of hardcore gamers. Why? Because it takes all your time, money, and personal investment to play. Like regular RPGs, you get a character (though oftentimes you get to create that character nearly from scratch) and get to choose his or her destiny and evolution. But unlike regular RPGs, the worlds expand and evolve even when the player isn't playing as the games take place entirely online.

The genre pretty much began before it was even a genre, if that makes sense, with Dungeons & Dragons. This game inspired many types of early online games called MUDs, or Multi-User Dungeons. These were typically text-based adventure/fantasy games where you pretty much played D&D (or something similar) over an internet connection in a chat room-type setting. (They, of course, evolved from there.) MUDs soon became graphical MUDs, which--if you couldn't figure it out--added graphics to the text-based setting.

The first major fully graphical interface, multi-user RPG was Neverwinter Nights in 1991. These games continued evolving until 1997 when a man named Richard Garriott released a game called Ultima Online and coined the term MMORPG, and the genre hit its stride and became popular in 1999 with a game called EverQuest. Many incredibly popular games came out after, both for free and for pay. But none could ever come close (before or after) to the success of the fourth installment to a real-time strategy series called Warcraft. The fourth venture into the world of Azeroth changed its genre to MMORPG and has since become the most popular and best selling of its kind.

Unfortunately, with this came a whole new world of psychological studies. People became legitimately addicted, risking personal lives, health, and job security to continue playing WoW and other games like it. Entirely new ways of interacting began happening, including to the point of online marriages. These are games that can be fun in moderation but have literally destroyed many lives in the process. The following documentary follows the stories of some of these people.

THE FILM

This is normally where I talk about the film's story or characters, but there's nothing really concrete or central to really focus on. The film actually focuses more on the positives and negatives of MMORPGs and gaming addiction rather than looking at the games themselves. There are a couple constant people and stories to follow, which includes a couple who falls in love online, a group of friends who struggle to balance social lives with gaming, a woman whose son was a huge gamer and drove her to start up a self-help group for addicted gamers, and a guy who completely hits rock bottom due to gaming and seeks help.

This documentary's biggest issue is that it has a weak "thesis statement" (to put it in academic terms) and is, therefore, all over the place. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to say. What point is it trying to make? Yes, it has a fair and balanced look at the positives and negatives of online gaming. But at the same time, it throws in all these other things, like Chinese Gold Farms ("illegal" aspects of these games where what are essentially technical support sweat shops in China are run where people can use real life money to buy in-game gold to level up their characters faster). And then there are things like focusing on people who are clearly psychologically imbalanced (or, in some cases, socially incapable) prior to being involved in gaming, so it's not exactly a fair look.

A lot of these people in this movie are incredibly unlikable. Of course, not all of them... but a good chunk. For instance, there's one story where a guy's wife is pregnant with twins. She ends up delivering both but nearly dies during childbirth. This sends a bit of a reality check to the gamer husband (though not for long, as he does eventually become obsessed again). Immediately after this happens, his gamer friend comments that what sucks is his friend is going to stop or slow down on gaming now. Yes, that is the terrible thing that is happening in all of this.

The most memorable story is a guy named Dan who hits rock bottom because of gaming--he loses his business, his relationship, and his home. He considers suicide because his life is in shambles. So he goes online and finds this gaming addiction anonymous place run by an older woman named Liz. She proclaims she even goes so far as to have a safe house for people considering suicide, which Dan eventually goes to. Liz is another personality they interview throughout, and she's pretty strong against online gaming and how it ruins lives. As it turns out, she's a bit of a crazy lady who actually suffered a personal tragedy and decided to blame gaming for the issues. But this 12-step anonymous program she started was worthless; the safe house was nothing more than her own house that she would force Dan to sign a lease for*; and she would go around and demean and insult Dan in front of everybody else. (*Note: Some of this information came from a personal interview from Dan after the film was released.) The program was useless, and it's somewhat implied that this woman's domineering attitude might have been at least been partially responsible for the tragedy she faced.

