First Impressions: The Super Mario Movie

Crap, I think this was the first movie I've seen in theaters since 3000 Years of Longing (2022). That was a long dark winter. But Mario is here to brighten up your day! This will be our official SPOILER-heavy impressions where we just ramble on for a while about this film, so stay tuned.

I liked this bastard a lot. It somehow felt really fresh despite being full of one of the most-repeated video game stories of all time. I sat there watching it thinking, "This would make a good video game!" which was a positively bizarre sentiment. I honestly don't know why I liked this. The gripes I usually have were all there. It was rushed, full of fan service, and most character decisions were blatantly unmotivated. But it drilled down into the most important thing a movie can do - be charming and fun! It is truly amazing when this aspect is nailed, how many more small details can easily be forgotten.

There are some great story beats right off the bat. Mario and Luigi are starting their own plumbing business in Brooklyn, NY, USA and are called on to fix a wealthy couples' house. Luigi steps on a dog bone, breaks it, and amazingly, there are real consequences! The dog attacks, the house is ruined, and they're forced to seek bigger and better jobs. It's cunning writing from a "this happens so this happens" standpoint.

Don't get too excited. There is a lot that is just there. I'm curious how a lay-person would feel in this film. Bowser is there with his huge army because he's Bowser. This is just a conceit we have whenever we boot up any innumerable Mario game from the past forty years. It's weird but at this point it's iconic so we give it a pass. Power-ups, mushrooms, it's all just there and we accept it. My guess is I would have had a tougher time rolling with nonsense had I been a bit more unfamiliar with the whole deal. The movie does a good of a job as it's going to just letting us swallow this stuff, they definitely focus on power-ups a good deal, which is fine, but that's the only bit that felt slightly like cheating. Like, when Peach whips out the Ice Flower I can imagine folks being "Oh, that's just super convenient writing!" But no, the Ice Flower is totally thing and definitely plausible! They probably should have hinted at it earlier to make the writing more crisp.

There is a lot of just going with it. Mario arrives at Peach's Castle and asks to join her to convince the Kong Army to defeat Bowser so he can save his brother, Luigi. Peach is like, "Sure, pass this platforming challenge and you can come!" Mario definitely fails but she's just like "That's okay, we need to get on with the movie." This happens constantly. Things are just there for fun. Mario definitely cheats to defeat DK for the right to employ the Kong Army, and Cranky's just like "Hey, that's cool, now we need Karts!" and then it goes into a whole Mario Kart Sequence.

But this didn't make me upset. I know, it's shocking. Maybe it's just how they found an organic way to recreate World 1-1, or throw in Easter Eggs ranging from scuttlebugs to Cappy. There's elements of almost every game from Galaxy to Odyssey. A surprisingly lot from the latter, actually. All I really wanted was for Mario to spin Bowser by the tail like in 64. And he does!! I cheered. That's so fan service-y of me. The Rainbow Road was most similar to Super Circuit. Bizarre. But it branched off like Yoshi Valley. Now I want a Rainbow Road Yoshi Valley. I truly wonder how much of this movie will seep into future games, because movies do tend to standardize things. And Mario aesthetics (not gameplay) are getting stale anyway these days.

There's one genuinely horrifying moment of Luigi in the Dark Land fighting off Dry Bones, Shy Guys, and Snippets. It's a wonderful test of character. I love how Luigi is just known as the scared joke character now. In fitting fashion, most of this movie is about how Luigi isn't in this movie. More 64 references! It was a great turn to make him into the typical Princess Peach role. The moustache in distress. Because Luigi sucks anyway, and to stay true to the character now is to sideline him from the adventure.

And since we're massive Kong Fans, oh boy was there a lot in there for us. This had to be a testing ground for a DK movie, right? Why else would you include Chunky Kong? DK was a pretty nuanced character here, with daddy issues, big and brash, but childish. Where is our Brothers Bear movie?! My other fist bumping moment was the DK Rap. The Fucking DK Rap, people. You want to talk all-time character introductions? It all fits spectacularly well. The DK movie needs to be coming.

The Mario Kart sequence, while definitely forced, was amazing. There's literally a Kart Selection scene straight out of Mario Kart 8. It made me think of Battleship (2012), how the best scene in that movie is the somehow organic re-creation of the actual board game. Like, it was super faithful but also felt natural. Amazing. Also, now I really want Mario Kart game where if you're hit with a shell your Kart actually explodes and takes damage and you have to find or steal a new one. Or where you could climb on other Karts. That would rule. I'm going to go ahead and plug our sideblog, Blue Shell News here...

Now, it's not all great. We were skeptical of the voice acting when it was all announced, and yeah, we were right to be. Chris Pratt isn't great, I just never lose myself in him. Charlie Day is a bit better but still not great. I hate to say it, I think they would have done better to stick with the accents they put on in the Commercial to start out. It's a cartoon, man, it can be cartoon-y. Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't bring much Joy to Peach and Fred Armisen just doesn't sound like a grumpy old Cranky Kong. It doesn't really work.

Except Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, Keegan Michael-Key as Toad (I can't tell it's him at all), Seth Rogen surprisingly fits Donkey Kong despite being very Seth Rogen-y (maybe it's just voice experience?). And Jack Black is a magnificent Bowser. He doesn't scat at all! He does get some songs in, which are just wonderful. It's underrated how much Jack Black is accepting his back-up roles in his older age but remaining very weird and funny. You can definitely hear his Jack Black-ness but it's not that distracting.

I also didn't really like the Penguin and other Head Toad character having these uber-serious voices that are immediately undercut. It's not a very good joke, if they're cute, let them be cute, like how does that reality work? I could do with out it all. Cringe, baby. So cringe.

This is all a big turn for Illumination, who is usually just the worst damn studio there is. I don't even know how many Minions movies they have out now, but they basically churn out that drivel for kids along with Sing (2016) and Secret Life of Pets (2016), which just have no value at all besides celebrity voices. I was honestly sitting there watching previews for all this sheer crap like a new Trolls movie and even Pixar's new Elementals (2023), which looks like the same fucking movie they've been making for the past twenty years (admittedly with some really cool looking Fire animation) and then Migration (2023) dropped and I took notice. That looks really beautiful and mellow. I'm into it. I can get behind this. I've never seen a studio put so many clips of their own crappy work in a trailer before. It was almost to serve to show how much they're willing to change and move beyond the vapid colors and shallow efforts of the past. I'm surprisingly down with Illumination now.

That's also because The Super Mario Bros Movie largely avoids the kind of cringe humour of adults trying to be cool or chasing trends like so many of these and Dreamworks' movies do. It's remarkably fresh while being stunning to look at.

I really dug this - heavy recommend, maybe especially for non-fans. I'm eternally curious if you'd be able to make any sense of this thing or if you'd just be along for the ride like I was!

Pirates, Drama, and the Mad Science of Donkey Kong Country!

Happy Festivus, everyone! This may be a bit of a departure from our usual allotment of banal pop culture news and end of the year countdowns, but in December 2020 there is one major thing on my mind - all three Donkey Kong Country Games debuting on SNES Online through the Nintendo Switch. Today I capped off my playthrough with a 103% capper of Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble, and as I captured the final Banana Bird and the giant egg fell on Baron K. Roolenstein (SPOILER!), I paused to think about how far I've come. Let's take this detour.

It's hard to remember how big Donkey Kong was in the mid-90s. Far from a Mario side character, he was a genuine video game hero on his own right, and in 1994, Rareware's ACM graphics, story, attitude, and gameplay combined for a perfectly crystalized and realized moment in pop culture and gaming. Also, I enjoyed the monkeys riding rhinoceroses. Oh, it's Rambi, I can't not call everything by its proper name.

A natural jungle scene of a Gorilla riding a rhino, smashing beavers

I was extremely obsessed with this series. It contained such intricate world-building, named characters, goofy baddies, and loveable Kong protagonists that really appealed to the little animal loving explorer in me. I surprisingly worked backwards - even though I played 1994's Donkey Kong Country at a friends' house, the first game I owned was DKC3, and I actually owned the rest in reverse order - DKC2: Diddy's Kong Quest, then years later, the original. A lot of this was simply timing and parents who didn't quite know which game to buy. Needless to say, I started aging out of this, but there was something bigger on the horizon.

