Ladycops bring The Heat

Posted on by Henry

Have any of you seen The Heat?  I more or less ignored it until I was stuck on an airplane last week with nothing to do.  I won’t claim to be glad that I was on an airplane for so long, but I am glad that I had the chance to watch the movie.  The Heat combines stupidity, comedy, entertainingly awkward social interactions and a dash of action in the very familiar buddy-cop formula, and comes out just ahead of the grade.  We’re not talking about a new classic, but it’s a fun and funny movie that will happily scratch your comedy-action itch.  Better yet, it delivers the tried-and-true buddy-cop comedy with all-female leads.

While there are vast swathes of buddy-cop movies, hordes of films in which we can watch men being silly with and at each other while they fight crime, The Heat is the first that I know of in the genre which stars two women in the leading roles.  While this point may feel overplayed, it’s still a big frickin’ deal as far as women’s movie roles are concerned, especially because The Heat has been so successful.  I’m not begging for a sequel, but I could certainly go for more movies like it.  Why?  Well…

I’ve seen enough of these movies to have a good feel for where the story beats are going to come; I won’t claim that I can call them all before they show up, but I rarely feel surprised.  Following the ladies offers a different experience.  I still expect the pieces that are staples of the buddy-cop genre (which The Heat delivers on), but The Heat’s take on romantic side-interests is refreshingly entertaining (the plucky puppy-dog local FBI agent is worth a good laugh, as are Melissa McCarthy’s terribly mixed signals).  These aren’t really new, just a fun reworking of already well-known story patterns.

But I really think the interpersonal social dynamics deserve a mention: we end up sympathizing with two women who are clearly not especially sympathetic according to our standard cultural expectations.  These are women who have almost certainly been called “bitch” repeatedly by their detractors.  They are brash, overbearing, and competent.  But instead of disapproving of them the movie clearly wants us to like them.  Novel and intriguing, no?  We’ve long been shown men like this and been told that they were protagonists, it seems only fitting that we should see a movie with women in those roles.

The Heat isn’t a masterpiece.  It isn’t even terribly unconventional except for its casting of two female leads and how that plays out in the film.  But if you are looking for a movie to watch with your friends and you feel the need for buddy-cop goodness, take a look at The Heat.

*SPOILERS*

Oh and by the way, talk about badass: crawling down a long corridor to shoot the bad guy after being stabbed repeatedly in the leg?  Groovy.  It’s very reminiscent of poor shoeless John McLean with his room full of broken glass in Die Hard.

Game Analysis: Dragon Warrior Monsters

Posted on by Jason "Zeeblee" Leonard

Zeeblee

Pokemon X/Y comes out tomorrow.  So today I am going to talk about my favorite monster collecting game.  No, it’s not Pokemon.  In fact, my favorite game in the “collect, raise, and battle” genre is a spinoff of the well-known series Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest.  The game is Dragon Warrior Monsters (DWM), and while I have not played it through as many times as I have the original Pokemon, I have loved it a great deal more, and spent more energy on it.  It is rare for me to actually write stuff down in a notebook for a game, but for DWM I found myself recording my findings in a notebook for future use.  This is due to its unique take on how you collect and battle your little monster minions, even if you raise them just like most other RPGs (yay grinding!)

The story for the first game (yes!  There are more than one!) begins with your sister getting kidnapped by a strange monster.  Immediately after another monster shows up and offers to help you get your sister back.  He takes you to another world and introduces you to a king.  Apparently there is a tournament soon, and the prize for winning is a wish.  Before you can participate you must train up and qualify, and so begins your journey (which includes other stories as well).  I am honestly terrible at plot-synopses because I don’t like to give anything at all away (I believe part of the joy of a story is going into it completely blind).  So as per usual I am going to focus my reviews on mechanics.

Continue reading →

Wolf Who Rules, by Wen Spencer

Posted on by Henry

I have to admit, my memory of Wolf Who Rules has blended into the book that comes before it (Tinker, which I reviewed last week) and the next one in the series (Elfhome).  As you might expect from such a situation, if you liked Tinker you’ll almost certainly like Wolf Who Rules.

I can extricate the details of the plot with some additional focus, but the stories all pile together, following one another so closely that it is not easy to tell where one ends and the next begins.  Little is done to ease you back into the story beyond a few quick info drops, but this also means that if you’ve just read Tinker you’ll easily slide along into this one without any sense of confusion.  Without one of the sometimes ponderous prolonged reintroductions that are so common to a series, Wolf Who Rules whisks you straight into the next adventure.

Continue reading →

Sword & Sworcery

Posted on by Henry

firstlook

The Scythian.

I finally finished the magnificent Sword & Sworcery.  This game is a sumptuously designed experience.  Sword & Sworcery shattered my expectations by providing such a beautiful and completely enveloping story that I almost want to call it a story before I call it a game.  And don’t get me started about the sound design.  Or rather, do, because the music is simply a delight and the sound design creates a beautifully ethereal and dreamlike space that lends an air of enchantment to the entire piece.  I’m listening to the music right now, just because I can.

