Once Upon a Time on Athas...

One of my favorite campaign settings is Dark Sun, a post-apocalyptic world scorched by life-draining magic. It's an inherently pessimistic and nihilistic setting, bereft of gods (clerics get their power through worship of elemental spirits in a sort of animism), and filled with tyrannical sorcerer-kings.

I remember a time back in college when I was running my campaign. It was a lot of fun playing with my core group of three players--John (who later went to get his PhD at Dartmouth) was a dwarven gladiator, Luke (a gigantic guy who looked like a Mafia enforcer) was a half-elven preserver-bard, and Aaron (my best friend and one-time roommate) was a half-elven defiler/psionicist. There were other party members who came and went--we had Marc who played a cleric of the air spirits, some guy who played a halfling ranger (I can't remember his name, it was over ten years ago), and Wayne who played a templar from a hidden city to the distant north. But our core group was Aaron, Luke, and John, who were there for every adventure, had beautifully well-developed characters, and displayed incredible camaraderie.

Aaron's character had a curious backstory. He never knew his father, but knew only that he had been cursed. His elven mother was always ashamed of him, and eventually he abandoned his elven tribe and struck out alone. Tattooed to his arm in ancient elvish was the phrase "...and all that you touch shall become ashes." This curse was the cause of his defiling magic. We worked out a system where he could cast as a preserver (i.e. he didn't suck energy from the life-force of the land about him), but it would take intense concentration and cause his character great pain and his tattoo would glow. He wrapped it in bandages to hide it from others and studied the ways of the mind and psychic powers in order to help him control his magical abilities.

Luke's character, being a preserver (a magic-user that only draws a little life-force so as to not turn the land around him into ash and desolation) was diametrically opposed to defilers. His alignment, Chaotic-Good, would theoretically put him at odds with Aaron's character, who was Neutral-Evil (if I remember correctly). Now, Aaron is a great study in how to play an evil character that doesn't have to betray the party. His evil was totally a function of priority--looking out for himself--but he gradually extended his priority to include his friends. When John and Luke proved themselves as trustworthy, Aaron's character did what he could to protect them. At first, this was a function of practicality--their survival increased his own chances of survival.

Then, one day, while escaping from pursuit, Aaron failed his check while casting a spell. Instead of absorbing the pain of casting, a swath of land around him turned into black desolation. John and Luke were shocked, both in character and in real life (Aaron had kept it a secret all this time), but they had no time to discuss it until later.

When they did, Aaron sat his two comrades down and explained all that had happened in his past. It was incredible. I just sat back while he and Luke, totally in character, discussed his curse, how much he tried to subvert it and overcome it, how he somehow hoped but didn't believe in redemption. And Luke accepted him. Aaron agreed to avoid defiling as best as he could--basically continuing to cast spells with checks as he'd always done. Despite their opposing classes and alignments, through role-playing in character, the two became friends and came to trust one-another deeply.

Oh, there were still disputes that were caused by alignment. One time, after interrogating an enemy soldier, they debated whether or not to let him go. They only had enough water for the three of them, not the captive. Releasing him would result in the captive either dying in the desert or finding his unit and informing them of the location of the party's forces. Luke felt it was honorable to release him. Suddenly, Aaron's character drew his obsidian dagger and slit the captive's throat. His reasons were sound--either he dies or informs the enemy, period. Aaron, true to his evil alignment, killed the man in cold blood and did not feel any remorse.

However, Aaron and Luke both felled a 12th-level psionicist using stealth, smarts, and skill in perfect co-ordination. And they were only at 4th or 5th level (this is in 2nd edition AD&D, by-the-way). They worked together as a team--in fact, the three comrades worked so well together that they were almost like a commando group. I had difficulty with lots of encounters with them because they were so well coordinated. Other people would rotate in-and-out of the game, but this core had gotten to know one-another so well every Tuesday night over the course of junior year of college that they really challenged me as a DM to set up encounters that would make them sweat--but I did it. And honestly, it felt good to see them triumph over the challenges I set before them.

