the thing (2011)

so i watched the remake/prequel of the thing and i didn't hate it.

although it's a remake in almost every aspect the film presents itself as a prequel, telling the story of the norwegian expedition that kurt russell and his mates find the remains of in the john carpenter version. i'm not going to do a plot rundown because if you haven't seen the john carpenter version of the thing you should really sort your fucking life out.

the prequel aspect actually worked quite well, in that the base looks really similar and some of the sets match like the room with the block of ice that the thing came from. the costumes and hair fit the period and i didn't notice any obvious inconsistencies, other than if you watched them back to back it would kind of be like watching the same film.

i thought the first half of the film was pretty cool. it was different enough to be interesting, and it actually harked back to the original howard hawks thing from another world in places (and yes, if you haven't seen the howard hawks version you still need to sort your fucking life out). but once the thing reveals itself it all goes a bit wrong. actually, wrong is probably not the right word, it's more that it felt like a missed opportunity, like they never quite captured the suspense and sense of mistrust that the original does so well.

but what makes this film work throughout is mary elizabeth winstead's performance and her character. much like the original, characterisation in this film is minimal so you never really find out where the characters come from or what makes them tick. i liked that, it was refreshing and it meant you never really knew any of the characters well enough to trust that they weren't actually an alien. but the one element that's played really well is winstead's paleontologist character being a woman in a man's world. there's a moment when the characters are discussing how to thaw out the creature and when she voices her opinion she's ignored, and then she's reprimanded for even having an opinion. this is balanced by the fact that there is another woman on the base so she's not the only woman in the world of the film. but the way she's treated fits the period and the environment and it really raises the stakes because she's the first to figure out what's going on but no one will listen to her.

then there's the fact that despite being one of two women, she's so outnumbered by the men and they're all so much bigger than her physically i couldn't help thinking there was a point to be made here. the carpenter version is a film about men mistrusting each other, and in many ways a closer modern remake would be something like tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. this film is about one woman mistrusting all the men.

let's take the alien out of the picture. let's say it's a film about a woman joining a team of men in an isolated area in the 1980s. would it play any differently? sure, there would be less flamethrowers and monsters and murders (probably) but would the tension and the mistrust be any different?

i don't know if it entirely works as a prequel, but i do believe there's more to this film than a carbon copy remake, plus it's cool to see a well-written female character be intelligent first and run around with a flamethrower second. for those reasons i think it's worth checking out.

kontrolfreek - fps freek vortex

full disclosure - i was sent these gaming accessories for review, so this isn't just a random 'hey, look what i just picked up!' post, it's more of a 'someone sent my free stuff for a review!' post. i hear you have to be clear about such things these days.

so anyway, kontrolfreek make gaming accessories for consoles and specifically they make these little...er...really want to call them noggins...yes, these little noggins that you fix to the sticks on the controller so they make playing games easier. there's a whole video about how it's supposed to work right here...



now, i'm not a huge fps fan but i do and have played a lot of them. i tend to choose games based on the story rather than the type of game and sometimes the stories i want to experience happen to be in first-person shooters. the thing is, i'm not terribly good at them. would kontrolfreek be able to cure my inability to shoot any bad guys at all ever?

so i was sent the fps freek - vortex. it looks like this.

there's a tall 'noggin' for the right stick to improve aiming and a little concave 'noggin' for the left stick. they snap onto the sticks really easily, like this -

in real life, on my sofa, they look like this -

the two games i tested them on were bulletstorm and call of juarez. yes, they were random choices, and yes call of jaurez came out in like 2005 but they were the two first two fps games i had to hand. for the sake of being contemporary and relevant i also downloaded a demo of destiny and tried them out on that as well.

overall, i found they did actually help. i did feel a lot more in control with the aiming, and they did make the whole experience smoother (this was the same on all three games so it wasn't anything to do with the quality of the game). one thing that really stood out was that the left noggin is particularly good for walking. you know, when you're trying to walk slowly up to a precipice or something (this happens a lot in call of juarez) and nudge the stick that little too much by mistake and your character breaks into a run and throws her/himself over the edge. well, this fixes that. accuracy is much easier and you can make much more subtle movements. after using them for a few days i started to wonder why joypads aren't built like this already?

oh, that's why. because playing anything else with them (like when my housemate and i went back to fable 3 for the first time in like a year so neither of us knows what's going on), is a bit annoying. but it's okay, because kontrolfreek have a whole range of accessories for different types of games! look, you can check them out here.

overall, i wouldn't call kontrolfreek accessories essential but they defintely work and they're reasonably priced. last week they started selling them in game so you can pick them up in there or get them from their website.

joshua

short films are usually very 'on the nose' when it comes to the visuals. if you only have 10-15 minutes to tell a story you want to tell it in as economic a way as possible. beginner filmmakers tend to tell the story through dialogue only and have the characters explain what we should be seeing, while more accomplished directors realise that film is a visual medium and tell the story with images. but it takes a certain level of talent and innovation to make a film that tells a story with what the audience doesn't see and doesn't hear.

for most of the film we don't see joshua's face; the camera lurks over his shoulder and the film cuts away every time we are about to catch a glimpse of what he looks like. similarly, joshua's narration bears seemingly no resemblence to what we're seeing, and doesn't really have any drive on the story. early conversations between joshua and his friend don't quite make sense at first, because we're not seeing the full picture. and then the film turns and we realise what the story is about and we realise what all those random moments were showing us and what joshua has been talking about the whole time. i don't want to reveal it here because the less you know about joshua going in the better, but it is pretty shocking.

what's great about this film is that the ending is not a random twist added onto a deliberately misleading narrative. on second viewing the intention and the direction of the story seem clear as day. and that's why the film works so well, because it hides it's dark secrets in plain sight. and in doing so and keeping the unimaginable horror of those unseen moments hidden away, the truth is even more jarring and disturbing that it otherwise would have been.

tim porter has done a fantastic job with joshua. it feels like it has been meticulously planned and worked out in order to deliver the story with maximum efficiency. the narrative style is a little difficult to get into at first but it needs to be. the film looks great too, and the central performances are fantastic. but don't take my word for it, you can watch the film right here...


Joshua from Tim Porter on Vimeo.