2008: It's Finally Over!

What will I remember about this year? Obama won the Iowa caucuses, Heath Ledger died, Diablo III was finally announced, The Dark Knight came out, and Obama got elected. Then a few other things happened in between. Personally I graduated film school and was released out into the unsuspecting Los Angeles public.

I was going to do a list of my favorite movies or songs or TV shows or books or video games of the year, but there are so many of those out there that mine might feel a little redundant. Obviously I fell madly in love with The Dark Knight, but who didn’t? I recently got to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I thought was one of the most atmospheric films I’d seen in years. But here I am talking about my favorites. Ultimately it’s hard for me to judge things like that—I’ve loved movies since I could comprehend them, and except in cases of exceptionally horrible movies (I’m looking your direction, The Happening) I’m happy just to be in a movie theater in the first place.

That's something to keep in mind when things get rough trying to get anywhere in Hollywood. As anyone who’s ever made any effort at succeeding in the film industry knows, it’s difficult out here, and I think this year has been especially so. Luckily there are a lot of film school friends out here with me in the same boat, and we struggle along together.

When I was driving home from a set at around 4am earlier this month, I stopped at a light on Hollywood and Vine. I had never seen any part of LA so free of traffic before, but at that moment I was the only other car, the only other human being, in sight. It was raining (also rare in LA) and I could just make out the rain clouds drifting over the mountains. There was a neon-light Christmas tree on top of the Capitol Records building: something you would never have noticed inching through the intersection in the usual line of cars. For just a small moment, it felt like I had Hollywood all to myself. It’s easy to beat up on Los Angeles (and fun!) but there are tiny moments when it becomes quite beautiful. For most of us out here, there’s simply nothing else in the world we’d rather be doing than working on movies and TV shows. It’s important to hold on to the small little moments that help us to remember that.

Here’s hoping for a better 2009!

(I can’t help it. More great movies: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Wall-E, Iron Man. Still very much want to see Let the Right One In. And about a dozen others—it seems like I never get to see half the movies I want to in a year. There are always new ones coming out to get hyped up for!)

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone's had a great holiday. I've always loved this Casper David Friedrich painting, the imaginatively titled "Winter Landscape with Church." It's very Romantic, very tranquil, and just a shade spooky. Perhaps it's not the most Christmasy picture in the world, but I can easily imagine myself trudging through the snow to the far distant church, stopping to notice the neglected crucifix amid the trees. Paintings can easily convey emotions and feelings that are difficult or impossible to express in words, so I'll just let the picture do the rest of the talking for me today.

Great Games: Vampire: The Masquerade--Bloodlines

If only real Los Angeles were more like the city in which Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines is set: Dark, depressing, dangerous, with supernatural evil lurking around every corner. Well, perhaps real L.A. is a bit like that, but the world of Bloodlines is so memorable that in a lot of ways it seems more real, and sticks with you more, than the real thing. I’m writing about it now because, even four years after it came out it is still one of the most atmospheric and well designed RPGs out there. It’s a shame so many people missed out on playing it.

Jeanette Voreman, the game's unofficial mascot. She owns the Asylum club and is absolutely insane.

Bloodlines is based on the popular PnP role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, which I have never personally played. I have been assured by people in the know that it is infinitely superior to the similar but lamer Vampire: The Requiem, which has replaced it. I think there has been a trend towards overly romanticizing vampires recently (starting with Anne Rice and right on down the line to Twilight) but the world of VTMB does a good job of representing all vampire types, from the super-emo Toreador to the bestial Brujah to the hideous Nosferatu. And here’s a quaint idea—the game is actually different depending on what kind of vampire you pick. Unlike a lot of modern RPGs (*cough* Oblivion *cough*) there are different dialogue options, abilities, and sometimes even quests available to you depending on your vampire clan. The aristocratic Ventrue, for example, can talk or influence their way out of most sticky situations, while the deformed Nosferatu must lurk in the shadows and are attacked on sight if they encounter humans. Granted, the game becomes a dull combat slog-fest towards the end (more on that later) but the first two-thirds are phenomenal in giving the player multiple character-driven ways to solve problems.

A mansion in the Hollywood Hills. I wouldn't mind living in a place like this someday. With or without the vampires.

For me, if you combine “vampires” and “RPG” you’ve already got a deal (I also enjoyed the earlier VTM PC game, 2000’s Redemption, even if it was a little rough around the edges and light on the RPG elements) but this game creates an atmosphere that makes it unforgettable. The combat and game control are actually slightly clunky, but that’s easy to overlook when you’re walking around a fully realized version of Los Angeles, meeting some of the most interesting and well written characters in computer game history, and playing through some of the creepiest and disturbing environments. The haunted Ocean House Hotel in Santa Monica or the flesh-covered mansion in the Hollywood Hills have to rank among the most frightening things I’ve experienced in any media, including books and movies.

