Various Reviews by Bryan B.

Whenever I set down to seriously reading a Greek or Roman classic, I can't help but experience a certain feeling of relief. Relief, you ask? Yeah. I feel we, humanity as a whole, should count ourselves pretty darn lucky that our literature, philosophy, science, and art have ended up advancing as far as they have considering this kind of crap was what some of the finest minds in this millenium modeled their revolutionary works and ideas upon. Okay, I'm only joking. The truth is I'm terribly ignorant of the vital works of the Classical Age. I've read some things, for sure: Homer, Suetonius, various smallish Roman works I read whilst learning Latin, and probably a few other things I can't remember right now. But I don't have even close to a strong understanding of the literature, philosophy, and poetry of the classical age which served as the framework for modern ideas. My ignorance doesn't exactly keep me up at nights(I never claimed to be an "intellectual", you know), but at the same time it makes me deservedly hesitant to tackle an accepted, respected classical work on this page. At one time, I was seriously considering reviewing Homer, but thought all the flames I'd get from classical scholars just for thinking that The Odyssey was better than the The Iliad wasn't much worth the trouble(though I may still review Homer yet). But it so happens I was reading this work of Tactius' and I thought: hey, why don't I review this? It's branching out into new and foreign territory, but that's sort of what this site has always been about. I only review a small amount of art which I come into contact with, and this is especially true of literature. Not everything I can force myself to write about. But I felt I did have something to say about this. If I was to forbear from penning this review, these unprofound and useless thoughts would never be expressed. They would slowly float down into my loins, never to be expunged, never to be released into the world beyond. From time to time, these thoughts would rise up from my loins and into my cerebrum, thereby giving me a headache of most unfortunate magnitude. My not writing this review would clearly have been either a great tragedy or a really good thing for the regular readers of my site. Unfortunately for my readers, this site remains my site, and if I decide to review an epic history by written by a dead Roman dude 1809 years ago that's exactly what I'm going to do. Forza!

This is probably not an epic history you'll read for fun. Tacitus did not write to entertain. He wrote to inform. His writing style was dry and to the point. The Annals are divided conveniently into sections each concerning a single Roman emperor(The "books" on Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero make up the bulk of what remains of the work...a fair bit of material from this history has been lost over the ages). Each chapter is filled to the brim with numbered paragraphs that could tell you all you'd want to know about the political intrigues, wars, and other sundry occurrences throughout the Empire during the reign of whatever Caesar was in power. Different things, it seems, make different great historians tick. Suetonius, for example, was highly concerned with the emperors' private lives, and he would describe in much detail the sexual deviancies of the Caesars. I really wish I hadn't read his accounts of Augustus', and especially Tiberius' revolting adventures with infants and children...but I suppose Suetonius had a point in describing these evils committed by supposedly divine rulers. As the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Tacitus was a different sort of historian, however. He is fanatically concerned above all else with courtly politics. Quite a number of the Caesars had this rather notorious reputation for slaughtering off just about everybody who might possibly be intending to cease the throne, and the fact that they thus killed and exiled many innocent people while supposedly protecting themselves concerned them very little. To Tacitus, the exile and forced executions and exiles of so many hundreds of great statesmen(as well as their friends and families) is a calamity unmatched. Thus, whenever he is chastising a Caesar it is usually in reference to the ruler's lack of mercy or overly mistrustful nature. Tacitus also was very interested in warfare. He describes in faithful detail many battles and conflicts between barbarians and subjugated peoples and their Roman adversaries(and even of battles which Rome was not directly involved in, but were of great interest to Her), though I wonder if he isn't the least bit subjective in choosing which particular battles to mention: the Romans seemed to too often win victories without suffering a single casualty or setback. Or perhaps the empire really was that strong in its glory days. Mighty, majestic Rome. Tacitus' interest in politics and warfare is natural, as he himself was a politician and a governor. He wrote histories for fun! Man, they don't make 'em like that anymore, do they?

One thing you cannot take away from Cornelius Tacitus is his integrity, and I really, really respect that. That's a quality that every good historian needs. One other thing you cannot take away from Cornelius Tacitus is his ambition, and I really respect that too. He tackled big subjects in The Annals, and he provides an immense amount of information on those chosen subjects. The sheer barrage of names listed per page might be enough to throw a casual reader into paroxysms. Knight so and so, ex-praetor so-and-so, Senator So-and-so who is married to Miss So-and-so who was married to consul so-and-so who was exiled by Caesar so-and-so...that's a great deal to keep track of. You will get your Gentilus Fubrilius' and your Fabius Petronius' mixed up. Bound to. Tacitus probably realized this, too. The thing is that most people mentioned are only noted once, either in reference to some great personal triumph they've achieved or, more likely, their deaths/exiles. It's not really important to keep track of all the names mentioned because most of these folks didn't do much of historical note. Not to say that they weren't fine, upstanding citizens(or treacherous, scheming rogues), but not everybody's a mover and a shaker. Senators are mentioned fairly often, as they are constantly making high-falootin' speeches and intriguing, often accusing others in order to avoid themselves being the next folks Caesar decides to destroy. Mentioned most of all is Caesar himself, of course, and his most intimate circle of family and acquaintances. These people are the ones you'll really need to remember.

It is true that sometimes Tacitus' great attention to detail results in a slightly boring read(I have to admit, this is the book I've chosen to fall asleep with for the last few weeks for more than one reason). In particular, the descriptions of various minor military conflicts don't do a whole lot for me. But when Tacitus speaks of Germanicus' great campaigns, THEN I'm definitely all eyes. Some of the courtly intriguing gets samey after a while, too, but Tacitus' most inspired moments when he describes the fall of an innocent individual wrongfully accused are worth sitting the others through. At any rate, reading of the destruction or the forced exile of even a person who truly wanted to usurp the crown of the Roman Empire is chilling stuff - what power the Caesars had! What power to ruin lives' with the move of a finger so to speak. Impressive.

Overall, I would consider this work to be proper reading for all with attention spans of reasonable length. Yes, the style and the fanatical attention to detail will probably bore you sometimes, but Tacitus' has so many stories to tell of human good and evil that even someone who has no interest at all in the Roman Empire should be duly drawn in. It's a deserving classic, for sure, and a great reminder of times gone by. I'm currently reading Tacitus' even more famous Histories which was written before this one, though it actually deals with later history than this covers. Looks good so far, but in terms of style and whatnot it seems basically indistinguishable from this one, so I probably won't write a review. Both are pretty solid.

7 stars(out of 10)

Letters From Switzerland by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Without a doubt, Goethe is one of my favorite authors. His refined sense for artistic and natural beauty continually stuns me. Who knew man was capable of making such beautiful reflections? He was a true artist of almost unlimited ability. Of all the writers I know of, Goethe is the one who could truly do anything. He was the perfect writer.(It all goes back to my theories on German art being the closest to perfection the world has ever seen, you see.) No, he is not my favorite author, but that is mostly because Goethe's works are difficult to like in totality due to their author's wide and expansive nature. You see, when Goethe wrote novellas, he didn't just write novellas. He wrote novellas that could be read as treatises on philosophy or travelogues or discussions of natural beauty or art criticisms. It's quite possible to be in love with a "part" of a Goethe work without necessarily being in love with the sum of the parts. That's why the work I'm about to review is so unusual.

This novel, believe it or not, is the "prequel" to Sorrows of Werther. This is unusual in itself. Most great works of art do not have followups. Shakespeare did not write "The Return of Romeo and Juliet." Dostoyevsky didn't shock a nation with his thriller "Raskolnikov's Revenge!!" Da Vinci didn't self violate by painting "Even More of the Mona Lisa." Or, Heaven forbid, "The Mona Lisa As A Striking Young Dame." It, generally speaking, is not done. A work of art that is complete in itself is not something which should be tampered with...not even by the artist who made it. Why, to do such a thing is almost to be disrespectful to one's art! But Goethe wrote this prequel and he got away with it completely. Why? Because this work is completely different from Sorrows of Werther. Indeed, I can hardly see Werther in this book at all - we are told he is the protagonist, the letter writer, and this composer of epistles is indeed a sensitive and discerning soul(as well as a painter). But if this is Werther, this is Werther as a very young man. A man yet without sorrow, with his eyes wide open gazing at the world still fascinated by everything around him. This young man is not particularly wise - certainly not the same man who spoke so passionately of God, nature, and art in the early letters included in the Sorrows of Werther. He is a man of action with a hunger for adventure. He soaks in the sights of Switzerland, inspired and moved by all that he sees. This novella is in fact one of the most straightforward works of fiction I've read by Goethe. It's a travelogue. The story of a young man and his journeys in Switzerland as told to his friends via letters. Places are described in wonderous detail. The physical journeys through the land are discussed lightly. People are hardly mentioned at all. Here we have Goethe the great traveller and the great naturalist strutting his stuff - philosophy be damned! The writing is wonderful, needless to say. Goethe knew how to describe the greatness of nature, the aesthetic beauty of trees and mountains and fields. It is interesting that the Werther in this book looks on rather disintenterestedly(or, sometimes, with distaste) on his fellow humans. For instance, he is revolted by the way he finds the poor inhabitants of an obscure village living their lives, insensitive to their economic states and the cards dealt to them by Fate. I would not call Werther an anti-humanist, but his soul is certainly more suited to admiring beauty and art than it is to sympathizing with the plights of humanity. The fact that Goethe could write a novella that has as its main characters nature and travel, though, is something I richly admire. I, too, prefer the company of nature and art to my fellow humans often enough - though I don't understand how Werther can love art and nature genuinely and look on the unlucky and uncultured with disgust. Note that though I do think the Werther in this book loved art and nature genuinely, he did not love it passionately. There are not too many really profound and sublime reflections here(at least, not compared with Sorrows of Werther) - this book is really just a very descriptive, enthused travelogue. If you are interested in Switzerland as it existed a century ago and have a love for nature, you'll love this book. It is interesting, well-written, extremely cohesive...flawless, in fact. It cannot disappoint you. Unless, of course, you're looking for something more than this book is meant to provide. I personally was not, and I simply enjoyed the richness of Goethe's writing. His great genius at description is unmatched, and the rich detail he provides in describing Switzerland is not to be missed. This is certainly one of the best travelogues you'll ever find, for sure! I apologize for the shortness of this review, but this is a very short novel. My copy is not even a hundred pages long.

8 stars(out of 10)

And Quiet Flows The Don by Mikhail Sholokhov(1928)

Having now consumed and digested a few works by a number of the later Russian writers(aside from Sholokhov, I've also read most of Solzhenitsyn, too much Gorky, and not enough Bulgakov), I can say that it is a mistake to look for connections between 19th century Russian literature and twentieth century Soviet literature. The two are connected only by their country of origin - in terms of content and aims, the two literatures are worlds apart. I understand why this novel is considered a masterwork; it is indeed far superior to Harvest On The Don which I reviewed a few months ago. With exquisite detail and great insight, Sholokhov succeeds in transporting the reader to a Russia torn apart by war and growling for change. The characters the novel is most concerned with are the Cossacks of the Don region, but we also get a chance to see through the eyes of a plethora of different characters, including Communists, Tsarists, and the cautiously undecided. One of the main reasons I prefer this novel to Harvest On The Don is that here Sholokhov cautiously shows us a little of himself. He looks after the Cossacks in this novel. One gets the feeling that though he is trying his best to paint a picture of the times in as impartial a manner as possible he is still going to stay loyal to his people...in this case, it is the Cossacks against the Soviets, the Tsarists, the peasants, and the artistocracy alike. His portrayals of the Don residents are not romanticized, but they are for the most part kind; towards the end of the book I was able to successfully predict the end of one of the action sequences merely by asking myself, "Would Sholokhov really let HIS people die?" He would not. He let others die instead. He was a good father to his Cossacks here. I liked that, actually - for a writer who often seems so wooden and incapable of displaying passion, this fierce regionalism was a positively refreshing trait.

Sholokhov's strength is his ability to write dialogue - his ability to write good dialogue is closely tied to his other strength, that of characterization. Conversely, however, Sholokhov's descriptive prose can be a bit much at times(to what extent this prose can be too much probably depends on the quality of the translation a native English speaker is reading - I myself read what seemed like an excellent version. Of course, I don't know what the original Russian version is like.); his descriptions of war, conflicts, and combat aren't bad at all but certainly no match for Tolstoy's definitive descriptive prose in War And Peace. He is better, I'd say, at describing domestic scenes - interactions between the elderly and the young, men and women, and young men amongst themselves. The ending of the novel is without a doubt thrilling, however - certainly Sholokhov's best action scene descriptions are to be found there. This is certainly a successful adventure in realism. This novel gives us real people, real settings, real circumstances, and for the most part instead of boring the reader with all this realism it draws him in because of it. Thus, it's a very successful novel of its type. I found it very interesting...and I have little regard for "realism for realism's sake."

But this still wouldn't even make my long list of "masterworks" of literature. It's a minorwork for sure, and I mean no offense by saying that. I can certainly turn to a page in this novel, read its content and be affected in a certain way by what I have read. I cannot, however, read this book from cover to cover and be affected by its contents in totality. This novel is much more about little scenes, little moments, little slices of real life than it is about telling a great story or explaining a great idea. Unlike Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Gogol, and Tolstoy on a good day(alas, he had a few bad ones, too), Sholokhov isn't much good at punctuating his fiction. This novel does not have a clearly defined Beginning, Middle, and End - rather, it starts and it stops. It could have started in another way and lost none of its quality...it could have ended in another way and again lost none of its quality. It is clearly a novel not concerned with concepts. It's just life, with all the gory and the glory left in...in this novel, that is quite enough.

8 stars(out of 10)

COMPUTER GAME REVIEWS

Civilization by Sid Meier(1991)

I figure now is as good a time as any to write up this Civilization review. After all, I have been playing the game all night. This is my second attempt to write this review, incidentally. The first attempt was five minutes ago. I had written my first sentence when the electricity went out for no apparent reason. Is that an omen? Does God not want me to write a Civilization review? Hmm, no, I don't think it was an omen personally. If my review stops abruptly at some point, I've probably been murdered or something like that. I wonder if my murderer would be nice enough to save the review? Probably not. You know murderers.

I've changed a great deal over the past six years. However, my choice of favorite game has not. This was a gift from my sister and brother-in-law Mike. Mike has introduced me to some of the best games around: Empire, Zork , Deadline, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, DOOM 2(I was into DOOM before he was I believe, but he beat me to DOOM '95), Myst, and of course, Risk. I'd probably still be playing Space Commander if it wasn't for him. Not that I don't play Space Commander on occasion to this very day.

So, what is so brilliant about Civilization? It is a game on a huge scale! Perhaps the concept was not new, but the design, smoothness, and intuitiveness of the game was. You take control of a civilization of your choosing. You may play on good ol' Earth, customize your own planet, or just let the game come up with a random one. Once you've found a nice planet to settle on, your civilization is your responsibility now. You must build, protect, and maintain cities, develop new technologies, make war or peace with neighboring nations, and keep the economy running smoothly. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Civilization is a game on such a large scale it is close to impossible to describe it. Incidentally, you may have noticed that I said "make war OR peace" a couple sentences ago. Indeed! This is not your typical, average war game. You can play an entirely peaceful game, expanding your civilization while attempting to be the first to launch a spaceship. Of course, conquering the world is always an option for the more beligerent players.

This is a game that is nearly seven years old. It doesn't have the "coolest" graphics I suppose, but I seriously think they would just get in the way of a strategy game like this. I've seen a lot of games with "cool" graphics and found them quite boring. Descent , man? Screw that! I want my Civilization! I don't even know if you can still buy the original, but I hope you can. It's a great game. The best darn game ever. I've never played the "new" Civ that works in Windows, but I'm betting it can't compare to sleeping on air.

I suppose it has stuff like multiplayers which might be cool. It's still Civilization, so I don't think it would be a waste of money to pick it up. But with the original being such a classic, isn't it a mistake for anyone to tinker with it? Bastardizing the classics, that is what they are doing! Romeo and Juliet? Or should I say Leonardo and Claire? I don't need it. Frankly, Shakespeare's original wasn't THAT brilliant to start with. No Taming of the Shrew. Incidentally, I thought that Sid had nothing to do with Civ 2 . I just went to the Microprose web site and they still say Sid Meier's Civilization II. It's probably pretty great, then. I wonder what weird article I was reading that made me go all anti-Civilization II?

Well, good night!

Check out the MicroProse web site

10 stars(out of 10)

Reader Thoughts

bburks@comp.uark.edu (Brian Burks)

Don't be anti-Civ II. It's great! Civ II is an improvement in almost every way -- after you'd played Civ II, going back to Civ I is like trading in a Mustang for a Model T. The World War II scenario rules -- too bad I didn't hold out for the gold edition that has several more historical scenarios available. For some reason I like to play Franco most of the time. Nothing shocks the Axis like seeing Italy fall to a sneak attack by the Spanish!

Colonization by Sid Meier(1994)

Hot damn. I'm groovin' to the California swamp rock sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival on the old Victrola while I write another brilliant review for another brilliant Sid Meier game! Okay, maybe I should say "on the old Panasonic" rather than on the old Victrola. It's a lot less cooler when I say it that way, though. Those damn Germans. No sense of poetry. Well, aside from Schiller. Just don't try reading Schiller's essays. Boring. Horribly so.

My brother-in-law Mike thinks that this game is actually harder than Civilization. And he's right. I still prefer the mighty Civilization but I have to say I've fallen in love with Colonization myself these past few months.(If it is possible to fall in love with a computer game...well, hell, why not?). For those who aren't in the know: Colonization is Sid Meier's followup to the worldwide commercial smash Civilization. In Colonization, you lead the French, English, Dutch, or Spanish in their settlement of the new world. The ultimate goal, of course, is to win independence from your poor host nation who supported your lazy asses and let you settle the damned land in the first place. It isn't a Civilization clone though the games share some interface similiarites. I say that because there were in fact a number of hopeless Civilization clones floating about at this time trying to cash in on Civilization's success. This instance clearly shows it's best to stick with the real deal: Sid has created a game that is almost the equal of his masterwork. Ah man, what a cool dude.

I won't bother going into all the differences that make this game different from El Civ. I struggled to learn my way around the game and so should you. It's only now that I'm starting to get better at this game. I think I'll soon advance past "Discoverer"!!! Discoverer is another way to say "hopeless loser", by the way. In my experience, for best results you should lead either the English or the Dutch. The Spanish should hypothetically make good rebels due to their cool combat bonus, but that hasn't proved the case for me thus far. Prolly has something to do with the fact that when I lead the Spanish I keep blasting poor Indian villages to bits. That's pretty crazy, cuz ordinarily when I'm leading one of the other European nations I'm nice as hell to the Indians. "Nice as hell" doesn't sound all that nice, but it's just a turn of phrase. Get over it. You know what I'm trying to say. Unless, of course, you really don't know what I'm trying to say. Forget it! Just buy Colonization! And hurry up man, the game is already four years old.

10 stars (out of 10)

Conquests of Camelot by Sierra Online/Christy Marx(1990)

If you've grown sick of the fairy tale lore of the King's Quest series, you need look no further than this game for thy cure. It is altogether a more robust, virile sort of adventure gaming experience - for better and for worse. You, as King Arthur, must seek out the Holy Grail and the three brave knights(Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad) who have not been heard of since they left Camelot in search of the Grail themselves. The game starts you off in Camelot - after bidding adieu to Queen Guinevere and gathering what supplies and advice you need, you set off on a series of adventures which will take you to several locations in the Arthurian realm. As you might expect, many perils and puzzles await brave Arthur, and they will require not only your brawn but also your ingenuity and your game manual if Arthur's quest is to be a successful one.

