Favorite of the decade

Judging and reviewing past video games is difficult because of the technological advances that can transpire. This inseparable coupling with technology is the follly of video games. With film, the technological discrepancies are minute, and no where near as impactful; a film in 1944 could pass for a film made in 2004. However, two years in video gaming can serve as a hundred year span in film.

So, how does one judge something like the original halo or metal gear solid when comared to their sequels? I've tried to take a historical approach to this by juduging certain games primarily against their peers in the year they were released as well as against everything that came afterwards. This is challenging because not all fo the games on my list are games I played in their original release. Moreover, certain games, much like certain movies, are engrained in my youth and self identity, and as a result, can be overshadowed by nostalgia. For example, many people will claim Super Mario Bros 3 as the best in the series, but considering the size and scope of Super Mario World, how can that be a justified position? It can't, really.

One series is particulary difficult to examine, and that is The Sims. The original game made a huge impact in the industry and economically. Much has been written about the game, but what is interesting is that it is often cited as the best in the series. However, The Sims 2 in every way is more detailed, interesting, and open. However, The Sims 2 is just one game in The Sims 2 franchise. Numerous expansions to the game were released over the years that added new content and features. So, when examining The Sims 2, should the extra content be counted, and if it is counted, does the greatly increased financial cost deserve consideration as well? Finally, there's The Sims 3 which again improved upon its previosu installment, yet some found too complex and closed.

I should note that the technical limitations at the time of Shadow of the Colossus prevented me frrom enjoying it. I know some perople felt the same way about Mass Effect. With Mass Effect, people complained about the poor driving controls of the exploratory vehicle, and the technical issues of the Unreal Engine that runs the game. While I think the control issues are more based on preference than any technical merit, I would concede that the graphical flaws in the game are aggrivating, but not distracting to remove the impressive nature of the game as a whole.

Then, there's Halo, which is an oddity for me as I discussed previously. I don't want to come across as a snob that does not enjoy big action games and prefers indie ones, but the series does not motivate me in any way to become engrossed in its universe. Again, comparison to Mass Effect is deserved, because I was interested in that make believe world and read the books based on it because of their detail and rich setting. I just don't give a damn about the Spartans and a fake military fetishistic history of space marines.

This should give you just a little insight into the decision process that went into comprising my list. Again, it is a personal list and not necessarily a list that should be considered a "best" list.

Beyond Good and Evil

Bioshock

Half-Life 2

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Mass Effect

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Phoenix Wright: Justice for All

The Sims 2

Super Mario Galaxy

Director's cut

Avatar reopened in theaters with some ten-odd minutes of new footage, and that got me thinking of Director Cuts. Well, it also got Empire thinking of them as well, and they beat me to the punch, so I'll just comment on their list and insights.

Apocalypse Now Redux (2001)

The plantation scene is the weak link. Does Apocalypse Now really need a moody love scene? Aurore Clément apart, the contextualising feels a bit clunky (let’s blame the French!) and the dinner party set piece, basically a potted lesson of Indochinese history, drains the pace from the film. The added Playboy Bunnies don’t add much either. And we don’t say that lightly.

I certainly agree with the plantation scene, as it does go on too long and acts as a history lesson, but maybe that history lesson is needed for newer generations who barely even know we lost Vietnam. I do disagree about the Playboy Bunny scenes. The audience gets to see the horrid rain conditions that existed during filming and it allows for a brief quiet moment for the characters. I think the bigger issue is that the last third of the film is meandering, regardless of the original cut or this Redux version, and that the film will always be 2/3's brilliant and 1/3 disappointing.

Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid Special Edition (2005)

Can't give much comment on this since I have never seen it. I've never been a big Peckinpah fan outside of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Special Edition (1997)

There was no need to populate Mos Eisley with scampering critters, rearing rontos or make the wretched hive of scum and villainy look like Lakeside Thurrock with its extra buildings. There was also no need to bolster the amount of stormtroopers waiting for Han in the Death Star corridor or add moving dewbacks to the “Look, sir, Droids!” scene. And the Solo-Jabba confrontation, while again interesting to see, features a badly animated Jabba and pretty much the same exposition covered by the Greedo scene.