The next generation of consoles was emerging towards the end of DKC's heyday, and although Rare successfully made the leap to the N64 (many would say that was their true golden era), Donkey Kong 64 was a disappointment to many, and heralded the great dark years of the 2000s. That was reversed a little with the Donkey Kong Country Returns series but I have trouble with those games, almost only because I am so used to the SNES rhythm and timing.

I recommend you head over to the incredible DKVine for more historic details about this whole era and background info. The Kongversation is the only podcast that I regularly listen to. This site has actually been a huge influence on me and the websites I have run, up to and including this one. So, there's that for you.

So let's get into some reactions. This time I played each of these games in order. I got 93% in 5 hours 15 minutes in DKC, the full 102% in DKC2 in 5:36, and then the max of 103% on DKC3 in 5:46. You may very well wonder why I was so lacking with the original. Well, maybe because it's not so much of a nostalgia trip as the other two for me so I lacked both the desire or the knowledge of where every nook and cranny of bonus was. Also I just got really annoyed at some of the long, troublesome, Expresso-heavy bonus requirements. I had never fully beaten either of the sequels, though, so I was proud of that. Yeah, I heavily used artificial save states. I don't care, I really just wanted to complete it. Totally fine with that. Totally, totally completely fine and I sleep wonderfully every night.

The first DKC is immediately groundbreaking, mostly due to the huge graphical leap. But it's also a game of surprising depth and variety hidden behind a simple facade. On the surface it's merely about a Gorilla trying to get his bananas back from a crocodile. Rare upped all this by naming the crocodile King K. Roll and his Kremling Horde, creating this subtext of this incarnation of Kong trying to live up to the name of his grandfather, the original arcade Donkey Kong (here known as Cranky Kong), and giving the main character an inexplicable necktie.

You can play it like a Mario game where you hop, skip, and bounce your way through each level. But there are more advanced techniques available. On the first level you can find your way through the treetops through some genuinely difficult roll jumps. The prizes are extra lives, which seems so antiquated nowadays. That's the greatest thing dragging this game down - all bonus levels are mere ways to gain lives, which is important within its own context, but there are also easier ways to rack them up. Exploration can be its own reward, and that's the more important core facet here that will preserve going forward.

Everything about the original feels so raw and unpolished, though. That's maybe just because of the subsequent sequels are so refined, structured, and organized. DKC has bonuses at random, without any rules as to where they could pop up. There are even bonus rooms within other bonus rooms. The bosses are straight up sized up versions of normal enemies without much personality (they also all have the same, banana-filled boss room). The stage variation isn't that crazy, and gets very repetitive towards the last few worlds.

Still, it inexplicably ends with the King sailing in on a pirate ship for the final dual. This would prove to be foreshadowing the straight up pirate theme of DKC2. These games are all about expectations, though. Nothing about DKC on first play feels off. The Animal Bonus Tokens do interrupt gameplay, and the difficulty is outstanding, especially as the levels progress. The faults only really become clear when my personal vote for the greatest video game of all time, DKC2 drops a year later.

It seems like it should be such a small thing, but converting the entire enemy horde into blatant pirates works so well. It adds so much more danger to everything going on, in addition to dropping the both the protagonist down and bumping the environments up. In DKC the Kremlings are invading Donkey Kong Island, so the Kongs are defending their home turf. In the sequel, Diddy Kong is an unproven hero venturing off into a foreign land full of danger and mystery, the odds are stacked against him.

This informs every part of DKC2. The ideology is fully realized, from the fact that both monkeys are small, so they literally can't defeat some of the bigger Kremlings, to the increasingly complex level design, which features more vertical, climbing levels, creative uses of innate abilities, and a fleshed out lost world that feels both earned within the meta gameplay as well as providing a functional story use.

There is a lot about the gameplay that succeeds. Each level typically has a core gimmick to explore and put a spin on, again and again until its most complex iteration is satisfied. Diddy's Kong Quest hits this high mark more than any other series. It introduces the concept in a safe way, tells the player how the mechanic functions, demonstrates the consequences of failure, and then introduces a greater challenge to test the player's mechanical understanding, reflexes, timing, and skill. It's quite wonderful.

The main game ends with the kidnapped Donkey Kong uppercutting K. Rool into a swamp full of sharks after one of the most difficult boss fights of all time. It's still not over, though, because in the Lost World, K. Rool returns and you eventually knock him into the Krocodile Kore and the entire island explodes. It's a long, somber note full of reflection on the vanquished evil.

THE FEELS

I never got it, but this creates a really jarring moment when DKC3 opens with such lighthearted bouncing and merriment. It hits such a different tone that really sets it apart. As a kid it was my favourite because it was the first one I owned. It's by far the most complex, with its Brothers Bears and lengthy system of Banana Bird trades. It is also the most superior with its truly open world that evolves past the need to constantly progress in order to save. This all tones down the difficulty, but also greatly increases basic playability.

That tone is off, though. I always bucked back against the mainstream opinion that the third game was inferior, but I hate to admit it on such a narrow playthrough I've finally caved. The Kremling Horde just doesn't seem like an organized and coherent threat like it was in DKC2. Perhaps that's the point, that we're in neutral territory now, a land to the North wholly unfamiliar to both warring races. It's hard to have something to latch on to, though, and everyone's expressive personality takes a big hit.

Still, the level design is crisp and it has perhaps the best expression of "introduce gimmick," describe consequences, and then push to the limit. There are also far more vertical and "box" stages that really push the exploration. The cave levels, especially are twisty and turny and allow the designers freedom to go in any direction they feel like. The Kongs continue to break their limits, but pushing limits was always what rewarded creative gameplay in the first two games. There is less reward for showcasing pure skill in DKC3.

Finishing both games really through me for a loop, though. DKC2 had such a massive emotional upheaval. In three, your final blow to Baron K. Roolenstein doesn't feel like a climax at all. He just sort of putters like he were any other boss. And in the final battle aboard the Knautilus he literally just spins on the steering wheel and it ends. There is a fun inspired bit where the Queen Banana Bird drops an egg on him, but there is nothing akin to becoming a video game hero, vanquishing evil banana thieves, or a cathartic exercise rewarding you after a new territory well explored.

For the record as well, I really don't have a problem with Kiddy Kong - I always liked him. He adds a lot of gameplay variety and adds a new personality to the mix that pushes Dixie into more of a caretaker role. They also really favored Animal Buddy variety, but I was surprised to realize that Ellie, Squawks, Quawk, Squitter, and Enguarde were actually the only ridable buddies. Each of these offers complex mechanics rather than the run and smash Rambi or high jumps of Winky or Rattly. It's all fine, there is an argument to be made for pulling off complex features and another one for executing simplicity. The only gripe is that it's very reliant on transformation rather than merely riding, meaning levels can only be completed one way, instead of a supplement. There is of course, this as well.

DKC3 struck me the most by being relatively easy, especially compared to DKC. I enjoyed the boss fights, none of which are traditional, but it also feels like unconnected denizens of the Northern Kremisphere rather than an organized assault. It's a weird zone where I appreciate the creativity in gameplay but lament the loss of emotional story beats. I think of Squirt in Cotton-Top Cove, who just sort of ends when you splash its eyes out, versus Kleever who literally explodes in a fiery hell. There are exploding bosses, Bleak being the most notable, but that entire sequence feels like a big exception.

Now, I'm not looking for surface-level elements like exploding bosses, but it's a hallmark of how epic DKC2 felt versus how much more satisfied DKC3 is being mediocre. It's the little things. I would always love the high-altitude level end impact which gave you a Dixie Guitar Riff or Diddy Kong Boom Box. If you missed, there would be a basic but still positive jingle and you'd move on. It didn't penalize you in any way, but you would lose both the satisfaction as well as the extra riff. In DKC3 the basic jingle is the default. It's incredibly spiritually unfulfilling.