This game is wrapped up in a bizarre shell of self-awareness, with the other characters completely cognizant of the duality of the game and maybe even aware of how everything will end.  And yet it still has an emotional pull that I haven’t found in any other games I’ve played recently.  Stories I’ve read, movies I’ve watched, yes.  Games?  No.  Despite a one year hiatus part way through completing the game, I’m still exceedingly excited about it.  I want to play it again all in one sitting just to get the full and immediate impact.

This is a game worth discovering.  It is an adventure that is glorious and sad and perfectly appropriate, all in one.  Let me tell you more…

Continue reading →

Guns, Gams & Go-Fast Machines: Fast & Furious 6

Posted on by Henry

I feel a little embarrassed saying this, but I recently watched and enjoyed the fast-car soap-opera-with-guns Fast & Furious 6.  It was just as intelligent as I had expected it to be, with plenty of zoom-zoom-bang-bang to make up for its intellectual shortcomings.  Which is to say, the movie was almost entirely about action and cars.  Much as in other entries in the series, women’s legs also made an important appearance by filling the screen at (in)appropriate moments.

While the writers clearly didn’t care one whit about how computers actually work (normal for the genre), they surprised me by offering a genuine sense of continuity with the other Fast/Furious films.  This made me very happy indeed, as the various tie-ins towards the end brought Tokyo Drift into relation with the rest of the series.  They also clearly established where the next action will most likely take place and why it will be exciting…

Continue reading →

Tinker, by Wen Spencer

Posted on by Henry

Wen Spencer surprised me.  I picked up Tinker through the Baen ebook store, expecting to find something that would keep me suitably amused while traveling.  The book did that, and then it grabbed me and pulled me in.  While I should have been working, I read.  While I should have been visiting with family, I read.  While I should have been sleeping… you get the idea.  It turns out that Spencer is very good at delivering on the promises of her pacing; she starts with a bang, and she quickly turns up the heat and adds increasing tension to the mix.  There are a few spots where you can sit down and take a breath, but you won’t want to.  Add some sections that make you wince and cringe and more sections that are laugh-out-loud funny, and you’ve got Tinker.  It’s a bit like a less pulpy version of Girl Genius.  Would you like to know more?

Continue reading →

Impossible vs Improbable vs Hard

Posted on by Mattias Lehman

I don’t like to call anything impossible. Why? Because I don’t think it’s a meaningful word. People set up limits as to what they can and can’t do all the time with this word: that’s impossible! But most things aren’t impossible. Sure, some things are just a priori unattainable (you can’t be in two distant places at once, you can’t violate fundamental laws of physics, etc.), but many achievements we’ve labeled ‘impossible’ have later been made into playthings by scientists and innovators. Every time I get on a plane, I have to marvel at the fact that the combined weight of this giant metal tube — its cargo, passengers, and fuel included — is not quite a MILLION pounds. And it flies. If you ask me, that sounds like a load of impossible. I’m not saying flight is magic, I understand the physics behind it. But if you’ve never seen an airplane or any of the technology that goes into it, and I say ‘I can make a MILLION pounds fly’? You can bet that claim is met with skepticism. And maybe rightfully so. If it isn’t a part of your daily society, that’s impossible.

Continue reading →

The Quiller Memorandum, by Adam Hall

Posted on by Henry

Ah, pseudonyms.  Adam Hall was one of the pseudonyms used by the author Elleston Trevor (which was itself not the author’s original name).  It seems entirely appropriate to me that such an excellent spy novel should come from someone who felt so compelled to shroud and change their own identity.  If you like spy stories and intrigue, or would like to try dabbling in them for the very first time, look no further.  Quiller is a far better Cold War spy than the cinematic Mr. Bond ever was, more deeply focused on the details of spycraft, practicing intimate information war as a metaphoric knife fight where you’re never truly certain as to who holds the advantage.  Drawing blood is rarely the point of the duel, and secrets are more valuable than lives.  The Quiller Memorandum, as you might have guessed, is a very exciting book.

Does the title feel achingly familiar?  Just like something that you’ve read before?  Well…

Continue reading →

1636: The Devil’s Opera, by David Carrico and Eric Flint

Posted on by Henry

Within several hours of writing my piece last week, I had already finished reading 1636: The Devil’s Opera, meaning that I went through it in slightly more than one day despite several interruptions.  It’s an addictive delight, just as I had anticipated it would be.  In that way, it is completely in keeping with what I’ve come to expect from Eric Flint, and from his 1632 series.  And now I want to go back to see what else David Carrico has on offer.  He seems promising, and if his other works are anywhere near as good as this one, I’ll be happy to read them.  Now then, about this book…

Continue reading →

RPG Character Progression

Posted on by Jason "Zeeblee" Leonard

Zeeblee

Reading the title you may be thinking that I am going to talk about how characters evolve in a narrative in roleplaying games, but if you remember last week’s article you may note the subtle queue in my use of RPG instead of “roleplaying game.”  That’s right; today I am going to talk about different styles of stat/ability progression in RPGs along with minor discussion on the role of progression in narrative.

Continue reading →