Agreed. Every change Lucas has made to his movies is stupid, just like Spielberg. What's annoying is that the original films will probably never be released on Blu-Ray, so generations will never see the original versions. What a joke.

Brazil, The ‘Love Conquers All’ version (1985)

It’s as far from an ‘improvement’ on the original as is conceivable: utterly incoherent, unforgivably slapdash and inherently disrespectful to a wildly imaginative film-maker operating at his peak. Well worth seeking out, if only to see just how bad a studio hack-job can be.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with Brazil, but I will say the one thing I loved in the Gilliam version is the bleak ending. The studio manipulation in this version is wrong in tone and nonsensical.

Alexander Revisited (2007)

The two-disk Alexander Revisited is the true director’s cut of the film. It even comes with a handy intermission to give you time to digest Alexander’s now more layered relationships and make yourself a cup of tea. Looking back, Stone talked freely about having short-changed the story of history’s most violent tourist. In 2007 he put it right with a cut he promised would be his Cecil B. DeMille version, saying: “I'm going to go all out, [and] put everything I like in the movie.” This means a less prudish take on Alexander’s multiple bromances, a lot more of Rosario Dawson as his wife, and plenty more of Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer as Alexander’s pushy parents.

I liked the original version of Alexander. Yes, you can tell it was cut heavily for content and length, but I think it still worked. This longer version is better, but still missing something. Empire blames it on the casting of Colin Farrell, but I think it is something else. It felt to me that Oliver Stone just wasn't into it, and his best movie in the last 15 years, W., was a labor of love.

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Special Edition (1980)

In 1998, Spielberg released The Collector's Edition, coming in at 137 minutes, that is a kind of compilation of the best bits — Now That’s What I Call Close Encounters — of the ’77 and ’80 versions (it doesn’t go inside the Mothership). All three versions are available on the current Blu-ray but this last one is the best.

As long as we don't see inside the mothership at the end, this version is fine.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006)

Haven't seen it.

Kingdom Of Heaven Director’s Cut (2005)

The added 45 minutes in the 1995 Director’s Cut are like pieces missing from a beautiful but incomplete puzzle. The nuance of William Monahan’s tome-like screenplay is back, characters that were previously ciphers are made three-dimensional (Eva Green’s Sibylla and Edward Norton’s leprosy-ridden king especially) and there’s even a classic end-of-movie good guy/bad guy showdown to thrill fans of that kind of thing.

I still don't think this movie works, even with the much longer runtime, but it is better - it does not transform the movie into a masterpiece like its defenders proclaim.

Aliens Special Edition (1992)

The addition of the terraformers’ back story gives pathos to Newt’s parentless plight but isn’t strictly necessary. The arrival of the Colonial Marines at the terraforming station tells us everything we need to know about the perils of daytripping around strange planets.

The additions are not that great to me. I can live without this longer version.

Blade Runner 25th Anniversary Edition (2007)

The unicorn dream sequence is restored in its entirety for the 25th Anniversary Edition, with Deckard shown to be awake throughout. It’s a crucial addition and had been a major point of contention with the studio. “There was too much discussion in the room,” says Scott. “I wanted it. They didn't want it. I said, ‘Well, it's a fundamental part of the story.’ And they said, ‘Well, isn't it obvious that he's a replicant here?’ And I said, ‘No. No more obvious than he's not a replicant at the end. So, it's a matter of choice, isn't it?’” The technical polish (a frame-by-frame digital remastering) give the dystopian LA cityscape a neon sheen.

This is a night and day difference from the other versions. Yes, the director's cut was an improvement over the crappy theatrical version, but this final cut is wonderful. Absolutely perfect.

Two others briefly popped into mind that weren't covered in Empire's list. I think Almost Famous and Amadeus both have superfluous director's cuts with a couple of exceptions. In Amadeus, I think the scene where Mozart's wife goes to see Salieri and exposes herself is an important inclusion. It sets up some dialogue near the end of the film and crystalizes the vileness of Salieri. While none of the additions in Almost Famous are important or needed, I like the longer version because I simply like the characters and story.