I do not consider this game a Sierra classic. It is, however, very good, and in general an enjoyable gaming experience. What I like most of all about it is the superb atmosphere. The Arthurian realm is reverently detailed to match the well loved myths, with superb graphics and excellent original music heightening the overall experience while enhancing the genuineness of the setting. Indeed, the music does sound positively "Arthurian" and the graphics look just what we have mentally pictured the great land of ancient Britain as having looked like. Excellent! The opening section of the game is just a joy to play. The castle is organized so skillfully(though the navigating between rooms map is a little primitive, it's a nice space saver at least...), and each room is designed so carefully that one can quite easily become absorbed in the gameplay. However, the game's weaknesses begin to reveal themselves soon after Arthur has left the safety of the walls of Camelot. The puzzles are simply not that good, and they require little thought from the player. I don't mind the action sequences too much - in fact, I rather enjoy them for their novelty. But they are extremely easy unless one sets the arcade difficulty at the highest level, and they also don't last all that long, so I consider them interesting but generally unimportant additions to the gameplay. What I have serious problems with is the dreaded crossing of the thin ice at Ot Moor. This is simply tedium. You walk a couple of steps, the heart turns purple, and crash! you fall through. Oh, I forgot, you have to set the speed to slow and measure each step... Hmmph. I don't care for that sort of thing one bit. Later on, one of the more important "puzzles" seems to only be around for copy protection. In other words, you just need the game manual to solve it. Quite challenging, if you have a pirated copy...otherwise, a waste of time. Luckily, the game rebounds with the lively bazaar setting. There are many enjoyable things to do here, and no irritating puzzles to get in the way. I believe it ends quite well, too.

Ultimately, the game's atmosphere is what makes it worth playing. It is extremely successful in translating the Arthurian experience into an adventure game, and the commitment of Christy Marx and those who worked with her really shows. If only as much thought had been put into the puzzles as was shown everywhere else, this game would be a worthy candidate for a higher rating. Though I guess I should speak up now in support for my favorite puzzle in the game: the stones and their riddles. Yes, some people hate them and protest that they are too hard, but I quite enjoy the riddles. Some are indeed hard and extremely obscure, yes, but it's about the only puzzle in the game I can feel proud about after completing. It requires some genuine mental effort to complete! Horror of horrors! I also have a great deal of respect for the graphics(still not VGA yet, but very well-drawn) and the parser responds to nearly everything I throw at it! I'm still awaiting a way to inflict some sort of punishment on Guinevere for inserting insinuations about her relationship with Lancelot in every little thing she says, though. "Chop Guinevere's head off" doesn't seem to work. Oh well, one can always just swear at her. I'm also a big fan of the music as I mentioned earlier. The storyline of the game itself is also quite reasonable - it stays close to Arthurian legends almost from start to finish with a little bit of the Arabian Knights thrown in for good measure. I did once think that the Other Ones were a science fiction reference, but now I count them as Celtic folklore, much like that adorable forest sprite.

Sadly, this game is no longer sold by Sierra at all. Injustice! A game with this sort of atmosphere shouldn't be allowed to go out of print before even a decade has passed. But alas, that's the computer gaming industry for you.

8 stars (out of 10)

King's Quest 1: Quest for the Crown by Sierra Online/Roberta Williams(1984, 1987)

It seems that I have inadvertently become a gaming historian. I really didn't intend to be one when I started out this section of my review site a year ago and wrote up a few amateuresque reviews. But it is the unfortunate truth that the PC gaming world has left poor Bryan behind in the mud - 90% of all modern commercial games are too expensive and too memory intensive for me. The former is the least tolerable at all, and it is what has forced me to limit my computer game purchasing to older, used games that only cost a couple of bucks. I'm quite happy that I've gone to search for the plunder of the past, because there are some great things to be found there. Recently, for instance, I found a whole slew of old early 90s Microprose games I've been wanting to play for ages but never had the chance to(I'll probably review them soon). I do try to follow gaming to what extent I can, however. It is my distinct impression that the mainstream gaming market has become a direct equivalent of the mainstream pop music market: new games are released every week, they're played for a year or perhaps less, then they're discarded, never to be thought of again. Nobody seems to be making games geared towards replayability or quality storylines, and as a result it's a good time for action and platform games, but a crappy time for strategy, commercial interactive fiction, and adventure games. Slowly but surely my idea of gaming has developed over the eons. I'm to the point where it's pretty much impossible to impress with "cool" graphics, awesome music, or other gimmickry: gaming is all about gameplay. Let's cut out the dross and see how fun the game is to play both the first time you play it through, and then again five years later. That's what gaming is about. There are a few companies that agree: Infocom in the 80s pioneered the plot-oriented text adventure, Microprose in the late 80s/early-to-mid 90s pioneered the strategy game, Interstel pioneered the strategic war game in the 80s, and Sierra Online pioneered the graphical adventure game with text parser from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. I'm not sure whether I'd been able to write a decent review of a Sierra Online product when I first started this site - I started playing 'em when I was but a wee lad, but hadn't played them in years. Now I'm renewing my acquaintance with a few classics, and enjoying every second.

For starters, I must say how unbelievably underrated this game is. Everywhere I looked on the Net I found some fellow scowling at the game: "It's not much playable today, but cute." "It's too old. The graphics are too blocky." In short, everyone mentioned the graphics, but not a soul mentioned the story and the gameplay. Why is this? Folks have got their heads screwed on wrong, I tell ya. Of course, it helps that I'm more or less tolerant of even the most dodgiest of computer graphics. I figure if I want some nice visuals I'll go take a look at some Northern or Italian Renaissance works of art - now that's visuals for you! A computer game? I just want it to entertain and absorb me. That's all. And King's Quest 1 delivers, baby. The only problem I see with the graphics is that sometimes the objects are not easily identifiable - for the most part, however, they are. This problem would be solved if only there were room descriptions included in the game to supplement the room graphics(Sierra would soon start including these, thank the Lord!). That way the textual room description could describe a few of the notable features of the room, and the player could then examine his surroundings further to find out more, taking especial note of those things mentioned. I actually think the graphic direction was just fine - good color scheme, nice landscapes. A real pleasant experience. It's certainly good for the time(I'm playing the Roberta Williams-revised version, not the original, which I've never played. Dunno if it's much worse), at the least. There's something nice about the very lack of a room description just the same, however - it makes for very intuitive gameplay, leaving it completely up to the player to zero in on a few objects he/she notices with his/her own eyes. As for the story, perhaps it's not pure genius, but it's certainly interesting enough in a classic sort of way: the dying king of the realm has asked you to rescue the kingdom by finding three magical items of great power located somewhere in the kingdom. The plot takes the story in all sorts of interesting ways - by no stretch of the imagination does the story become hackneyed or dull. Perhaps a more serious criticism to make would concern the game's length and difficulty - short and reasonably easy, respectively. I personally find the puzzle-solving a pretty straightforward task. (Surprising for a company famous for highly obscure puzzles!) As for the parser, it's quite effective. Compared to the parser of the first Leisure Suit Larry(which was itself an adaptation of a crappy text adventure with an equally bad parser), it has brilliant responsiveness. I would have to agree that this game is far bettered by its sequels, which got progressively better until quite recently when Sierra Online bowed to the pressures of the market and began creating high-tech but boring games. But is the game worth playing in our 1999? Definitely. Absolutely. Undoubtedly. It's a good game. Why not pick up a copy of the well-priced Roberta Williams box set and get it all?

8 stars(out of 10)

Reader Thoughts

(George Starostin)

Ah. At last, Bryan has decided to review a good enough game. No, no, just joking, of course: he's reviewed quite a few good ones already. But when it comes to Sierra On-Line, well then, Microprose and LucasArts, move over! These are... WERE the true masters. The epoch of adventure games is over, of course (as far as I know, Gabriel Knight III is going to be their last one), but this is where it had its glorious start. I have acquired KQ1 relatively late - I think I first played KQ3, then 4 and 2, and only played 1 in the beginning of the Nineties when it was already as 'obsolete' as possible (in the eyes of Wolfenstein lovers, of course). I enjoyed it nevertheless. True, it is a bit rough as compared to the real masterpieces in this series (which I consider to be KQ3 and KQ4), but remember, it was their first experience ever. So the storyline is a bit dumb - it doesn't have that much of a plot, unlike the later, more fascinating ones; and you're right that the lack of a general room description can be frustrating at times. (However, the revised SCI version does have general room descriptions). But who cares when one is really playing an old Sierra classic?

And yes, the puzzles are kinda simple - especially if you're an expert in Olde Aenglisc fairy tales. But challenging nevertheless. And of course, the graphics 'suck' now, but they pretty much defined their era: I've seen contemporary games with far worse graphic interfaces. They work for me, anyway. I don't really enjoy text adventures with no graphics at all (my imagination isn't that strong), but CGI graphics are quite all right by me. And the parser! HEY! THERE'S THE BLESSED PARSER! You know my father was an avid Sierra fanatic but lost all interest in 'em when they dumped the parser? Can you imagine how much more fun it is to type in 'talk to the dwarf' than having to chase him with the dorky mouse all around the screen?

I agree with the eight. Maybe a seven, because there are certain rough spots, but it depends on the day. King's Quest IV is my bet for a solid ten, the best, the most enthralling in the whole series; but this one is good, too. And hey, did you manage to kill the witch?

cbunnell@ix.netcom.com(Rich Bunnell)

I basically like the whole King's Quest series, with the exception of the second one (basically the same as the first, but with a stupider setup) and the most recent two. I mean, give me a break! King's Quest 7? That's Disney crap! It even opens with a Disney-ish musical number! And a really sucky one at that! And King's Quest 8? It's in 3D, and the character has a friggin' lifebar! Save that stuff for Quest For Glory(actually an entertaining series when I feel like playing it). I'm actually not too familiar with this one but I remember playing all the way through it with hints (I'm terrible about that kind of stuff) and it certainly does the trick-- a bit simplistic but remember, this was one of the first, if not THE first 3-D adventure games ever. Bashing it for being "too simple" is like bashing Beowulf for having "too cliched of a plot." A nice and simple premise is good anyway-- you must find the crown! And the mirror! And the treasure chest! Then, you're king! Hurrah!

I also love the parser because of the different things you could try out with it-- though I prefer the KQ4 system where action stops while you're typing-- much, much more convenient. In Space Quest 2 (King's Quest's lesser brother, at least if you listen to critics, but if you listen to me you'll find that it's a superior series) if you type in "cheat" at any point in the game, you get taken to the "THE END" screen with 255 out of 250 points! However, I DO like the mouse system when it's done well, and it was in 5 and 6, then it turned to crap in 7. By the way, 6 is my personal favorite-- tons of mythology references and wordplay, plus the graphics are really good without being the kind of good graphics which people insert in the place of stuff like gameplay and quality. Anyway, I suppose KQ1 gets an 8 too.

But now I have to gripe about Sierra. I LOVE OLD SIERRA GAMES. I WORSHIP the Space Quest series with my entire being (King's Quest runs a close second because unlike King's Quest, Space Quest ended the series before it got crappy-- plus, the Two Guys From Andromeda were a hell of a lot more funny than Roberta Williams). And I HATE new Sierra games. I believe the turning point after which Sierra games turned mostly to crap was the buying out of the Sierra Network, one of the best online networks I was ever on. But now, everything in Sierra's done for money! I heard about a game development meeting where they got together to talk about new products in development, and they referred to one game as "A real Myst-killer." MYST-KILLER? The only reason they're making games now is to compete with the market! They don't care anymore about quality!

This is getting long, isn't it? Sorry. I'm just a very opinionated person on the state of Sierra at the moment and then I looked over to your page and saw a review of a classic Sierra game and the site's interactive and...well.....

King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human by Roberta Williams/Sierra Online(1986)

Wow! This is, in my book, a real classic - not just one of the best of the KQ series, but one of the best games in the entire Sierra catalog. It's a definite step up from the two games which precede it in the series - those were fine in their own right, but this takes everything that made those enjoyable and makes them better. The plot is fantastic - as the game starts, you're not put in the role of a royal this time around(this actually upset some folks who said at the time it was not a "real" King's Quest since you were playing the role of a slave - they calmed down after playing the game to the end, however, and in fact probably felt pretty stupid about the whole thing), but an enslaved servant of an evil wizard who kidnapped you. You might not have always been a servant, however, *hint* *hint*. The first item on your list of things to do is naturally to escape the clutches of this horrid wizard, but as the game progresses you'll discover you have something else to accomplish: Princess Rosella has been kidnapped! It would be nice if you saved her or something, right? Right! Good, good plot. And I really think it was excellent how the game starts out with the player not being even dimly aware of the "larger" plot of the game. This definitely encourages the player to look around and try everything they possibly can in the beginning. The game's more fun if you play it for yourself and watch the plot unravel before your eyes, so I won't say anymore.

On a technical level, KQ3 is still relatively "primitive" but it features a couple of innovations that put it well ahead of KQ1 and KQ2. There are still only keyboard controls(which are wonderful - even in the early mouse-supported Sierra games I usually use the keyboard to walk around. Annoys the heck out of me how the later games FORCE you to use the doggone mouse! Aw, those buggers!) and the player's sole means of inputting his/her actions to the game is still through the parser, but the graphics and animations are much improved, and there is one major addition to the gameplay: magic! The introduction of such features as the magic map, the various magical items, and spells that could be learned and then cast was quite novel for an adventure game in 1986. They're terrific, however, and really succeed in giving the game atmosphere and making the kingdom come alive for the player where KQ1 and KQ2 were not quite able to do so.

Complaints? Not very many. The parser is maybe not as strong as it could be - it does annoy me to keep trying to look and grab at things the game pretends don't exist even though they're clearly shown in the graphics. This is more a factor in the very beginning of the game when the player is grasping at straws to discover what he is to do and trying to look at everything. Plus, the setting of the beginning, the wizard's house, is very rich in detail - there are a lot of things to look at and explore, but the parser doesn't play along with the curious player as often as I would like it too. Yeah, the game is quite difficult, too, but most Sierra Online games are, so I'm not complaining about that. The difficulty of this game doesn't really bother me because the gameplay is so rich and the story so engrossing, and the puzzles simply make the game more interesting, quite unlike several of the ones in Space Quest II, for instance.

Oh, and how about humor? I recommend trying to escape the wizard right from the beginning - keep climbing the cliffs. Hilarious things might just happen. Has anyone ever tried to win the game after being turned into a snail? This one's a keeper, and it receives a deserved ten from this reviewer. This game is what Sierra Online are all about to me: great, addicting plot-oriented adventure games. More about gameplay than glitz. The strange thing is, Roberta Williams and crew actually made a better game next time around. That's really impressive.

10 stars(out of 10)

Reader Thoughts

(George Starostin)

I have exactly one gripe with this game - typing in the extended formulas that you simply have to copy from your manual (copyright protection, heh, heh, heh). Otherwise, I totally agree that it's a near-masterpiece. You didn't mention that the number of different objects which you need to pick up and use in this game possibly exceeds the number of objects in the previous two King's Quests taken together. It's incredible how much stuff poor Alexander can pick up along the way!

Also, I feel that the planning of the landscape and the details have been vastly improved. And, although you're sometimes limited in time 'before the wizard returns' (I usually hate these things), they at least put a watch above your head so you can always check when it's trime to return! A classic, right. Nevertheless, I STILL think that the biggest breakthrough occurred in King's Quest IV. KQ3 still makes me think of it as a good game; KQ4 is a real universe where you get to feel the characters - they kinda crawl under your skin...

Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals by Al Lowe/Sierra Online(1990)

I almost want to give this game a '9' because in some respects it is one of the most amusing and entertaining games Sierra Online ever released, but ultimately it isn't consistent enough to earn such a high rating. The main trouble with the Larry games in general is their plot consistency: there just isn't any. Basically, Larry goes about picking up women and getting into trouble, and that's all - the plots are just full of random events essentially(how about the Amazon women in this one? Where on Earth did that ending come from??), there's little form or function to the storylines. The second game of the series has the best plot by far, but even it isn't as consistent as many other plot oriented Sierra games. This game in particular feels REALLY disconnected - there are stretches where you just don't know where to go or what to do because there are so many options for you to choose from. It's very, very loose compared to, say, the KQ series(which I think generally had the best plots). However, I would say that this is the funniest game of the series - just chock-full of raunchy and clever jokes and scenes. In a sense, you're not really playing this game to "win" or accomplish any sort of goal. You're just playing to see what obscene/hilarious things Al Lowe has thought up next. It is a scene rather than plot oriented game. Luckily, there ARE some truly great scenes that cause me to chuckle now just thinking about them. Also, the excellent graphics and fine soundtrack(many rooms and events even have their own musical "theme") further emphasize the quality of the scenes. The puzzles are a nice blend of relative simplicity and advanced obscurity - since this is a pretty large game(scored on a four thousand point scale), there's plenty of room for all of them. I don't find any of them particularly annoying(or, for that matter, particularly entertaining), but they're certainly solid enough. Okay, it DOES have one maze and you know mazes aren't my favorite thing in the world, but I can handle this one. Some puzzles really are quite difficult and time consuming, however, so newbies should be wary, while veteran gamers will probably enjoy the challenge.

Probably one of the strongest things the game has going for it is the design and interface. Sierra Online developed some of the prettiest adventure games ever made(it's interesting that Lucas Arts games usually suck up more space, but rarely if ever do they look nicer than a Sierra classic), and this is one of them. Very, very effective art work. Excellent attention to details and objects. Just the sheer attractiveness of the design makes the game play a lot smoother than those early AGI games(not that there was anything seriously wrong with those...but it is an obvious improvement.) The quality of the music varies from scene to scene but the quality of the sound does not: superb! At the very least the score touches on multiple moods - it's too bad generic funk had to be one of those moods. Some of the lounge themes are simply wonderous, however - I'm thinking particularly of the "binoculars" scene. Fantastic stuff! Oh yeah, there's still no mouse support for this game - you don't really need it, however. Not with that excellent parser!

I suppose I should go into the plot a little bit more, though the fact is most Larry games have remarkably similar plots. Just like the first two games of the series, as you begin the game you discover you've been dumped by an important woman in your life(supposedly, in the first game of the series the "important" woman was your mom!). Pretty soon you find out your job is gone, too, so it looks like you'll have to start your life over again from scratch. You have a few hundred acres of prime real estate as a result of the island's generous dowry system that you can now dispose of without guilt now that your beloved wife has seen fit to take up with a character named "Bobbi"! (You probably still won't understand this plot summary unless you play LSL2 first. It'll answer the questions how Larry got to the island, how he saved it, how he met the island chick, etc.) As the game progresses, you'll encounter many women, many adventures, offensive comics, strip bars, marijuana plants, and even Al Lowe himself. You even get to play the role of Passionate Patti in Part Two! Are you up for the challenge?

The game's true saving grace is the humor. Most of the funniest scenes/jokes are not even remotely risque(for example, I really like the "boss fires, then bowls Larry!" and "Larry dances!" scenes which are as innocent as an ewe lamb grazing in a green pasture under a bright blue sky.) I do recommend the game highly if you're willing to forgive the plot inconsistency/wackiness and pardon the formulaicness of it all and simply enjoy the jokes. Oh yes, you should definitely stay away from the game if pixellated nudity offends you deeply, but, really, why should it? It's hard to think of anything less inherently sexual than a computer game. Really!

