POLITICS: The abuse of
power by former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his chief of staff
Peta Credlin, by TV presenter Barry Cassidy. [The
Drum]
POLITICS: The Economist is
unusually strident in its opposition to the presidential candidacy of Donald
Trump. [The
Economist]
FILM: Why is it a
problem to remake films like Ghostbusters? [Comic
Book Resources]
VIDEO GAMES: Also on the topic
of looking at the past through rose-coloured glasses – 12 things today’s gamers
don’t remember about old games. [The
Guardian]
‘Lego
Marvel’s Avengers’ is the second video game to feature Marvel
Comics’ superheroes as Lego figures. I liked playing it overall, but it had its
frustrations. For some of its puzzles, that need to be solved to progress, it
wasn’t particularly clear what to do. I looked up how to open a gate on the
first level. I looked up how to beat Loki on the second level. I definitely had
to look up how the hell I got out of Manhattan. I never figured out what
exactly the floating ‘A’ logos were for, or how to use them. And then there
were a couple of times when I got stuck in exactly the wrong spot and
repeatedly died until I must have tilted my controller just enough to escape
the endless death loop.
The story that I played was
mainly a condensed version of Marvel’s first Avengers movie, but spliced with
other scenes. The first scene replays the Avengers’ assault on the HYDRA Fortress
from ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’. A few levels in, after Captain America meets
Nick Fury, there is a solo Cap and Bucky level which is a flashback to the
World War II scenes of ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’. Then we see the
various heroes join up, but wait … I thought they’d already met? And after the
first movie’s scenes had ended the game credits rolled, even though there looks
to be several more scenes from the second movie – but that’s where I left it.
As a long-time Avengers fan I
hoped that the game may actually draw upon my much-loved Avengers comic
universe, and we would see lots
of these Avengers, and
Kang the Conqueror, and that type of stuff. The game though is set firmly in
Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. Lego’s first Marvel super heroes game – ‘Lego
Marvel Super Heroes’ – turns out to have been more the game for the comic book
fans.
While the cut scenes are
basically straight replays of Marvel’s movies there are a few funny touches
that the game puts on them. The best is the first meeting between the Black
Widow and Bruce Banner/the Hulk, in which the Widow assures Banner that she is
alone, despite far more evidence than the movie to the contrary. Loki is also
far less subtle than in the movie about his intentions for the Hulk when he is
brought on to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. And there are the omnipresent
shakes.
In summary: ‘Lego Marvel
Super Heroes’ is better, but it would take a fair bit to go wrong for me not to
like an Avengers video game.
Sometimes a sequel is blah.
Worse is when it destroys the world that spawned it, so that the only way you
can enjoy its predecessors as much as you previously did is to pretend that the
sequel never happened. ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ was like that for me. So was ‘Go
Set A Watchman’. ‘The Godfather Part III’ veered towards it, but stayed just on
the side of only leaving itself diminished.
For the first ten pages of
DKIII The Master Race #3 I was worried this was going to happen to Frank
Miller’s laudable ‘Dark Knight’ series. (For some people this already happened
when Miller released ‘DK2’.) At the start of this issue we see Miller’s world
in ruins as the Kryptonians of Superman’s shrunken, bottled city of Kandor,
having been restored to normal size, wreak havoc on several of Earth’s major
cities. It is a fair escalation from the threat level of the original series,
in which we had a future Gotham plagued by street gangs and lone madmen.
Now in Miller’s original ‘Dark
Knight’ series we had the havoc – including a disabled plane crashing into a
crowded street – caused by an electromagnetic pulse, but that series worked up
to that level of disaster, and within the logic of that series it was regarded
as a ‘big thing’. DK2, whatever its faults, also had that sense of perspective.
But in DKIII whole cities and populations are decimated within the space of a
few panels. For the Dark Knight version of Batman this feels wrong, as if the
danger that was masterfully built up in the first series has
been diminished.
Hence I was leaning towards
disregarding this story altogether and pretending it just was not a part of
‘Dark Knight’ canon. The change in creators also adds to this sense of it not
really being in line with its predecessors. Frank Miller has co-written DKIII
with Brian Azzarello, and unlike the first two series he handles none of the
art, which is done here by Andy Kubert, though Klaus Janson from the original series
returns on inks.