Also the simple task of beating a level so fast a bear gets angry and pounds his fists so hard a piece of driftwood is dislodged, creating a bridge to go a secret cave where you can input an audio code to release a banana that is also a bird

The DK Koins are similar - it's a fun challenge to capture each, but they are often easy to achieve. The Hero Coins in DKC2 were always about scouring the level to find every possible location. It rewarded exploration. In the third game it's more about rewarding puzzle solving, which is fine, but it doesn't always feel like a challenge well earned.

I don't feel good about doing this. I didn't want this to be a hatchet job on the first video game that I truly and deeply loved. But playing these games rapidly back to back illuminated flaws for the first time in my twenty-five year history with this series. And there are truly great things - the world design, level design, and gimmick design are top notch. I do wish that there was a little more coherence with the later levels, and it's weird to say, but it could have used another theme for the villains and levels. DKC sort of had army guys as a theme, the second one had pirates, DKC3 explicitly has nothing. They don't even lean into the mad scientist or Northern Expanse themes. Level-wise there are cliffs and pine trees and immense verticality which is fun, different, as well as provides that sense of always climbing, climbing, climbing.

What say you? Which game is your favorite? There is a lot more we can dig into here. The third one actually has far less hints, far less utility from Swanky Kong, and brighter, cheerier characters, for what that's worth. For me, it's all DKC2, which is the greatest game of all time. Either way, get your SNES on today.

2018 March Badassness CHAMPION!

This was all too easy. What was really wild is how we got here, though. T'Challa, King of Wakanda, the Black Panther himself defeated uhh....Sonic the Hedgehog. What are you people doing.

Here's the final poll, which Black Panther won with 83% of the votes.

And his path to victory:

Round of 64: Defeated (15) Wing Gundam
Round of 32: Defeated (10) Legolas
Sweet Sixteen: Defeated (14) Commander Peter Quincy Taggart
Elite Eight: Defeated (4) Dutch
Final Four: Defeated (3) Mulan
Championship: Defeated (9) Sonic

Peter Taggart and Mulan were wacky fan favourites, Black Panther's victory here is pretty significant. It also helps that he couldn't be hotter off one of the biggest blockbusters of the year. Also of all time. But let's also look at Sonic's path at a 9 seed:

Round of 64: Defeated (8) Lorraine Broughton
Round of 32: Defeated (1) Goku
Sweet Sixteen: Defeated (12) Roland Deschain
Elite Eight: Defeated (6) Deathstroke
Final Four: Defeated (1) King Kong
Championship: Lost to (2) Black Panther

Sonic beat two #1 seeds! But other than that a lot of his opponents were pretty obscure. That Round Two defeat of Goku is UMBC-esque, though.

So, Black Panther as a champion #2 seed joins the ranks of March Badassness Champions. Eventually we'll do 64 of these and have them all fight each other. That would be in the year 2078. Man I hope I'm still alive doing this crap in 2078. Here's your all-time Winner Rundown:

2015: (1) Han Solo
2016: (9) Buffy Summers
2017: (1) Sam Jackson
2018: (2) Black Panther

I kind of do want to point out that only one straight white male has won in four years. Diversity is badass, baby!

As we do look to the future, I've got to say that we scraped the damn barrel pretty hard this year. I have currently amassed 87 more pop culture icons to duke it out, which I'll whittle down to 64 for next year, but it's going to be ROUGH. I can't imagine anyone coming in who has never seen this site before and thinking, "Why is Atom Ant a #3 seed?" That's how it works. If you've got any ideas of who you'd like to see, please...please send them in.

I also think I might move this to Twitter next year. Maybe even dust off the old twitter handle. I have...I have four followers and have not tweeted in seven years. I see no issue with this.

That's all for this year, folks. Start following @NM_Wood, I'll start tweeting some stupid crap

Tomb Raider Strides Again!

There's some other weird shit coming out this weekend (is there any greater parable for modern America than a gay teen romance and somehow a Christian song-based movie coming out on the same day?), but really it's all about Tomb Raider (2018). The latest installment stars Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in the somewhat odd film based on the more recent, slightly more level headed 2013 version of the Tomb Raider video game rather than the 90s boob-a-thon games. Let's preview all this nonsense, starting with...that.

"I'm Katniss!"

One thing that always bothered me with Tomb Raider is how fans seemed to think Lara Croft was an example of strong female video game protagonists, when in reality she's really just boobs. She only exists to placate male gamers and create another fantasy for them under the guise of being a token video game girl. Granted video game heroines are few and far between, but this is more an example of how much more wrong nerds can be when they're trying to do the right thing. The other big classic video game girl is Samus - but she's rendered androgynous enough in the first few games that her femininity is irrelevant [arguable that makes her a strong case for gender equality, but that's another post], and in later games like Other M her femininity is a crippling weakness. I'll give the Prime series points for balance. This is a whole other post. Other than that we have...I dunno...Ms. Pac-Man? More recent games have been a little better, but there's not a lot to call on.

If you're just looking at boobs, then to be honest, 2001 Angelina Jolie was the absolute perfect casting for the original Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). Jolie has done a lot more with herself now (and to be fair, before 2001), but that presence, those boobs, the cheekbones, it all screams pretty video game girl. It reminds me of the super-impractical Zombie fighting wardrobe of Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004). I mean, it's real hot and Sienna Guillory got me through puberty, but that doesn't make it right.

I don't think I've seen either of the two first Tomb Raider films all the way through. There were two! Can you believe that? I mostly remember the first one for one of Daniel Craig's first big roles and the second one for one of Gerard Butler's first big roles. Is it bad to remember a female action flick for introducing leading men? Can you call it a strong female action flick when it's really just all about boobs and male gaze, thus attracting interested male eyes anyway? It's hard to look at any film made pre...uh...let's go pre-2017 and think about real girl power.

I never played a Tomb Raider game, either. To be fair, I was pretty captivated by Donkey Kong and really didn't get into non-Nintendo games...ever. I'm still a purist (hence my rabid Metroid knowledge), so Lara never fell under sway of my joystick. See, even that sounds horribly dirty. You wouldn't talk that way about Donkey Kong. Video game (and largely, life) femininity just gets the shaft from male audiences. See, I'm doing it again.

At some point Crystal Dynamics realized that they had a good character on their hands that was plagued by all this shit. In 2013 they rebooted the character and actually made her grounded and more fleshed out, ironically by adding pants. For some reason, I suppose because Hollywood loves shooting itself in the foot, Warner Bros decided to go ahead with another film adaptation. It's weird that even though it's been fifteen years since Angelina Jolie's last outing, I definitely still think of this as Tomb Raider 3: The Search for Curly's Gold (2018).

With all that said, I should add that to be fair, this looks a hell of a lot better than Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003), and yes, all of that was actually the title. Akin to the newer series of games, it feels a lot more gritty, personal, and real, which is totally in line with 2010s filmmaking vs. 2000s filmmaking. And the grittiness isn't really like, grimdark grittiness, but realistic cave-dwelling grit, as opposed to Angelina looking like a fucking goddess while spelunking.

The rest of the cast is fairly unknown, besides Walton Goggins, but I'm not sure how much of a household name Walton Goggins is. We should focus on Vikander, though, who although is amazing, I feel won her Academy Award too early. The Danish Girl (2015) wasn't even the best movie or role she had that year. Ex Machina (2015) should be readily accepted as a new classic, but she's totally underrated in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015). This is still one of my favourite movie scenes ever. Damn she's cool and collected and a hilarious asshole in front of giant man Armie Hammer. But really, picture this, a robot, and a transsexual lover - painter in the same year. That's fucking range, people.

To be honest, her 2016 and 2017 were kind of under the radar without a ton of showy or well-seen roles. You see Jason Bourne (2016) on there, but can anyone remember anything from that movie? Or what Vikander did in it? Same challenge for The Light Between Oceans (2016). Irregardless, Vikander is a supreme talent and deserving of a franchise centered around her. It'd be cool if Tomb Raider could be it. They got two fucking Angelina Jolie boobie movies out of it fifteen years ago, they should be okay now, right. Right?