8 stars(out of 10)

Space Quest II - Vohaul's Revenge by Sierra Online/Two Guys from Andromeda(1988)

The Two Guys from Andromeda were these two guys from...Andromeda, who wrote adventure games for Sierra Online as part of the great Earth-Andromeda game designer exchange. Sierra got the Two Guys for a short period of time, during which they authored some fine Space Quest games together, while Andromedan computer software giant Macrohard procured the services of programmer extraordinaire Al Lowe, who would go on to produce them a couple of games that are now considered among the best in Andromedan gaming history: Leisure Suit Larry and the Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Leisure Suit Larry In: Alien Girls Are Easy!. Oh, okay, the Two Guys from Andromeda were really Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, two fat(maybe), beer-guzzling(probably), heroin-addled(joking) computer programmers armed with naught but a talent for graphic creation(Mark Crowe) and a wicked, wicked sense of humor(Scott Murphy). Now, I'm none too familiar with this series as I've only played the first two episodes(just recently got a copy of the "masterpiece" III from a colleague, but haven't had much time to fiddle around with it), as I kinda suspected the series was, you know, crappy. But I was wrong! Maybe. This game is quite a treat to play, though it has far too many flaws to be considered a classic, or, indeed, anything above "above average." I still don't like the first Space Quest very much, but this is at least full of amusing scenes and circumstances, inside jokes, oodles of obscure and just plain strange references, and lots of other wacky things to keep the player entertained. The story, however, is a bit weak, at least in execution. The bad guy who you foiled in Space Quest I - The Sarien Encounter is sort of pissed off at you, so you're going to have to defeat him again. That's just been done too many times to be too fascinating, but never you mind. The most serious problem with the game in my mind has to do with the puzzles. Instead of being challenging, they are more often just annoying and tedious - see the difference? I can't think of anything more dull than having to wade through the "maze of slime" past that alien beast to get to the berry bush. That doesn't require any thought of the player to solve. It's just tedium - too hard to pull off on your first few tries, so you'll have to save often, almost after every other step. Likewise, meandering around that log till you get to just the right spot to do your business with the rope is definitely not my idea of entertainment. It's BORING. Those sort of puzzles just don't show up every often in the true Sierra classics(thankfully!), and when they do they are generally not the most important puzzles in the game, and thus, do not tend to bother anybody. Here, however, these sort of mindless tests are a good example of the sort of puzzles you'll encounter throughout. The hardest part of the game, I'd say, is the maze. In general, I don't care for mazes, and this one really drives me to distraction. It's a really BIG maze! But, again, this doesn't earn the game points from me - I hate mazes. What does earn the game points from me is the sly humor and oddball references throughout, which are really the only things that keep the game entertaining for me. I have absolutely no idea why there are armed gorillas from the Planet of the Apes series of movies guarding the planet you are imprisoned at, but aren't they fun to have there? And what about that kissing monster? And that time you dream you're Leisure Suit Larry? I also adore the opening scene of the game. Does it get any more fun than that? You have a cool watch and get to walk on walls! And there are a whole host of little inside commands for this game and the other Space Quests, too - do a search for the volumnious(200k!) FAQ to find more on that. "Cheat" is especially nice when you're sick and tired of that darned maze. The NPCs are all rather cool, too - some are knockoffs and tributes like the apes, but some seem to be original. Good creativity at work! Alien planets should have groovy alien lifeforms. Don't you agree?

You definitely have to be in the right type of mood to appreciate this game. As far as I'm concerned, it's only playable due to the humor - the puzzles and plot are far below Sierra standards. The graphics and parser, however, kick ass. I'm hoping I'll like III better.

6 stars(out of 10)

Reader Thoughts

cbunnell@ix.netcom.com(Rich Bunnell)

It actually just might be my least favorite installment of the Space Quest series (except possibly the first, but I quite like the remake of that because you can cheat on the slot machine, an otherwise grating puzzle in the CGI version), but I really enjoy every one. I will agree that the puzzles such as the maze and the root monster are little more than tedious, but that's really my only gripe, since the Two Guys did what they could to make everything else really interesting. The final part with Vohaul's asteroid is genius! Roger is seemingly completely left alone by Vohaul (though he's obviously being watched) and instead of having to face thousands of monster death robots, he has to walk the halls, supposedly without danger, until--BOOM! You get sucked in by a floor cleaning droid or caught by a hidden wall robot. It's also funny how Roger ends up foiling all of these traps through janitorial devices-- pretty much the only time in the series he tests his janitorial mettle. I have little problem with the "re-hashed" plot since you never actually MEET Sludge Vohaul in the original game; in fact, the original game is Roger versus the Sarien race as opposed to Vohaul himself. Vohaul is without his precious Sariens this time around, and he does a nice job being the antagonist, especially with his evil plan (Release genetically-engineered salesman onto the world!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!). However, the Space Quest where Vohaul actually seems like a true force to be reckoned with is his virus form in SQ4, with his huge, bald head suspended in a flashing holographic tube with the Sequel Police ready to kill Roger at his very command-- here he's just a fat guy with a bunch of tubes stuck into him. More comical that way, however, I'll give it that.

Regarding Space Quest 3, the game IS the series' masterpiece humor-wise....it's a bit short but one thing you can try to do is after you beat it, go through the game trying to find as many ways as you can to die. The Two Guys really got creative there! For example, on the garbage ship right at the beginning, in the screen with the broken TIE Fighter, try typing "take metal" near that huge slab of metal lying on the saucer. Roger apparently cuts a huge artery in his hand and goes into literal convulsions! The Two Guys were truly twisted beings... too bad they broke up, but it resulted in our getting to see what would happen if each one individually made a Space Quest-- Space Quest 5 was made solo by Mark Crowe (it was a bit too reliant on parody and a comic-book-ish drawing style) and Space Quest 6 was made solo by Scott Murphy (it was a bit too reliant on dialogue, albeit hilarious dialogue, but some of the romantic stuff is pretty boring-- however, it did the cartoony graphic style MUCH, MUCH, MUCH BETTER THAN KING'S QUEST 7).

Anyway, I'd give SQ2 a 7. But what's with that piece of crap ending? "THE END." That's it! It's a nice lead-in to SQ3 but they could've done it with a bit more class, even with that '80s technology.

(George Starostin)

Hmm. You know, I agree with almost everything you said. I hate mazes, too, and PARTICULARLY mazes where you only have a limited amount of time before being eaten by some stupid squid. I also hate moving in between the 'roots' to get the berries. And I have even more gripes: for instance, Vohaul's space ship with its kilometer-long hallways doesn't inspire me that much. And these pink mushrooms are plain NASTY.

Still, I'd probably up the rating to a seven, at least a weak seven. Why? Because the game is so diverse and damn funny! It takes you quite a lot of places, and nasty things like mazes are quickly replaced by wonderful locations and puzzles like the Labion Terror Beast (that one's my favourite spot in the game and one of the most amusing SQ puzzles ever, I think). Or, well, maybe I'm just biased. Anyway, Space Quest III has all of this game's good sites, none of its bad sides and much, much more, so this one is definitely a bit 'marking-time'.

Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon by the Two Guys From Andromeda/Sierra Online(1989)

Simply put, this is one of the best adventure games I've ever played. Everything about it is done well - it has hardly any weaknesses worth mentioning, as they are so overpowered by the many strengths. I'm truly amazed by this game as I thought SQ was the 'weak' series of the Sierra chain - this is so much better and well developed than the first two that it just isn't funny. Well, actually, it IS funny - very, very funny in fact. The same sarcastic approach which worked so well in the first two games of the series is certainly present in the third, and in full force, too, but the main difference is that the plot, the graphics, and the gameplay have finally caught up with the humor. In the game, you of course play that venerable ex-janitor/super space hero/all around nice guy Roger Wilco as he battles whatever evil denizens dare challenge him. This time, however, the plot is a little more complicated than usual. It continues where the second SQ left off, with Roger in his escape pod. Roger ends up landing on an unusual sort of junkyard(in fact, a "garbage freighter"). What to do next? The successive story will take Roger to two different planets(or, in fact, three, if you count Earth!), a moon, and an inter-galactic fast food restaurant - he will battle androids and droids alike - he will get to reprise his perennial role as space janitor - and even more! Essentially, you're just trying to foil the bad guys while staying alive(with further, vague hopes of returning home), but there's nothing really wrong with that, is there? Instead of the evil alien Vohaul(who you thought you had killed in the last game, but...err... that's another story), Wilco's enemies this time are a corporate interest by the name of Scumsoft, Inc. who certainly live up to their moniker. Each phase of the game is about perfect. The planets are fascinating and full of geographic detail. I particularly like the desert planet Pleebhut because you have more freedom to explore that one...and many cool ways to die. Rich Bunnell was sure right about the death scenes in this game! There's about a hundred of 'em! The Ortega phase is a little more rushed, but generally well done, and it certainly fits into the plot well enough. The Monolith Burger phase is a nice change of pace in that there's absolutely no danger here. It's a safe zone! Explore the two rooms and have fun! Eat, drink, and be merry! The best feature of this area is the infamous "Astro Chicken" arcade game, an entertaining take on "Lunar Lander", only a lot more fun. You're trying to land a CHICKEN, you see. Hilarity ensues(and if you notice, you actually get points for landing chickens. Hmm, perhaps the game is further involved with the plot in some way? Maybe you should keep playing.) I'm probably the least crazy about the Scumsoft HQ - they skimped a bit here, relegating Roger to janitorial work and forcing him to navigate that somewhat annoying hallway. One other part of the game which deserves special mention is the ship. Using the simplistic course/engine/speed/radar/weapons ship controls, Roger is free to travel to the nether ends of the Galaxy and back again. Most importantly, however, cool music plays when the ship is travelling at light speed. Excellent interface. The graphics(still drawn only by Mark Crowe) are superlative; indeed, this game ranks up with the best Sierra games for visual quality. A great deal of attention is paid to detail, which makes navigating each scene a real joy. The space freighter is arguably the best drawn section of the game - look at all those objects! Space ships of all kinds, skeletons, droid heads, miscellaneous junk, that giant green hand... The sound quality is an improvement, too, as it is one of the first Sierra games to support sound cards(Ad-Lib). The musical themes are rather slight and few in number, but enjoyable, catchy, and "spacy" enough. The interface might be the best Sierra ever developed - text parser with limited mouse support. Very smooth and free. Speaking for myself, I don't really use the mouse, but it's nice to know it's there(I guess).

Any fans of the first two Space Quests will assuredly be looking for a few inside jokes, and this game has them. For starters, the Terminator(played by Arnoid Schwarzenegger) puts in a few appearances...Roger better watch out! A TIE-fighter from Star Wars is amongst the junk on the space freighter, and one can even view the Starship Enterprise launch into warp speed as one approaches the Monolith Burger(itself a parody of McDonald's). At Fester's on Pleebhut, it is a must to take a look at all the postcards. Very funny - there's even a Dune reference. And a card from "Robertaland"! At the end of the game, Sierra president Ken Williams makes a personal appearance in order to greet Roger and two of his friends he's rescued(this is one of the best sections of the game, so I won't reveal who the two friends are...play it yourself!).

The real test any good game must face is whether or not it can keep the player entertained even when they are losing. SQ3 succeeded in doing this for me - the quality of the gameplay was enough to keep me hooked even when I was royally screwing things up. It's one of only a very small number of adventure games that I wished to see everything there was to them. I must have spent a couple hours alone just looking for alternate paths throughout the game. Even when I "knew" what I was supposed to do, I felt like still just looking around and trying something else first...just to see what happens. The major complaint people tend to make about this game is that it is too short, and this is perhaps true. It definitely is short, but I'm afraid if it was longer it might not remain this good. As it is, I played SQ3 for hours in a single sitting(this is the first computer game that has so absorbed me in about four years) and was absolutely delighted with the experience.(That is, I didn't solve the game in a single sitting, but it kept me absorbed for hours on several sittings. Got that?) I'll probably end up getting SQ4/SQ5, too, just to see if they measure up at all to this game, but I kind of doubt they will. This one is something undeniably special. If computer games are a form of art, then this is one of the finest examples of that art I've come across.

10 stars(out of 10)

Reader Thoughts

(George Starostin)

10 stars is right. What an incredible luck that this had to be one of my first Sierra games. The flaw here is that few of their other games really match the incredible quality. Like you said, EVERYTHING is perfect or near-perfect. If anything, this is a tremendously 'neat' game: it has everything taken in an exactly right proportion. Some special remarks:

1) I played this on an XT without the AdLib, and the musical themes here - the 'light speed', the immortal Astro Chicken theme, and, of course, the main theme - are perhaps the only bits of PC speaker music, apart from the Larry theme, of course, that I always enjoyed. Never bleeding on the ears, always delicious, and how catchy!

2) I actually enjoyed the whole ScumSoft experience throughout. Sure, it's a bit tedious to work on the hallway, but nowhere near as tedious as to walk on the ice in Conquests of Camelot (heh heh). On the other hand, the whole setting is hilarious. Remember it was 1988 or something like that, and they already made a blistering parody on Microsoft that, unfortunately, proves oh so true these days. Of course, Elmo Pug has now matured a little, but that only makes matters worse...

3) About Monolith Burger: are you sure there's no danger? Just try visiting the other dock and you'll see. Also, the funniest things arrive when you had a bit too much to eat, hah hah, hope this isn't qualified as a spoiler...

4) Finally: I just don't get all the people who complain that the game is 'short'. It didn't seem short to me. What the hell - you get to play in five different locations! Has anybody actually made 'puzzle' or 'room' statistics or is it just people's intuition?

In any case, a definite, absolute classic. Space Quest IV was a huge letdown, although any game would probably seem a letdown after this one.

taosterman@yahoo.com(Rich Bunnell)

Yes, yes, yes, a complete TEN. I don't even care that the game's short, because it isn't as sparsely-laid-out as the other Space Quest games....it's like a small, compressed package of hilarity. The Two Guys really seemed to have spent time on each of the locations, in my opinion ESPECIALLY the ScumSoft area-- try the little things you can do there. If you go into Elmo Pug's office while he's not there and clean his garbage, the game says "Don't you think you're taking this janitorial thing a bit too seriously?" Mwahahaha.

The only thing I don't care for is the scene where you fight against Elmo Pug(who makes a later appearance as a cheat-sheet-selling drunk in Space Quest 6)'s robot-- I wouldn't mind, except that it's one of those fighting games where you're given about 5% control of the situation and it's a bit tedious. Good use of the save button helped me through that. Still, it doesn't harm the quality of the game, which has the best, and in truth only good ending the Space Quest series ever dealt out.

Excellent game, and the epitome of what has become known as the Two Guys' trademark brand of humor. By the way, that awesome music on the soundtrack to the game was made by Roger Hodgson from Supertramp. I bet I just ruined your day.

MOVIE REVIEWS

Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa(1954)

This film is so brilliant on so many levels I'm really unsure where to begin this review. I suppose I should say that this is the best movie I have ever seen in my life. Really, only Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West comes close to affecting my senses as much as this does, and that film is fundamentally weaker in every respect to the one I am now about to review. Basically, this movie, the pride and joy of Japanese filmmaking, is the best 19th century Russian novel I've ever witnessed on film. By that I mean that this film affects me in exactly the same way a great Russian novel does. And, believe me, that's awful high praise coming from me. At three hours and a half long, this is surely an epic of great magnitude - so much so that when it was first released in America in 1956 it was cruelly butchered and reduced by an hour and a half. What a shameful bastardation! The fact that such drastic editorial cuts are considered so commonplace in the movie industry is proof that Hollywood wants nothing at all to do with true art. Perhaps Kurosawa did not mind so much as his primary audience was in Japan, where the full version was of course seen... but artists such as Orson Welles had no appreciative native audience to fall back on, and the cuts made by undiscerning editors were permanent. A grave loss for art indeed! What I will say is that I cannot imagine this film being any shorter than it is. Every minute - every second - every bit of this movie matters. I've now watched it twice over the past few days, and both times all my senses were engrossed from start to finish. Even if this movie was nine hours long I would not have taken a break from it...nay, taking a break from it would be nigh unthinkable. The only other works of art that I can think of that have so engrossed me are...you guessed it: Russian novels! Once several years ago I began to read Tolstoy's War and Peace roundabout midnight. I did not stop reading till seven in the morning. That's the level of devotion that this film inspired in me, too. Aside from the intesity and engrossing/engulfing qualities of the movie, the other thing about this that really reminds me of the 19th century Russian novel is Kurosawa's inclusion of numerous subplots within his larger story - there are so many stories-within-stories-within stories. Just like a Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy novel. The primary story this movie is telling is the struggle of a poor farming village against cruel and merciless bandits in 16th century Japan. The village hires the seven samurai mentioned in the title to defeat the bandits. But, alas! What infinite riches lay buried inside this plot. It might take a lifetime even to begin to grasp it all!

Strangely, the other thing I thought of upon witnessing this movie was Homer's epics The Iliad and The Odyssey. This film encompasses the spirit of both. The first section follows several heroes as they experience setbacks and tribulations before eventually emerging triumphant in each case. It is a story of extraordinary humans fighting against the odds, winning small battles through the force of their strength and ingenuity in preperation for a coming, larger battle. The second part of this film which tells the story of the "larger" battle reminds me very much of the Iliad. Combat - death - individual heroism. Unrelenting action. As with the Greek tales, the first section of the film is essentially a tale of heroic bravery resulting in eventual success against all encountered obstacles; the second section is a tragedy, pure and simple, the story of successes being counteracted by equal defeats... a rich illustration of the moral stalemate which is warfare. In the first part of the film, the characters of the characters(you see, I even have room for puns in a Kurosawa review) take center stage. Again, the acting in this film astonishes me - I do not get the feeling that I am watching actors playing a role, but instead I only see the characters in the film. The performances are so realistic that I have difficulty imagining the people in this film as being anything other than the characters they played. In other words, simply brilliant. And the characters are rich, indeed. The poor wandering ronin who we first see aiding the villagers with a clever combination of strategem and brawn is slowly revealed to be a character we can all respect, if not adore: a brilliant general and tactician yet a fundamentally decent, caring, and good humored human being. He is to be the leader of the seven samurai, and who could fill the role better? Toshiro Mifune, one of Kurosawa's favorite actors, plays the role of the inexperienced Katushiro, a young samurai still learning his place in life and the position in society he was born into. But my favorite character is Kikuchiyo, a drunken, hairy, rough-mannered son of a farmer who fancies himself a samurai, and ultimately proves himself to be as worthy of the honor as anyone even born into the class. He knows no other way to communicate but by shouting, yet he is easily the most eloquent(not in style, but in content) character in this film. Magnificent. Though I forget his name, the samurai who is dedicated only to improving his own craft was also an extremely well developed character played to perfection by whatever actor played him. This samurai is all about honor and duty - practice and perfection. Whatever he does, he does with a clear mind and a dedicated heart.

But it is with the smaller characters that we find some of the most interesting subplots. One villager is obsessed throughout the film with keeping his young daughter's virginity safe and secure, protected from the grasp of wicked samurai, and he goes to great lengths for her, yet this very daughter throws herself not once, but twice at Katsushiro before succeeding in ridding herself of her honor. Her father is crushed and shamed - he imagines that she has been seduced, when she was the seductress! An even more interesting subplot occurs when the samurai launch an attack on the bandits' outpost. They set fire to the outpost and kill the bandits as they rush out for their lives. Another person who rushes out of the fire is a woman, who is eventually revealed to be the wife of one of the peasants, Rikichi. Rikichi, who served as guide whilst accompaning the samurai, rushes to his wife. Upon seeing her husband, the wife assumes a pitiful and resigned countenance, and rushes back into the flames. Why this is so is not explained in the story, but my guess is that she was so scandalized and tortured by her conquerors that she could not bear to return to her husband feeling "defiled." There is also a great number of philosophical/moral themes at play throughout the film, but, as in a Dostoyevsky novel, these themes will only be acknowledged and understood if the viewer chooses to realize their existence. They are not forced on the viewer - he or she must recognize them for themselves. This movie could change your life, I'd say - influence your whole outlook and personal philosophy. But only if you want it to, of course.