The film also focuses pretty heavily on romantic relationships formed through MMORPGs, though the film doesn't really come to much of a conclusion on the matter. The primary couple meet playing EverQuest II (one's from Florida and the other is from Texas). As the film portrays them, it's clear both of these people have issues--the guy is a bit of a loner with social problems and the girl is the type who probably identifies with Bella from Twlight... she falls deeply in love easily and is too insecure about herself to drop a failing relationship. There are red flags everywhere, and the two have zero chemistry (at least on screen), but she ends up making him move to Florida to live with her in a new house they got together. As far as I know, they're still together, so more power to 'em.

On the flip side, the documentary also shows how things could work in a very positive light. There are couples interviewed sporadically that met online and work well together (though these sections are more of an ad for online dating than MMO players). There are experts who discuss the psychological aspects of why people play these games, and it totally makes sense. One of my favorite aspects of the movie is one of the shortest--it shows a young man named Andrew Monkelban who is mute and is mostly paralyzed from cerebral palsy. All he could do is move one of his index fingers, which is how he typed and would play these MMOs. As the story goes, the director found him while playing online and got to know him... but he didn't know about Andrew's condition until they met. The director was incredibly uncomfortable during their interview and didn't stick around too long. (This is immediately followed by another brief interview with another handicapped person who shares similar sentiments.) I would have loved to see more on that aspect of this subject. What about these people who need to escape to these online worlds because that's the best way they can live and be free to be who they are on the inside? That's the best way to express themselves.

Instead, what we end up with is a mostly depressing and confused documentary. It would have even worked had they spent the majority of the film on the negative and then, bam, pulled out the positive for the last third to show it's not all lunatics or people with addictive personalities who play MMORPGs. I mean, this is a bit of an overstatement, but this film is like the Requiem for a Dream of online gamers. It's just uncomfortable to sit through most of the time. The negative far outweighs the positive. It's pretty clear that the director saw this as an easy documentary subject to show a negative side to gaming, but the more he got into it, the more he saw that wasn't the case... so he tried to put in some very positive things in there, too, but it was a too little too late kind of thing. All of that being said, it's not a bad film, and it does have some really interesting aspects to it, but I do believe it shows a lot of things a bit unfairly and misrepresents some other things by leaving out some key information.


Stop Saying OK! OK.

Screener Review: Clickin' For Love.

So yeah, I finally got a "screener" DVD. Does that mean I'm starting to head in the right direction? Anywho, this isn't about me, but the movie. And this particular movie is actually a documentary. I should say that I'm not a big "doc" person, and it takes a lot for me to really love a documentary. My favorites are the ones that are more narrative (King of Kong or Man on Wire, for instance).

This one, however, is mostly interviews. Director Pablo Pappano interviews a virtual cornucopia (no pun intended) of people who have tried, are trying, or have general opinions about online dating. I believe it was Pappano's goal to make a film that explored and showed the ups and downs of online dating, particularly since he himself found love through the medium. There are plenty of fish to choose from in this doc, from a girl named Rain to an older woman named Judy Garland... and even a middle-aged man who lives and breathes swinging and sex.

First I'd like to talk about the cast of characters. There are probably 4-5 main people with a few others sprinkled in throughout. To me, the majority of these people were pretty unlikable, unfortunately. At the very least, they were unstable, which doesn't shed a positive light on online dating, which I think is the opposite of the point trying to be made with the doc. The Asian guy was borderline offensive. Audrey, I believe her name is, was kinda crazy (like... crazy crazy) and not really allowing me to feel for her. Judy was actually the most likable of the cast. She was just a total sweetheart and I really felt for her story. But the one that stuck out to me, and probably will always stick out to me, is the swinger, Marty. Marty was disgusting yet oddly fascinating and quite funny in an over-the-top caricature kind of way. For the first half of the movie, I found myself just trying to get a handle on this guy. I couldn't believe half the stuff coming out of this guy's mouth, especially in comparison to everyone else. By the time he pulls out the sex swing or the black book, I'm trying not to laugh hysterically at just how absurd he really is (and I mean that in all the right ways, Marty, if you ever read this). The dude is a total hoot and is really one of the most memorable parts of the whole documentary.

There's another guy, too, I wanted to mention. I can't remember his name, but there's a narrative sprinkled throughout the movie of a guy using internet dating for the first time. He just got out of a relationship and wanted something easy. He gets on craigslist and finds a girl where the same thing has happened and she wants something easy. Despite the whole thing being kinda creepy, I really think the movie could have used a lot more of this narrative more often. Like I said earlier, I like my documentaries with fuller narratives. Had there been more of him maybe juxtaposed with the questions and scenarios being asked of the interviewees (kinda like them discussing their experiences and then us seeing one happen first-hand), the movie could have been much tighter.