Well, at this point we ought to talk about the elephant - this is a video game movie. Somehow for some reason no video game movie ever works. Sure, Resident Evil (2001) comes close, and that's definitely a rad movie that turned into a progressively more bonkers series that's damn fun to make fun of, but no where close to blockbuster art. That series also ground into the dust. The only other candidate to bring up is Mortal Kombat (1995). And that's it. That's like, the best of your genre.

Recently Hollywood has tried to adapt really good video games like Assassin's Creed (2016) and Warcraft (2016). Whoops. And to be sure, right now Tomb Raider is actually looking like the Queen of all video game adaptations, at a whopping 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's 14% higher than the next film, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010). You know, I actually haven't seen any of these damn movies. They all look so stupid. Maybe it's because I don't play any of these games, but that shouldn't matter, right? I've never sat through a game of Clue, but I love that movie. I never read Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Source material shouldn't matter, but for some reason with video games it does.

That's probably because either the medium is too visually similar to film already or simply because it's not even close to be considered serious art. Critics have clearly never played Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995) for the SNES. Maybe that's why they gave a film like Tomb Raider to a dude like Roar Uthaug, who despite having the greatest name fucking ever, hasn't really done much outside of his native Norway. He crafted The Wave (2015). I mean, COOL, but does he understand American video games? To be fair, he probably does, it's a huge global industry, people.

I don't buy a lot of other reasons, though. There are great movies adapted from television shows, short films, even other movies! There's an argument that playing is so much more immersive that you want to control who's on the screen. That doesn't make any fucking sense at all, why would I want to control Lara Croft anymore than Indiana Jones? Or Hidalgo? Or Brendan Frasier? I've never played the games, but the movies still suck. That's an empty criticism.

In the end, bad movies are bad movies, and that's the mishandled approach. Instead of making a good movie, even in a world where movies are becoming more like video games, directors are boxed in by the trappings of the genre in a bid to appease fans, even though their bank isn't even made on fans. Look, Sam Raimi changed a lot about Peter Parker in Spider-Man (2002) but it still did great because it was a good movie. Studios seem focused on the wrong things.

The irony here is that we've had a few great films that play with the genre without being remotely close to being based on video games. And others that play within genre pretty well. Even watching a movie like Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) I'm plagued with how much of it feels like level progression, down to mini-bosses and final stronghold battles. Video game-style thinking has already invaded our film culture, notably because a progressive succession of challenges, namely through fighting, the most basic conflict, is basic screenwriting. On an even more subtle note, I'm struck by this article on The Last Jedi (2017), which equates mindless tasks to a typical video game routine.

This is aaaallll to say that video game movies don't really have an excuse. I don't think "video game" should even be a genre. Tomb Raider is an action-adventure movie, to be more specific, an archaeology movie. Just like The Mummy (1999) before it. Man the millennium was full of weird campy tomb raiding movies, huh?

There IS this sweet plane jump.

This post has gone on far too long, but with all this said, how does Tomb Raider actually look and what are its cultural and commercial prospects? Well, it seems like a really classic March movie that should be like a Kong: Skull Island (2017) kind of deal - you know...like okay. I keep waiting for Black Panther (2018) to fade, and maybe it does next week with some real competition between this and A Wrinkle in Time's second week? A Wrinkle in Time isn't going crazy and should be beatable. I don't get the feeling this will totally light up the box office (unlike ANOTHER video game spinning jungle adventure movie - Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle [2017]).

If you wanted my honest opinion, I think this is a little too self-revering for its own good. I don't think anyone really cares about Tomb Raider video games anymore and it'd be better off using that as a jumping off point for its own good story. And I don't know, an adventurer trying to find her father, isn't that like...The Last Crusade (1989) in not so many words. Or trade tombs for time dimensions and it's actually just A Wrinkle in Time. The production value looks cool and well shot, but I don't have a yearning desire to catch this in theaters. Maybe on Netflix.

So, what do you think? That was an unexpected 1800+ words and 90 minutes out of my day. Are you amped for Tomb Raider? What do you think of the nature of femininity in video game movies? Are all video game movies doomed? Did Alicia Vikander peak in 2015? Is A Wrinkle in Time dumb for being earnest or is there merit there? Are we all just cynical dicks? Can it get past that awful poster that I didn't even mention once?!

Stay tuned to your pals at Norwegian Morning Wood and all of your questions will be answered!

31 Days of More Halloween Stuff: Diving into Creepy Obscura

We love lists as a people and October's near-perfect amount of days is a damn good means to countdown a ton of stupid, scary, funny, creepy shit to indulge in before the rancid opulence of All Hallow's Eve takes over our souls. We've gone through twelve personal things I partake in and even though we could have made this an every-day kind of thing, who cares about that? This is about splurging and blowing the wad - so here are six more for days 13-18 for ya heartless bastards:

#13: Zombies Ate My Neighbors - video game

Obviously a top pic here over Silent Hill, Resident Evil, or Dead Space, this 1993 feast for the mind and body dropped on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis consoles to endless acclaim by insane pulp-driven boys and girls everywhere. I owned the SNES version and never beat the thing - how many levels were there? Like 666? I did get all the way to that Giant Red Spider Boss, which I'm looking up now was Dr. Bug at Level 36 in one play where upon I was totally wasted. Back in the Age of Passcodes, though, that didn't matter for shit since hey-oh! Final Boss! Codes were hard to earn pre-Internet, though, and we posted a giant list on our wall. Zombies Ate My Neighbors remains the perfect horror game because it found a way to blend every conceivable bit of classic and (at that time) modern horror - from Universal Monsters to B-Movie Nightmares, a heavy dose of slasher knock-offs, and even bits from sci-fi from Tremors (1990) to Day of the Tentacle. It codified and canonized a lot of this horror pop culture with a loony edge and sardonic eye-rolling attitude that relished and made fun of its protagonist's situation at the same time.

#14:"Tricks and Treats" from Freaks and Geeks - TV Show

It must surely be insane to anyone who dismissed the show at the time (considering it lasted one season in infamy, this was most people), but Freaks and Geeks definitively shaped the comic landscape for the next sixteen years and counting, if only because everyone involved, from Paul Feig and Judd Apatow behind the camera to Seth Rogen and James Franco in front of it, exploded onto the scene. For those who paid attention to this little obscure show, though, all of that success was a given. "Tricks and Treats" remains one of the show's best episodes and one of the better episodes of Halloween TV in general. It's still what I think of when I think of the show and it nails a lot about both that awkward time where you probably should stop trick or treating and start egging the wieners who haven't realized they should stop yet. Ah, those Golden Years.

#15: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) - Movie

A true modern cult classic that threads a brilliant rope between comedy and horror and spinning tropes like a more honest version of The Cabin in the Woods (2012), this is still on Netflix Streaming and why haven't you watched it yet? I don't understand how Tyler Labine hasn't broken out more between this and A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011), although I suppose that's mostly because no one on earth has seen these two movies. That was also like five years ago. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is a brilliant hillbilly send-up that loves PBR as much as offing dumb teens, which works on every level.

#16: Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) - Movie

This also belongs in that category of "DVDs I happened to have and so watched on Halloween." I distinctly remember having a few people over once and I happened to be watching it and volunteered to turn it off because for the uninitiated this is a weird fucking movie. We powered through it. Not only are Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis reliably fantastic, but I dig it for offering both the King and Jack Kennedy a more honourable legacy than both of their untimely real-life deaths did as well as a case for the Retirement Age Action Hero in an actual sense of mostly fucking up and falling down, but still saving the day. It's a compelling story that's totally bonkers yet also decently grounded in character, longing for glory days past, and an urge to do something great with what's left of a pathetic life. I also went as Bubba Ho-Tep for Halloween a few years back. No one got it.

#17: American Horror Story - TV Show

You should probably head over here for a detailed opinion on this typically fiasco-level show, but for every Halloween in the current decade, there's been a great outlet for horror on Modern TV courtesy of Brad and Ryan. I haven't been able to invest in too many of these. I made it through Coven and hopped in and out of Hotel, although the current incarnation, Roanoke, which feels like it's busting down all of its own tropes has been an incredible ride so far. AHS seems to trip on its own set-ups more often than not, lacking the ability to truly pay-off the fucked up ride it offers week after week. Still, narrative issues aside, this is a beautiful horror anthology unlike much else out right now and a grand Halloween gesture.