I could write about this film till I am blue in the face(or the fingers, more likely), but all I hope to be expressing here is the idea that this movie is the most detailed, the most brilliant, and most complex I have ever witnessed. I don't know if it is possible to make a better movie than this anymore than it is possible to write a better novel than Crime and Punishment. Everything is perfect. The expressions on the actors' faces - the words that they speak with just the right conviction or emphasis - the story itself and its many subplots - the historical accuracy of the film, even down to the costume designs and the military strategies - everything! This is the way movies should be, but so rarely are. Yes, this film is most known for the fury of its violent sections, and deservedly so. Battle scenes have never been better developed or choreographed than these, and the influence of this film's realistic depiction of violence and warfare was widely felt everywhere. Kurosawa definitely took a few chances during the course of making this film - for example, the scenes of tens of Japanese folk moving their little legs as fast as they can while moving to different battle locations border on the absurd when witnessed apart from the rest of the picture by cynical twentieth century Western eyes. But taken in the context of the film, with the reality of the approaching bandits so embued in our craniums, this frantic action is not the least bit absurd, but is instead natural. I also found the military strategems used by the samurai to be very interesting...very orderly and scientific. Japan didn't produce The Art of War for nothing! As of December 17th, 1999, I have to say there's no question in my mind that Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai is the greatest film ever made. This, my friends, is the summit of filmmaking.

As a final subnote to this review, I should say that I tend to be a very ethical reviewer of albums, but not of books and movies and everything else. By that I mean that I never judge albums based on a first impression - generally speaking, I listen to an album 3-4 times within the course of a couple days, and then I listen to it again as I write my review of the album. But I often judge books and movies on first impressions because by their very nature they are not easily experienced twice in too short a period of time. The fact that I could watch this film twice within a week and experience a completely different torrent of emotions each time seems remarkable to me. But speaking of "remarkable"...did you read anything I said during this review?

10 stars(out of 10)

The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock(1963)

A masterwork! You know, Alfredo Hitchcoccio really was one of the best directors to ever live, but he doesn't fit the mold of a great director at all. He was not an arty Frenchman or a politically concerned angry young man. He didn't push the limits of film with inventive uses of camera angles and creative narrative devices. He just made great films, with great stories and great acting and superbly developed characters. Some - not all - were frightening and horrifying, but over the course of his sixty year career he showed he could do it all. One word comes to mind when I think of Hitchcock, though: understated. That's what he was. A fat, bald, short English guy with the most unpreposessing manner and look as could be dreamt of. You don't take a look at him and say, "That man's a genius." As a director, he was also understated. His most frightening and suspenseful movies are not filled to the brim with gore and action, but instead it is lengthy moments of quietude which predominate. He let the viewer's fear build up and increase over a decent period of time, then pushed him over the edge with unrelenting and unforgiving action and violence. Clearly, he was the master of suspense - unfortunately, his influence was not enough to save the genre of horror from becoming a running joke in the film industry, more the home of films full of unintentional laughs and campiness rather than suspense and excitement. But that Hitchcock. What a talent!

I see this film as a truly great movie developed by two excellent artists: Hitchcock himself, the director, and the writer Daphne Du Maurier, an Englishwoman of noble birth with a keen sense for suspense who is famous for penning the mystery/horror novel Rebecca which is still popular today more than fifty years after it was written. Du Maurier's story version of the film no doubt had the superb suspense and excellent plot already intact - what I suspect Hitchcock did was simply take it all to the next level. The story was unusual, to say the least: for no apparent reason, the birds of a small California town begin attacking the human residents who live there violently and without mercy. Not just one species of birds, but a motley mixture of crows, sparrows, and gulls - working in tandem, as it were. The film opens much more innocently, however. Quite in the style of a lot of 50s movies, the plot is about a girl who likes a boy, and a boy who likes the girl. The boy gets the girl to come to visit him, ostensibly in order to bring the boy's kid sister two lovebirds for her birthday. Girl and boy get to see each other more and, you know, these things happen. Nice and breezy 50s romance: what a backdrop for one of the greatest horror films ever made! It was brilliant! The most normal of scenes and settings, the most normal of characters, beset with the most abnormal of circumstances. The behavior of the birds is something that is left open to great speculation. Birds, in general, are rather gentle and shy creatures. Not the nicest things to meet if you're an insect or a worm or possibly a fish, but we humans(assuming, of course, that we are all humans here) generally get along with them well enough. They are about the least likely of animals to launch a worldwide attack upon humanity. Thus, we viewers can entirely sympathize with the townspeople who react to the news skeptically - we can listen to the learned woman ornithologist who calls the reported attacks preposterous. We can laugh as the drunkard quotes Bible verses in pronouncement of the coming end of the world in between gulps. But facts cannot be denied. The birds are attacking! We see them. We see how they act - how they seem to be following a tightly organized schedule, how their aggressive behavior seems to be following some sort of logical pattern. We are, in short, forced to believe that some of the most beautiful beings on this Earth are cold blooded killers now obsessed with the destruction of mankind. The film's jaw-dropping buildups are what make it so suspenseful. The film(which has no musical score whatsoever) can suddenly become intensely quiet as the characters watch and wait even as the viewer watches them and waits for something to happen. Minutes pass, the intensity building up more and more after every second, after every little noise heard, every little flutter that might have been a bird flapping its wings. Then, when IT happens, it happens fiercely. With abandon. With rage. Senselessly, aggressively, overpoweringly. This is one heck of a little film.

The characters in the film are well developed psychologically. Mitch Brenner(played by Rod Taylor, who looks like a stronger, more serious young Robin Williams) is a devoted son, a successful lawyer from San Francisco, a kindly womanizer, a man with a shrouded past, but not a sinister one. Melanie Daniels(Tippi Hendren) is the girl who might be in love with Mitch, but she doesn't know yet. A daughter of a rich man, she has been around the world and lived a wild life, but ultimately she remains a conservative, untrusting, and genuine person who now only speaks with annoyance of her wild days in Rome. The great actress Jessica Tandy is Lydia Brenner, the forceful mother of Mitch who is much more delicate and fragile than her stern appearance suggests. Interestingly, Tandy also made regular appearances on Hitchcock's 50s television series(a good one, by and by), Alfred Hitchcock Presents. One senses that there is something abnormal about each of these characters, but who knows what? Is Lydia an overprotecting mother who strives to drive away all of Mitch's girlfriends? Or is she an abusive one who thinks her son inferior in every respect to his father? Or is she simply naturally fearful and knows no better than to cling to the person she loves dearest, her son? How is it that Melanie Daniels is so unaffected and unassuming a person considering her background and her travels? What is it that has made her so? And what is it with Mitch? Something's wrong with that guy, you just know. These are multi-faceted characters - yes, basically normal people, but clearly there is more to them than we see on the screen. They're substantial and realistic. Indeed, this film could have easily made an excellent twisted psycho-drama, but the birds, the birds, the birds! They are what the film centers around - they are bigger than all the characters and all the psychology and everything else in the film. Their malevolent destructiveness is what drives this movie.

Nothing is perfect, however, and this film has one serious thing wrong with it: the cinematography SUCKS. Nothing special here at all - the fake backdrops in certain scenes make the film look like something less than a masterwork, and the scenes with the birds are not convincing at all compared to present Hollywood standards. They look very, very fake - in some scenes, real birds are not even used. But yet...a film is a story, and this film's story is intensely impressive, so much so that it overshadows the unimpressive technical features of the film. It's a definite masterwork, though I wouldn't quite give it a 10. An easy nine, however.

9 stars(out of 10)

Clash of the Titans, directed by Desmond Davis(1981)

After I had watched this film for the first time, I was favorably impressed - so much so that I said to myself, "You know, someday I'd like to see this movie again." Seven or eight years have passed since then. I finally got to rewatching it just last night, and I can't say I was honestly expecting too much. "Clash of the Titans" - aw, come on. You know that's a pathetic, painfully generic, cheaply made action/adventure flick, right? Well, maybe so, but I still like this film a lot. It seems like critics tend to give adventure movies a hard time. This is certainly justified by the fact that a lot of big budget adventure films have been pretty boring(Never watch any movies with Sylvester Stallone unless he's a boxer. Never watch any films starring Arnold Schwartzenegger in which he speaks more than two or three lines.), but lower budget adventure films...hooweee, there's a virtual treasure trove of material to be found. For instance, my second favorite movie of all time is an adventure/comedy hybrid entitled Deathstalker II, and it's really brilliant. I pity all who have not seen it as many times as I have. This movie is pretty good as well. The setting is ancient Greece. The characters are a motley assortment of deities, heroes, villains, hideous beasts, beautiful princesses(well, actually, only one), wise sages(well, actually, only one), and a few regular folks around to get killed. It's nice to know that we ordinary people are good for something. The plot is a strange conglomeration of about ten different Greek myths, yet it is delightfully entertaining despite its lack of reverence for the mythology on which it is based upon. It's really weird to see Perseus and crew come across the river Styx in the middle of an expansive desert, then cross it and run into the Medusa and Cerberus together without once leaving the realm of the living, but, heck, it sure is awful fun! I would criticize the film more if it were based on actual history, but ancient Greek mythology? Fair game in my mind. Anyway, Perseus is a mortal man sired by the ol' King of the Gods hisself, Zeus(played by Sir Laurence Olivier...I kid you not.) who is in search of his destiny. He soon finds that it involves a young princess in need of saving. Andromeda, of course. Our impetuous young hero must brave many perils to save his young maiden, armed only with his own strength and ingenuity, and the gifts given him by the Gods. In short, prime adventuring material. Not what I would necessarily call this a brilliant artistic triumph for the director, writer, actors, or crew, but instead I would say it is a fine, entertaining film made possible by the joint collaboration of all these great non-geniuses. Aside from Olivier, of course, who certainly was a genius, but he just isn't very good in this role. Competent, but nothing more.

This film was made in 1981 on a shoestring budget, and it shows. Watching the un-remastered version in our 1999 makes it look like it could have been made in the 50s or 60s just as easily as in the 80s. It has that "aged haze" to it - you old movie watchers know what I'm talking about. And you know what? I love that haze! Those diminishing hues, those faded colors... It makes you feel like you're in ancient Greece yourself or somethin'! It's great! Some scenes do show the time and the budget: the flying scenes of Harry Hamlin's Perseus on his grand steed Pegasus look extremely fake compared to what 90s filmmakers can do with ease with the cool computer editing effects at their disposal. However, I think the cinematography for the film in general is excellent - there are so many beautiful landscape shots of towering mountains, immense deserts, and raging seas. And the special effects for the many great creatures such as the Medusa and the Kraken are quite impressive, especially for the time, but are also still effective today. We must credit the noted and celebrated producer and special effects man Ray Harryhausen for this. This was the last film to date that he has worked on, aside from a couple minor roles as an actor. A viosionary and pioneering fellow. He deserves our respect.

I have little to nothing to say about the acting. Every mortal character involved(I am not a bit impressed with Zeus, Hera, and the other Greek deities) is played competently by good actors. I especially enjoy the characterization of the old poet/playwright Ammon played by Burgess Meredith, and that of the hero, Perseus...probably one of Harry Hamlin's better roles. However, what really makes the film, even beyond the beautiful cinematography and special effects, is the story. Derivative though it is, ultimately the film forces its audience to care what happens to the hero. It insists that the viewer stare transfixed as Perseus battles his many evil foes and encounters so many great obstacles, it demands that we share in his glory as he conquers triumphantly. What is art? Something that invokes powerful emotions and feelings from those who experience it. That is as true a definition of art as you'll ever find. I would personally find a film with an original, creative story "superior" art to Clash of the Titans, but considering how difficult it is to find a movie or, indeed, a book, with a genuinely original and creative story, this one will have to do. The fact that it has the ability to move and to compel gives it an edge over most of the films ever made. I like it very much.

8 stars(out of 10)

Reader Thoughts

taosterman@yahoo.com(Rich Bunnell)

My mom greatly enjoys this movie, but I don't care for it nearly as much. Now, don't think that I'm biased against Greek-based adventure movies, as I love Greek mythology and I just recently watched "Jason And The Argonauts" in my Latin class and I really loved it. However, the stuff that that movie does right, this one just does blandly-- it's loosely based around a real Greek myth and it has some really moronic inconsistency with actual mythology-- I mean, Medusa lives on an island across the river Styx? That's news to me!

I really like Ray Harryhausen's animations, but his really great stuff is in the aforementioned "Argonauts," i.e. the skeleton, Harpy, and Hydra battles. Here, I like the battle at the very end with the huge stone monster whose name I can't recall, but not much else. "Argonauts" also has a much more assured and well-acted main character. Sorry that I keep comparing this one to that movie, but in truth, it's basically the same thing just with different Greek locales, and it does a lot of things that this movie attempts much, much better. Watch that one instead. That one, I give a 9, this one, I give a 4 or a 5.

Also, how come in every mythology-based movie, Mt. Olympus is always portrayed in the exact same stupid, cheesy way?

Charlie Chan in London, directed by Eugene Forde(1934)

If you were an avid American moviegoer in the 1930s and 1940s, you could look forward with a certain amount of assurance that a new Charlie Chan movie would be released every year...possibly even three or four if it was a very good year. No matter what wars, pestilences, depressions, and weather disasters were currently tearing an unstable world apart, there was always Charlie. Charlie Chan was an cinematic icon, gosh darn it. During the 1930s especially, people sought the cinema as a place where they could hide from their troubles for an hour and a half, so during the Great Depression the American film industry actually experienced a BOOM rather than the recession which you might have expected. 'Art' was not really in demand - rather, entertainment was more the need of the regular folks entering the theater to unwind. So filmmakers obliged in bulk: mysteries, screwball comedies, musicals, thrillers, romantic dramas - you name it. The funny thing is that these films actually were pretty good light entertainment(with the possible exception of the musicals - I'm not a huge fan of them in general), and in fact they still are. Boggle! The many Charlie Chan films belonged to the mystery genre. Charlie was a fat Chinese detective guy who spoke in stereotype. You know, like, "Confucius say if you get cold in head, time for you go to bed." I mean, this guy sounded like a complete idiot...what a dumb racial caricature. Charlie's mangled English and accentuated accent are my primary gripes with this film. I can't hear his tottering "philosophical" ramblings without cringing ever so slightly. And don't tell me it's the fault of the actor: he wasn't Chinese born. Though presumably at least partly Oriental, Warner Olund was born in SWEDEN! He got his start on the stage performing Ibsen plays. This whole "Chinese-speak" thing was a pretty crude and offensive racial stereotype, and I'm betting it was COMPLETELY an affectation, in the same vein as the old "Amos & Andy" radio skits.

Charlie's elocution aside, when we actually look at the plot, there's a pretty good mystery to be found. Chan is sidetracked during a visit to London, England by a young woman who begs for Charlie's help in clearing her brother's name. Though the evidence against the young man appears insurmountable(he is scheduled to be executed in a matter of days), Charlie accepts the case. His pokings around lead him in a roundabout fashion to the aristocratic English family home where the murder took place. An intriguing cast of characters are introduced. Any of them could be the murderer. Following a typical Agatha Christie style story(as in, murderer gets scared and starts killing off people who might be able to give dangerous testimony against them), the movie holds a few delightful plot turns that are sure to keep the viewer on his or her feet. In fact, I recommend this film freely to those of you fond of Agatha Christie novels as this is much in the same style: the characters are well developed, the dialogue is intelligent, the action occurs quickly and suspensefully. It's quite solid. Acting and cinematography are a trifle average, but not offensively so. If you can stand Warner Olund's depiction of Charlie Chan, then this is certainly a reasonably entertaining moving picture.

6 stars(out of 10)

The Bride of Frankenstein, directed by James Whale(1935)

Otherwise known as...

WHO WANTS TO MARRY A HOLLYWOOD MONSTER?

No, it's not that bad. In fact, James Whale's sequel to his infamous 1931 moving picture Frankenstein is about as good a pure horror movie as you'll find...in this critic's estimation, anyway. Many people count it better than Whale's more famous Frankenstein, and I'm moving in that direction myself. Frankenstein just had too many slow, boring interludes that added little to the story. Too much filler space. This film has none of that, but it has everything that made the original compelling. It's not flawless(to tell the truth, I've never seen a flawless horror film - some of Hitchcock's stuff comes awful close, but none of his films really count as "pure" horror either), but it's definitely good enough to get the blood a'flowin', the mind a'ponderin', and the stomach a'rumblin'. Hey, did anybody say "popcorn"? If not, they should have - this is a great popcorn movie. Imagine it now: you and that special someone on a moonlit night reclining in front of the television set, doing nothing but witnessing one of the greatest American horror movies of all time and quietly enjoying each other's company. The pleasures of the modern age may be few and far between, but let us not turn our backs on what we do have.

The best time to prepare the popcorn is during the first half hour of this movie. Certainly if you are using a microwave oven you will not miss a great deal of the film, but frankly in this case it might be better for you to use the stove and miss a little more. The very opening scene is alright but totally campy. The film commences in the Shelleys' humble nineteenth century abode. Noted poet Percy Shelley and his wife, noted author Mary Shelley, are entertaining a very special guest: why, it's that lovable, pompous bastard and poetical genius, Lord Byron! The three engage in "delightful" drawing room conversation for a time, during which Percy plays the part of bemused observer as that dashing Byron puts the moves on lovely Mary. Now, a man like Lord Byron doesn't need any stinkin' pickup lines when flirting with his best friend's girl. No, he's got a better, and older method at hand: flattery. So he commences complimenting Mary on her recently published novel Frankenstein. He's quite mad on it really, and before long he's begging Mary to tell him more about her crazed monster's fantastic life. Poor Percy Shelley goes right along with it all, egging his wife along - he doesn't even imagine something is up. He may have been a great poet, yes, but such naivete...tut, tut, tut. "Can a man take fire into his bosom and his clothes not be burned?" So the Good Book says. But what I must ask of you is this: can a man take an egoistical nineteenth century romantic poet into his home and expect him to respect the sacred bond of marriage? We're not told if Byron's is successful in his roguish assaults on the lady of the house's virtue, for Mary Shelley merely smiles a coquettish smile and begins her tale without much ado at all...

And then the movie begins for real! It's a pretty predictable opener: Frankenstein wasn't really killed at the end of Frankenstein. He's still alive! Horror lurks in the streets once again! The villagers are no longer safe! What on Earth can stop this evil monster's rampages this time? The return of monster Frankenstein is predictable, but Dr. Frankenstein's return is even worse. He is found lying unconscious on the ground, and quite suddenly everyone presumes him to be dead. Just like that. "Oh dearie, there's Dr. Frankenstein on the ground! Must be dead! Got to tell the fiancee, yes sir!" So a bunch of folks haul the good doctor over to his fiancee's house, and then act all shocked and surprise when he suddenly revives. What sort of times is it that this movie takes place in? Ten people are carrying the guy around thinking he's a corpse, but none of them checked to see if his heart was still beating? Nobody felt his pulse? Nobody even bothered to ascertain if he was still BREATHING or not? Incompetence, incompetence, incompetence! I suppose that it is also possible that Dr. Frankenstein's sudden revival was a mystical and miraculous return from the jaws of death, but this seems unlikely considering the tone of the rest of the film, and indeed the tone of the original novel and Whale's original filmed (bastardized) version of the novel. Whatever the case, however, the film gets much, much better after this rather feeble attempt at a beginning. The Frankenstein roaming the countryside is a changed beast - he has an enhanced consciousness, and a new realization that he is all alone in an unfriendly world. Ostracized and hunted by humankind for his fiendish, monstrous appearance, this monster looks for something more now. Will he find it in human companionship...or inhuman companionship? Will he find a friend? Will he find a home? A purpose? To find out, you must witness The Bride of Frankenstein with your own eyes. And hurry up about it, will you? The film is sixty five years old already and neither it nor you are getting any younger. Your girl is on the couch watching the crappy beginning, and by the looks of it she's getting a little lonely. Get the popcorn started and get over there. NOW!