Alas, Luke flunked out of college and disappeared, John graduated and went to Dartmouth, and Aaron and I were left alone our senior year of college. The group was never the same without John and Luke. I ran a few sessions during my senior year, but it didn't last very long. I tried converting things to 3rd edition, but the dynamics of the group were just too different. The magic was gone.

Instead, I returned to playing, and had some memorable adventures in Aaron's second Forgotten Realms campaign. But I'll never forget those times junior year, playing Dark Sun. It really shaped my opinion, thoughts, and feelings regarding good roleplaying. The four of us were pretty good friends out of game, and that friendship was greatly enhanced by our interaction in-game.

アキラ (Akira) Volume 1

Almost a full decade ago, I attended Otakon. It was there that I discovered the serialized 単行本 (tankobon) of the Japanese 漫画 (manga), アキラ (Akira). Now, I had seen the 1988 film for the first time in 1997 (I was a freshman in college at the time), and was just developing an interest in アニメ (anime). The film had received mixed reviews. It's painstakingly detailed animation was a phenomenal labor of love, but the script suffered from trying to cram several years and over two-thousand pages of manga into a 125-minute feature.

However, I had been so impressed by some of the themes explored in the film that I wanted to read the manga and see how the story differed. That's why it was fortunate that I had stumbled across the first volume, translated into English by Dark Horse comics.

Akira, a 2,150-page epic manga written by 大友克洋 (Otomo Katsuhiro), is a landmark in science-fiction and an incredible visual essay on fear, jealousy, and betrayal, alienation, and societal collapse all in comic-book form. On the surface, it appears to be just another cyberpunk story of ultra-violence, superhuman powers, and petty gang warfare against a backdrop of political unrest. However, Otomo's story is much deeper than that.

The central characters, 金田 (Kaneda) and 鉄雄 (Tetsuo) are two delinquent teens in a motorcycle-riding street-gang in a futuristic Tokyo that is constructed on a landfill dominating Tokyo Bay. The story introduces them immediately, racing along abandoned highways toward the enormous crater where the first bomb that had touched-off World War III had fallen. Otomo sets the stage for the tensions between the two friends that will come to dominate the rest of the story.

Tetsuo narrowly avoids crashing into a pale, wizened child with the number "26" stamped upon his hand. There is an explosion, and Tetsuo is injured. His fellow gang members surround him, but Kaneda notices the strange, unnatural child, who fades away. Moments later, the military arrives. Tetsuo is taken to a hospital, but the boys do not know which one. Kaneda's desire to find his friend, his anger at the child for hurting Tetsuo, and his interest in a young girl attached to a revolutionary movement, entangle him with the insurrectionists and attract the attention of the military.

Meanwhile, Tetsuo emerges from the hospital suffering from headaches and desperate for narcotics in order to relieve the pain. Tetsuo's character suffers a deep transformation, as his friends recognize and understand him less and less. Simultaneously, deep veins of jealousy and insecurity begin to surface in Tetsuo's personality, especially toward Kaneda. Tetsuo gradually becomes more and more narcissistic and detached from the world around him.

Kaneda is much smarter than he appears, but his brains are completely subsumed by his own primal urges. Brash, cocky, and certain that he'll live forever as only a fifteen-year-old can be, Kaneda always seems to get through his situations with more luck than smarts. However, this isn't entirely the case. Kaneda's selfishness and arrogance conceal a deep concern for the well-being of his friends. He is, at core, a character that possesses a certain degree of honor, despite his unscrupulous, roguish exterior. His cockiness and disrespect for authority would seem quite shocking to a Japanese reader of the 1980s, although to an American, he'd seem quite typical of a youthful hoodlum.

Kaneda's behavior is driven by base motivations. His pursuit of Kei is simply a product of sexual attraction, although he gradually begins to genuinely care for her. He is never lured by her political ideals, nor is he really driven by curiosity. Kaneda's primary drives are mundane and simplistic. Indeed, he is naïve. His bravery is largely a product of his ignorance and his youthful certainty in himself. By the end of the first volume, however, much of his naïveté and self-assurance is challenged by forces that are, quite obviously, beyond his control, and Kaneda experiences true loss.