#18: Mary Shelley's Frankenhole - TV Show

From the mind of Dino Stamatopoulos, the premise of this claymation series from 2010 is that Victor Frankenstein has invented an immortality formula as well as time portals that helps him deal with problems historical figures have. You know, like Lyndon Johnson switching brains with JFK or Gandhi turning into a vampire. Typical stuff. It's all real sadistic, unforgiving, maudlin, and hilarious. It of course came from Mary Shelley herself, merely adapted into silly claymation. It's completely off the wall and somehow at the same time probably the truest adaptation to the character of the principal actors from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Yet no appearances by Boo Berry. Or Yummy Mummy.

As the wolves howl and the moon glows bright red so we rest on another batch of Halloween check-offs. This will keep the people satisfied for decades to come. Avast ye scoundrels - till another day breaks!

31 Days of Halloween Stuff: Cartoons, Zombies, and the Best of Burton

Once again we bring you an irregular series of posts purportedly tied into the 31 Days of Halloween, which exists as a marketing gimmick as much as any sort of real thing. But still, October is Creep Month, and although Creep (2014) isn't on this list, we still have #7-12 of cultural junk I specifically ingest to get in the mood for the season. So let's jump in to this issue of madness:

#7: "Spooky" from Conker's Bad Fur Day - Video Game

To offer some background, I'm a complete Rareware nut, dating back in the Super Nintendo / N64 era in the 1990s. I've played the series of Donkey Kong games and their spin-offs endlessly. Conker's BFD was in many ways the last hurrah of that specific era, superficially just another cutesy platformer, but in actuality dripping in ironic adult postmodernism. I've talked about my love of this game in two separate posts from 2009. Needless to say, while I've played my share of creepy games, this one takes the cake. Oh, it does! Maybe it's the limited controls (that are daresay...realistic?), or the simple fact that it's a crazy left turn from where the game seemed to be going, but the nonstop onslaught of zombie squirrels is way more panic-inducing than it has any right to be.

#8: "Sugar Frosted Frights" from Rocko's Modern Life - TV Show

Alright, deep cut from my childhood. Again. When I was a wee lad, this episode of the surreal children's show scared the hell out of me. With trepidation I re-watched it this week only to discover that it's really...not scary at all? It's certainly bizarre, though. You can watch it yourself totally legally on this totally legal site right here. I don't know why this haunted me so. Maybe it's actually that the structure and sequence of the episode really throws you off - when you expect the biggest scare you get this weird moment of camaraderie that blatantly doesn't make any sense (even Filburt is thrown for a loop). Essentially when the big bad, the Haunted Hessian is going in for the kill the episode flashes forward a year where he relives the "goofy moments of yesteryear" with the principal cast. Still, who took those pictures?!

#9: Stranger Things - TV Show

Here's just about the most contemporary installment on this list, but still a goodie. It's probably too recent in our memory to really necessitate a re-showing in October, but 1) If you haven't seen it yet, solve that, and 2) in years to come this will certainly be a Halloween viewing requirement, if we can get over the fact that it feels SO Summer '16. Season 2 I'm sure will leave us equally indebted to creepy throwback child horror, and if it debuts anywhere near Fall, all the better. All in all, despite the addictiveness, in the end it'd be nice if there was a bit more pay-off to the lot, and it's assuredly an ironic combination of nostalgia and recency that puts it on this list. Hopefully it has staying power. You know Barb does. #1 Halloween Costume of 2016.

#10: The Walking Dead - TV Show

I've had a long and tormented history with The Walking Dead. After reading the comics I was pretty amped for the show, which delivered with aplomb for the first two or three seasons, then a solid hate-watch season, then around the time the Governor died I completely lost interest. Joe Bernthal, who's brought his tortured masculine intensity from Shane into his new role as the Punisher on Daredevil, remains the best character the show has ever had, and although its "anyone can die at any time" philosophy does wonders for its visceral and merciless world-building, it really fucks with its narrative reasons to keep watching. It's still a Halloween staple, though, and apparently everyone else is still pretty into the trite shit it's become. I've also written about this before.

#11: "The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up" from The Angry Beavers - TV Show

This is one that I really got into for a while. The Angry Beavers was a really surreal show in an age of constant surreal kid's shows. It was subtle and stupid and more often than not made no sense, even with adult eyes. "The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up" presents the pinnacle of this assertion and the show itself. It's as if The Mist (2007) took place as a B-Movie spoof in a 90s cartoon starring Beavers. It aggressively makes no sense, but all the little boys wanted to dress as Oxnard Montalvo back in '98. It's such a specific bit of culture to parody - I'm at a loss understanding why it was a priority. The results, though, is built more for adult stoners than small children. I have no issue with this.

#12: Ed Wood (1994) - Movie

For a while this made its way on my October must-watch list by virtue of it being one of the only slightly creepy movies in my DVD collection. It's not out and out horror, of course, but its focus on the film career of B-Movie...well, probably C-Movie (D-Movie?) legend Ed Wood who specialized in the macabre (or attempted macabre) makes for a fine Halloween time. The flick certainly stands out as being better than any film Ed Wood actually made and for definitely being Tim Burton's best work. It lacks the out and out fantastical creepiness of his other more overt Halloween-outings, but for whatever reason I never actually got into those. I really dig creepiness, but for some reason none of his other twisty, Danny Elfman-infused movies ever clicked for me. I suppose that's because he tends to be creepy, but also really family friendly, which kind of disarms the horror. But Ed Wood is still golden.

Also Gender Identity Progressive

So now we're over a third of the way through our Halloween List to End All Lists. Stay tuned throughout the week as we blast through more insane things from childhood and normal life to wrap our ghoulish little balls around. Kick back with a Fallgarita and enjoy the Death of the World!

2015: What Have We BECOME?! Looking Back on Looking Forward

Way back in the nether reaches of January, 2015 we produced a list of fifteen great pop cultural events dropping in the year that we ranked in order of most-looking forward to. As usual, most of these were utter, utter crap that I know don't care about. But let's take a look at what we were looking at a year ago anyway:

#15: The Return of Archer (01/08)

I'll be honest, I didn't really remember much of Archer's sixth season when it came time to write this reflection. It only ended in April. I suppose in early January of last year I was really looking forward to it and so it was naturally on my mind, but looking back at some of the episodes now to refresh my memory I'm filled with a surprising amount of "meh." I recall really enjoying the season when it was on, and there is still hardly a more complex and funny animated spy comedy on television right now, but for all my purpose here, it's fitting to be #15 and no greater.

#14: Pitch Perfect 2 (05/15)

I didn't end up seeing this. I want to. It landed with more a thud then a "YEAH!" and appeared to be mostly a re-hash of Pitch Perfect (2012), as awesome as that still is. It suffers from a hard case of sequelization where nothing is really added to the premise except that things get bigger, badder, and more outrageous. It's essentially a skip.

#13: Minions (07/15)

Why is this on this list?

#12: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (05/01)

I have really mixed feelings still about Age of Ultron. I left the theater really enjoying myself, but with seven months now to reflect, it's astonishing how much of a shitty movie it was. Ultron, while promised greatness in Jim Spader's voice and a stellar marketing campaign, ended up being a bit lackluster, with murky motivations and an evil maniacal scheme that seemed reductive at best. The film works well as an advertisement for Captain America: Civil War (2016), but shouldn't we hold our movies to a higher standard than that? We all know this. This film actually broke me - I didn't and still contain no desire to see Ant-Man (2015). I guess this was compounded by the excellent one-two punch of Marvel Avengers Assemble episodes, "Crack in the System" (S2;E14) and "Avengers Dissassembled" (S2;E15), which deal with a similar story line with greater efficiency and cleverness.