There are some nods to the
storytelling techniques used in the first series, but they are somewhat
tokenistic, and the effect is quite different. The clustered TV panels which
were a hallmark of the first series are around, but they do not add a lot to
the story, whereas they had a vital part in the first series in showing how the
Batman was viewed. Similarly there are splash pages, but they are used in a
fairly standard way – i.e. to try and generate shock and awe. In contrast, Miller
interspersed them in unusual, often unexpected ways in the first series; for
example when he suddenly interrupted Batman and Robin mid-dialogue just to have
a whole page of them leaping across the rooftops.
But just when I was about to
dismiss DKIII#3 it kind of comes together. Batman awakens Superman to help him
deal with the Kryptonians, which is a nice reversal from their famous rivalry
in the first Dark Knight series. Then an important character from the second
series returns and turns on our heroes, which sets up what looks like an
interesting confrontation for what I assume is the final issue, and also a
relatively natural one given the Dark Knight series to date.
So there is hope yet. But I am
not exactly hanging out for a DKIV or DK4 or whatever it would be. The first
was untouchable, the second was imaginative, and the third all in all is fine
enough. However each subsequent instalment takes us a further little away from
that moving
final image of Bruce Wayne and his crew making a new life in the caves.
This year, for the first time,
I purchased an NBA League Pass, which means I can watch any NBA game I like
whenever I like. This is of less value if you have a full-time job or any life
outside of watching basketball, but I’ve been pretty happy with it so far. I
particularly like watching on the weekends and being able to flick between multiple
games. After a few months of watching I have got to the point now where I
instinctively know how long a time-out is, and know when to flick back.
Part of having full access is
being able to watch the NBA All-Star Weekend. This is something I haven’t been
able to do much over the years, so I was looking forward to it. While I couldn’t
watch the actual All-Star Game live – due to having a job, you know – I could
watch live some of the All-Star Saturday events.
All-Star Saturday was great. The
Skills Challenge (the first event), which is generally considered the least of
the events, was actually quite enjoyable. This was in part to dividing the draw
into ‘guards’ and ‘bigs’, so that a ‘guard’ and ‘big’ played off in the final.
The camaraderie among the groups was somewhat unexpected to me, with Minnesota
rookie Karl-Anthony Towns being mobbed by his fellow bigs after unexpectedly
hitting the winning shot.
The Three-Point Shootout was a
bit long, with eight contestants and then a tie-breaker between three contestants
to determine the last qualifier for the final, but was still fascinating to
watch to find out which of Golden State’s ‘Splash Brothers’ would emerge
victorious. Stephen Curry, the league’s best player and now often considered
the greatest shooter ever, narrowly lost to Klay Thompson, who some consider
the second-best shooter in the league. It was Thompson’s day though, and he
shot beautifully to edge out his more heralded teammate. The Golden State
Warriors, boosted by their two great shooters, entered the All-Star break with
a record of 48 wins and just 4 losses.
I didn’t see the Slam Dunk
Contest live, as I had to go to a mothers’ group meeting (I was one of two
fathers there). But I didn’t know the result when I watched it, other than that
Aaron Gordon and reigning champion Zach Levine met in the final. I haven’t
watched many Slam Dunk Contests but it was clear to me that there wouldn’t be
many contests better than this. In the final Gordon and Levine had three dunks
each with perfect scores before Gordon, running out of ideas, finally scored less
than perfect on his fourth go. Some felt, like I did, that was a bit harsh on
Gordon, who for me had the most memorable dunk of the night when he went
through his legs over the Orlando mascot, but alas for him you can’t get higher
than a 50. At the least I wish they had been made joint winners.
And then there was the
All-Star Game itself, which I watched on replay. The introduction of the
players at an All-Star Game, which I hadn’t seen before, was interesting for me
to watch, but after a few minutes of tribute to retiring Laker Kobe Bryant I
fast-forwarded to the tip-off. What followed was a bit of a disappointment, my
knowing the result notwithstanding. There was essentially no defence – just a
series of easy shots, and contrived alley-oops. I got to the point in the
second quarter when Andre Drummond from my team the Pistons had played a few
minutes, and then gave up. The highlights told me all I needed to know about
that game.
Could they make the
All-Star Game better? NBA commentators The
Starters suggested that they have two captains that pick teams, with some
stars having the ignominy of being picked late or last, hence adding to the
players’ motivations. But I don’t know that the players would actually care
that much about that. I like the intrigue around who gets picked as All-Stars
each season, and the game has a long history, so I hope it sticks around. Maybe
the games are more interesting when they are close.