The transformation of Kaneda's relationship with Tetsuo is incredibly important. Tetsuo's own arc is rapid--having always been weak and small, Tetsuo is tyrannical when he discovers his power. Also youthful and naïve, Tetsuo cares little for the suffering of others, possibly because he believes no one has ever cared for his own suffering. When Tetsuo discovers his own powers, all roles are reversed. Kaneda is resentful, Tetsuo is indignant and desires to forcibly subdue his former friend. This betrayal fuels Kaneda, gives him purpose and a desire to see Tetsuo neutralized. Indeed, what angers and pains Kaneda the most is that Tetsuo forces Kaneda to choose to kill him. This seems to come off as the most bitter and painful betrayal of all.

Otomo's story is one of a society divided against itself. The government is lazy and corrupt, with the military secretly accumulating incredible amounts of power in order to prevent another holocaust such as that which sparked the Third World War. The art depicts the relatively new city as dilapidated, covered in graffiti, and very much unlike the Tokyo that emerged from the reconstruction after the Second World War. This is a complete reversal of reconstruction--Japan is trying to resurrect itself a second time, and is failing.

Alienated from society at large, the youth descend into anarchic tribalism, owing allegiance not to ideologies but to one another. This makes Tetsuo's betrayal of Kaneda and his motorcycle gang so bitter--Tetsuo's betraying his personal friends, his tribe, and his first, greatest allegiance. As their world begins to break down, the characters reach out and attempt to forge new connections with others. Tetsuo seeks to control all of his new relationships from a position of power, while Kaneda's grasping for Kei is much more simple, innocent, and childlike, reflecting his adolescence.

Otomo's first volume of Akira is a complex work, with equally complex artistry. Otomo's skillful use of angles in many of his frames suggests power or weakness of a character, as well as enhances the relationships between the characters themselves. A great deal is communicated without dialogue, and the reader must be willing to pay attention to each frame of the comic, and not simply skip through. There is a lot that may be missed due to lack of narration common in Western comic books. The violence is pronounced but brief and Otomo doesn't dwell upon the bloodshed. The world he depicts is dirty and decaying, and the visual decay that the pictures show reflect the spiritual and political decay within society.

My only complaint is that, in order to facilitate easy reading for non-Japanese audiences, all of the pages have been reversed. It's actually quite obvious to see--drivers sit on the wrong side of the vehicle, and everyone seems to shoot left-handed. But this was a decision by Dark Horse, and has little bearing on the writing and art itself, except that I don't get to see Otomo's original vision undistorted.

Altogether, this is a fantastic book. One should not be fooled by the fact that it is a comic book. Otomo's first volume of Akira is much, much more than that. Through the cyberpunk genre, Otomo is exploring themes of power in relationships, both between individuals and within groups. He is also delving into the human psyche and what he digs up isn't necessarily comforting to the reader, but perhaps that challenge is what makes this such an important story. As a comic book, Akira excels far more than it does on film or it would as a novel. Without the visualization provided by film or comics, Otomo's story would have been weaker, but the film version's time constraints forced the writer to truncate far too much, so that a lot of these relationships and themes are lost and undeveloped. Thus far, the manga version is far, far superior.

Thoughts on James Ellroy and Hardboiled Fiction/Film Noir

There is a reason people with low IQs are happy. I'm talking about people with Down's Syndrome, the clinically retarded, etc. Public perception conceives of them as simple, happy people. There are things that might make them sad, but they are capable of finding joy in so many things. They often seem happier than the average person.

That is because they cannot comprehend the evil and cruelty of the world, and the blackened souls that inhabit it. Psychologists tell you to ignore the terror and entropy that eats away at your heart like cancerous rust--the people who face reality down often succumb to madness, so the best way to avoid that madness is to pretend the world is happy and bright.

Noir film and fiction denies us that fantasy. Noir isn't escapism. It is an embrace of the black nightmare that resides at the depths of the human soul and rattles all of our cages with it. In reading it, you are engaging in a theraputic act. The pain of others gives you joy, even if those others are fictional. The effect is cathartic. The schadenfreude that you experience is bittersweet. You feel pity for the characters. Perhaps even remorse. But that remorse and sadness for them is what draws out the feeling of satisfaction. Because there is no closure for them.

