holabendez blog

Rich white lady helps poor black guy. This is a feel good movie designed to help wealthy white people in America feel better about themselves. This is based on the true story of Michael Oher who is inexplicably legally adopted by a wealthy family and who goes on to be incredibly good at American football.

It is clear that what is less remarkable is how a young black man from a poor background should overcome the odds to be such a successful person, but rather how a white woman should be so generous. This movie should be about Oher, but it is not, it is about Leigh Anne Tuohy – played by Sandra Bullock as if Erin Brockovich was a rich woman. It came as no surprise to me to hear that the role was originally offered to Julia Roberts.

The movie gives very little detail on who Michael Oher is and seems content to leave him as a mysterious young man who is not comfortable talking about his past. If that were in any way forgivable, what is worse is that the film makes little attempt to explain the seemingly random generousity of Tuohy to adopt Oher in the first place. The best you get is the implication she did this because she is a good Christian, but that is clearly unsatisfactory in terms of story telling for us to simply take at face value. Ironically, the only moment of turmoil in the film where the Tuohy’s are accused of taking him in as a means of securing his playing services at their favourite college is the most logical and credible explanation put forward.

The movie is saccarine sweet in its feel good moments. The moments are just too much and left me feeling a little nauseous.

I am not trying to take away from the remarkable nature of the story of Michael Oher and the Tuohy family. It is based on a true story and that much is not in dispute. However it feels like the director knew he had solid good subject matter, and did a poor job converting this into a well told story, instead relying on it to be implicit enough to do the job for him. So what should have been a slam dunk, turned instead into one of those lame lay ups that bounces along the rim a bit before meekly dropping into the basket.

This was not my kind of film, and from the make up of the audience that sat in the theatre with me, it was clear that the film appeals to different people. The closer you are in spirit to an over 40 year old woman, the more you will enjoy this.

In fact, let this be the barometer for determining how much you are like a 40 year old woman.

Three stars

The sequel lived up to all expectations, and in many cases exceeded them. This game is wonderfully immersive, richly detailed, and exceptionally beautiful. It is fun, action packed, but also thoughtful, intelligent and absorbing.

Some of the weaker parts of the original game, such as the planet exploration via the awkward Mako vehicle and the ridiculously cumbersome inventory system have been done away entirely. The adequate shooting mechanics have been tightened up significantly, and the small technical glitches such as the texture pop ins have been fixed.

For me the best part of Mass Effect is the amazingly detailed world you play in, the strength of the characters you interact with and the overall story. What is particularly special about Mass Effect 2 is that your experience is in many ways unique to you. Not only do the decisions that you make throughout the game affect the way in which the story unfolds, and each player has the ability to affect their story in different ways at many points, but the decisions you made in the original game also affect the way in which the story unfolds in this one. By allowing you to import your save game from Mass Effect 1 the story picks up from the ending you created in the original and carries through, and as the game progresses the impact of your decisions are integrated into the narrative.

This creates so many different threads that the story can run along and it will be interesting to see how all these threads continue to run into the third game. The overall gist is the same, but the manner in which it plays out can be quite different.

I played this game for over 40 hours, including a single day where I played for 13 hours non-stop, it is that addictive, and yet still I find myself wishing it was longer. Some additional downloadable content is in the works, and it can’t come soon enough.

One of the best games I have ever played. Five stars.

Not that you would look for a game like this to have a good story, but it kind of did. Well, at least a coherent story that gave a sufficient reason for everyone to be fighting each other. The story was kind of like how in a porno people who meet have sex for the flimsiest of reasons, except of course in this game they chose to beat the crap out of each other instead.

It is a strong Mortal Kombat game, and the introduction of DC Universe characters is done very well, with all the characters well balanced. The story even has a reason for how someone like The Joker is evenly matched against Superman. Not that it really matters – the fighting is hella fun with the usual crazy move sets, and the “Fatalities” (or in the case of the superheroes “Heroic Brutalities”, because of course superheroes never kill…)

The graphics are excellent, the movement is fluent and it is a great evolution for Mortal Kombat. Four stars.

Some games do not age well. Condemned was made back in 2005, a launch game for the Xbox 360 and it looks every day of its age. It looks like it was originally made for the original Xbox and the developers simply up-res’ed some of the textures.

It has “innovative” gameplay involving mostly melee combat in a first person perspective, but I think the fact that few games have since tried doing this shows how successful that was.

It might have been good back in its day (and reviews I’d read were positive), but it just looks bad now.

Two stars.

This was the first non-GTA game of the sandbox variety that I’ve actually enjoyed. The twist in this game is that you play as a guy with super powers, namely the ability to manipulate electricity – so plenty of hijinx ensue.

This game was more like Crackdown than GTA for me, with less real open world freedom and more constant mayhem. However unlike Crackdown, the controls are tight, the mayhem is fun, and it has a story that provides sufficient context to everything you do. Also importantly, the side missions are diverse enough to keep you interested and not bored with repetition.

The game has a very overt morality system, it literally stops you mid game and sets you up with a dilemma where you can chose between one of two actions at a certain point – very good or very bad, and this ultimately affects how your characters powers developed. You’re not penalised one way or the other, it simply plays differently, which was a good touch although a bit simplistic in its execution. I always find myself playing “good”, for some reason I feel guilty deliberately being a dick.

All in all a good fun game. Four stars.

A man loses his daughter and seeks bloody revenge on those who did it. This movie sounds a lot like “Taken” from last year, except for one key difference. Taken was awesome, Edge of Darkness is ordinary.

The movie plods along at a slow pace as Mel Gibson’s character slowly unravels the conspiracy behind the brutal slaying of his daughter that takes place right in front of him.