Another thing I could have used more of was the animated sequences. Around the middle, there were about 2-3 animated flashbacks that reenacted moments that the interviewees discussed. This was a really great idea, and one that really got me excited even in the trailer. But it was horribly underused, and I wish I could have seen more of this.

The way questions are introduced, too, is very creative. Sometimes the questions are typed onto the screen (this was the most common way). Then later, a TV interview is introduced, and the interviewee discussions are based on comments the TV guy mentions. Those, I felt, was really creative and fun. And they were really consistent.

Overall, the cast of characters were insane (literally), and some bizarrely funny. The first 30 minutes are kinda slow, but it picks up after that. Unfortunately, the movie seems to lose purpose for a while, turning from a study of online dating to a focus on the personal lives of these people. While fascinating in most cases, it made the documentary feel unbalanced. The uneven quality either with the scattered narrative case, the coming-and-going of certain interviewees, the unfortunate lack of more animated bits, among other things made it sink ever so slightly for me. However, all that being said, it was all quite entertaining and definitely held my attention. And while the end product could have been a bit tighter, for what it is, I definitely think it's worth a look.


I Am McLovin!

(P.S. I love how the final "where they are now" bits at the end were fun in how they kinda poked fun at these people, showing that the director did realize how strange his cast actually was.)

(P.P.S. For more information you can check out the main website: Clickin' For Love.)

(P.P.P.S. I made a name mistake. I called Audrey, Colleen. That has been fixed.)

2 In 1: Restrepo And Exit Through The Gift Shop.

There's really only one thing connecting these two movies: they're critically acclaimed documentaries from this year. I'm sure I can think of something silly if I dig deep (perhaps that both are docs that will mess with your head), but I'm too lazy for that. So without further ado, I'll just get into them in the order I watched them.

Restrepo.

I had to force myself to watch this, as I knew it was going to be a tough watch. I don't watch documentaries or war films on a regular basis, so it would be hard on that front, but of course, I knew the subject material was going to be really rough and upsetting. And it was. This documentary follows a year in the life of the Second Platoon in Afghanistan's most dangerous valley. After the death of "Doc" Restrepo, the unit builds a new outpost (O.P.) in a strategic area and call it O.P. Restrepo after their fallen friend. The rest of the documentary details the unit's triumphs and failures at O.P. Restrepo and on the battlefield.

As I said, this was a tough film to watch as people were dying every 10-15 minutes. And this kind of brings in my biggest issue with the documentary. There are constantly new people showing up in the documentary that it starts becoming difficult differentiating between who is who. There is a main cast of people it focuses on--primarily in the 'interviews' that take place after-the-fact. But while in the valley, there were new people showing up all the time, throughout the entire documentary, and it never explains where these people are coming from. Were they there the whole time and you're just now showing them? Are they new recruits? What's going on?

Also, if the film really wanted to use pathos on its audience, it could have done a lot more. I mean, there's a lot of pathos there, but when it mentions people who have died, my only reaction was "... who was that?" The way they're talked about, it's as if we'd been following them the whole time, but we haven't. If the filmmakers wanted the pain of war to hit hard, then they needed to show these people, let us get to know them so then when they died, we have a stronger reaction of "Holy crap, war totally sucks." We still get that from the film, but it's not as strong of a message as it could have been.

Or was that really the message? There were a few instances where I couldn't tell if this was a pro- or anti-war film. A good handful of the soldiers, despite hating it there, were a bit gun- and kill-happy. There's a particular scene I remember where the soldiers are celebrating because they shot up a guy and his limbs, apparently, started flying everywhere. And they were ecstatic about this. They were elated that they not only killed but supposedly mutilated another human being. Then there was a time when the main soldier guy (I can't remember his name, sorry) was upset that he had accidentally killed innocents in a bombing, but his reaction, despite being upset, was basically "well, it was their fault for living among terrorists. Moving on." Maybe that was his way of rationalizing the event so to not be driven mad, but it just feels so... wrong.

