Crestfallen I am when a creator I respect falls short. Body of Lies, the Ridley Scott made middle east trying to be heady thriller/intrigue/action flick was written by William Monahan—the ridiculously brilliant writer who penned The Departed. Did I mention he won on Oscar for that? Yea. Even though the Academy nails winners like an elderly blind man in the late stages of multiple sclerosis hits a dart board’s bulls eye it’s worth mentioning because hey, it’s an Oscar.
I loved The Departed. I dug the way it was written, directed, cut, shot, all of it. Mark Wahlburg was fucking awesome. Just a great film. The writing in particular though was really well done. Dense, funny, fast, William Monahan immediately became one of my favorite working writers. His follow up? Body of Lies, out on Bluray February 17th.
OHYEAHH!!
In thinking about what makes stuff ‘good’ or more accurately why I like or dislike a particular thing I often fall back into that catch all word: interesting. Body of Lies, especially the first two acts, just isn’t all that interesting.
Big Bang Mini on the other hand, the SouthPeak Games published Arkedo Studio developed DS actioner is interesting. No long ’story’ intro full of next, next, next. No confusing control schemes or long expansive corridors of repeating monotonous patterns. Just a short tutorial on you’re on to blowing stuff up. And it’s fun. I was a fan of the SouthPeak published Ninjatown also on the DS so I’ll be looking forward to seeing more from this crew. Nintendo may have ultimate bragging right for selling bazillions of systems but the fact is their bazillion systems don’t have many good games out to actually play on them. Every time I get my hands on a good game for a Nintendo embossed box I feel like I just caught some sort of magical fairy or something, bright flickering moon beams shooting through interlocking fingers as I peer into clasped hands at my exotic prize.
So what is ‘interesting’? Why does one piece of media or person or moment pull us in and another inspire continual watch checking and mind wandering? I believe that’s out of scope for this particular entry but an interesting question to percolate on anyway.