Eve: The Empyrean Age

World of Warcraft fan fiction; Matrix comic books; Warhammer novels; Transformers movies. It's fairly standard for a toy to become a film, or a game gets a book, or a book spawns a film trilogy which then spawns a game and a computer game. Anything can happen in this day and age.

For fan fiction though, the big hitters (Halo, Warhammer, Dungeons&Dragons, Star Wars) all seemed to offer the same thing: fairly standard, low-quality, mass produced paperback books, with spin-off characters and repetitive plots. The world itself was more engaging than the characters or plotlines. World of Warcraft books seem to be doing ok and that must be in part due to those obsessive fans (and we know warcraft collects them) who immerse themselves in the world so that even when no longer gaming they still want to read WoW.

Eve is a book of a game. This time, the game is Eve Online and the book took as its mission to write something of comparable depth and complexity as the game. The game, set in New Eden, an alternatively galaxy separated from Earth, allows the complete growth of a character within a space-age society that is both ruthless and demanding. The author, Tony Gonzales, has taken this futuristic universe, complete with pirates, warring factions, governments and mega-corporations, and woven a thread of three different stories into it. In some sense it is following the standard package for fan-fiction, by using the universe of the game as a starting point, and then adding characters, but it differentiates itself in terms of both character and plot.

As the book progressed, I was concerned that this triple-weave plot might wind up with a cliched ending, some kind of easy resolution, as Amarrian lord meets Minmatar fleet meets Caldarian revolution in some kind of 'closure' device. Instead, it became apparent that tragedy was the order of the day, and in fact the plots of Eve were leading to a fateful future (perhaps even the future in which the game is set, one in which Amarr and Minmater, Caldari and Gallente, battle endlessly). To try to pitch his book as some sort of pre-history to Eve Online rather than as a selected episode from the game gave a purpose to his tale and a freedom to narrate events in a manner of his own choosing. In fact, it almost appears as if Eve Online was merely used as a starting point for Gonzales, rich as the game is in history and immersive detail, and in fact once in that universe he made it his own, building upon already gleaned information to provide a level of authenticity and attraction to his tale.

Eve is not remarkable in using a computer game as its main influence; however, it goes further and achieves more from that standpoint than others I have encountered. Furthermore, it seems to glean the best elements from the sub-genre, while discarding the worst. Plot and characters are involving and well-drawn, and the prose is not bogged down with a undue amount of game references. In fact, the game heritage to the book is most noted in the meticulous attention Gonzales shows to naming each class of spaceship, displaying an impressive attention to in-game detail.

*****
by Tony Gonzales

Sunshine Cleaning

The only thing that really plagues this film is the title. Proper, professional reviewers have already said it. I still like to imagine the board room meeting where someone from 'film marketing' sits down with all the actual moviemakers and says:

"Hey, I've an idea, let's market this film as though it's
the new Little Miss Sunshine, you know, indie break-through hit that's
funny and touching, and based in Arizona/New Mexico and shows the emptiness of
the landscape and real, human stories."

Everyone else says, "No, that's a really stupid idea". Yet somehow, marketing exec person managed it. (I'm predicting it'll turn out that this film was written way before LMS and these comments will be proved useless)

Alan Arkin is a joy, but plays pretty much the same character he always plays. An older figure, somewhat comical, oft-ignored, but displaying some inner streak of compassion that shines through at the odd moment. Still, I'm a big fan of his and I'd be happy just watching him performing every day tasks with his trademark dry, frustrated delivery and twinkling eyes. I think my favourite line of the film came from him:

"Who wants to share a combination platter with me?"

But dismiss the Alan Arkin Little Miss Sunshine shtick for a moment, and one's left with a film that's touching, that really stands well on its own two feet, and shows off the talents of Adams and Blunt admirably. They're sisters trying to make good against poverty, exes, feeling trapped in their lives and the unbearable heaviness of day-to-day life. As school mates have married money and jump through the usual hoops of childbirth and purchasing that second car, Adams is a single mum just trying to make ends meet. She hits upon a scheme - crime scene clean-up - which pays well and is fairly exclusive, and ropes in her lazy, hapless sister (Blunt) to help carry soiled mattresses and gag at the stench of the homes of the deceased.

Amy Adams is infinitely watchable, while her chemistry with Emily Blunt is a bold attempt at sororal relations on screen and it seems to work. The soundtrack is ideal, it's a well put-together and well-told story, and enjoyable and touching in equal parts.

Perhaps the best bit? It manages, in time-honoured indie tradition, to shirk the obvious closure so often sought in (particularly) North American cinema, and instead provides a great ending that leaves the viewer hopeful, but also open to the future, as Adams herself is by the close of the film. Excellent choice of finality, and a bold move, especially if Sunshine Cleaning is supposed to be a "break-through hit".

I look forward to the DVD release!

***
2009

Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Jason Spevack

Dir. Christine Jeffs

Angles - dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip

So since when did I listen to british hip-hop/trip-hop/rappity-rop? Since rarely. Since never. But I was taken with Scroobius Pip's lyrics from my first hearing of The Beat That My Heart Skipped. Fortunately for me, that's also the album opener on Angles, an album that claims to be the standard rap battle/mash-up between mc and dj. However, like every track on the album, a second listen (or sometimes just a first listen) suggests that dan (lowercase, please) and Scroobius are more than meet the eye.

They make a bold claim in the spoken intro to the album:

"We ain't pushing the boundaries, we're blowing them up! We ain't trying to
expand the scene; we want the scene to erupt. So make some room on the floor and
somebody bolt the doors cos tonight we ain't seeking applause. Tonight, well
gee? we're just looking to have some good new-fashioned fun, y'all."

It's not about fitting in or playing along, it's about creating new sounds, new lines and a new meaning, about revitalisation. Fixed has the same grand theme, as they chirp "dan le sac? scroobius pip! fi-fixing hip-hop....as best we can" before exploding into a mind-numbing electro-bippity-thumpbeat track.

But perhaps where the beat, the sampling and the language gel best is as the record begins to draw to a close. A Letter from God to Man brings Radiohead into the scene, while Thou Shalt Always Kill, the most straightforward and amusing attack on modern popular music, and attitudes towards it, is hummingly catchy and makes you want to tell all your friends that Scroobius Pip pointed out that all those bands we love and worship are just bands, nothing more! It's great balloon-popping fun, and it certainly gave me that child-like excitement of hearing something said by someone else strike a chord within you.

The album closer, Waiting for the Beat to Kick In, is worth the wait...although if you are going to go by the song title, you'll wait a long time: dan le sac and the Pip manage to hold off that all important beat until you feel yourself physically thirst for it, while weaving a dreamscape of didactic encounters and tips for the future.

"If you can't forgive and forget, how's this? forget forgiving, and just
accept that that's it"

is perhaps most the striking line that trips off Pip's tongue, and certainly the most stark attempt at enforcing an attitude of tolerance, and letting bygones be bygones.

In keeping with the album's title track though, it's not pure refutation of failing hip hop standards or undiluted attempts to open the mind of the listener. There is some good new-fashioned fun in there too, as the beats and rhymes suggest a reformation from within: dan and Scroobius want to influence the scene from within, not without, with a mastery of language and sound that I've rarely heard recently.

"Thou shalt always remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements, and never will be"