There are a couple of cats that lurk around the pool. Or at least there are two, to my knowledge. One's a black cat (Hm. Ominous.) And the other has the color of a Himalayan cat, but it's not a Himalayan cat. It just has the light coat with dark face, paws, and tail. I think I'll name them Pool Cat 1 and Pool Cat 2.
I find it really humorous that whenever I start approaching one of these cats, it'll lie low to the ground and remain as still as possible while watching me, as if by not moving, it'll remain unseen by me. Silly cats. Then I just move closer and they dart away.
Fine, cats can be cute. But I'm more of a dog person. To put it, as I read somewhere, "I prefer the one who comes to you when you call its name." Thus, dogs.
So I watched the new X-men movie, X-men: First Class. I really enjoyed it. For some reason, I've enjoyed all the X-men films. But I really think it has something to do with many different people having many different abilities, and how the desires of said individuals meld and/or collide. Or maybe it's just the plain idea of "Wow cool! So many different super powers!" It's kind of the same enjoyment I got when I watched the television series Heroes. How many different abilities can there be? How would these people use them? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MAKE THESE PEOPLE FIGHT (<-- most important question, obviously). Yeah. Maybe it's just a nerdgasm over all the different super powers. Fair enough.
But I don't consider myself an X-men fan. I've seen the live-action films, and I've read a graphic novel, so I'm at least familiar with the main players and their abilities. This recent movie tells the story of how the X-men started out. So, it's a prequel sequel. I mean there really isn't much to say about this film, other than it's pretty damn cool if you like these super hero movies.
Although I have to say, something Magneto says at the end about this villain killing his mother, so now Magneto has to kill him, made me laugh a little, mainly because it reminded me of The Princess Bride. I haven't actually seen that movie, but I'm aware of that one scene, you know, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya.You killed my father. Prepare to die." No? Never mind then. So I'm joking in the X-men movie that the line should be "Hello. My name is Magneto. You killed my mother. Prepare to die."
Never mind.
I also played Alan Wake, a video game released last year. It's pretty much an interactive story, or an interactive television series. Genre: psychological thriller. Alan Wake is a famous writer with several novels published, but he's reached a massive writer's block. To clear his mind, he and his wife go vacay in a small, New England town in the mountains. Something (yes, someTHING) takes his wife, and Alan Wake must figure out a way to get her back. Along the way, the picks up pages of a manuscript to a book he doesn't remember writing. And all the events in this story are coming true.
Game mechanics aside, the story is very much Stephen King-esque. You could call it "Stephen King: The Game." The writers of the game themselves admit King and his works were something of an inspiration, the idea of a writer's story coming true. There's a lot of light vs darkness in this game. No, seriously. There is a lot of forces of darkness vs the forces of light in the story, mainly because it's what the story is about. A dark presence, an essence, a being, is slowly overtaking this small town. It possesses people and they try to attack you, and the only way to defend yourself is to shine your flashlight beam on them until their darkness "shield" breaks, and they're vulnerable to your bullets. This darkness can also possess inanimate objects, which makes things in the game very interesting. The first time I encountered this inanimate-object-possession was when I was being attacked by a fucking bulldozer of all things. If there was ever a WTF moment, this moment in the game would definitely be it. Anyways, this darkness has got Alan's wife, so he's gotta find a way to get her back.
I finished the game, but the ending still left me with a WTF. I think I need to google an explanation, because this is just too damn frustrating.
And I know it's been a while since it's been released, but I've been meaning to jot down my thoughts on Portal 2. Wow. What an incredible game. It's better than the first game in about every single aspect, except for the difficulty. The storyline is almost 2.5 times longer. The addition of more game mechanics, like the various gels, and accelerating platforms, all add a new spin to the game. The writing, MAN the writing. Brilliant. Devious. Dark. Snarky. Downright hilarious. If you enjoyed the first Portal game, you'll love this one. The reason I think this game is a bit easier though is that the single player campaign is basically broken up into introduction- testing chamber sequence - transition sequence - testing chamber sequence - transition sequence - testing chamber sequence - epilogue. And while the testing chamber bits are all jolly good and straightforward in terms of objective, the transitioning bits: those really aren't too difficult in the scheme of things. It's basically look-for-the-one-and-only-portable-surface and bam, moving right along. But pointing this out is like pointing out that my perfectly fresh lettuce leaf is just a bit too small in my excellent, delicious sandwich: it's really not noticeable at all while I'm enjoying it! Good stuff.
Finally, I'm realizing a type of filming/story-telling method in these K-dramas. In order to show audiences what a character is thinking, they'll often just have the character say aloud what he's thinking, either when he's alone in a room, or even when he's near other people. It's seems almost analogous to an aside from a Shakespeare work, when a character would turn towards the audience and make a remark unaware to the other characters, but known to the crowd. The only problem is, there's an understanding of this mechanism in Shakespearean works, and it's more disorienting in these dramas. I didn't really notice it at first, buuuuut now that I've completed more than a couple of series, the pattern is becoming pretty clear.
And in moments of extremely dramatic tension, they'll have the actors freeze and show multiple angles of that scene. It's...really unnecessary, and it's really clear they're trying to say "OMG LOOK: THIS IS SOOOOO DRAMATIC. LET'S SHOW THIS EXACT MOMENT FROM 17 DIFFERENT ANGLES." Ok maybe not that many angles, but they do cycle through 'em.
Also, some of these moments involve intense, passionate embraces and/or kisses. And they are always ridiculously awkward. Yeah, that's right. I've added hugs along with kisses. I really don't know what it is. I would have to guess it's something of a culture thing? Something about the carnal, physical aspect of love that's usually dodged around in these series.
And while I'm on that topic, the series I've seen so far all seem to deal with love in a rather...juvenile light. It's all cute, and warm, the butterflies-in-the-stomach kinds of attraction. It's fine and all, but it just comes across as...childish. It's extremely platonic. Now this could be just because the only series I've watched are comedies where the characters are young, and by young, I'd give an age range of late teens to late 20s. But even still, the writing in these stories just feels so skittish about sex. There, I said it. It's like all these characters have that basic attraction, but that purely, physical, lust is never touched upon. Well, it is, but it's disguised and dolled up so much that it just makes it silly. Ok, yeah, I'm getting worked up over fictional plots, but it does make me wonder about how the younger generation in Korea really feel about love and sex and all that good stuff what with these sorts of television series feeding their minds.
Also, I realized they like the idea of gender bending, cross dressing, and pseudo-homoeroticism. Yeah. Don't ask.
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