Favorite of the decade

Before presenting a list of my personal best of the decade, I stumbled upon a few interesting trends. The first is that Phillip Seymour Hoffman is undoubtably the definitive actor of the decade. In the 90s, he honed his craft in many supporting roles, such as in Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and others. But it was in the 2000s that we saw him emerge more as a leading man, and do phenominal work in everything. As a supporting man, he gave a wonderfully funny performance in Punch Drunk Love as the matress man. Then, he deservedly won an Oscar for his nuanced depiction of Truman Capote, which wasn't a caricature or mere impersonation like Jamie Foxx's rendition of Ray Charles. There's also his work in 25th Hour, which is proprably one of the best drunk performances ever. He's frightening in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead and pitiful in Synecdoche, New York. These are just a few of his wonderful performances.

Another thing worth noting is that my favorite directors of the decade are Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson. Every movie they made in this decade is in my top 10. One of my favorite directors, Martin Scorsese, only has one movie in my top 10. Gangs of New York is an interesting and spectacular mess and The Departed feels much more safe than I would have liked. And then there's Steven Spielberg, the filmmaker that intellectuals and snobs love to hate because of his popular success. He continues into his 4th decade of filmmaking to prove that he is one of the most talented filmmakers the world has eveer sen and challenges himself as well as the audience emotionally and intellectually. If his name was not attached to Minority Report and Munich, those two movies would be on more top 10 lists of the decade.

I comprised a short list of about 20 movies that I tried to narrow down to 10 that was based off of memory. I then tried to revisist as many as I could to see if I still felt the same way about a film. For example, I had a smile on my face the entire time watching Punch Drunk Love, and was unsure if I would still love the movie as much now. To my relief, I still enjoyed it. I did, however, not find the performace of Adam Sandler as amazing as I once did. In the end, I think he gave a servicable performance that is some times comically brilliant and other times limiting in his skill. Another film I wanted to revisit because I only saw it once in a theater was Lost In Translation. While I still find the movie charming and the core a great love story, I was greatly bothered by the amount of cultural insensitivity that was the entire comedic aspect of the film. Instead of being asked to laugh at Bill Murray and his inability to interact with a different culture, the film makes fun of the native inhabitants with stereotypical jabs such as the difficulty in pronouncing the letter "r", the speed at which they converse, and the average height of Japanese men. While a film called "lost In translation" should deal with these issues, it doesn't, and instead continues the American depiction of mockery to foreigness and xenophobia. This doesn't discredit the film, as I can't stand people who say The Birth of a Nation or The Searches aren't great films becaues of their racism, but in this instance, it does damper my personal enjoyment of the movie.

In any case, here's the list in alpahbetical order. I'll do a proper tribute to what I think is the best film of the decade next week.

adaptation

almost famous

the aviator

inglourious basterds

kill bill

punch drunk love

the royal tenenbaums

there will be blood

wall-e

zodiac

Things to do today

There are many things I could do today to be productive:

• Like play racquetball
• or wash my car
• or cook dinner
• or join a funk band
• or travel to a foreign country
• or run for president
• or talk to a member of the opposite sex
• or lube my car
• or host a weenie roast
• or dig for buried treasure
• or milk a cow
• or have a yelling contest with my neighbor's dog
• or perform brain surgery
• or paint a yellow line in the center of my driveway
• or write my name in the snow
• or teach basket weaving to clams
• or sing Welsh folk songs at the bank
• or plant trees on public property
• or confuse the person next to me
• or make a triangular table
• or ride a train
• or arrange sock drawer alphabetically
• or go bowling with my dad
• or train potato bugs to do tricks
• or make a quilt
• or publish a magazine about pencil shavings
• or eat lime jello with pineapple in it
• or pave a freeway
• or learn to draw
• or take up photography
• or learn to tell time
• or photocopy money
• or go out for pasta
• or sew a dress
• or bathe my iguana
• or go fishing
• or paint a stranger's house in the middle of the night
• or take up windsurfing
• or change my hair style
• or sharpen whiteboard markers
• or feed a toucan
• or enjoy the sun
• or do a crossword puzzle
• or buy some cool clothes
• or go to the beach
• or play croquet with my dad
• or water my plants
• or build a doll house
• or invite some friends over for salmon and white wine

NOT!