James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere is probably one of the best noir novels I've read so far. Ellroy most certainly the greatest writer of hardboiled fiction alive today. His writing is exquisite, to the point, perfectly balanced. It hits you like rapid-fire shots to your ribcage. The action begins slow, like a train, but not boring slow. There's always tension, even with the first sentence, palatable, hovering around the book, making it vibrate in your hands. The pace is not lethargic, it is inevitable. The slow beginning only serves to make the action more frantic later.

And it isn't much later. Soon, you are standing alongside the characters, watching the world inevitably spin out of control. And, not unlike Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, these guys don't always come out on top. They aren't always the winners. Oftentimes, their victories are hollow, but more often, they aren't even victories at all. And everyone inevitably suffers.

I don't want to give anything away, just in case people actually read the book. But it is seriously recommended. So far, Ellroy is proving to be the culmination of everything that noir and hardboiled crime fiction could ever aspire to be. It is gritty, dark, nasty, filled with vice, sin, sex, racism, hate, and the black and dirty depths of the human psyche. He goes places that Hammett and Chandler didn't. Maybe you can argue that Chandler and Hammett didn't have to go there, didn't have to resort to that sort of depravity, and I'd agree, they didn't. But Ellroy does, and it isn't because it sells books. It is because he must delve into those nighted vaults in the uttermost depths of the twisted human heart. It's there. Everyone ignores it. Everyone hides from it. Except him. And he isn't a good little boy like the psychologists say. He dives in and pulls up the slag-covered morass of putrescent hate and evil that each one of us buries deep down in the crushing depths of ourselves and holds it in the sunlight where we can't look away.

And I love him for it. He writes the sort of book that I only wish I could. He is not a happy man. Neither am I. And if you read about him and his life, he takes his place among some of my favorite writers--men deeply disturbed by the horrors and realities of our true selves.

So, I've got my copy of The Big Nowhere, and thinking about reading it again. Especially for the catharsis. Ellroy writes one of the most sublimely tragic scenes of perfect, pure despair that I've ever read in a book. It's incredible. And it's next on my list for a re-read.

Guest Post -- FIREHOUSE by David Halberstam

Review and Response by KevinB

“Firehouse” is not a large book, physically; it doesn’t even overtop 200 pages. But David Halberstam packs quite a bit into that compact space. It is not a book to read in a single afternoon, unless you plan on re-reading. And I don’t know that I can recommend taking it to your favorite café, unless you are such a regular that the help will understand when you set the book down while trying discreetly to wipe that tear off your nose, before it becomes too noticeable.

Halberstam made his name as a war correspondent, flying from the Congo to Vietnam. He now lives in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, 70 some streets north of the erstwhile WTC. Just around the corner from his home is the 40/35 firehouse, one of the hundreds that make up the FDNY. Just as the shifts were changing, mid-morning September 11^th, 2001, their two rigs, 40 Engine and 35 Ladder, were dispatched. They left with thirteen firemen. Only one came home, by way of the hospital, clinging to life. This little book is a look back, written mere months later, at each one of these men, their lives in and out of the firehouse, the paths that led to their careers, and their deaths.

I suppose part of being an American is imagining as a little boy becoming a fireman. Rather like becoming a cop, or an astronaut, or an Army man. I do think this image a tad too nostalgic. I don’t know anyone who dreamed of becoming The Man. But we still have no dearth of applicants. And still no less a need for Police Officers and Firefighters. In many ways I think our cynicism is robbing us of a healthy respect and admiration for those who do these jobs. Halberstam tells us in the Afterword this was a major reason for this book.

The slip cover tells us that, “…we come to understand the culture of the firehouse…” I can only trust after reading how true this is. But I can say that my own interest in the calling has only been deepened far more than I would have thought possible. Just after the attack, the word hero was ubiquitous. One might have thought everyone was an X-Man. But they were. Their brothers are.

They found two small video clips of men from both 40 Engine and 35 Ladder. Where they found the bodies, with certain details in the footage, it is clear that both were shot just minutes before the south tower telescoped itself into the ground. Halberstam describes the tape with these words;

“They are, in the fire-fighting lexicon, calm, and they are doing the right thing. It is a haunting moment, and the videotape reveals with rare intimacy what brave men look like at the worst moment that the Fates can present”.