#11: Jurassic World (06/12)

I'm going to have to side with similar feelings to this as I did with Ultron, although certainly not as drastic. It's a fine litmus test to try to think of a great scene from a movie six months down the line, no matter how jazzed I was watching it in the theater. Maybe it's the general souring of this film on the Internet that has me jaded, because I was a sole voice of reason during its initial $1.6 billion run. I did point out at the time that Chris Pratt only exists to explain things and be the only reasonable human being on screen at any given moment, and the film serves more as a meta-indictment of current blockbusters while acknowledging the superiority of Jurassic Park (1993) while relishing in its own blockbuster-yness. In the end I sorta just wish they made a better movie instead of pumping nostalgia, even if their commentary on doing just that is pretty canny.

#10: Better Call Saul (02/08)

This is certainly a deserved chunk of pop culture and Better Call Saul quickly became extremely watchable television. It's amazing that a spin-off prequel to Breaking Bad could be so successful, but it works in part because it's not beholden at all to the original's mythology. It has simply taken a handful of characters from the original show and elucidated them under different circumstances. This is exactly what we want. It's what we always want.

#9: Halo 5: Guardians (Fall)

This is kind of a curveball, I totally forgot that this was even coming out and that I even cared about this until I was re-reading this list. After slamming through some playthroughs, because I never actually play video games any more. Again, I'm totally just into the single-player campaign, which is probs the minority opinion among Halo Junkies. Anyway, the split focus recalls the middle chapter in the previous trilogy, although Locke is a bit less interesting than the Arbiter. At least we don't have to play as a gross Elite and be disgusted with ourselves. The composition of the story ends up being a little disjointed, and after Halo 4 really impressed me by subtly breaking away from some of the Halo conventions and feeling really fresh, suddenly Halo 5 seems like a retread. Well, time to look ahead to Halo 6: Space Monster Boogaloo.

#8: The Return, then Finale of Parks and Recreation (01/13)

Parks and Rec ought to have secured its place among the pantheon of contemporary classics, even if its intense serialization has actually made re-watching a less enjoyable affair. The final season limped a bit with heavy losses to the cast and a show that ultimately didn't feature any of its core characters still doing the same work, but in its own way, that's what Parks and Rec was always about - a workplace comedy that eventually had all its people spin out of the workplace and go on with their lives. The final scenes were some of the strongest and most inspirational in recent memory, which also boils down to what it's all about - the most positive and hopeful show on television.

#7: Furious 7 (04/03)

It's seemingly impossible that the seventh installment of a film series that once included Ja Rule would continue raising the bar for itself in every possible way. Each film seems better than the one that came before it both critically and financially. It's also amazing that we all realized that we cared so much about Paul Walker. It certainly lived up to expectations, although is it the Oscar hopeful we all thought it could be? Nah, but probs one of the better blockbusters of the year. Somehow.

#6: The Return of Broad City (01/14)

Yes, a thousand times yes. Broad City strutted out in 2015 for its second season with an absurd amount of confidence and put together some of the greatest scenes in any show this year. It's hard to find a weak episode, with Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson firmly making their case for the funniest buddy duo of our time.

#5: The Revenant (12/25)

It's tough to follow-up a film like Birdman (2014) in terms of both direction, cinematography, cast, cultural context, and ambition, but Alejandro and Emmanuel dare try. Stick these guys with Leo and Tom who have both had spectacular careers lately (lest we forget they were buddies in Inception [2010]), and there's a lot going on here amidst the bear attacks and river fights. Totally worth it and this should have been bumped up this list a ton.

#4: Tomorrowland (05/22)

I like a lot of what Tomorrowland tried to do, but it seemed to get lost in the shuffle of the summer and could never really break out sandwiched between Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), which drew the most eyeballs, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which drew the most wonder, and San Andreas (2015), which seemed to be able to mop everything up with the Rock and Alex Daddario better than Clooney and Britt Robertson. And Britt Robetson has total movie star potential, but Tomorrowland is ultimately forgettable - so she'll need something else lest she fall into fell Disney failure Taylor Kitsch territory fast.

#3: The Return of The Venture Bros. (01/19)

This was pretty sweet. Well, the one special, "All This and Gargantua-2" was. So many storylines were wrapped up....so much loss. We're virtually at the same point we were A YEAR AGO with the promise of Season Six premiering in February. So Venture Bross will totally be on our anticipated list for next year. Great. I'm not going to let it get to me that the pilot dropped on February 16, 2003. That's six seasons in thirteen years. There are no other fans that know our pain.

#2: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (Aug or Sep)

I'd say this has been pretty good but not really the great, awe-inspiring change to late night forever as we know it that I sort of hoped it'd be. He got off to a real shaky start, despite what a lot of critics have said, but I've been disinterested in his faux-pundit persona for a while now. The more he's steered away from that and discovered more of who he wants to be on camera, the stronger the show has become, even if Fallon and Kimmel have a slightly stronger hold on virality right now.

#1: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (12/18)

And he's cute!

If you really want to hear what I think about this and have a good forty-five minutes or so, you can check it out right here. Re-thinking all that now, though, I suppose that if we divorce ourselves from this film's utter reliance on basic plot points and motifs from the Original Trilogy, it is a pretty great film. That's a tough call to make, though. I still believe that this has some pacing issues and problems with establishing a clear plot, but every new central character is fantastic and it absolutely feels like a gift more than the prequels, which is a true Christmas blessing.

So that's 2015 in a nutshell. As always, most of the pop cultural artifacts we were looking forward to were really really terrible. I might say 5/15 of these were really worth it?

What do you think of 2015? Do you agree? Stay tuned after the new year to find out what crap we're looking forward to in 2016!

Mortal Kombat X is Turning Into the Pop Culture Fighting Game We Deserve

Last Week a video leaked revealing a new slew of characters in the ever-expanding Mortal Kombat X roster. Among the randos were two horror icons to add to the growing line-up of pop culture badasses, Leatherface and a Xenomorph.

It's obviously exciting to play as Leatherface and whomp on already-existing Gust Kharacter Jason Voorhees, or re-enact the immortal clash between Alien and Predator that transcends all media. This places Mortal Kombat X in an interesting position though - first, it chiefly renews long-term interest in an otherwise cut and dry fighting game, but more importantly it's creating this sort of transcendent Super Smash Bros game for adults.

The whole point of Smash Bros is containing all these video game icons under one roof and see what happens when they battle each other. This has grown from a Nintendo party to expand further and further until virtually any icon, past or present could be eligible for inclusion. They have their own similar DLC expansion roll-outs that continues to generate interest in a game that could otherwise be forgotten, but it's far more novel that Mortal Kombat X finds itself in a position as a flagship for all badasses in pop culture.

I also love how they added that weird Predator laugh he does at the end.

There have been other characters released in DLC, but honestly, who is really excited for Tremor or Takeda? See, you don't even know who they are. But there's instant interest in the Predator or Jason. They fit seamlessly into Mortal Kombat's universe, probably because of the brutality inherent to horror icons, but it's also strange that they're starting to dominate the conversation. At this point it's a tipping point that's more about "When will they add Michael Myers?" rather than "Where's Cyrax?" (interestingly enough, MKX seems to be avoiding that specific problem by, for once, combing their clone characters into another DLC, Tri-Borg).

This seems like an effort to go into the realm of novelty over Klassic Kharacters, but then again, we had everyone in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, so who really cares? I'm also not sure that's a bad thing at all. But for better or worse, MKX is becoming a flagship for what March Badassness was originally trying to do. By this logic, the next natural progression is how far can the inclusion of different IPs continue?

This all started, of course, in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which pitted a gaggle of Mortal Kombat fighters against DC Comics heroes and villains. In the 2011 edition of Mortal Kombat, Kratos from God of War and Freddy Krueger appeared, setting up the current trend of sliding in horror icons who fit well with the Kreepiness of MK's branding.

This of course isn't limited to Mortal Kombat. Darth Vader and Yoda notably appeared in Soul Calibur IV. Still, what other guest characters might find themselves in Mortal Kombat X - and when do we reach the point where we're totally only checking out the game to see how they stack up? I still don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but I'm totally digging how MKX has become the unlikely spotlight for pop culture battles.