The movie had a lot of good people behind it. Prolific screenwriter and novelist William Hurlbut wrote the original script, and played a primary role in adapting it to meet Whale's standards as well. He did a really fine job with the film - if I'm correct to attribute the blind hermit scene primarily to him, then he was a truly a talented man. The peaceful, humble hut setting, the heartfelt, open Christianity of the hermit, and the monster with the awakening conscience...what an incredibly moving and brilliant scene! The director James Whale, too, I imagine had a good deal to do with tailoring the story to fit his own taste. I'm not a close enough student of film to recognize anything particularly original about this film's black-and-white cinematography, but what I can tell is that the film is shot well and the story is told in a compelling way(aside from the iffy beginning, but I think I already wrote a paragraph about that already.) For that, Whale clearly deserves some of the credit. The acting is good to great. Most notably, horror acting legend Boris Karloff plays the Frank as only he can. He may only be growling, grunting, and moving really slow, but it's a terribly convincing performance. He wears that face makeup and stage costume with a certain amount of aplomb, I'd say. Though it should be said that Frankenstein is almost upstaged by his bride at the end of the flick. I bow to whoever thought of that beehive hairstyle for her. A truly great look, and a good performance by Elsa Lanchester, too - she has no speaking lines in her small, vitally important role, but she conveys all that she needs to convey with her confused, frightened facial expressions and panicked, unpredictable movements. Elsa also played Mary Shelley in the opening scene. Infer what you like from that. The second fiddle actors and actresses do well with their limited roles, as well - in particular, Una O'Connor is hilarious as an annoying spinster lady foretelling doom at every step, while Ernest Thesiger's Dr. Pretorius is your typical obsessive, mad scientist before obsessive, mad scientists were typical.

In its way, Bride of Frankenstein is not just a horror film, but also a tragedy. Frankenstein, brought to life by the meddling attempts of humans playing God, is a luckless, unfortunate being. Any chances of his acceptance in the real world are dashed by his horrific and frightening visage - in the age of plastic surgery perhaps he would have fared better. The ending of the film further emphasizes how truly luckless Frankenstein is by showing him not only rejected by the living, but also by his fellow undead. Frankenstein is neither alive nor dead, but stuck in the middle between two worlds. Sadly, he has no choice but to retreat into the world that does still have a home for him. This is a good film that sparks thought and entertains at the same time. Less innovative and less influential than the original Frankenstein, it hits its messages better and avoids too many story snags. Though I would still like to know how Frankenstein goes from speaking one to two words to speaking full(if not entirely grammatical) sentences all of a sudden. It IS a strange world in which we live, ain't it?

9 stars(out of 10)

Vampires, directed by John Carpenter(1998)

I tried so hard to approach this movie with an open mind. I thought to myself, "You know, this movie cost a whole lot of money to make. The director, the producer, the actors and the actresses are all getting paid presumably very well to make this flick. And it's supposed to be entertaining for me, the audience. So why wouldn't it be?" I determined that I would find some way to be entertained. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. This was just another boring, not too frightening horror film. Lord save me! However, I'll be the first to admit that it's a basically boring, none too frightening horror film with a very good cast. Director John Carpenter is loved by millions for his quirky, uncommercial approach to filmmaking, actor James Woods is deservedly one of the most celebrated actors of this generation, and the other cast members like Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, and Tim Guinee are certainly not slouches. Indeed, this is a film that I feel I should have been entertained by. Somehow, it didn't work out that way, though.

The story has to do with vampires, surprisingly enough. The most popular mythological bloodsuckers ever, these pesky pale-skinned(hey, how come there are never any black vampires in movies unless the film is a comedy? Something's wrong there) beings continue to make millions for all sorts of artists today. Anne Rice, fer gadszooks, is a household name because of her series of vampire novels - not bad at all for a horror writer in this day and age. And John Steakley wrote the novel(Vampire$) this film is based on, so I assume that book sold some copies as well. No matter, I've never read it. I suppose that it is quite difficult to write a vampire novel or make a vampire film, though. So many have already been written. So many vampire films have already been made. So many B&W classics, glossy big budget productions, and ridiculous indie gore-o-thons. On one hand, one feels that it is a shame to leave behind the time honored mythology surrounding our pointy eared, cape wearing friends and try something new and original instead, but at some point one has to say, "Enough is enough! If I have nothing new to contribute to the genre, I won't!" As you might have guessed, John Carpenter never said this. He may indeed be a great director, though I've never thought of him as that, but I'm not evaluating Mr. Carpenter's entire ouvre here. Just one little film that I happened to not enjoy, so take it as that. Let's begin our examination:

The plot. Only one thing really needs to be said about the plot: it's convoluted. If I was Wilson and/or Alroy, I'd be like: "This film is convoluted", end the review, and suddenly be off to write some more awesome Dionne Warwick reviews. But I'm just boring old me, and I reckon you expect me to expound a little on something if I choose to review it. Therefore, this is what I will do. Make way! I shall expound! The plot is confusing, mixing in a heavy dose of Catholic imagery with generic vampire lore and coming up with something quite bizarre. In a nutshell: the vampire race is sick and tired of having to lead their pathetic, empty lives living in the dark. One can't blame them. It's bad enough going around biting people's necks and sucking their blood. It's only adding insult to injury having to live in the dark all the time. One powerful master named Valek, the father of the entire vampire race, is intent on gaining power for his people. To do so, a ritual involving a black cross and a "reverse excorcism" must be performed for unclear reasons. It has something to do with Valek's death - he was killed a few hundred years ago by some incompetent Catholics who thought him possessed, but flubbed up the whole ceremony and inadverently made him a vampire. I bet the pope wasn't too pleased with that. Fast forward to the present. Unbeknownst to the rest of mankind, the Church has hired an intrepid group of whorin' drunkards who are adept at slaughtering vampires. They go about and clear out "colonies" while keeping the secret about vampires between themselves and the Church. James Woods' character, Jack Crow, is one of these folks. He's tough. Talks tough, fights tough, hates vampires, and he's ugly, too. The very definition of cool. James Woods plays the role very well, though in my opinion Jack Crow is a bit of a limited character for an actor like Woods to be playing. Not that I want to spoil the picture for you(as if I could. Heh, heh), but Jack Crow and his bud Montoya(Daniel Baldwin) are the only members of their group of vamp slayers left alive following a vicious attack by Valek. That attack scene is pretty gruesome. Lots of bodies being torn apart and decapitation and vital organ frisbee. Blood everywhere. Strippers/prostitutes getting killed(thus supplying the "breast count" necessary for a mediocre horror film.) One of the prostitutes isn't killed, but instead she's vampirized. Crow and Montoya must use the girl to find the master(you do know that all vampires have a telepathic link with their "master", right? Sure you do.) You get the gist.

Somehow, this film is missing something. An intangible something. That something which seperates mediocrity from something special. I suspect the movie was meant to entertain and scare rather that compel, but it doesn't do any of the three for me. In fact, I felt kinda bored with the whole thing for most of the time. I wish the characters were better developed. Not just Jack Crow, but Montoya and the young vampiress, too(who are actually, ultimately, more interesting as it is than Crow). It's interesting to compare this film with the last movie I reviewed, Hitchcock's The Birds. I praised that film for its slow, quiet periods which build up the flick's intensity - this film doesn't have anything like that. The conflict between Valek and Crow/Montoya is always present. There are no points in the film where the viewer is uncertain of what will happen next. Clearly, Crow/Montoya are going after Valek. There's going to be some blood shed, some stakes driven through hearts, some more wacky improperly used Catholic imagery. It's totally predictable, and there's nothing worse for a suspense/horror movie than that. All in all, I'm not impressed, despite the cast. Certainly I'll grant the plot could have been made more sensible and that would have improved the film's quality immensely. It would have been nice if it had ended better. We had to suffer through Crow/Montoya's vampire busting for an hour and a half...do we really have to see their last words being that they're going to kill each other? Makes you wonder what happened to dear Frank Capra, doesn't it?

However, Sheryl Lee is good looking. However, that doesn't affect my grade one tiny iota. Remember: it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, and this film just ain't got it.

5 stars(out of 10)

Year of the Dragon, directed by Michael Cimino(1985)

Half way into the eighth decade of the twentieth century, two men combined their considerable talents to make a film as controversial as it was entertaining - er, that was the idea, anyway. The two fellers were named Michael Cimino and Oliver Stone. Cimino, the director and co-writer, seems destined to be remembered as an arty, experimental director who was unfortunately a little more capable at producing crap than he was genius. He has a legion of fans who will gladly defend his work against the many undiscerning critics who have slammed Cimino repeatedly over the course of his career...but his filmography is small(he only makes a new film every three or four years if all goes well) and what's there is unfortunately spotty. Stone is one of the more famous and successful American directors of the past decade - ever seen J.F.K., Heaven And Earth, or Natural Born Killers? If you haven't, you've probably still heard of them. Like Cimino, Stone is adept at irritating critics with his questionable artistic sense, stunning audiences with his brutality and brusqueness, and delighting a relatively small number of people who consider their hero to be nothing less than one of the greatest geniuses who was ever given the gift of life. One thing, perhaps, separates the two. Stone was a little more of a populist - a little more able to produce work more likely to appeal to the average American consumer. This is a guy who worked on the script for Conan the Barbarian, you know. You'd think he would have been a little more comfortable writing the comic book, but, no... Oliver has more range than you might at first give him credit for. Theoretically speaking, then, it wouldn't be completely crazy to assume that the combined force of Cimino's arty directorial approach and Stone's populist sensibilities together with their mutual fondness for controversial, groundbreaking moviemaking would result in a film for the ages. Unfortunately, the actual film is one of the worst I've seen in quite a while.

The setting is New York City - Chinatown. A world infested and dominated by the Chinese mafia. Even the police are comfortably controlled by these savvy criminals. As the movie begins, we learn that another cop has died in Chinatown...the latest incident in a rash of violent crime sweeping the area. Despite the fact that the NYPD is at the mob's beck and call, Chinatown isn't a safe place to be for a law enforcement officer...conflicts between the various mob families break out often, and it's easy for a bad cop to get caught in the middle and get his brains blown out in the process. With the NYPD fed up over the recent string of well-publicized crimes in the area, Officer Stanley White is appointed the beat, replacing the aforementioned recently deceased officer. A proud Vietnam veteran with a reputation for being tough on crime, Stanley White has no intention of playing into the hands of the Chinese mafia. Instead, it is his plan to rid Chinatown of its deeply ingrained criminal element at all costs. This is not what the NYPD wants him to do, naturally - they have a good relationship going with the mob and they don't want to jeopardize that. But Stanley White doesn't care. He's obsessed. He's going to clean up this town, and he's not afraid to dirty his hands a bit. Or piss off his superiors, for that matter.

Stanley White's holy crusade is what this film is about. White is certainly a fascinating, contradictory character. At one moment he's spewing forth racist remarks so crude, offensive, and biting that they'd make David Duke blush. The next moment he's in bed with an Oriental reporter. What exactly is this guy's problem? Why is he so obsessive about his job, his enemies, and his girlfriend? Why is he so much on rails? It is one thing to fight the forces of evil in the course of doing your job. What Stanley White does in Chinatown seems to be something else, however. He's ruthlessly violent and unrelenting in his quest against the ruling mob family - his righteous anger cannot be quelled even for a moment, and any feelings of mercy which he may have never reveal themselves. Heck, this is all out war. There's no need for crimes and convictions here, folks. You have your evil Chinese guys over there - they're the bad people. Let's kick their asses just cuz they're so bad. Analysis and justice are not needed - violence and death are the only answers. You see, with Stanley White, everything is personal. He's a good cop because he hates the people he's against. He's still stuck in Vietnam after all these years, still fighting off the Asian menace.

For me, anyway, there's no question about what made this film interesting: Stanley White is just a really interesting guy. No question about it. I would undoubtedly raise this film's score by a few notches if White had been played by an actor who really suited the role. Unfortunately, however, White was played by Mickey Rourke. Not a bad actor, but not the right actor for this part. Too often Rourke seems uncertain and uncomfortable performing White's lines. He never quite seemed tough enough to me to really fit the character of an angry, screwed up, racist cop. Too often I had to suppress a smirk as Rourke attempted to deliver some particularly gritty line - the guy was just wrong for the role all the way through. The other players aren't very good either. Ariane, in particular, as Tracy Tzu, Stanley White's Asian girlfriend, really delivers a mediocre performance to fit her insipid character. I was stunned when I saw how Tzu's gang rape by three mafia men was brushed aside after a single scene. Absolutely unbelievable...I cannot buy that this woman can be brutalized like that and instantly recover and return to her duty as a daring television reporter. The tearful scene in which Tzu informs White what happened to her also seems quite awkward - really, I wonder why the heck such an event was deemed necessary...just to demonize the Chinese mafia and make White out to be the righteous, all-conquering hero? I was also not at all happy with the portrayal of the Chinese mafia characters. Only one, the mob boss Joey Tai, is allowed to really have a character of his own; the rest are fearful, gibbering idiots with hearts of stone. But even Tai is just the token bad guy - he goes around, he has people killed, he acts tough. Who is he really? Just the Bad Guy.

The action scenes are good, but there just aren't that many of them. The movie is poorly paced and overly lengthy - we get too much of Rourke's White and not enough action to keep us entertained. Again, with superior acting this would not have mattered, but as it is I found this movie to be overbearing and grating. Basically, this film is not successful, though the story had great potential this potential was not fulfilled. I'd stay away from this one if I were you.

3 stars(out of 10)

Picnic at Hanging Rock(1975), directed by Peter Weir

Mon Dieu! This is a stunning Australian film, resplendent in its intensity from start to finish. The plot concerns three young girls and a school teacher who disappear after making a trip to Hanging Rock, an immense rock formation near a school for young girls. Despite officials' best efforts, the girls cannot be found. Only one is finally discovered, alive, by two young men. I don't believe I've ever seen a film that so intelligently builds upon the raw intensity of its plot, acting, and dialogue. The questions surrounding the girls' fate are like a spectre that hangs over everyone near the Rock - most of all over the Victorian girls school. The atmosphere of the film is superb, as the hazy cinematography and consistently amazing, varied score compliment the story perfectly. The film ends without telling us the story's ending, yet I wasn't unsatisfied with the picture at all, as I was so under the spell of the movie. Though I hate to say this after only seeing a movie once, I would say that this is about as good a movie as I've ever seen.

The beauty and perfection of Picnic at Hanging Rock are difficult to describe. It is a film made to be legendary. Aside from everything I mentioned in my first paragraph, there are still many smaller facets of the film awaiting to be discovered. The ending of the film is truly magnificent, and it only increases the mystery and enigma surrounding the storyline. The youthful beauty of the girls only makes their disappearance more poignant and affecting to the viewer. The film is also wildly successful in portraying "smaller" characters. The two men who find one of the missing girls, "Irma", share at least two fascinating conversational interludes. Their eventual discovery of Irma is one of the few triumphs for humanity that the film allows. I was also deeply moved by the two scenes in which school mistress informs a schoolgirl that she will soon be returning to an orphanage as her benefactor has not paid her tuition for six months. The school mistress shows no emotion as she delivers this piece of shattering news to the girl, and then walks away like an ambulatory statue of stone. Once inside her own quarters, however, the school mistress breaks down and begins to cry.

Many people see this sensitive, sweeping film as an allegory of some kind. Most commonly, people claim the Victorian girl's school is a symbol of repression and that the girls' escape to Hanging Rock is actually a representation of their sexual independence. Let me pause a minute while I curse the fact I was born a human. Listen, if you find something inherently sexual in this film, that's your problem. If you accept this interpretation of the film, you are obviously missing out on the truly frightening aspects of the story - you also must have failed to see the intensity of the reality of the picture. This is a movie that should make you get up and check to see if your door is locked! Not that I want to pass judgement on anyone, but it seems to me that this assumption of something sexual intended in this story of young girls might actually very well be a suble manifestation of pedophelia.

Please do watch this film as soon as you can, as it is one of the best representations of film as art that I've ever seen.

10 stars(out of 10)

The Landlady, directed by Robert Malenfant(1998)

Along with Sliver, this movie was the best film I saw in 1999 that was originally released in 1998. The similarities between the two works don't end there, though: both are suspense flicks with dark plots that literally brim over with intensity. And they're both really good, too - definite first class material for the horror/suspense genre. This movie is definitely the weaker of the two, but it's very worth seeing if you are at all a fan of that peculiar genre of psycho-horror. Yes, there is a little bit of hacking and slashing going on, but please don't expect Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is good horror - the violence portrayed does not lose its power to shock the viewer because it doesn't occur more often than it should. The violence, the hacking and the slashing if you will, is used sparingly, and to fine effect. The real star of this movie, though, is the psyche of the title character. She's a strange one, alright. If we must be truthful, she's insane. Barking mad. Completely bonkers. But she looks like just another reserved middle-aged lady with an ugly face and a nice smile! Could she really be a ruthless murderer? Could thoughts of such evil plots and deeds really be going through her head? Only in the movies, perhaps...but why go to the movies if you know exactly what to expect?

The only thing cliched about the landlady could be her "fundamentalist Christian" leanings, which are rather odd considering one of her favorite recreational activities is murdering everyone in sight. Not even Pat Robertson does that...at least, not as far as we know. So, the film does get a thumbs down for linking religion with fanaticism for no clear reason other than sensationalism. But it gets better as time goes on! Not that I want to give the plot away or anything, but this crazy lady(who is named Melanie) becomes the landlady soon after the unfortunate death of her fifth husband, when she assumes control of the apartment building owned by her late, sickly aunt. With her last husband out of the way, the landlady is looking for new blood. She wants to find a good man and start a family. It doesn't take her long to find just the right male among her tenants: a kind, polite, handsome young man currently fed up but still in love with his dope addicted girlfriend. She sets down immediately to the task of winning over this fine young catch. Unfortunately for her, crap happens, and when crap happens, it's time to get started killin'! And that is her reaction to just about every human adversary she encounters. I, for one, was totally fascinated with the landlady's psychological makeup. I think she was a really well written character. It's not that easy to write a convincing portrayal of a mentally imbalanced person, after all. Walker Percy did it best, maybe, but Allison from The Second Coming was sweet and cuddly in addition to being completely bananas. This landlady Melanie, on the other hand, is one scary, unpredictable, and completely deadly sort of gal. She's insane, but she's not at all stupid. Her force of action and supreme confidence in certain situations makes her a particularly cunning, devious, and resourceful criminal. The Apollo Leisure Guide were wrong to trash this film and this character - perhaps it is true that sometimes you can "predict" when someone is going to die, but the way they die is often interesting in itself, and the scenes are full of intensity. Okay, I don't like it when people die in movies just from getting hit in the head a few times with a refrigerator door - technically I suppose it is certainly possible, but I doubt a middle-aged woman of Melanie's build and strength would prove so powerful. But the other death scenes are contrived very well. Besides, why would you trust something called "The Apollo Leisure Guide"? That would be as silly as trusting a web reviewer!

The actors are not name players, but they are experienced hands who do their job very well. I've already raved of the characterization of the title role, and certainly Talia Shire(you might know her from the Rocky and Godfather films) deserves a great deal of credit for performing this difficult role with aplomb. Jack Coleman, former soap opera star, plays the role of the landlady's obsession, Patrick Forman. Most importantly, there's a guy named Clement von Franckenstein playing a minor role! How could you go wrong, I ask you? Really - these folks do do their jobs very well. Respect 'em! Not much to say about technical stuff. I didn't see anything wrong with the cinematography, direction, or production, but nothing particularly awe inspiring either. This is nothing fancy - just a story with a lot of action.