I found the book at Dollar Tree. I do not know how easily you can find it. But you should. I’m giving my copy to Aaron A. He had his Bar Mitzvah about two months ago, and it seems he still wants, even at this advanced age, to be a fireman.

Confused Matthew's Review of SPIRITED AWAY

I am in the midst of scripting out an prepping my response, which I'll record and possibly distribute on Youtube. I'm not really into that sort of thing, but considering Matthew's chosen medium, I figure I can prepare a response utilizing the same kind of medium for symmetry's sake, and so that I can reach some of his viewers. Considering how he really missed a lot of what Chase had to say in his first response to Melendez' response, I'm not all that certain that Matthew's really going to care or be influenced all that much. The primary reason I'm making it, I guess, is for the sake of the truth.

First, I have to suggest you watch Matthew's review of Spirited Away so you can get the gist of his overall style and his distinct lack-of-substance on this particular review. I'd also like to point to his reviews of The Matrix sequels as evidence of how insightful and intelligent his reviews can be. The guy knows Baudrillard and studied philosophy. However, we can see Matthew's modus operandi, here, in full swing--his complete dismissal of that which which he disagrees, and his advice to others that they dismiss it as well.

Baudrillard did have points to make. The problem is, he was riding so high on the postmodern wave and his own inflated sense of self-importance that he practiced obscurantism to such an extent that he may as well have said nothing. Trying to read "Simulacra and Simulation" is a journey into an impenetrable fog meaningless words--it is almost as if these linguistic-turn philosophers want to prove their point that all communication is really meaningless by producing works in which you get the gist that they're actually trying to convey something, but its so obscured and so vague and esoteric that no one can really comprehend it. Thus, the points they are trying to make have to be deciphered, and even then they make their language so open-ended that the margin of error is a mile wide.

Which is actually the entire point of the linguistic-turn. It's also a logical fallacy, but they'd probably argue that the invocation of logic in this instance is evidence of my own "privileged status" and my refusal to recognize other paradigms of knowledge.

But I digress (indeed, for two paragraphs), so I shall return to my point. The film's basic premise will be simple--Confused Matthew must have allowed his own personal bias to skew his review, which demonstrates egregious errors in judgment, analysis, and comprehension of the material he's reviewing. That some of his claims are erroneous is self-evident--simply watch his review, pause it, then watch the segments in which he says, "nothing happens" or "this is pointless" or "this is meaningless" and you cannot avoid how obviously wrong he is. But some of these mistakes are borne by a lack of understanding. He is likely very unaware of many motifs of Japanese literature, myth, folklore, and a number of ancient and modern Japanese storytelling tropes. He also levels subjective opinion as axiomatic fact and ends his review with the statement that the film "is just stupid. The end."

This is totally irresponsible as a reviewer, and I feel that Matthew needs to address this. When Chase said that he pays a price socially for showcasing his ignorance, what he meant was that Matthew would be known as a pretentious windbag by anyone with half a brain. Considering the backlash Chase has apparently suffered on the internet, some of which I've read on his Youtube channel, I can't help but conclude that Matthew's primary fanbase is... well... gratuitously uneducated, unsophisticated, and revel in their own stupidity, much like many people do these days, unfortunately.

I don't want to post the transcript of my response before I finish the video. It's a work in progress, and I want to withhold the meat of my argument for the video itself.

I'm going to also start posting guest pieces by friends of mine who want to contribute something to the discussion here (or lack thereof).

Book Review -- THE GUNS OF AVALON by Roger Zelazny

Several months ago, I slammed through this short book and intended to write a review on it, but never did get around to it. Zelazny's first volume, Nine Princes in Amber, I have already reviewed here. It's a pretty short novel, running only about 223 pages in length, so it's pretty typical of a mid-20th century fantasy/science-fiction novel in that regard.