Outside the Ocean House Hotel, one of the creepiest experiences in gaming history.

Then there’s the unforgettable moment near the end of the game where the player gets trapped in Griffith Park Observatory with a very hungry werewolf while a wildfire rages through the hills. All the while the lights of downtown L.A. are visible far below—it is the sum of moments like this that make VTMB one of the greatest games of the past several years. It has probably even earned a place in my all time top ten. With anything that really sticks with you over the years, be it a book or a movie or a game, you don’t really remember the act of reading the book or watching the movie or playing the game, you remember the experience of being there.

Inside the Ocean House. It gets worse from here.

There are only a handful of games that have ever totally succeeded in transporting the player to another world, but games like Vampire Bloodlines prove that it is certainly possible.There’s still a lot of stigma in mainstream thought with calling a computer game a “work of art”, but with a select few so much care, thought, and passion goes into their creation, and the end product is so successful, that it is difficult to call them anything else. Unfortunately the game’s development house, Troika, closed forever after the publication of this game in November of 2004, and the gaming industry has suffered for it.

Just like real Hollywood. Without the cars.

When I was younger, computer games had a certain mystique about them that regular console games just didn’t possess. They were often more complex and adult oriented, and some of my favorite games ever are PC games from around 1994-2004—hopefully I’ll get the chance to write about some of those in the future. Computer games used to come with giant boxes filled with good stuff related to the game: A giant instruction book with lots of story and lore content perhaps, or a map of the game world, or a piece of game art or some combination of the above. Ultima Online, for example, came with a beautiful cloth map of the world. By the time VTMB came out, this was mostly a thing of the past, and the game was just a small box with a case of game DVDs inside. But the content of the game easily recalled those earlier titles, when games were made in small, dingy offices by a handful of developers who cared deeply about the game’s world and characters. It’s not that games aren’t still made with this attitude (see, recently, The Witcher) but they are few and far between.

A portrait of Jeanette and Therese, owners of The Asylum, with their daddy. There was some stuff that went on.

It’s almost as if VTMB knew it was the end of the era, since the “3^rd act” of the game is unpleasantly modern in its reliance on twitch combat and action. Instead of role-playing options, the last few sections of the game are filled with room after room of repetitive combat. Storytelling and character development take a back seat. It’s disappointing, for sure, but I’ll cut the developers a bit of slack—endings are notoriously difficult to pull off, even more so when the first bits are so good. Games are a lot like books in that they take several sittings to get through. If they are good, I often spend the time I’m not reading or playing thinking about the characters, about what might happen and where the story will go next. Rarely can any conclusion live up to the expectations I set for it, but it’s enough that something can get the imagination going.

True as all that is, the game’s ending is still weak.

VV needs a script stolen. Is there something wrong with me that even beautiful computerized women can boss me around? There's probably something wrong with me.

Other than that, the game had just about everything going for it. Great graphics (even now, the character models, especially the faces, are quite attractive—just check out Jeanette and VV), memorable quests, an engaging storyline, fantastic characters, and an appropriately creepy and atmospheric soundtrack. Unlike the ever present WoW, which came out at the same time, Bloodlines is pretty hard to find anymore, but if you can get your hands on it it’s absolutely worth it. If you’re a fan of vampires, RPGs, or just great games, it’s hard to do better.

You'll be visiting the Asylum club a lot during the first part of the game. They play good music, and it's owned by a pair of hot sisters--dangerously insane hot sisters, but hot nonetheless.

In fact I just might play it again now. I can think of few better ways to pass your time than drinking blood, getting involved in Vampire politics, blasting zombies with a shotgun, sneaking through a haunted hotel, and digging through the graves of Hollywood celebrities. Seriously. Play this game.

Places I'd Love to Visit: Sighisoara, Romania

In Los Angeles, everything has a sort of depressed sameness. Unlike even east coast cities, everything is relatively new and sprawls out in every direction without any semblance of a plan. I’ve always wanted to travel more (so far I’ve only been out of the country once) and when sitting on the 405 in hour two of a twenty mile trip it’s easy to start fantasizing about better places to be.