By the time the pieces have been put together, you don’t really care, you picked up enough of the gist of it, and you realise anyway that Mel isn’t interested in uncovering the truth, he’s just trying to figure out who to point the gun at before shooting. As far as that part is concerned, you figure that out with a good half hour to go, the finer details of the conspiracy are really irrelevant.

Where Taken was smart and slick, Edge of Darkness is bland and slow. It’s not altogether a bad film, it’s just ordinary. The most significant thing I took away from the movie was how short Mel actually is – that guy is a midget.

Three stars.

Maybe it’s because of my new life situation; unemployed and single – that this movie struck a chord with me.

I have never had a job that has really involved a lot of travel, but I can confess to having a bit of a romanticised impression of airports, hotel rooms and airline travel.

George Clooney plays a man who spends over 300 days a year flying around the country doing his job, which is to fire people.

His character is effectively a soul less person with little interest in making a connection with other human beings. That didn’t make his character unlikeable, on the contrary it seemed quite intriguing.

The movie tries to tell you that no matter what, having other people in your life is the most important thing. It’s more important than money, or a job, it’s the thing that will sustain you at the end of the day.

Whatever, shut up Reitman.

It was an okay though, a mildy amusing movie. Three stars.

To be honest, I’m not that big a fan of music. I don’t dislike music; it is just that it has never been a big deal to me. If tomorrow people stopped creating music, it wouldn’t bother me, there is already more than enough in the world as it is, why do we even need any more?

It is perhaps this bias that has had me wondering why music piracy should be such a big deal. Music labels argue that they have lost so much money because of how easy it is to illegally distribute music via the internet. I don’t question for a second the ease internet makes music distribution, what I do question is why music companies are relying on revenue through the sale of music in the first place.

Music should be free. The notion of a user paying for an individual song that they can own and play just seems ridiculous to me. Music singles should be considered advertising. They are promoting the band, increasing interest in the product. The product however is NOT the individual song.

I’m not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of the music industry from a business point of view, but it seems clear to me that you can’t sustain a business if you’re relying on selling something that is easy to obtain for nothing.

Surely bands make more money when they tour; assuming of course they have a decent fan base. Artists can make money through licensing revenue such as when their music is featured on television, video games or other media that is more easily sold and can generate its own revenue. An argument to this is; what about the small bands starting out? My answer to that is simple; we don’t need that many of them in first place. It’s perhaps time that less people even try to eke a living as musicians.

The market should only exist for the truly good acts, ones that are able to sustain profitability through the above sources. If, at the end of the day we lost 70% of the commercial musical artists tomorrow, I would say good riddance. The fringe acts can’t make much of a living anyway, and those that do probably make their money from performing, and you know what? They can still do that.

It seems to me the problem is more that the music industry is used to having a fat cash cow with music sales, but the simple fact is, the cow is dead, it’s time to change. It’s not a question of whether or not they should change, because that ship has sailed – the music business landscape has changed and will never be the same again. I can get music for free (if I cared to), so stop charging me for it.

Clint Eastwood sets a very high standard with his movies, Gran Torino was arguably my favourite movie of 2009 (at the very least my favourite 2D movie…) Invictus seems like a strange movie to me; not being South African, and not much of a rugby fan, I had no idea that the winning of the Rugby World Cup in 1995 was that big a deal for South Africa. What’s even more strange for me is that after seeing this film, I still wasn’t convinced.

I’m not actually arguing whether or not it was an important moment for South Africa, but what I am suggesting is that whatever is that Invictus was trying to convey, I wasn’t feeling it.

It’s hard for me to put my finger on what this movie actually was, it’s not a rugby movie, despite the setting. The movie does make it clear that it really isn’t about the sport itself, but what it represents, and the movie, perhaps deliberately does little to use the matches themselves to convey any drama at all. I wasn’t sure if that was a deliberate effort to not focus on the rugby itself, or simply the result of a director who likely wasn’t all that familiar with the intricacies of the sport.

Nelson Mandela is a great man, who has endured a lot and achieved so much – but I never really credited “winning a rugby world cup” as one of his achievements.

Rather than being a movie about a nation overcoming a dark history of division among its people by uniting together through a game of rugby, it comes across more like a powerful leader’s misguided obsession with a sport he knows little about rather than focussing on the day to day running of his country.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what Eastwood was going for. Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela with the kind of reverence that would have you believe that he was the second coming of Christ (or a reincarnation of Buddha), in a performance that kind of says “give me an award because I’m playing Mandela and he’s a legend, right?” Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar as a quiet, humble man, so much so that it contributes to the legendary aura of Mandela this movie tries to convey.

Eastwood would have you believe, the Springboks didn’t win the World Cup, Nelson Mandela did.

The intentions of this movie seem honourable enough, but the movie just doesn’t work.

And of course, there is no mention of any “food poisoning” of the All Blacks in the grand final, but then, who really believes that happened anyway?

Three stars.

Made in 2006 this is a pretty old game that holds up rather well, but still shows its age. It’s a pre-Modern Warfare first person shooter, so it lacks the “auto lock” style zoom feature that has become prevelant these days and uses the traditional “shooting from the hip” Halo style of combat.

That in and of itself is by no means a bad thing. I couldn’t help but feel that if I’d played this game earlier I would’ve had a greater appreciation of it, but I suppose the passage of time and the prevalence of other superior games in recent times makes Resistance look a little sub-standard.

Don’t get me wrong it is a good game, just a bit dated. The variety in game play is lacking though and could’ve benefited from some more innovations in its game play. There was a time when this game would’ve been very well regarded, but that time is not now.

Three stars