If you've read my comments on Nine Princes of Amber, then you'll know what to expect here. Zelazny mixes a lot of literary styles, but seems to focus primarily on the fantasy aspect of the series in this novel. Corwin, our protagonist, still talks like a hardboiled detective at times, and at others like a knight from an Arthurian romance (occasionally in the same sentence), but as I stated in my other review, this is just a feature of Zelazny's setting, not an anachronism. His prose isn't fantastic, though he occasionally shines in certain places. He writes with the fast-paced rhythm of the pulpy adventure that dominated so much of the 20th century. His descriptions are sparse, almost anti-Tolkienesque in flavor, leaving much to the imagination of the reader. He focuses more on describing fencing technique and combat, or clothing and accessories, than he does location or setting.

As for the story itself, it picks up shortly after Nine Princes of Amber ended. When we last left Corwin, he had vowed to claim his brother's throne and see guns brought to Amber--a place where gunpowder does not ignite. But Corwin has a plan, and the bulk of this book focuses on how he carries this plan to fruition.

If that were all, the book would be hum-drum, but Zelazny set up a wrinkle at the end of Nine Princes when it appeared that a new road to Amber had opened up through Shadow--one related directly to Corwin's curse that Eric's reign would not be easy or peaceful. Throughout the book, Corwin must confront the consequences of his curse, which appear to escalate in intensity to the point of nearly causing him and his brother Benedict to fight to the death. The full impact of his short-sightedness and selfish behavior do not make themselves fully clear until the very ending, when Corwin faces something that could potentially destroy Amber and bring Chaos to the entire multiverse that Amber governs.

Corwin is something of a scoundrel, an ultimately selfish and narcissistic character, but then again, so are all of his siblings. He is very typical of the 1960s-70s fantasy anti-hero, cut from a similar cloth as Moorcock's Elric. However, Zelazny is not about to let him get away with it, and Guns of Avalon is about reaping what one has sown. Throughout the novel, Corwin travels through lands and encounters people where his past threatens to catch up with him, and his current deeds will bring consequences before the novel ends. Despite all of the challenges he face, the greatest threat to Corwin isn't from the darkness that cuts through Shadow, or from his brothers, but from himself and his own indiscretion.

In the end, Corwin triumphs, but his triumph is hollow and meaningless, because he is inheriting the very curse that he bequeathed upon his brother. Corwin conquers every challenge set before him except those he has set before himself.

This novel is very obviously a bridge. It's setting up the next installments, wherein Corwin will undoubtedly confront his own creations and face the consequences of his actions and his decisions.

But none of this should suggest that Corwin is not a sympathetic character. He's an Amberite--he is stronger, faster, and more intelligent than people who live in Shadow. He has lived for centuries, and in those centuries perfected his combat abilities and his knowledge and skill in military affairs. As a strategist, he is second only to Benedict, his elder brother and former warmaster of Amber. There's good reason for his aloofness and narcissism. During his sojourn on our Earth, Corwin had learned that beings from Shadow were not simply toys or mindless dolls to manipulate, but that we had feelings and were fragile in mind, body, and heart. Corwin had learned this by the beginning of Nine Princes but he hadn't quite gotten over his narcissism, and, indeed, by his treatment of his lovers, one can see that he still has a way to go.

As with Nine Princes, the author's inspiration is eclectic. Zelazny takes us through worlds invoking chivalric romance and Arthurian legend, on chases through strange landscapes, and a brief jaunt to 20th century Earth. Great squadrons of mounted knights charge into monstrous hordes of foul beasts, evil creatures cackle in dark towers, and heroes with shining swords do battle against the forces of chaos. Like most of the pulpy fantasy writers of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the great enemy isn't simply evil, but is chaotic (this would come to heavily influence Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in their creation of fantasy role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons). The final chapter features modern riflemen engaging in a decisive battle that could remind readers of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. The book is, like its predecessor, an exciting journey through imagination--something that pulp writers do best. It's not a work of amazing literary merit, but it is surreal enough to be thoroughly magical.The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny
Style B
Substance B
Overall B

The Great 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Debate

Although I often disagree with many of his conclusions, and find his film reviews amateurish in an extreme, Confused Matthew's critiques of various films are, nevertheless, fun to watch.

His review of 2001: A Space Odyssey received a great deal of flack, however, from Kubrick fans and fans of science-fiction in general, and in a lot of ways, it was well deserved. The best critique Matthew has of 2001 is that it's pacing is flawed by being overly lethargic. Of course, untutored as he is, Matthew makes a very big deal of this. Not surprising, overreaction is very much part of his modus operandi.