Furthermore, this is also almost a horror film you could watch with the whole family. At least if your family is slightly disturbed, and most families seem to be. There's not much swearing or nudity here, but just enough to ensure it garner an 'R' rating. Even the violence is not really that violent until the very end of the film. I've seen movies which disturbed me much more than this, for sure. Violence in film is most disturbing when it seems to encourage violence in general; this movie does nothing of the kind. In fact, it exists only because the violence it depicts is horrible and horrifying. It certainly is no glorification. The film does end somewhat poorly, however - just like a typical horror flick, basically. Lots of violence in a short amount of time doesn't necessarily equal good, exciting filmmaking, and it's the last thing I expected from this film, which had up to this ending point focused on characters and plot rather than cheap thrills. Nonetheless, bad ending aside, about 80% of this film is really good if you can bear the genre. At the very least, it kept me entertained and on the edge of my seat for a good hour and a half, so I think it did its job. It's another one of my low 8s, I'm afraid.

8 stars(out of 10)

The Desperate Hours, directed by William Wyler(1955)

Even a film which seems to have everything going for it can end up a failure. Were I a film backer with gobs of cash at my disposal in 1955, I would've gone gaga when I heard of this film. Believe you me, I would've stocked my millions into this baby in a heartbeat. Why? Well, (1) the director of the film is William Wyler, the most versatile of the great American filmmakers. (2) The starring role is played by none other than Humphrey Bogart, one of the most easily recognizable and unique actors in American film history. (3) The story is original and a proven winner, having already been adapted to the stage(where it won a Tony award. Tony Orlando, you think?). This film has "gold" written all over it. The needed elements were there. All that was required was performance...and with guys like William Wyler and Humphrey Bogart, how the heck could you not get performance?

Pretty damn easily, as it turns out. Don't get me wrong. This here is a good film. Above average. It's just not....well, it's just not what it could have been. The story really is great - these three ruffian escaped convicts take a middle class American family hostage in their own home! Crime invades Suburbia, U.S.A. - how will John Q. Public and his family react to this menace? Bogart is the ringleader of the convicts(his character's name is Glenn Griffin). He calls the shots. He's the boss. It's a perfect role for Bogie...the kind of thing he was used to doing, the kind of thing he got famous doing. Unfortunately, the Humphrey Bogart in this film is a raggedy, old, and haggard veteran. The acting skills are still there - the ability to play a convincing part is still there, deep inside. But it's not the Bogie of old. There is no longer vitality left in the man. No energy. No rogueish sparkle in those hard eyes. He still plays a hardened criminal very well, but not in such a way as to really translate the complexity of the criminal's character to the audience. The thing is that Bogart is still the best actor in this picture by a ways, and the fact that the best actor is fatigued and worn out translates to the rest of the film. The second best actor in this film is Fredric March, who plays Mr. Hilliard, the patriarch of the family held hostage by the crooks. This is also not a good thing. March's performance is too often lethargic, weak, and boring...but his character is the only person doing anything interesting aside from Bogart's! Basically, when your two lead actors are tired old men who look like they'd just as soon pass on into the next life as make the film a good 'un, you're in bad shape. Bogart and March weren't at death's door, but they acted like they were. The result: this film ends up having no life. The funny thing is, Bogart was in this nice lightweight comedy called We're No Angels later on in 1955, and that film is FULL of life. Bogart gave his best performance of 1955 to a silly comedy, and I have to admit I'd probably give We're No Angels a point higher than The Desperate Hours despite the former flick's silly and farcical nature.

It is important to note that the film starts out much better than it ends. The most compelling moments of the film occur early on, as the criminals take over the Hilliard home and share their first interactions with the family. As the suspense of the story increases, the quality of the plot and dialogue decrease, for reasons unknown to me. I don't get it why Bogart has to either say a "threatening" or "funny" response everytime Mr. Hilliard opens his mouth. That's the sort of thing that gets dull after awhile, and the jocose nature of some of this banter makes the film seem less real. It also makes the criminals seem cool and likable. Almost everyone I've heard talk about this film say that they identify with Bogart and the other criminals rather than with the ordinary, average, middle-class, decent, hard-working American family the Hilliards. While Fredric March's character is supposed to impress the audience with his bravery, in actuality this character becomes annoying due to his continual reckless snake-in-the-grass attacks on the criminals - both verbal and violent. One has to wonder: is Mr. Hilliard an innocent victim, or are these criminals heroes for not killing the guy after he tries all this stuff? The rest of the Hilliard family(mother, daughter, son) also do not engender much sympathy due to the fact that none are really fleshed out characters. Rather, it is assumed that it is good enough for the Hilliards to be portrayed as the ordinary, average American family - with no deeper individual characterizations needed. That's disappointing. Glenn Griffin and the other crooks are more interesting and real, hence we identify with them more. Unfortunately, it becomes quite apparent about halfway through the film that there is no possible way that the bad guys will end up victorious - their desperation is too plainly seen in their faces and their actions. So, it's not really that suspenseful a movie - you know how it's going to end. The good guys will beat up the bad guys. Probably some folks will end up dead. However, I will say that the action sequences at the end are well carried out even if the "plot" ending is kind of disappointing.

All in all, I can't say I'd recommend this film too highly. I've seen it twice and didn't really enjoy it either time I saw it. If you're a Bogart or a Wyler fan, then you'll probably watch it and enjoy it just because your heroes are involved - but you probably won't consider this film among their better efforts even then. This film stands more as an example of how a movie with lots of potential can fail anyway than as a truly developed cinematic work. Strangely, there is a Quantum Leap episode that rips this story off(there's even two brother criminals involved, as there was in this film) that I actually think is a lot better in one hour than this film is in two. You're welcome to disagree with me, however.

6 stars(out of 10)

WEB PAGE REVIEWS

Bryan's Rice-Boy Page by Bryan Minsok Hong(1997-present)

This web page left me rolling on the floor laughing for a good half hour. Considering that the Web is now replete with "serious" content(read: boring!) it is now quite an anomaly to find a work of HTML so able to incite such hilarity from this particular web reviewer. In a way, the entertainment this web site provides has little to do with the site's maintainer. Okay, don't get me wrong: Mr. Hong is obviously a very talented web designer and an entertaining writer, but it is really the way that the denizens of the Net have reacted to his little establishment on the Web that makes this page such a treat for anyone who likes a good laugh. It is the hilarious feedback that his site gets which actually got me interested in checking out the rest of his site to begin with. I'll get to this in a moment, but first we must examine the base site in more depth. The site is about something Bryan(not me...he!) calls the "Rice-Boy Syndrome." Those affected by this peculiar ailment can usually be found tinkering with their crappy cars attempting to make them perform and look better - in short, they have no life of which to speak of, and they seem to be unaware that they're really royally wasting their time. The amateur Rice-Boys' modifications usually make their automobiles perform worse than they would have had it been left alone - maybe it'll look better, but a car isn't about just looks alone, especially if you're interested in racing. I'm with the other Bryan on this one. Yay for performance! Image is nothing! Taste is everything! So, if you're like me you can read the webmaster's introductory remarks and sort of nod your head saying, "Hey! That's sensible!" But then what is there to do? Next up you should probably visit the Hall of Shame, now in its tenth volume. On this page Bryan ridicules a few "Riceboy-enhanced" vehicles for thy pleasure - his remarks are usually spot on, and as incendiary as all heck! The Hall of Shame's sister is the Hall of the Shameless which spotlights those strange people actually proud to be Riceboys. Woah. A strange world we live in. Finally, the site's second best webmaster-written section is the series of cartoon drawings Bryan composed while in high school. Funny, funny stuff, and pretty well drawn as well. But the real reason why I'm reviewing the site is the...

HATE MAIL! You can't go around insulting Riceboys and expect to get away with it, surprisingly(I guess everybody does have Net access these days. Not even Riceboys can spend the entire day with their cars...). The feedback section is HUGE - both the positive and the negative response sections. (Mr. Hong doesn't even post all the mail he gets, so you know that his site gets some heavy duty traffic.) However, the negative section is a whole heck of a lot more fun to read(even the webmaster agrees). It's a bit like reading Mark Prindle's AC/DC page in that it's sure to leave you wondering how the heck can people act this stupid. It made me laugh a good, long time. Thank you, Rice-boy Page. This site is well recommended - it also has a chat room and very active message board, thus nailing this whole "interactive" thing pretty darn well.

It is also very nicely designed. Good colors, good fonts, good background, pleasing all around. Excellent use of frames - they don't slow down the page a bit, and make it look very nice in fact.

Visit the site for yourself!

8 stars(out of 10)

ClassicGaming.com by the Fragmaster(1997-present)

First off, I have to take this space to thank David N. Smith from the depths of my heart for releasing his wonderful program FRED - The FRee EDitor into the public domain many years ago. This freeware text editor made in 1983 is the only thing I've got left to write reviews with. EDLIN is beyond my current capabilities. Er, yes, I am experiencing a few minor computer problems at the moment. I haven't any Net access at all as I type this - I'm reviewing this web page purely from memory, but I've visited it so many times over the past year the fact that I don't have the page in front of me at this very moment shouldn't matter too much. It seems strangely appropriate for me to review a web site about "classic" gaming using an ancient word processor on my old Packard Bell computer(80286, baby. That's hot stuff!). So appropriate, de facto, that I suggest we get it on.

ClassicGaming.com is one of the most useful web sites I've ever encountered. This is the web site which introduced me to the world of emulation, an interest which now accounts for a large portion of my computer gaming time. Theoretically, the site exists as a way for people to remember classic console/arcade/computer gaming for such classic systems as the Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64. Several sections exist mostly to give the webmaster and the CG audience a chance to wax nostalgic in a public arena: the Game of the Week page is a loving, weekly spotlight on the games of the not so distant past(though sometimes, especially if Fragmaster is writing the blurb, the spotlight isn't really all that lovin'), the Mailbag allows classic gaming fans to E-mail their concerns on the topic of the week or any other VG issues currently bothering them, and the Video Game History Museum is merely a collection of pages devoted solely to retelling the histories of these great systems. But the biggest section of this web page is also the best: ClassicGaming provides the perfect newbie's guide to emulation. All the emulators, all the disk images(thousands!). Huge sections on the Atari 2600/5200/7800, arcade games, ColecoVision, Vectrex...all the great pre-Nintendo console systems. If computer games are more your style, there is a C64 archive hosted by CG but not included directly in their "Vault", and a largeish collection of Apple II disk images that I have personally found to be intensely useful. If you want to learn what the heck emulation is, this is the site to visit. If you want to play thousands of old games on your modern computer system, this is the place to visit.

On the other hand, I definitely realize that this site is directed more towards nostalgic old-timers and people like me - who are simply interested in the history of video games - rather than the hardcore emulation scene. This page is corporate. Classicgaming.com is one site out of a hundred others part of some sort of video game related network of game sites. Consequently, the page is dotted with ads for other, presumably more popular sites in the Network...Planet Quake, Planet Dreamcast, Planet Unreal, Planet Castle Wolfenstein(kidding). I do not mind this. Some emulation scene regulars might, however. Plus, there are some other rumors about the business practices of the suits behind the network that I won't mention here. Suffice to say that none of them are very flattering. Chances are if you are a hardcore emu scener you already know where you stand on classicgaming.com - as for me, I like it very much.

The design is nice enough, though somewhat "generic" - it has that streamlined, professional look, you know. Looks good, anyway...I don't think web design = art. As long as the pages are easy on the eyes, all is well. The primary impetus for this site's continued popularity is most likely webmaster Kevin("Fragmaster") - he updates regularly, and gives people a reason to come back even after they've grabbed all the ROMs they could ever want. His sarcastic, bantering style of humor has also won him many fans. He's simply an expert at writing humorous Game of the Week blurbs and answering viewer mail. I must like it, too, or I wouldn't visit this site every week.

So go visit this site, damn it!

9 stars(out of 10)

Mark's Record Reviews by Mark Prindle

As you probably don't know, Mark's Record Reviews page helped inspire me to make THIS page. Cool eh? Nothing wrong with paying tribute to your influences, like Buddy Holly, or in this case, Mark Prindle. I know I'm not as good as Mark...his reviews are the most entertaining that I have ever read. But before anybody says I'm just ripping off his page, that's not true at all. Mark, you see, reviews a band's whole discography. I take the standard route of reviewing single albums. Plus, I review a lot of other crap Mark doesn't. And the web sites look nothing like each other. Happy now? You should be. It's not a ripoff, damn it!

This page("this" refers to Mark's Record Reviews of course, not my piece of crap reviews page) is pretty simple, but it's just beautiful, man. Few graphics, but the ones that are there are pretty cool, and very small! Just as graphics SHOULD be. Mark's writing style is really entertaining....though he will probably offend the more sensitive folk out there. You probably shouldn't go there if you are one of dem folks. But if you aren't....whoo, you're in for a good time! Wide selections of bands too...from classic rock to alternative to metal to popperoni! Popperoni! Ha ha! And another great thing...Mark puts all the comments to his reviews below the album review the comments are about. Wow, instant interaction. Groovy stuff. You can get on there too! Before I go, lemme mention my favorite band review pages on Mark's site: Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Ramones, and, of course, Garbage!(hee-haw!) Okay, it's time for me to go. Bye bye. Don't let the chickens fry!

Check out Mark's Record Reviews for yourself!

10 stars(out of 10)

Seanbaby.com by Sean Reiley

The World Wide Web is not so much a new medium for human expression as it is a conglomeration of all previously known artistic mediums: there is text (writing - literature, poetry, nonsensespeak, and unadorned prose), sound(music, special effects), and visuals(pictures, photographs, drawings, computer-designed graphics, video). The Web in itself is not a revolutionary advance purely considered in terms of aesthetics. It's just a mucked up collection of everything humanity has hitherto striven to achieve. And, boy, it really is seriously mucked up. Millions of web pages - billions of graphics and lines of text. So hard to find what you need, though I use the term "need" in a very limited sense. The Internet, I say, is very small when one considers the larger scheme of things - human problems have remained essentially the same both before its creation and after its total immersion into Western society. Humanity can function very productively without Internet access. Billions still do live quite fine without it. This doesn't mean that the World Wide Web is not a very clever invention - indeed, it certainly constitutes a revolution in both communications and commerce at the very least. Observe me, par example: a stubborn resident of a small town in Mississippi now has access to everything on the Internet that anyone else in the world has(barring, of course, people who find their access censored and limited, like our friends in China). And that is something! So I would agree with anyone who said that, basically, the World Wide Web is a Good Thing. So is the rest of the Internet, for that matter, though it seems the WWW has severely diminished the influence of everything else the Net has to offer with the exception of E-mail. But I wonder if future generations, provided there are future generations, will not look back at our primitive culture and marvel: "Incredible! This World Wide Web thing was so advanced, but so useless at the same time. A unwieldy, hulking machine no one could manipulate to their satisfaction." Now, theoretically, the next genius writer or poet or painter could proffer his or her works of brilliance to the general public as a whole through the Internet - as a beautiful gift, one might say, free to all who would find it. Unfortunately. the chances of barely anyone actually finding this stuff is pretty slim. Instead, you're more apt to uncover some jokey rhymes written by a rank amateur, some primitive sketchings designed to illustrate the versatility of Microsoft Paint, or a billion links to a commercial online bookseller rather that the art of a serious, dedicated genius. The sheer vastness of the Web ensures that any truly quality content is well obscured by a mass of web pages that certainly have reasons to exist, but offer considerably less value to the world at large. This being the case, I consider it a great blessing whenever I uncover a web page that entertains the living daylights out of me. Seanbaby.com is one of those few, special sites that make me glad to be alive.

Meet Sean Riley. Girls like him cuz he's cute; guys like him cuz he's funny; transexuals dig him coz he's just so darned odd. His immense web site encompasses well over a dozen fully functional web sites, any one of which might well be the pride and joy of many a webmaster. The first thing you'll notice is the design: the index page is sprawling and huge, but easy to navigate, and looks both incredibly professional and pleasing at the same time. Like a newspaper or magazine, Sean divides many of his pages into columns...which has actually begun to annoy me. Normally, it seems like these columns would be a good thing: you can easily compact a great deal of text this way, and you don't force your reader to endure a lot of crap he doesn't want to read as he scrolls down to find what he does want. The reader can just pick the column he's interested in, and scroll down with that, ignoring all the other boring crap. Unfortunately, though, I found Sean's page such an entertaining read that I began to want to read everything he had to say, so consequently I was driven to scrolling up and down on each web page several times to read each and every column. It is my opinion that the design looks great, but doesn't work that well in execution. It would, however, make a very nice looking zine. But design aside, what really, seriously matters here is content. And there is a ton of it. Sean is a comedian - or, a better term would be "jester." He's there to make you laugh. He doesn't mind being stupid or offensive or tasteless while he's doing it, either. More power to him! The fact is that some of his pages are absolutely brilliant. He's both a gifted writer with a unique ability to meld words in mysterious and hilarious ways and a talented graphical artist/web design guy. I'll soon describe individual pages of his site, but first I've got to mention the one problem I have with this site: Sean keeps hitting the same targets over and over again. Religion jokes, sex jokes, "fake homophobic humor"(for some reason, pretending to be a hateful bigot is considered a great form of entertainment in this country, but being a bigot is the gravest sin known. Hypocrisy, maybe?). Again and again. Sean takes the low road and whacks easy targets far too often, and I think this is truly a great shame considering how much talent he has. Funnily enough, you may remember I said much the same thing regarding the Shanmonster's Rant and Rage page. Okay, that's not that funny, but this sort of is: Shanmonster is listed on Seanbaby's "Reader Babes" page! How cool is that? She's the best looking girl there! What are the odds of me coming across the Shanmonster twice during my occasional escapades into cyberspace? Very slim, I'd say. I thought that was cool. Moving on... Let's examine those pages of Sean's I feel deserve individual paragraphs!

Sean's Nintendo Page

My comments: This is surely one of the funniest sites on the World Wide Web, guv. The Nintendo Entertainment System was the true successor to the Atari 2600 - together, those systems had the absolute worst video games ever made with the absolute worst graphics. On the good side, both systems had fantastic games too that rank up there with anything ever produced since - it's just the mass market glutting of video games which dragged the quality line down. What's great about this page is that Sean basically admits that a lot of the games he's written pages for are absolute crap, but instead of knocking 'em, he celebrates them for their unique, ahem, "qualities"! The review of "Pro Wrestling" is worth the price of admission on its own terms. Holy crap, man, that's brilliant stuff! If I ever reviewed that game I'd probably just say: "Err, this is like the easiest game ever created but it takes forever to win. If you ever wanted to become bored with a game just because you're so good at it that there is no challenge involved, play this." I bet that two player mode is a lot more fun. I should try it out sometime. Other recommended subpages here are Sean's review of "Super Dodgeball" and the "Congratulation Awards", but everything is good. In fact, this is my favorite section of Sean's site. The dude knows his stuff!

The Hostess Fruit Pie Page

What this is is...hey, I've always wondered: is it grammatical to repeat the word "is" twice as I just did? It's not that I truly care. After all, language is only a useful thing if you can mold it to suit your own nefarious purposes. I was just curious. I would suspect that that particular construction I mentioned(hey, is "that that" grammatical?) is not terribly grammatical. But as I say, I don't really care. Not a whit! Anyway, what this is is a web page devoted to the series of comic advertisements featuring popular characters from actual comics(Batman & Robin, Aquaman, Wonderwoman, etc) that were released as part of a propaganda drive by Hostess in the 70s. You see, each comic ends with Hostess fruit pies being tossed about. Generally speaking, but not always, the bad guys and gals are mollified or distracted by being given delicious twinkies by our superhero friends - none of them can resist the charms of that moist sponge cake and creamy filling! Who, really, can blame them? Having viewed a number of these comics on Sean's site, I can say that this is a worthy addition to seanbaby.com. For one thing, the comics are good - well drawn, interesting storylines(er, sort of), fun dialogue. Sure, they are all advertisements, but what creative advertisements! Another reason to visit is because Sean adds his own quirky, irreverent takes on many of the comics. He'll tell you which ones are classic and which ones ain't. Quite frankly, I never would had a clue if it weren't for his comments. Worth visiting, if just to revel in the oddness of it all.

