Under Review
We review Bo Obama, a zombie Jane Austen, a new cop show, and more
By Campus Progress
April 17, 2009
OHMYGODIWANTTOHUGHIM. (Courtesy whitehouse.gov)
PET
Bo
President Obama
Premiered: April, 2009
I’m enmeshed in an abusive relationship with Bo Obama. On the one hand I love him. I love his puffy black-and-white fur. I love his cute little button nose. And I love the way he bounds and jumps and sniffs and generally does all the things that puppies love to do. I’ve looked at every picture that has been published of him so far, watched every video about him on YouTube, and am considering buying the first dog presidential seal t-shirt available on Amazon.com. I’ve emailed about him, written about him in my Gchat status, and even Tweeted about him.
And that’s where the hate seeps in. While I love Bo, I hate what he has done to me. All I want to read about is Bo. All I want to know about it Bo. Pirates? I mean, really, who cares? And this brings us to the real problem: I hate what my obsession with Bo says about me. I can pretend to be interested in “news.” I can tell people I care about “politics” and “Congress” and stuff. But when it comes down to it, all I really care about are cute, cuddly animals: kittens in coffee mugs, a bunny waving hi, or a Portuguese water dog wearing a lei.
But I must soldier on, knowing that I will never be able to get enough of Bo. There will be more pictures, more movies, and books. And there will be more puppies, pandas, polar bears, and kittens. I will lap up each one. If I could have just one chance to pet Bo in person, I would crouch down to his furry ear and whisper softly: “I wish I knew how to quit you.”
10 out of 10 ohyou’resocutearen’tyouohyesyouares
-Rob Anderson
The zombies, like the plot, lurch forward thoughtlessly. (Courtesy Quirk Books)
BOOK
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Seth Grahame-Smith
Quirk Books
Released: April 4, 2009
The newly released Pride and Prejudice and Zombies gives we infantile Jane Austen fans our deepest, darkest desire—Bennets with broadswords. (Well, katanas.) The book is a mashup of Austen’s classic novel (85 percent) with blood-soaked zombie action (15 percent) brought to dirt-caked and voracious un-life by Seth Grahame-Smith, whose author bio assures us that he once took a class in English literature. Don’t worry, it doesn’t show.
The book, which sports hilarious cover art, is doing quite well. PaPaZ is currently third on the New York Times paperback fiction bestseller list, and reviews have been bizarrely positive.
But is Elizabeth up to the task of hacking her way through Satan’s army to dear old Darcy? By God she is! With a swish of her finely hemmed skirts and a whirl of her razor-sharp katana, she leaps into action, dispatching ravenous hordes of the undead with one hand and dexterous ninjas with the other (“‘My dear girl,’ said her ladyship, ‘I suggest you take this contest seriously. My ninjas will show you no mercy.’”) Where did the ninjas come from, you ask? Best not to dwell on it.
If all this sounds like ripping good fun…well, it isn’t. It’s a good joke for a few chapters, not for 320 pages, and Grahame-Smith’s writing is the equivalent of slightly above average Star Trek fan fiction (er, not that I’d know). Worse still, the zombie mayhem is incidental to the story. Darcy barely breaks his wooing stride for the zombies that randomly stumble into the story. You’d think if Grahame-Smith got permission to bastardize a classic of English literature, he could have at least tampered with the plot a little.
4 out of 10 shambling English gentries
-Jake Blumgart
Half as many sex jokes as Superbad but twice the awkwardness. (Courtesy Miramax Films)
Film
Adventureland
Miramax
Released: April 3, 2009
Confession: I have not seen Adventureland in its entirety. Not because I left early, but because there were enough scenes of painful embarrassment that I frequently found myself burying my face in my hands, meaning I merely heard much of the film. But if anything, the awkwardness is a virtue. Ultimately, Adventureland is uncomfortable precisely because it’s relatable.
The protagonist, James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg, or Walt from The Squid and the Whale), is leaving Oberlin College with an acceptance letter for the Columbia School of Journalism, and plans to spend the summer hostel-hopping across Europe. However, when his father is demoted, funds dry up—not just for Eurotripping, but for grad school as well. To afford Columbia, James needs to stay at home and work at the only place that will hire someone with nothing but a BA in comparative literature: the local amusement park, Adventureland.