I’m sure I first heard about Sighisoara in reading about Vlad the Impaler years ago, but I’ve only recently come across some photos. You can almost picture the dirty medieval streets filled with assorted craftspeople ambling about in the shadow of the clock tower, or a horseman riding through the dark Transylvanian forest at night towards the imposing citadel. Being the birthplace of Dracula sure doesn’t hurt the coolness factor, either.
Most of the town is essentially unchanged since the 15^th century, and like any good medieval town Sighisoara has its origins in a Roman fort that originally stood on the site. There’s a lot of great medieval German and Eastern European architecture here, which gives it a slight feeling of otherness that even similar Western European towns lack. So few sites in America have anywhere near the history of your average European town (especially on the west coast), and there are probably at least twenty I hope I can get to sometime in my life. There are countless other Dracula-related or otherwise interesting sights just in Romania alone.
The Middle Ages is an easy era to romanticize (in reality, things were probably pretty gross), but looking at some of these photos it’s not hard to imagine that life without endless traffic and a Starbucks every block might be a nice change of pace.

Chinese Democracy

As I’m sure everyone has heard by now, “Guns n’ Roses” finally released Chinese Democracy last week. After bouncing around in the dark and mysterious recesses of Axl Rose’s mind for something like fifteen years, the album is finally on shelves at a Best Buy near you. I won’t get into a discussion of the merits of the album. Reviews have been pretty good, and personally I quite like the album (including but not limited to the sensitive power ballad "This I Love.") I know it’s cliché to rag on the current music scene, and a little too easy, but for me a decent album from 1/5 of the original Guns n’ Roses is better than 95% of the music currently out there, at least as good as the two albums that beat it to #1 on the US charts. If Chinese Democracy had managed to come out in the late 90s, it might have been heralded as the end of an era. In late 2008, unfortunately, it’s just a sad reminder of how great the band was in their heyday, and how long ago that heyday really was.

When I was a kid, Guns n’ Roses was the coolest band on the planet, period. If you asked a kid in the late 80s to think of the quintessential rock band, odds are they would have pictured G n’ R (after asking you what “quintessential” meant.) I was just a child at the time, and I could hardly run out and buy Appetite for Destruction or even the Use Your Illusion double (priced) album. But I was never far from teenagers who could. A group of teenagers used to hang out under the basketball hoop on a driveway four or five houses up from mine. They would stand there night after night in the summer smoking cigarettes and talking in voices that carried all the way down the street. I was always too nervous to get close, but I would lay out in my back yard listening to the insects chirp in the trees and the voices, unintelligible, but distinctly older and dripping with what I thought was sophistication. Teenagers have a strange aura when you’re a kid. You’re well aware that they’re not quite adults, but they seem so impossibly old and different. They’re adults that still get to have fun—that drive around in cars and go to the movies and the mall whenever they want.

And they got to sit around at night and play their music. All the 80s hair bands were represented, of course, but I’ll never forget the night I first heard the opening notes of “Welcome to the Jungle” ripping out across suburbia, Axl’s unforgettable wail drowning out even the crickets. What I heard coming from the boom box that night was fierce and violent and free, and it belonged to those kids down the street. It’s an unwritten law of the universe that, while we all might love music, you can never quite have a relationship with a song like you can when you’re sixteen. That night I sat on my porch and dreamed of the day when I could be like those teenagers down the street, and this music would belong to me.

I never really grew into one of those teenagers. By the time I was in high school grunge and alternative were already on their way out and N*Sync and Britney Spears were on their way in. So maybe people from my age group can never quite call Guns n’ Roses their own. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t represent everything that made that last generation of adrenaline fueled guitar rock so exciting: The girls, the crazy life style, the long hair, the “I don’t care” attitude. I think a lot of our idea of what’s “cool” comes from the teenagers we know as children, and so for the children I grew up with there was nothing cooler than Guns n Roses.

When people pop in a new CD (or nowadays, download a song) by a favorite band from the past, they’re not looking to find a new favorite song. Nothing, and I mean nothing, connects us to our emotions and memories the way music does. Consciously or not, when people buy a new CD with the Guns n’ Roses name on it, they’re looking to feel the way they felt on those summer nights two decades ago, when the music was brand new and they were a whole lot longer. But the days of boom-boxes blasting out music over dark suburban streets are long gone. Today, Axl Rose is the only original member of G n’ R left, and he’s pushing fifty. For a lot of people, it will be difficult to get past the fact that Appetite for Destruction will never come back. I’m sure there are still people who run out to buy every Paul McCartney album hoping to hear “She Loves You” again for the first time. But if you can get past all that and judge it for what it is, Chinese Democracy is a solid rock album and definitely worth a listen.

Oh, and Axl? If you can’t resurrect the past, can you at least get me my Dr. Pepper? Thanks.