Seanbaby's Stupid Comics Page

Okay, Sean basically loses me here. It must be because I don't really know anything about comic books. Never really read 'em, sorry. I know I'm missing out on a wonderful leisure time activity, but I can't make up for the acute psychological damage I sustained whilst growing up in a comic book free environment. Honestly, I'd never even heard of Herge till about a month ago. Basically, I'm just not an expert on these comic book things, and that means I can't enjoy this page like I should. You see, I think for people to really laugh at how rotten and stupid a comic is they need to have read all the good stuff already. I don't have that perspective. I look at these comics and I think "Aw, geez, this is just stupid! Why am I reading this?" And the comics on this page really are dumb. Not good and corny in a tongue-in-cheek way as the comics on the Hostess Fruit Page were...just dull and dumb. Not being a veteran comic book reader, I can't really say what makes these so bad compared to other, "classic" comic books - I just know this stuff is crap! The only reason I have to read the page is for more hilarious Seanbaby content, and he doesn't disappoint. In fact, his comments are almost invariably more entertaining than the comics themselves! Not a bad read in all, but I can't really get into it cos the comics are so dumb.

Seanbaby's Video Game Page

Good stuff! This page is about "the most memorably disturbed games" Sean has played, and it hits everything you might expect and more: Biblical adventure games, porno Atari 2600 carts, and even dental hygiene related video games. The first eight or nine paragraphs are among the funniest text I've ever read on the Internet. The rest of it is about crummy X-rated Atari 2600 games, and it's not that good. But those first eight or nine paragraphs! DUDE! I wish I could write reviews this funny. Man, what I wouldn't do to be able to write reviews this funny. Genius.

Seanbaby's Stupid Page

Not one of Sean's better efforts, IMHO, but it has maybe got more religion and sex jokes than the rest of the site put together, so if that kinda "controversial" humor really gets your jalopy, check it out by all means. *I* think Sean is at his best talking about crappy video games, but that's just me. This stuff is funny, sure, but nothing you haven't heard before, and it probably wasn't the cleverest idea to make a sub-page about junk mail sending charity organizations. Sean's a comedic genius, but even he can't make everything funny! There are a lot of villains in this world of ours who set themselves up for ridicule due to their reprehensible actions, but I'm just not sure that the Paralyzed Veterans of America are among them. However, Sean's self-drawn logos for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and the Idaho Potato Farmers had me rolling on the floor in a convulsive fit of laughter. Check them out IMMEDIATELY!!

I think that about covers the classics, but there's about half a dozen other pages of varying quality awaiting you at www.seanbaby.com. Basically, if you don't find any of this stuff funny and inform me of this fact, I'll be mystified, confused, and hurt. If, on the other hand, you find all of this stuff funny, then you're definitely one easily amused cretin. Of course, so am I, by the by. Sean Riley has definitely got one of the funniest sites on the Internet, and his pages have afforded me many hours of entertainment. At least a couple, anyway. Visit this site now! I would recommend you check out the the Nintendo/Video Game pages first. They rock!

8 stars(out of 10)

Reader Thoughts

taosterman@yahoo.com(Rich Bunnell)

"That that" is grammatical; the two "that"s are basically different words. The first one introduces a clause and the second one refers to a noun. You can say it just as you can say that someone "had had" something.

But let me just say that Seanbaby's site is one of the funniest sites I have ever been to on the Web. The Nintendo page gets the most traffic from me because it's just so utterly hilarious! Have you read the "Wally Bear And The No! Gang" page? That's some funny crap there, particularly the little blurb about when Wally's parents say goodbye to Wally as he leaves the house. The Congratulation! Awards are the best part, however, especially the part about game intros-- Yes, "THE PRESIDENT HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY NINJAS! ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO RESCUE THE PRESIDENT?" is one of the complete and utter classic intros of the gaming industry. Plus, Seanbaby spends a good amount of time on Mega Man, my favorite game series of all time-- and it's funny as hell how he deconstructs the logic of Dr. Wily's plots-- really, what threat DOES sending eight robots to wait in huge box-shaped rooms surrounded by insanely dangerous territory pose anyway?

I'm not as familiar with the rest of the site but I know that it's funny, and just the Nintendo page alone is worth a thousand reads. This guy is an asset to the net and right up there with Prindle in hilarity (though Seanbaby surpasses him in wackiness). 10/10!

ESSAYS

Is The Music Industry Controlled By Space Aliens?

A Tender Musing And An Awful Ramble Through Time And Space

The topic of why mainstream music sucks so badly has been widely debated for many years now. No doubt people wondered why in the early 60s music became softer and less rock oriented after the whole rock'n'roll explosion of the 50s had changed the world. No doubt jazz fans marveled with astonishment at how Miles Davis' and John Coltrane's great achievements in the 50s and 60s were overshadowed by more popular, mainstream performers(though those jazzmen did sell respectably, too, I must say). And I could go on ad infinitum, perhaps throwing in a couple clever classical allusions as well, but that wouldn't serve much point, would it? Nah, this whole mainstream/alternative music debate really started in full force around the same time alternative forms of music began to gain larger audiences: the late 70s. Starting from this time, music fans were largely divided into two convenient groups: the mainstream folks who read mainstream music publications and followed the mainstream charts and listened to mainstream radio and bought mainstream albums, and the alternative folks who supported the local zine and club scenes and listened to underground radio stations and who bought alternative albums. Inevitably, a few alternative bands crossed over and became "mainstream"(oftentimes streamlining their own sound in the process, but not always), but the vast majority did not. People became more and more dissatisfied with the record industry because their favorite bands were unknown to most people, and they thought this an injustice. One can't really blame them for this...it's natural that if you love something you'd like other people to love it, too. And to a certain extent when you come across something that amazes and inspires you, you expect that it will amaze and inspire most other people as well. So the question is: why is the mainstream music industry so bland?

Many people have many different explanations as to why. You could visit Mike O'Hara's Greatest & Worst Songs Radio Playlist and read his entertaining takes on the situation, for instance. If you're like me, you'll find his theory concerning American radio's "blacklisting" of British bands and payola scandals a bit hard to swallow...at least, in total. I have another explanation, and here it is:

We are in the minority. Most people do not care about music as much as we do. They do not listen to music as much as we do. They do not talk about music as much as we do. This doesn't mean we're better or smarter or more sensitive than those people - it just means that we have a great, special love for music that has probably been developed slowly since we were children, while they have great and special loves for other things. For the billions of human beings that exist on this planet, there are a great multitude of interests they may choose to cultivate if they have the time, the resources, and the will. All these interests are only supplemental to their basic human needs for nutrition, shelter, and clothing. And most of these people are also highly interested in reproduction, an interest seems to suck up a great deal of their leisure time as they first seek out a mate(or many mates), and then perhaps bond into familial units and other such nonsense. In short, there is only a limited amount of time given in this existence, and nobody can truly have an interest in everything under the sun(Admitting this causes me great chagrin - so contrary to those Renaissance values I admire most!). I, for example, must freely admit that the higher mathematics and sciences hold little interest for me - I have tried but cannot derive much pleasure from examining algorithms and working out equations. I've known people who do enjoy such activities very much, however, and I respect that that area of knowledge interests them so though it doesn't move me in the least. To them, perhaps, I may seem a very primitive excuse for a human being because I don't have a taste for the mental rigors of mathematics, and you can't blame them for holding such an opinion. What I argue to the nonexistent crowds is this: people really are different, and they care about different things, and they develop different interests. It's natural, you might say.

This is all fine and good, but music is widely claimed to be something which every human being has some sense of appreciation for. And it is true that most everyone affects to enjoy music, even if that enjoyment is limited to their turning on the radio during their drive to work. But here music is simply relegated to the minor position of being background noise as the driver tries to keep his/her mind off of the tedious activity at hand. I would go so far as to say that for most people that's exactly what music is: background noise that entertains them for a moment as they go about their daily lives but doesn't touch any deeper chords in their soul. The real music lover, however, is affected in another way by the notes and melodies which reach his ears - his appreciation is an active one. Music forces his mind into activity, it excites his emotions...not always positively, but always in a definite way.

Why does mainstream music suck so much? I'd say it's because one doesn't need anything special for background noise...in fact, it's probably better to have something stupid and forgettable as background noise because listening to that involves the least effort from the listener. "Better" music, no matter what the genre, appeals to serious listeners on several levels - it is designed to touch, to move, to excite, to MEAN. But music must be listened to carefully in order for its meaning to be gleaned. For some, this careful listening may seem to be as unpleasant an activity as solving mathematical equations seems to me. But the issue is still more trickier: how come good bands still manage to sell a lot of records? Well, it's safe to safe that probably more people take music seriously than take any other specialized interest seriously: that's a wide chunk of people, if minor compared to the world's population as a whole. These people can still buy a lot of records and have an effect. And I do agree with Mike O'Hara that radio and other media can have a very great effect on casual music listeners. Certainly, if you're going to pick up a CD full of background noise, you're going to pick background noise you've heard before, right? Something you know you'd like. So MTV and radio do play the dominant role in determining mainstream tastes - with their full support, good bands and artists would undoubtedly sell more copies. But I doubt that it matters very much to the casual music listener whether he is listening to Bach, the Beatles, the Replacements, or the Backstreet Boys - it's all just pleasant noise. He has more serious concerns. That's why we have the problem. Until radio/MTV becomes controlled by people who are serious music listeners themselves, or until everyone on Earth becomes a serious music listener, the problem shall remain. And eek! What would happen if everyone became a serious music listener? Mark Prindle would get ten thousand reader comments a day, and there would be about a million new record review sites started, and my site would fully become lost in the shuffle. Hah, such an occurrence might even drive me to re-examine the deep intellectual pleasures of higher mathematics! Or I would at least take up bowling.

Ode To Web Reviewers

At approximately three in the morning a couple nights ago, I was up writing poetry. Why? Tis good for the soul! By no means am I poet of any note - indeed, I readily accept the title "poetaster" without complaint. Nevertheless, I was up at three in the morning and I was writing poetry. I wrote two poems that night. One was about the listless, unfathomable melancholy of a young girl surrounded by the mundane desolation of her life, and the other was about web reviewers. Why web reviewers? I agree it is not a topic that Schiller would soon tackle(especially seeing as he's dead), but it seems to me that it is a real pity that no poets have tackled this fine subject before. Seeing as no one else was about to write a poem in praise of our wonderful web reviewers, I decided I had to do it myself. The results are, as you might expect, downright unspectacular. You may read the poem below. I'm not actually poking fun at anybody here, as I really respect everybody I mention with the exception of myself. It is 'sposed to be an 'ode' you see, after all. This is why I didn't mention Wilson & Alroy.

Ode to Web Reviewers

Mark Prindle came first,

And he satisfied my thirst,

For reviews smart, funny, and profane...

Albeit if sometimes in completely the wrong lane.

Next was Brian Burks,

A university student(with quirks!)

He's a real intellectual, y'see

He uses big words! Dee, dee, dee.

I knew George Starostin from the ol' Prindlehouse

But he started on his own site, quiet as a mouse

He wrote review after review after review

My, how his site grew and grew!

Eventually he amassed quite a collection

Of reasonable variety and pleasing selection

And then there was me...

The reviewer known as Bryan B.

I have so much, so much! to say

But simply not enough time in the day...

What do you think?

Reader Thoughts

(George Starostin)

Hi Bryan! George Starostin here! Just looked up your hilarious odes (great stuff) and thought I'd put down a couple of thought-provoking comments, in poetic form, too.

There once was a reviewer named Bryan

Always missing free time but still trying

He would shout, 'Not enough!

This whole business's so tough!'

That poor little fellow named Bryan

And, so as not to sound too unfriendly:

There once was a reviewer named George

Who put down all the crap he would forge

Then he'd look up his site

And cry out: 'This is shite!

Then again, it's my natural urge!'

Cheers!

Pity The Critic...The Artist Always Has The Edge!

Criticism is, obviously, not my profession, but instead a rather diverting and involving avocation. I'm proud to be part of this "world" so to speak - proud to be in the same realm as such fine online writers as Mark Prindle, Brian Burks, George Starostin. Thus, it gives me great displeasure to hear people describe critics and reviewers as if they are in some way harmful or detestable in general. I'm not going to use this space to defend what a reviewer does - that's obvious, and the appeal and need for reviewers and critics is never going to decrease unless the world quite suddenly becomes much smaller. I also recognize that to a certain extent a reviewer's position is indefendable. He(or she) comes to the table with a full set of preconceived opinions and tastes, and he evaluates everything he comes across with those preconceived opinions and tastes of his very much in mind. It's easy to "miss the point" of something, or fail to understand where an artist is coming from, just because the reviewer and the artist are coming from such different places. Only the artist can know and understand his work truly - reviewers are obviously going to miss a few nuances and themes in anything they evaluate(Worse yet, reviewers are also likely to ADD a few nuances and themes they have detected which in the artist's mind probably don't exist at all!). Consider this: my favorite author of all time, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, was widely HATED among Russian critics even during the time he was producing some of his best work. They gave his work cruel and unflattering reviews that have been since proved to be bunk by the passing of time. Criticism is imperfect, and no science...errors in judgement and mistaken thought processes are inavoidable.

All these thoughts stemmed from my encounter with a simple poem written by that delightful poetess Wendy Cope. Here it is, reprinted quite without permission, but Wendy is an understanding lass I'm sure...

Serious Concerns

'She is witty and unpretentious, which is both her strength and her limitation.' (Richard O'Brien in the Spectator, 10-25-86.)

I'm going to try and overcome my limitation --

Away with sloth!

Now should I work at being less witty? Or more pretentious?

Or both?

'They(Roger McGough and Brian Patten) have something in common with her, in that they all write to amuse.'

Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion!

I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.

You might be saying to yourself right now, "Ah, hah! That bastard O'Brien got what was coming to him, that stupid idiot." But put yourself in the shoes of Mr. O'Brien for a moment. He's got a nice job at The Spectator writing reviews and he quite enjoys it. He takes his position seriously, of course, and he doesn't want to overrate anybody needlessly. So it has come time for him to write up a nice review of some of Wendy Cope's amusing verse. He searches for a nice opener..."Hm, let's see. I DO like Wendy Cope a lot, but she's not exactly Tennyson. I want to praise her, but I also need to knock her down a peg right in the beginning so people don't get the wrong idea of her talent. I'll start out...

She is witty and unpretentious, which is both her strength and her limitation.

Perfect! And let's see, I must compare her to a few other writers so people will know exactly where she's coming from. Brian Patten and Roger McGough(such a Scottish name!)...that's good. They're all funny writers, yes, they write to amuse! I should say that."

And so on goes Richard O'Brien. He thinks he's written one of the best reviews of his career. He's praised Wendy Cope, but not too much, and he's made a remark about the humorous nature of her verse...imagine his mortification when he hears that Miss(or Mrs.?) Cope has satirized his innocent review in verse as part of her latest smash poetry collection! What can O'Brien do? He has been shown for an idiot to all, but he started with such grand and innocent intentions...

In short, what I advise you to do is to 'hate the review, not the reviewer.' We're people, too, and we're not so hard to understand if you give us a chance, though you may disagree with us on a great many issues. In short, we should all just get along. Careful with that axe, Eugene!!!

Punk Rock - What the Heck IS It, Anyway?

The primary reason I haven't covered punk rock on this site in any worthwhile way is that even punks themselves can't define what it is they listen to.(So how the heck am I sposed to??) For every statement you can make about punk rock, there's an exception which darn near eliminates the validity of your statement. Plus, there's a constant argument going on between fans over what "real" punk rock is and what it isn't. Some people say that groups labeled as "proto-punks" like Television and Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers ain't punk compared to what's been out there since the 80s. Some folk say that every new boy group signed by Epitaph Records in order to provide some competition for the Backstreet Boys IS punk. And so on and so forth. Here, then, is my little list of the frequent, erroneous statements I hear or see in print quite often concerning this punk rock stuff plus my thoughts:

Punk rock is a form of political protest music against oppressive, conservative governments and ideas.

Answer: The Ramones didn't care that much about politics, and they helped FOUND the darned genre! Plus, not all political groups were as liberal as the Dead Kennedys or Crass. Some were anarchists, others believed in the workability of democracy...still others thought Reagan was a decent guy, after all. There are even Christian punk rock groups in the 90s who apparently weened themselves on old DK records and one day simply said to themselves, "Hey! This Jello Biafra guy is a genius, you know! He's just saying it all backwards! We've got to fix it!"

Punk rock is a monotonous, three-chord based music form that sounds all the same.

Of course this isn't true. Most bands worth their salt advance beyond three chords per song at least sometimes, and this is true of every genre of music. As for the "sounds alike" thing, Black Flag sounds nothing like Television, and the Minutemen sure ain't nothing like the Meatmen.

Punk rock was created by the Sex Pistols in 1977

Oh, it was? Tell that to the old woman running the grocery down the lane: she'll gladly show you her old New York Dolls records in order to prove you wrong. Inform the ten year old shoeshine boy from NYC that his Stooges albums aren't anything innovative or special or at least simply not "punk rock." Heck, I dare you to tell your local feminist Zoroastrian university professor that her copy of the Ramones' debut from '74 ain't "revolutionary." Besides, we all know who invented punk rock. It was the Fugs!

Most punk rock sucks.

Hmm. Oh, I guess this one is true!

"Most" is a pretty unfair word to use, though. For every genius there's sure to be a thousand or a million incompetents. We can't blame the good punk rock groups for the bad. At this point in time, I can say I've at least given a chance to most of the major punk rock groups that are widely revered. Most didn't impress me; a few did. Even as I say that though, I acknowledge that there are a million bands that I haven't heard, and that I can't pass judgement on until I do. Think I'm giving a band the shaft, or missing out on the greatest group of angry modern composers since Lawrence Welk and his wonderful novelty band? Well, then drop me a line. And also remind me to rewrite that stupid Bad Religion album review I wrote for my first set of reviews.

Conclusion: "Punk rock" and "new wave" were both 70s industry labels used to describe music outside the mainstream tastes(at first). The label "alternative" would ultimately cover many later bands who would've been labeled either punk or new wave in the late 70s. Punk doesn't truly refer to any one style of music or any one lyric-writing approach. It's just a label.

The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly of Punk(Subject to Change)

The Good

Black Flag

The band that gave us the epitome of generic hardcore, Damaged. Har, har. No, that record was the epitome of hardcore, period. The summit. Their pre-Damaged, pre-Rollins material ain't too shabby either. Of course, we must also take into account that hardcore isn't that great a musical genre to begin with, so the real question is where's all the Damaged competition, ehh?

Clash, The

I don't really care about this band of politically interested reggae fans as much as I once did, but I can't deny that they wrote some quite good songs. I hesitate to call any of their albums great at this point in time, though...most of them gradually lose their appeal over time(at least they did for me.)

Ramones, The

Unstoppable rock'n'roll machine that may have overused riffs and melodies during the course of their career, but luckily they overused great riffs and melodies! Their sound was certainly unique, and rather special, too. Maybe one of the last great bands that harked straight back to the ideals of 50s rock'n'roll. It's worth owning at least one of their early records even if you're no punk rock fan.

Iggy and the Stooges

The Stooges may never have put out a classic record that could rival a more musically-inclined contemporary outfit, but they could at least boast of owning an interesting, downright intriguing sound. They're well worth checking out, but they'll probably never get recognition on the rest of my site: too much noise, not enough muse!