I watched the second season of
‘True Detective’ on DVD recently, and the point where I got the most excited
was when I first saw the opening credits for the season, with this track
playing over a very moody film sequence. I didn’t pick it up at first, but the lyrics
from the song that the credits use change with each episode. Red raw, disturbed,
and white middle-class – fairly appropriate for the types of characters Colin
Farrell and Rachel McAdams play in this series.
Suede’s new album sounds like
Suede. And this track is Suede at their Suede-iest.
(Actually, the new Animal
Collective album too sounds like Animal Collective at their Animal
Collective-iest. Or maybe that should be Animal Collective at their Panda
Bear-iest.)
PJ Harvey’s new single ‘The
Wheel’ may just be her best track ever. It wastes barely any time in hitting
its full-rock stride, starting off with a barrage of saxophone and guitar that
shoots the listener straight into its dim and heavy atmosphere. The rock intro
may hark back to PJ’s early days, but the call-and-response chorus – with Mick
Harvey returning on back-up vocals – makes it more of a continuation of the
‘many voices’ style of her most recent album ‘Let England Shake’. Like that
album too the lyrics of ‘The Wheel’ attempt to give voice to the murdered; in
this case, 28,000 children who have disappeared, although
the number itself doesn’t seem to refer to any actual historical body count. If
PJ’s new album does end up coming from pretty much the same place as her last one
there are plenty of worse things to be.
2.Synthia: album – The
Jezabels
Australia’s indie-rock
darlings The Jezabels’ have returned with their best album yet and one that
recaptures the twisting, writhing sound of their early EPs. ‘Synthia’ takes a
lot of turns – on opening track ‘Stand And Deliver’ singer Hayley Mary sighs
that ‘you can marry me/let me be your wife’, and then follows that up by
proclaiming stridently on the next track that ‘My Love Is My Disease’. On
‘Smile’ she tells us that we can ‘call her sexy’ and ‘whistle at me on the
street’, but she has ‘one rule – don’t tell me to smile’. Alas, the
band has had to cancel their tour as keyboardist Heather Shannon receives
treatment for ovarian cancer; hopefully they can get back on the road again
soon and give this album the showcasing it deserves.
Foxes’ music, I think, can
rightfully be called ‘indie-pop’ – Louisa Rose Allen writes her own songs, and
her singles have never really got higher than the UK Top 20. It’s also really,
really good. ‘Better Love’ doesn’t break much more lyrical ground than your
average pop song – it’s about a relationship that’s not going too well, and
that’s about it – but it takes the grandiose choir sound and uses it to
stunning effect. And Allen sounds like she means what she sings, which helps.
If you’re looking for a bit of pop to go with your guitar music I recommend
this.
One good thing about the Super
Bowl this week is that it starts at 10.30am AEST, and I have the day off work.
There was a tired few months’ worth of Monday mornings when I was getting up at
5 or 6am to watch the free-to-air coverage of the NFL before I went to work.
I’d do some exercises while I was watching – it sometimes took 10 to 15 minutes
to get the body to move, but then my routine for the first half would be
something like:
·5 minutes of jogging on the living room rug (or
‘shuffling’, as my wife calls it);
·50 reps on my weight – I only have one – 25 on the
right, and 25 on the left;
And then at the half-time break
I’d shower, dress, and get my coffee. My memories of the NFL season are
therefore full of dawns and tired, seldom-used muscles. And the 49ers being
unable to score – we got a lot of coverage of the 49ers this year in Australia
with Jarryd Hayne sitting on their bench. I’m a 49ers fan so I like seeing my
team, but I would have preferred to watch them more two or three years ago.
I would prefer Denver to win,
but I have no problem in Carolina doing so. It’s mainly because I want Denver
quarterback Peyton Manning to win another Super Bowl before he retires and
gather more support to his side of the Manning
v Tom Brady debate. Sure it’s his teammates that are carrying him over the
line, but it’s hard to get traction against the Brady boosters while he has
three more championships. I like Manning more than I like Brady and the
Patriots. Carolina quarterback Cameron Newton will have other seasons left, and
therefore other opportunities to win the Super Bowl.
But that’s a bit unfair to Cam.
There is a lot to like about Newton as well – he’s one of the most fun
quarterbacks to watch, as shown by his flip touchdown earlier in the season.
And it’s pretty hard to get
into the Super Bowl, so you never know, this may be Newton’s only chance. So if
the Panthers roll over the Broncos like they have rolled over many teams this
season that is OK with me as well.