But a clear, cogent critique of Confused Matthew's review was posted by Chase Melendez on youtube. And it is one of the best, finest, and clearest rebuttals by an (obviously) intelligent, educated, and thoughtful film viewer to Confused Matthew that I've seen. He basically makes all of the points to Matthew that I've wanted to make (and then some).

So, for your viewing pleasure, Chase's review of... Confused Matthew's review of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (First, watch Confused Matthew's 2001 review.)




Be certain to click the little green note that says "Continue to Part n" because he's written nine parts to his review. Yes, that's correct. Nine Parts. Each almost ten minutes long. Yikes.

Matthew made a response, but it's very weak, in my opinion, compared to the onslaught of logic and intellectual criticism that Chase slaps down. In Matthew's defense, Chase is awfully personal and does level a lot of ad hominem attacks against Matthew. Yes, Chase is correct--Matthew's inability to see 2001 as a film does beg the question of whether or not he should be reviewing films at all. But that is an entirely different debate--Chase's premise, actually, is not that Matthew's inability to see 2001 as a film is due to Matthew's lack of sophistication and therefore evidence that his review should be considered invalid. Instead, Chase's premise is actually the reverse--that Matthew's inability to conceive of 2001 as a film, to understand what Kubrick's direction and Clarke's writing were attempting to achieve, or to even be able to piece together a solid narrative structure out of the dialogue-bereft segments of the film, are evidence that he lacks the basic sophistication required to go about reviewing films. In other words, although Chase's argument is actually excellent in many ways, it fails based on its structure--that of ad hominem.

I most certainly disagree with Chase's conclusion, although I do believe that Matthew desperately needs to entertain this question and approach some of the films he reviews on a much higher level. Matthew does seem to prefer movies that present moral and ethical dilemmas and then resolve them in neat, tidy packages. This does belie a much more pedestrian level of sophistication.

Honestly, the same sort of critique needs to be leveled against Matthew regarding his review of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, which was also overwhelmingly negative and did very little but showcase Matthew's absolute and complete ignorance of Japanese storytelling techniques, myth, symbolism, and even an understanding of how the protagonist is engaged in a very typical "coming of age"-meets-"heroic journey" tale. Seeing as my skill with Windows Movie Maker is pretty sad, and I'm not photogenic enough to sit in the camera and look good (like Chase), it will not likely be me who meets Matthew with such a poignant and much-needed response. Any response I would make would require me to remained focused at the basic premise--Matthew's lack of sophistication, his ignorance of Japanese storytelling tropes and culture, and his admitted dislike of anime, all argue for themselves as evidence that Matthew should never have attempted his review in the first place, but I could not allow these factors to distract or derail my argument from being specifically about the errors in Matthew's assessment of the film.

The entire ad hominem argument is Chase's attempt to shut Matthew up before he even makes a response. While I do agree with Chase in a lot of ways (Matthew is absolutely wrong regarding 2001 because he simply cannot wrap his head around Kubrick's non-conventional storytelling techniques), the attempt to discredit him as a reviewer is kind of a low blow. However, I believe that Chase sees in Matthew the spark that could make him a much better film-viewer and movie-watcher. Chase is without-a-doubt superior to Matthew in his training and sophistication as a viewer. And Matthew really does come off in his reviews of Spirited Away and 2001 that he thinks that not only are these movies stupid, but all of their fans are totally devoid of reason for liking these flicks and obviously have bad taste, despite all of his protestations to the contrary (an impression I did not get when I viewed his reviews of The Matrix sequels--and I happened to like The Matrix Reloaded more than I had liked the original).

Note: I'm currently working on a video response to his Spirited Away review, and it is very difficult to resist ad hominem arguments because he is sometimes just so genuinely obtuse and his dismissive derision of the film is purely offensive. Someone who is so erudite and knowledgeable of philosophy and postmodernism (see his reviews of The Matrix sequels) should be beyond this sort of puerile and facile sloppiness. This thread on the CHUD forums is quite telling--the entire thing is two pages of people bashing him, with not a soul defending him whatsoever.