The Way We Were: TV and Video Games in 2013

Now, with Movies and Music under our belt, it's time to deal with everything else. Television is such a tricky medium, especially considering honoring the calendar year of 2013 doesn't even honor seasons in most cases. Still, there were a handful of notable television series this year. This was also a standout year for video games to mature into the interactive storytelling medium they deserve to be. Let's begin by dividing television into a few categories.

Finest New TV Shows:

Comedy: FOX is slowly but surely building a Tuesday night comedy empire, with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, and The Mindy Project rivaling anything CBS does on Mondays, ABC does on Wednesdays, or certainly what NBC is now doing on Thursdays. In a sea of absolute shit coming out of a lot of networks, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a surprisingly well made show, with a dream ensemble that is far funnier than they ever deserved to be.
Standout Episode: "Sal's Piza"

Drama: Sticking with FOX, I doubt anyone would have called Sleepy Hollow the breakout hit of the year. It's really pretty trashy, but the sheer madness that drives each episode makes it inescapable. It's a giant "fuck you" to twisted long-mystery serials like LOST and even The X-Files, as well as to basic logic. If you're looking for an absolutely crazy horror show that works (and isn't American Horror Story: Coven, of course), Sleepy Hollow has the golden ticket.
Standout Episode: "Blood Moon"

Finest Returning TV Shows:

Comedy: While Parks and Recreation is always a reliable choice, this wasn't their best year. This really could have been the best new show years ago, but it's taken some time to gain a following, so thank goodness FOX actually gave it room to grow - all hail Bob's Burgers. It's worth the investment for fresh characters, intrepid storytelling, and the bold guidance of Loren Bouchard. It's a relentlessly positive show, and of course Bob doesn't sound like Archer at all. There's the reliable goofiness of The Simpsons mixed with the normalcy of King of the Hill, wrapped in a bun. A delight.
Standout Episode: "The Deepening"

Drama: Okay, I don't actually watch Game of Thrones. But I know enough to know that the cultural reverberations of "The Red Wedding"  jammed up my Facebook for days. I mean, I'm more a "Red Robin Wedding" fan, myself. Despite my apathy, everyone is taking GoT, which is far more important than me actually tuning in. It's an encapsulating narrative, a slow burn that's as addictive as it is brutal to its own characters. HBO is riding this one as long as it can.
Standout Episode: "The Red Wedding"

Finest Departing TV Shows

Comedy: There were numerous big shows that called it quits this year. While The Office's "Finale" was pretty competent, its best episode of the season was its penultimate, "A.A.R.M.", which served as more of a effective callback to better years than innovating or growing on its own. Futurama's "Meanwhile" bumped up a bit better, offering everything that series promised: a clever sci-fi high concept, lots of silliness, and some real heart. The greatest send-off, though, was 30 Rock's "Last Lunch", which is just about as satisfying as you can get with a series finale. You want to know that each character has moved on and is going to be okay without you watching them anymore, but also that they've made some progress as human beings. "“This whole time you’ve been telling me how to run my life — you didn’t know what you were talking about. You’re just an alcoholic with a great voice.” It's perfect.
Standout Episode: "Last Lunch"

Drama: Breaking Bad gets everything. The best characters, best story, and the most intricate development on television. Years ago the creators decided to take this meek High School chemistry teacher and find out how far they could push him to become the ultimate badass. Everything pays off here in this last season, even if the story had been stretched a bit the past few seasons. Everything clicks as the world goes out with a bang, no whimper to be found.
Standout Episode: "Ozymandias"

Now, where does Netflix fit in? Arrested Development blasted back on the scene with an epic return that delivered a super concentrated dose of its intense multi-layered storytelling. It was rough to get through, but with some patience and sobriety, proved to live up to its "greatest sitcom of all time" status. Likewise, Orange is the New Black proved that Netflix could push the restrictions of the television medium, in time, content, and character structure. The greatest advances in the television medium are happening now - eventually when the old guard of arbitrarily restricted traditional television falls, everything will be on-demand and awesome. 2013 will forever be the year we point to as the start of everything great in long-form visual storytelling.

Video Games:

There were three major landmark games this year amidst repetitive shooter and GTA copycats. The first is The Last of Us, which somehow spiced up the zombie survival game genre through its truly immersive storytelling and genuinely difficult gameplay that made its world seem all the mroe real. It's also damn tense and scary, with realistic characters to root for.

Going completely opposite in genre for a second, it seems as if all Nintendo can do lately is put new spins on thirty-year old properties. My answer is, so what if those games are still good. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds pulled off difficult puzzles and drawing manipulation to bridge the gap between being a good and great Zelda game. And all Super Mario 3D World had to do was introduce cats. Yes, Cats to make a great Mario Game!

Finally, the greatest game of this past year was well worth the wait - Bioshock Infinite. It succeeds in every level required to make a great game - clever and fluid gameplay mechanics, stunning graphics, and an intricate and involving complex storyline. The game kept you thinking months after completion, and the amount of Easter eggs and other hidden bits that polished the experience kept the world rich. Not only that, but the game actually explored with a deep articulation the racism and xenophobic dangers inherent to late 19th-Century American Exceptionalism along with radical revolutionaries. And metaphysics. All while being really cool. There's not another game that has all this in one package, and Bioshock Infinite is really the game of the decade.

Best of 2011: Video Games

Hello folks, we've somehow already come to a whole year's end here and so naturally we need now to look back and examine the best, brightest and best pop culture spots of 2011. We start here with the greatest Video Games of 2011. In many ways, 2011 was a landmark year for video games, there were certainly some great ones that rise to the top, but more and more it does seem like the most popular ones are becoming very repetitious, although the best here are truly something else.

More and more video games are bridging this gap of interactivity between people and visual media. Video games are catching up steadily to movie technology and games like L.A. Noire really found a niche. That said, video games should be used to act out fantasies in more personal ways that movie cannot (a major reason for their popularity among the nerdier population), and I have no fantasy about interrogating L.A. criminals.

The end of the year featured two dueling army games, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, that seem over-hyped but largely retreads of ideas that are no longer innovative. Fun for sure, but nothing that pushes boundaries. This year featured many more outstanding sequels than original ideas, including threequels for both Resistance and Gears of War, neither of which succeeded their originals in quality.

Of course, there were many games that played to their franchises' strengths while delivering a very fresh and engrossing experience. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was slick and challenging along with pushing the storyline to follow-up the brilliant Deus Ex (2000). Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception was also able to pull off a very cool addition to its series. Portal 2 added some needed spiciness to one of the more intriguing puzzle games ever made, and is one of the few games designed for a massive audience that doesn't involve heaps of gratuitous violence. Likewise The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is one of the most involved installments in the Zelda series and serves well with more advanced motion controls, although the technology has not yet been perfected, and the Wii is close to being pushed as far as it may go.

There are really only two contenders for Game of the Year, though. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is less of a game than a way of life - something to devote one's entire living experience to with great rewards to reap. Like killing dragons and gaining HP. Much more rewarding than going outside. The game is insane though, and does more than any game has previously (except perhaps for other games in the Elder Scrolls series, naturally), which is truly establish a universe to roam around and live in, even to read fictional history books through. It's an incredible experience, but loses points because it's nigh impossible to casually play among friends or just to waste five minutes before you need to leave somewhere. That's still what Mario Kart is for.

The other strongest game of the year is Batman: Arkham City. It's not really fair that Batman gets everything awesome, is it? It gets the dual bonus of being incredibly fun and easy to play as well as a coherent storyline steeply deeped in both the Batman Mythos as well as character development from the previous Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009), both being obviously darker spiritual successors to Batman: The Animated Series (including voice actors and certain characters' storylines, such as Mr. Freeze and Harley Quinn). It's a cohesion that continually satisfies Batman fans and casual gamers alike.

Capsule 2010: Other Shit

So with Music, TV and Movies out of the way, we can talk a bit about what's leftover from 2010, concluding Norwegian Morning Wood's exhaustive study of all things pop-y about the year we left behind us last week. It's not really that important, but like you reading this out there, it sure kills some time. Let's go:

VIDEO GAMES OF 2010:

It was a pretty good year for gaming, though we've gotten to the point where most of the best released games are sequels. In fact, in my scrutiny I only found one really original title, which I call the best of the year, among the rabble. It's like all these games are good only because they mostly follow in line with their predecessors, which were all landmark, innovative titles. Only the #1 spot really earned it this year.