Television

Terrific. Tom Verlaine comes the closest punk rock's ever gotten to having a guitar genius, though he's not exactly a Clapton or even a Richards. Quite sophisticated musically, though rather pointless lyrically. Marquee Moon is their classic LP, and I think even the most steadfast of musical snobs must recognize at the very least that the record is rather good compared to a lot of what was popular at the time. I'll tackle the record later in a future review - it actually maybe be the best "punk"(if you consider it as such) album of all time, but I simply haven't decided yet.

The Bad

Dead Kennedys, The

The most overrated band of all time. People like them because they're the Dead Kennedys(with all the "attitude" and "punch" you'd expect from a band with that moniker) and could care less about how their music sounds. Do your eardrums a favor, and avoid.

Dirty Rotten Imbeciles(D.R.I.)

"Accomplished" purveyors of noise, they still simply deliver noise. And boring noise, too. Mark Prindle, what were you thinking?

The Ugly

Well...Iggy Pop is sort of ugly, isn't he?

The above list could be added to or subtracted from at my leisure. Many more groups could've gone into the bad section, but I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. I noticed that I consider the vast majority of punk rock groups to be neither bad or good, but instead mediocre. Mediocrity is where the likes of the Sex Pistols(edgy power pop!) and the New York Dolls(ain't the Ramones, and they don't rock like the Stones!) reside, in my view.

The Special Y2K Extraganza!!!

The end of the millennium - the biggest story since the end of the Cold War? Bryan's Reviews wasn't about to not cover it. Yeah, I did wait till just about a few hours before the blessed event was to occur before mentioning the dang thing, but what better timing? At least now the Year 2000 is imminent - just around the corner - and on all of our minds. So, in honor of this once in a lifetime event, this site is here presenting not one, but three different essays on Y2K-related topics. Enjoy, and remember: we'll never see another year with three 0s again. By the way, I should say here that I neither endorse nor reject that school of thought which holds that the true millennium begins in 2001. They have some valid points to support their argument, though more cynical scholars say that our dating system is none too exact, and it is quite possible that we've "lost" a couple years somewhere along the line...making the determination of the true start of the millennium very difficult indeed. Just personally speaking, I don't really care about the millennium. Stupid thing. Who needs it? It's just another year. You're fooling yourself to think that a new millennium or a new century or a new year is going to be that much better than any other - it's all up to what you make it when you get down to it, eh? That bit of cynicism expounded, let's move on... The first essay was something I hastily threw together about a week ago. The other stuff I wrote today.

Index

I. Last Words To Humanity - An Essay

II. Couldn't We Have Avoided This Crap?

III. What The New Year Will Bring To This Site

Last Words To Humanity - An Essay

Time is slowly running out. We stand, all human beings together, upon a dark precipice, overlooking on one side the End of the World in all of its frightful, mysterious glory...and on the other side lie the paths we've already trodden upon and can never hope to walk on again. We have no choice. Our future path is already mapped out for us. Forward we must march, onward into the hellish infinity of nonexistence, into the incomprehensible and unfathomable darkness... Imagine, brothers and sisters, what this means. We have only one week left to live - only a single week left to laugh, a week left to smile, a week left to feel secure and contented in the sturdy embrace of a loved one. After this week is up, our happiness will be replaced with eternal misery and terror - our love replaced with hatred - our pride replaced with utter wretchedness. No longer will we find a comforting place to lay our heads. No more will we be able to sleep and dream happy dreams. No longer will we be able to hold on to our most beloved illusions. The reality of the End will be too overwhelming to ignore, too encompassing to escape. Thousands of years civilization has flourished upon this planet. It has come time for it to end. How will we spend our last week?

My friends, do not allow the truth of my words to drive you into depression. Yes, life will soon be over, but treasure the final week that we have. Don't allow this time to be taken up with crying and wailing - life is too precious to waste it in such a way. Retreat into what it is that you love above all else. Be not afraid to laugh, and be merry. Eat and drink - sing songs, make joyful noises. Write poetry. Though it is cold Winter, do not hesitate to invade the fields of sport - do what makes you happy! This last week is our last chance to live in the way we always dreamt of living but were never able to do so. This is our last chance, humanity - if we don't grasp the opportunity here and now, it is all over for us. There will never be another chance.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to mention a few things that I believe humanity did rather well during the few thousand years of history that we have well documented. A list of things we can each pat each other on the back for accomplishing. The years we have lived on this planet have not been spent idly or in vain - our achievements were real and worthwhile. We could not foresee this end, so we lived on with the belief that we would likely last, if not forever, for an awfully, awfully long time. Would Da Vinci have painted the Mona Lisa, Beethoven written the Ninth Symphony, Virgil composed the Aeneid, Marilyn Manson recorded Mechanical Animals, knowing full well that the world was inevitably doomed to an ungraceful and sudden destruction in the year 2000 A.D.? Only they could tell us. It is my hope that they all would have still produced their great art, if only because they knew that their art would alleviate some of the torment suffered by those of us now faced with the destruction of the world in our own lifetimes. So stop, humanity: let us remember the good things, and forget for a moment our impending doom.

Things We Did Rather Well

Music

Sound. Noise. Music. Where does it come from? How did it come into being? What went into the construction of the world's first stringed instrument? How did someone ever manage to do it completely correctly? How did we ever advance from crude, harsh sounding tribal drums to symphony orchestras and rock'n'roll? The chances of these advances actually happening seemeth rather slim. But they happened just the same! Sitars, saxophones, and synthesizers. Jazz, opera, pop. Every culture, its own music. I do believe that you could put me and a hundred of my closest twentieth century friends inside a benign environment for at least a million years and not only would we have failed in that time to compose a piece of music to rival Bach's Italian Concerto, but most likely we would have failed to make a musical instrument that "works" aside from possibly wooden drums and bamboo flutes. Now, of course, music is a territory well explored by thousands - its laws and its principles have been documented and can be learned by anyone patient enough to do so. We have centuries worth of composition of all kinds to show us what good music is. But know that this knowledge did not come to us automagically - we had to work for it. And anyone who picks up a musical instrument on a whim, their hearts laden only with a simple wish to PLAY that instrument so that it might produce pleasant sounds in perfect harmony knows, too, that some things have not and will never change: music is still an intangible, almost incomphrehensible force... and a terribly, terribly fascinating one at that. The ability to create a new song is in all of us, and requires only time, ingenuity, and tools. The ability to create a song that doesn't suck, well...that's something else. Who, I cry, can write me an equation to explain it all?

Literature

This topic reminds me of a quote commonly attributed to the great caveman inventor Billgatesoo: "Human speech should be enough for everyone. Check this out, guys, I just found out how to make a NEW clicky sound with my tongue!" Ah, but it wasn't enough! Nope. Somehow, wagging our tongues just didn't satisfy us. We humans had a deeper wish to communicate, not only with those in our immediate vicinity, but to the world at large, not only to the inhabitants of our own times but also to the peoples of the future. This heartfelt wish to communicate our ideas, dreams, and accumulated knowledge led to the invention of the written word. Though many languages have served as tools by which groups of people converse with one another, it is this wish which binds all literature together - Shakespeare and Chaucer may be the patron grandfathers of the modern English tongue, but it is only egoism to accord them more reverence than Homer and Dante without first examining the core of all of these fellows' words. The idea - the core - is the most important feature of all works of literature, no matter what the language in which it is written. Most of all, through our stories and our novels and our poetry humanity has recorded their ideas and their beliefs and their dreams, but even our histories and our biographies and our essays have cores - grand and not so grand ideas which necessitated their creation, without which they would never have existed, or at least they would have existed in very different forms. Ideas and dreams are what literature is about...and ideas and dreams are truly humanity's finest achievements. Literature is a reflection of ourselves, and great literature is a reflection of our better selves.

Farming

"Oof, I'm hungry."

"Get some roots, eh."

"I'm tired of roots."

"Go kill something then."

"I don't like killing. I get nightmares."

"What are you, some of sort of sissy?"

"You know what I do like? Fruit. Fruit's good."

"Go get some fruit, then, but the nearest fruit trees are quite a few stone throws away. If you want to ruin your feet, be my guest. Personally, I'm going to pick up my club and get a'whacking. I'll have my family's dinner on the floor and half eaten before you even reach your dumb trees."

"No, no, you don't understand. What I was thinking is, if fruit trees grow over there, they could probably grow over here, too. What's that place got that we don't have? Other trees grow here, so why can't those trees?"

"Stop being an ass. The only trees that grow here have needles or leaves, no fruit. If you keep talking this way, I'm going to tell the elder."

"NO! I say that it can be done, and I'll prove the whole tribe wrong! Someday, we will be able to eat as much fruit as we want and when we want it, not just these tiresome roots and dead animals!"

Eating is one of the necessities of life. If ye don't eat, ye don't live. Simple fact o' biology. Ever since Adam, Eve, and that evil being in snake's form got together and ruined that good thing they had goin' for 'em, mankind's had to find a lot of different ways to feed themselves. The most pure and honorable way to do this was and is by means of agriculture. Sure, you can always kill an animal and eat it - or have other people kill the animal and give it to you, but there's still a sense of guilt there. After all, you're eating what was once a living, breathing creature, with feelings and artistic tendencies and what not. You try not to think about it, and indeed, don't do so very often as meat tends to taste rather better than the fruits of the earth just generally speaking. But farming - ha! No sense of guilt there. The crops die on their own at the time of the first frost. The fact that you're harvesting and consuming their developed ovaries doesn't bother 'em a bit...they'll just grow new ones for you to pick, right? Quite advanced, really. A mutually beneficial relationship! With the advent of the modern age, a monk named Mendel introduced the world to a little branch of science that came to be called genetics. His theories mostly came about from his fiddling around with pea plants. Later researchers continued this fiddling about, some experimenting with other plant species, others tampered with animals, still others determined to crack the genetic code in human beings. Most importantly, however, ways of spurring on increased agricultural production were invented, and agriculture became the only sensible way to feed the world's ever increasing population. Meat is fine - roots are okay. But the backbone of our diet is still the harvested fruits of the land. Thus, the most honorable profession in the world is still that of a farmer - I look back in pride as I realize that both branches of my family were until two generations ago exclusively itinerant farmers and poets... and some members of my family still are. If American agriculture hadn't gone corporate many decades ago, most likely I'd be out and about in the Mississippi sun armed with hoe and oxen(and tractor and other miscellaneous machinery) instead of writing reviews for people around the world to read. Quite frankly, it's a damn shame I ain't...but it's your gain???!?!?

FIN

So there you have it. Humanity did three things rather well: Music, Literature, and Farming. The visual arts deserved a mention, too, but if I keep on going at this rate the year 2000 will occur before I finish.

Couldn't We Have Avoided This Crap?

The year of our Lord 2000 is not even here yet, but I'm sick of it already. I can understand the hysteria surrounding the Y2K bug, as that was a genuine problem which required genuine solutions to be found - I for one had one older, non-compliant personal computer in need of fixing. Most likely nothing too awful would have occurred had the problem not been fixed, but most likely SOMETHING would have occurred...who wants to take chances? What I have a much harder time tolerating and understanding is this mass media deluge of millennium related material. Enough already! How many lists of the most important people or the most important works of art or the most important scientific accomplishments of the century of the millennium do we have to suffer through? It's all hype, all bullocks...all the same emphasis on the same heroes we're quite aware of already. Nothing new. Television coverage is informing the American public by the minute how every country in the world is heralding in the new year. Yes, that's right - we can't even let the people celebrate on their own. It's just a new year like any other, I exclaim. And the media is milking it for all its worth. To excess. To the point where it's become completely monotonous and boring to hear talk of a new year and a new millennium - topics which should have been fun and interesting have been rendered banal. Well, at least the year is(practically) here, and everything seems to be going smoothly. The residents of Greenwood, Mississippi may not even have to suffer through the dark due to Y2K computer glitches, though I wouldn't say for certain knowing our local electric companies until the new year's has its feet firmly planted on the ground.

The question I posed in this essay's title I cannot answer. It seems like we should have been able to avoid this fervor and this media circus, but how? It was incompetence that led to the Y2K bug, but incompetence is, to a certain extent, unavoidable, and in this case I think it was more a a simple lack of foresight rather than sheer imbecility which brought on the problem. What I really dislike most of all is this sense that we have lost control of our calendar. You know, we invented the thing. We did the dating system. Months of the year. Days of the week. Yet the millennium is hailed as something tangible and unavoidable when in truth it is more an invention - the product of our imagination, even. We could function without knowing the date or the day, though of course we do function better with our calendar. It is not a necessary thing. The sun rises and it falls, but the concept of dividing our existence into "days" is something we've come up with quite on our own. Even worse, our system of dating is not even perfect following our own calendar! It seems quite likely that Christ was born neither 1999 or 2000 years ago; that is, he could just as easily been born 2001 or 1998 years ago. Who can say for certain? Does it matter? Only for doomsday cults, perhaps, most of which I suspect have as little regard for Christ as the spider has for the fly caught in its web. Yes, the dawn of the new millennium really was something special - for the mainstream media. Too bad they have to get their ratings and make their money by being annoying.

What The New Year Will Bring To This Site

Shortly before I got deluged with a month of computer problems(some of which still linger on like a bad case of influenza or my aunt Gelda's perfume), I was intending on embarking on a series of several serious revisions to this site. I believe I may have remarked something of the sort to that uncommonly talented Russian critic George Starostin at the time. But I didn't really get anywhere near as much done as I wished to. Clearly, the time has come for me to scour over my tangled web and make pure what is muddled, to cleanse what is dirty, to sweeten that which is sour. What this site needs is the caring touch of a wandering mage, spreading sunshine and light and hope for all. Wandering mages being in short supply at the moment, I have volunteered to perform the task. For starters, as I alluded to earlier, I have a number of reviews that require revisions. Once I have completed a major overhaul, I will not hesitate to unveil several new features to the site which will greatly improve navigation while at the same time reduce the risk of terrorist attacks. I hope to have everything done in March, which means it will probably be done by July. No, really, it may not take that long, but I do have quite a bit of work to do. Mind you, I'm not selling out: no frames or background images here! Nor will I abandon my current system of navigation. I'll simply expand the viewer's options. (It seems that it takes a genius like the great imperial poet Tommy "James" Joyce to appreciate the understated charms of my "volume" system of review listin'.) Meanwhile, I'll also try to write better. That's always something one can improve. And the rest? You'll have to wait. I don't even know myself.

Ah, in fact, I often wake up in the middle of the night and cry, "Who am I? What do I want? WHO THE HELL DO I THINK I AM WAKING MYSELF UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?" Wheee!

The Ups and Downs of Interactivity - An Essay

In our increasingly virtualized world, it seems just about everything is becoming interactive. We have telephones that talk, televisions that walk...even breakfast is interactive these days. Let's say you go to a nice diner and order yourself some eggs, then you walk over and take your customary seat in the back by the window so you can watch the cars whizz by while you enjoy your meal. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Imagine your surprise when you hear a disembodied, robotic voice coming from nowhere...

"Good day, sir! How do you feel today?"

You turn around and gaze at the other diners - none of them are looking at you. Nobody is talking to you.

"That's good! Would you like to eat me now? I'm feeling VERY delicious."

It is then that, to your great astonishment, you realize that some bright person has come up with the idea of food which will not only "talk", but even exhort you to consume it! You look down to your plate, but the eggs no longer seem so appetizing. Breakfast has forever changed. No longer will food simply be food, served and eaten and then forgotten. Now it is interactive. It will soon be implanted with artificial intelligence - perhaps even human feelings, too, whenever that was possible. The question is, of course - have we REALLY progressed? Do we need our breakfast to be interactive, or have we just gone too far?

Yes, that was supposed to be humorous. I found myself in a bit of a bind tonight, not having much of anything to review, so I decided I had to improvise. But I also have a few things to say about interactive record review sites(or actually, interactive review sites in general). I really wonder very much if Mark Prindle knew what he was doing when he decided he wanted to create the Internet's first interactive record review guide. What a monster he created - what a vehicle both for human expression as well as human cruelty. I know no other site like it that was around before it, really - most sites played it safe like The Internet Movie Database and put the reader comments somewhere where people would have to search for them. Mark, on the other hand, put them right next to his reviews - he gave other people's opinions equal consideration with his own. Sometimes, his pages grew over time to be remarkable storinghouses for debate and information exchanges among fans of a particular musical group. Other times, the pages became home to hundreds of mindless, crazed condemnations of the reviewer by people with seemingly far too much time on their hands. His pages on AC/DC and Sonic Youth come to mind immediately. So many angry people writing in acting as if Mark was a complete fool, failing to appreciate at all that Mark had to actually put his time and effort into producing this page that they now so blindly assaulted. Granted, I think Mark is partly to blame for writing up some rather flimsy reviews(for example, those Sonic Youth reviews are terribly short and rather undetailed, almost as if Mark didn't take them too seriously, which is always going to be offensive to a 'true' fan. Nothing can be worse than having your favorite band or artist brushed aside as if they are nothing!), but that doesn't mean we should forgive all those people who acted so violently towards a single person's opinion.

Now, there are three interactive review sites that I visit regularly besides Prindle's: my own page, Brian Burks' Creative Noise, and George Starostin's Reviews of Classic Rock and Pop Albums. Recently, George wrote up a "guidelines" page wherein he discussed what makes for good reader-to-reviewer commentary. This page is really excellent - do check it out. It gave me the idea to include some of my own thoughts on that fragile, but oh-so-warm-and-wonderful relationship that exists between web reviewer and web review reader in this essay. I know my own page best of all, and I know the kind of feedback I get. To date, I've never truly been flamed - nothing like "you're such an idiot, you copulate with sheep by the sea shore and also used to be in Culture Club" etc etc. I've gotten one comment which disagreed with me in an impolite manner - a few more which disagreed in a polite manner. Some which agreed with me, too, but compared to the other sites I don't really have too many regular commentators. I don't publicize this page too much, actually, but whoever really needs to find this page can certainly find it. A more aggressive market approach would no doubt bring in more commentators, but also more flamers - who needs it, I say? What is really, really strange to me is that most people who write to me seem to have barely even read the page at all - they just want me to do work for them. Like, "Hello, can you get me in contact with such-and-such" just because I've reviewed one of the fellow's computer games on my site a year ago! How would I know how to contact him? I'm just a reviewer...not his friend! Likewise, I also recently received a request for rules to a board game when I had directly LINKED to a page of rules elsewhere on the Internet on that very review page. I find this bizarre...I mean, is it really easier to send off an E-mail to me using the link at the bottom of the page when only a paragraph before that link you can find what you're writing me about in the first place? I also see Creative Noise as somewhat different from Mark's and George's sites in particular - it seems to me that Brian doesn't really emphasize the reader commentary, it's more like, "well, here are my thoughts. If you have something to say, you can say it, and I'll post it up." That's pretty much my philosophical approach towards receiving review commentary as well. But Mark and George kind of write TO the reader in a more direct way instead of simply writing FOR him. There's a big difference, you know, and I think that subtle difference in approach to writing reviews is why those guys get so many comments. Which approach is better? Why, who knows! I think they're both good - one gets more results than the other, but that includes both positive and negative repercussions.

At any rate, interactive reviews are here to stay. No more will you have to suffer through the agony of reading the pompous words of criticism written by someone effectively hidden by a partition of time and space which would keep him from having to know just how his words make you feel. You can tell the critic just what you think of him and his blabberings, and he's going to have to listen to it just because in order to keep up with everybody else he has to allow for "interactivity." I do think interactivity is a good thing, definitely - I'm curious about what people think of my reviews and also what they think of what I have reviewed(I wouldn't have reviewed whatever it is they are commenting on in the first place if it hadn't interested me in some way shape or form, after all.), so I'm happy to hear from anybody. I am kind of busy, though, and so may not respond to E-mails too quickly(I'm sure a certain Latvian Jung fan would be quick to attest to my slow reply speed.)

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