It’s an implausible conceit, made more so by the fact that Adventureland is inexplicably populated by kindred spirits like Joel (Martin Starr), a Gogol devotee never seen without a pipe, or Em (Kristen Stewart), an NYU student with a prodigious collection of indie vinyl. But the park is a useful setting, and one that serves to emphasize the temporariness of the characters’ circumstance. James, Joel, and Em are only working at Adventureland for the summer, and living in the short-term makes it easy to part with things that were previously givens—like work ethic, risk aversion, and fidelity—for better and for worse. And when things inevitably go wrong, the audience can only cringe in recognition.
But it’s a good cringe, one that only works because that sort of discomfort is so familiar to most viewers. These are lovable characters, and while they’re occasionally selfish they respond to an absurd situation with the appropriate level of irreverence. Their lives may sometimes be painful to watch, but they wouldn’t feel real otherwise.
8 out of 10 frustrated humanities majors
-Dylan Matthews
Tim’s powers render this monster a non-threat.
VIDEO GAME
Braid
Jonathan Blow
Released for Windows: April 10, 2009
The conceit of Braid, a 2D platformer independent video game released by Jonathan Blow (and originally released for the XBox360 via the XBox Live Arcade in August 2008), is simple, but executed in a myriad of dazzling ways: You play as Tim, an otherwise nondescript young man who lost “the princess” and must find her, and who can reverse time whenever he wants. Bits of the storyline are unveiled through text that is found in separate rooms from the game’s puzzles—a level of storyline/gameplay segregation that some reviewers, like the inimitable Yahtzee, found annoying, but which I had no problem with. The text never gets as overwrought as one might expect, but provides little more than an adequate backdrop to the game.
The real story here isn’t Braid’s story, but the game’s puzzles and their ingenious design. Starting with the simple time-reversal mechanic, the game gradually layers on different elements, including items and creatures immune to Tim’s powers and an entire world where the flow of time is completely controlled by Tim’s movements. It’s hard to put into words what makes the puzzles—which revolve around obtaining difficult-to-reach puzzles pieces—so rewarding, but the sense of fulfillment you feel when you finally unravel the tough ones is surprisingly powerful.
Braid’s overall presentation is, like its game play, spectacular. The game’s hand-drawn art, sparse music, and crisp sound effects pull the player into a world of profound melancholy, nostalgia, and regret. Combine this with the metaphorical ramifications of the various ways the time-reversal is presented, and you have an extremely emotionally resonant game. Braid is the latest—and perhaps most convincing—“Exhibit A” in the ongoing argument over just how close to art video games can get. Despite its short length and lack of replayability, this is a game that everyone should play.
9 out of 10 melancholic, time-bending quests
-Jesse Singal
Yup, another cop show. (Courtesy NBC)
TV
Southland
NBC
Premiered: April, 2009
After 15 seasons, it was time for ER to end and a new show to take its place. That show is Southland, a cop drama starring Benjamin McKenzie (Ryan from The O.C.) as Officer Ben Sherman, a rookie cop on his first day under the supervision of Officer John Cooper (Michael Caditz). With these two as the leads, the show looks to be just another hour of baby-faced blondes playing golden cops.
Well, in this case looks are deceiving. Caditz is excellent in his role as a weathered, foul-mouthed cop who has seen too much of the job to think of it as a simple protect-and-serve mission. McKenzie is…well, he treads water in the role, but given the lack of skill he’s displayed in previous gigs, you can’t expect much more from him.
The pilot episode shows Ben’s first day on the job, and it’s a lot to handle. It’s hard to tell whether the hazing he gets from his fellow officers is normal or particularly difficult for a delicate new cop. Either way, Ben can barely handle his first day, especially when he ends up killing a suspect (a justified killing). Luckily, Officer Cooper knows when to give tough love and when to cuddle up to the new guy, so after a few kind words Ben decides he’s going to continue being a cop.
But the best part of the pilot involves Detective Adams’ attempts to figure out what happened to a missing girl. Despite Adams’ experience, the job still gets to her and King portrays that inner turmoil elegantly. One thing Southland has in common with ER is the mix happy and unhappy endings. The case isn’t always closed with the bad guys in jail, and that’s refreshing. It keeps the viewer guessing.
6 out of 10 Hollywood-made badges
-Daniel Strauss
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