Because of these kinds of things, I wasn't sure whether the film was trying to show me the detriments of war and how it affects its soldiers or how, if it weren't for these soldiers and O.P. Restrepo, that section of Afghanistan would be an even worse hellhole than it is (thus showing the benefits of war). So I guess thematically and emotionally, the film could have been done stronger. Or maybe the point was to show the morally gray area that war resides in, how it can do both good and bad, how it affects all sides.

Regardless, it was still a powerful film. The highlight is the Mission Rock Avalanche segment near the end. That whole part of the film was very tense where they just explain (instead of show) how things started going wrong, how one guy in particular got shot up and nearly died, and how close everyone really came to dying (though a couple did). But then it goes and shows parts, and there's a very real moment (I know that's kinda weird to say for a documentary) where this soldier just loses it emotionally and breaks down when he sees one of his fallen comrades. On the whole, if you're into intense documentaries and/or you like to subject of war, then this is definitely a film to check out.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

Exit Through The Gift Shop.

This movie made my head hurt. It's a documentary directed by a street artist (Banksy) about a Frenchman (Thierry Guetta) who starts making a documentary about street artists--including Banksy--but then becomes a street artist himself, only to have Banksy take over his documentary and change the subject of said documentary around. And in the end, it's not even a certainty that any of this documentary is even true. It's basically as if Charlie Kaufman made a documentary.

Thierry Guetta is a total nutball dipshit, to put it nicely. He's introduced to us as a family man who carries around a video camera filming every second of his life, then stores the tapes away in containers never to view them. He's very slow and naive, unable to form coherent thoughts or sentences (even taking into account English isn't his first language) and unable to comprehend even the most common sense notions. And even if it weren't for the fact that every single person in the documentary tells you how insane and stupid Thierry appears to be, you'd still be able to tell that they didn't exactly like him. Hell, even his cousin won't talk to him anymore (according to the closing information, anyway).

Now that we have our main character, we're taken on a ride into the semi-illegal (they never say straight-up if it's illegal or not what they do--graffiti is illegal, but they don't exactly do "graffiti") world of street art. There are different kinds of street art, as well. There are those like Space Invader who put images of the Space Invader aliens up around cities. There are those like Shepard Fairey who put up giant sheets of Andre the Giant with "Obey" underneath (though he's moreso known now for his famous rendering of President Obama's portrait). And then there's Banksy, who is like the DaVinci of street artists, doing anything from wall paintings to restructuring a phone booth so that it looks completely bent over.

Then, about 2/3s into the documentary, everything turns around. We're introduced to Mr. Brainwash, who is Thierry's street artist persona. After Banksy sees how much of a failure Thierry is at filmmaking, he tells him to go try his hand at street art. So basically, after having years of observation hours, Thierry takes up his new moniker and rips off everybody he's watched in the past. He doesn't do anything new or exciting. In fact, he basically does one thing and copies it ad nauseum. And people eat it up.

This is where the message of the film comes in, though there could be many messages you could take from it. If you're looking at the whole documentary as true, then the film is a study on the idiocy of the mass population, the ridiculousness of modern art, and how a person can go from nothing to millionaire overnight if s/he knows how to play their cards just right. It isn't about talent, it's about a little luck and who you know. Or, if you look at the film as a total lie, it's just another work of art from Banksy, taking his street art from stationary pictures to moving ones; he takes something that is generally seen as normal--a documentary--and turns it on its side as an act of sociological study, much like his bent phone booth. He could be putting out something that he knows is completely ridiculous just to see how much people actually eat it up, much like the people as portrayed through those interested in Mr. Brainwash's art. Or it's just straight-up satire. Any way you look at it, it's incredibly meta, and in that regard, I like it.

Still, regardless of how you look at it, the movie is fascinating. It's either the most ridiculous or most genius documentary I've ever seen. It could be slightly pretentious depending on how you looked at it, but isn't all art? Art in and of itself is an overt act of self-expression that is put on display for all to question and ponder (as if it's important). That's pretty much pretentiousness right there. But I digress. If you're interested in the world of street artists and seeing who is quite possibly the daftest subject of a documentary ever (whether or not he actually exists as portrayed is another question), then this film is for you. It's certainly not boring.


A Keanu 'Whoa'