So, firstly in no particular order, the best games of the year include GoldenEye 007 riding on the coattails of its superior N64 source material (possibly greatest game ever. Oh wait), Metroid: Other M, which is admittedly less cool than its commercials but decent enough, Halo: Reach, a series that has been on the decline since the Arbiter showed his fucking four-split face and Dante's Inferno, which kind of sucked but had some really cool levels. Speaking of Dante, God of War III was up there, as was Dead Rising 2, which put just enough of a spin on its concept to remain interesting in this time of endless zombie media. I also enjoyed playing lots of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and BioShock 2 was about equal with its predecessor, which ultimately renders it not as interesting (waiting for BioShock Infinite in 2012 to finally push that envelope again). Finally, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty exists basically to suck our time and money and make us feel inferior to South Koreans. Seriously, StarCraft is Korea's NFL.

But the best game of the year of course goes to Red Dead Redemption. It's a heavy character game, infinitely cool, re-playable, interesting and innovative. Though honestly I feel like I'm the only one who played GUN on GameCube like five years ago, Red Dead's about the same thing. Except better, bigger and crisper in every way possible. Still, it's the best game of the year. Now go hate the sun and play it.

SPORTS OF 2010:

2010 was a pretty good one for all kinds of sporting events. The New Orleans Saints surprised just about everyone by derailing Peyton in the most widely-watched Superbowl (and American Program) of all time in February. New Orleans has been this cool city lately, despite you know, the tremendous Katrina damage, but it seems like it's poppin. You've got like, Benjamin Button hanging out there, Drew Brees, Nic Cage in Bad Lieutenant (2009)...uh...Treme. So that's football.

Winter Olympics were actually kind of forgettable this year. I say that because I almost forgot to talk about it. The most exciting may have been a bitter curling grudge match that finally saw long-time runner up Kevin Martin snag Canadien Gold away from the Strange-Pants Wearing Norwegians. Oh and some Hockey Game. Continuing on the world stage, the 2010 World Cup was mostly known for Vuvuzelas, the United States shut out by Ghana again and an Octopus picking the winners. Seriously, I thought there was some Giant Herd of Bees attacking all the stadiums. I heard that magical psychic Octopus tasted spectacular. At any rate, I'd probably take all that over anything done in Qatar. Actually to be fair, if any country can successfully misappropriate its resources, it's a nation like Qatar. They're going to blow a huge load on these games, it'll actually be awesome. You know, as long as the temperature is under 120.

It was also a year of scandal. Tiger sucks and Favre ruined his legacy for...wow. Have you seen her? I'm sending Jenn Sterger a picture of my dick right now. Also Ben Roethlisberger spent his summer raping everyone in sight.

Go Giants.

CITIES OF 2010:

I'm out of ideas here. I could talk about books but...well, I bought Earth, which rules (I never knew you could make so many jokes about permafrost and oxygen), but hell, what else is there really? But I do think the City of Miami was pretty big in 2010. South Beach is the hot place, baby. Once known quixotically as a home for Gays, Jews, Cubans and the Elderly, Miami is becoming a hip spot for everyone else. Hell, even I went to Miam in 2010.

LeBron James calls it his new home (can't believe he betrayed Akron for Sun and Busty Latin Girls) and the Heat are poppin' off. This was also one of the most controversial sports stories of the year. South Beach was also the natural destination for the degenerates that call the Jersey Shore home for their second season. And if LBJ and Sitch are wrong, dammit...I don't want to be right.

Now if the Dolphins can win another division title we'll get somewhere. How the hell is a team 1 - 7 at home? That's ridiculous. You're playing in the City of 2010, baby! I mean, give Brandon Marshall the ball, that's why you picked him up. Anyway, that's about it for our 2010 coverage. Bring on the future.

The Long Halloween Vol. II: All Hallow's Eve

Last year Norwegian Morning Wood featured a year-long look at the greatest Television Holiday Specials - one a month, no repeat shows, the best of the best. We called it The Long Halloween because this was the first one, and hell, we're Batman fans. When it came down to what to do this year, though we were in a bit of quandry. We had already done Television, what else is there?

After some internal discussion I just decided, hell, Everything. Let's go over everything you need to see and do on every holiday. Hoorah. Let's start with films:

Spooooky Flicks!

There are so many appropriate Halloween Films. It's not even justifiable to attempt to name them all here, so I'll go with a big three:

Who dares fart in my castle?

For classics, nothing beats Dracula (1931). There's a reason Bela Lugosi has been in the mind of Pop Culture for nearly eighty years now and it remains a perfect Halloween viewing. For frights, the downright scariest movie I've ever seen is The Shining (1980), I have trouble getting through any moment of this and it's worth noting that the meticulous attention to detail and multiple plot interpretations I think could slide it into the discussion of one of the greatest movie directions of all time. For the most insane analysis ever, you can check this out which should simultaneously suck a few hours out of your life and cause you to lose sleep for a month. At least that's what supposedly happened to Robert De Niro.

As for a film that perfectly captures a lot of Halloween elements, including some nice scares, check out Trick 'r Treat (2009) - a tiny little film that no one has seen with some really freaky scary elements that features a Halloween Anthology unlike much else out there today. It's definitely worth a squirt today.


Ghoulish Tunes!

I've give you a couple of necessary songs to listen to this night as well. For classic rock songs, nothing will beat Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London," which is an incredible track any time of the year. It's also one of the funniest monster-themed rock songs you'll ever hear. There's not nearly as many Halloween Carols as some other holidays (looking at you, Flag Day...), but you can also dish on "This is Halloween" and of course some "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah." Yeah that's the best I've got. Take a gander at this playlist for many many more, most of which are pretty awful but it'll cover all your creepy party needs.

Haunted-Ass Video Games!

I'll point out with wiener intensity my scariest video game experience playing this level of Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001) late at night on a chilly Autumn morning. Please don't let that affect my recommendation of The Shining. Other than that, a lot of Dead games work nicely. Left 4 Dead (2008), Dead Rising (2006), Dead Space (2008), it's all good. Like movies there's no real shortage of horror games to play. For classics you should check House of the Dead (1996) at your local arcade, for scariness it might be one of the Silent Hill series, but my favourite Halloween Game to play is Resident Evil 4 (2005).

All clowns want to do this to you.

Also for some reason more and more games tend of have these little Zombie mini-modes. The latest is Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (2010) which is downloadable as of five days ago. The Nazi Zombie mode in Call of Duty: World at War (2008) is also immensely fun to play. It does seem like Zombies are somehow becoming more ubiquitous, taking over Community, video games and now Television as well. I wrote a few lengthy pieces on the phenomenon last year but it could probably use some more. From a video game standpoint though, Zombies are just pretty easy. They appear, they lumber and you kill them. But they never stop. That's basically every video game enemy ever. As for the Nazis, well, Call of Duty wasn't the last.

Uhhh...How About Food and Drink?

When I was a small child my mother would always make us goulash on Halloween. She would call it "Ghoulash" though, so it was obviously haunted. So basically that and tons of candy should be your Hallow-Dinner. As for alcohol, I'd suggest a lovely mix of Jim Beam, Cider and Caramel, which in my favourite combination can be blended with ice to make a beautiful "Fallgarita." Trust me, this thing is delicious, Jim and Apple just work, I don't know why or how but it just WORKS.

So that's it really. While you're eating your Ghoulash, sipping on Fallgaritas, playing Resident Evil 4 with The Shining on in the background and "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" on loop in your headphones you're probably coming close to a perfect Halloween Pop Culture Evening. This is an easy holiday though, really. As long as you find something that spooks the crap out of your it's Halloween-Appropriate. Pumpkins, ghosts, vampires, etc all should fit in fine as does any crypt, graveyard, laboratory or middle school locker room setting. You know, whatever gives you the willies.

That's it for this holiday, while we've basically screwed ourselves to find coverage for next year, you should be good to go for this one.

Trick or treat, bitch.