This is pretty much how it played out until one day I woke up with a copy of Borderlands in my hand, and a dead horse in my bed. I’m still trying to figure out where that copy of Borderlands came from.

Synopsis

The storyline to Borderlands is, at best, weak. Well, not weak, but straight-forward. You and your (potential) band of merry mercs are off to Pandora to find the legendary Vault. No one knows what’s in the Vault, but everyone wants whatever’s in it. You get to choose from one of 4 characters, all typical in nature:

Lilith the Siren

• Support class. Basically the ‘mage’.
• Bunch of self-preservation skills.
• A whole whack of alterations for her main ability.
• Uses the SMG mostly.

Mordechai the Hunter

• The sniper, or otherwise long-range character.
• Has a bird for his special ability that he can launch at enemies.
• Mildly psychotic sounding.
• Sniper rifles and pistols.

Roland the Soldier

• The all-rounder.
• Special ability is a deployable turret that can be upgraded to heal/replenish ammo.
• Decent balance between skills and health.
• Probably the best choice for solo play.
• Machine guns.

Brick the Berserker

• The wall of meat. Angry meat.
• Special ability turns him into a high-speed murder-machine, delivering justice and agony with his fists.
• Ability can be upgraded to replenish his health with every punch.
• Hilariously large in comparison to anyone else.
• Pistols and fists.

It doesn’t matter who you choose, the story remains the same. You basically have to go around fulfilling an unreasonable amount of quests for other people in order for you to reach your eventual goal: The Vault. I’m sure the different characters originally had more character behind them, but that ends up getting a bit lost throughout the game.

Gameplay

The gameplay is fairly standard fare for the shooter RPG series. You get guns, you point them at things and you riddle them with bullets. In reaction, the things you are trying to murder will then try and tear your face off. You have a health bar, a shield (which is like a health bar, but not nearly as resilient), up to 4 weapons, augmentable grenades, and your special skill. You run around the country side fulfilling quests and generally causing mayham.

Ironically a lot of the quests you complete are rather grey in nature, and not simply a good vs. bad. There’s no morality system in Borderlands, which is good because adding such a system would have ruined a lot of the fun that Borderlands brings to the table. There’s only so many midgets a game would let you get away with murdering before you’re character would either start to develop PTSD or at the very least an unhealthy gleam in their eye.  Thankfully Borderlands assumes you’re going to be murdering an unreasonable amount of people, so they just let you get on with it.

As you murder people, complete quests, and personal achievements (like shooting 100,000 bullets) you gain experience. This experience in turn levels your character up. When you level up, you get skill points. These points can be applied to a selection of trees that alter the way your character fights. Generally they are split into ‘special skill’, ‘combat’ and ‘support’. What actually resides in those trees changes completely from character to character. They allow you to augment your character to best suite your combat style.

Weapons are plentiful, and many of them feature a variety of alterations. Some have scopes, some have extended magazines, some are shotguns that shoot rockets, etc. etc. It isn’t uncommon in Borderlands to have what you thought was an amazing gun, only to toss it away 10 minutes later when a totally different but equally awesome one lands at your feet (fresh out of the hands of the bandit you just wrecked). You also have access to grenades that can be augmented to do a wide variety of entertaining and damaging things (MIRV is my personal favourite).

Oh and of course each of the playable character has their own special ability they can use to change the course of the fights.

Graphics

The graphics take on a sort-of-but-not-really-cell-shaded approach. People, guns, and cars seem to have a cell-shaded effect applied to them. You don’t really notice it unless you get right up into someone’s grill. At that point though, you are either taking advantage of the unintentionally funny dialogue that the NPCs spew out, or you’re too busy putting bullets into said persons grill.

The detail is surprisingly high, though in a weird surreal sort of way. Of course, the whole game is supposed to feel a bit other-worldy, so giant mushrooms and 100-story wind turbines only have to have so much thought put into their rendering.

The enemy and NPC designs are stylized, but it’s a style that works for the game. It really comes down to the little details that make the user designs. Badass psychopaths are beefed-up versions of their non baddass counterparts, but their one arm is shrivelled  up and tiny, making for a comical offset to the giant murder-ax that they’re swinging at your head. The different types of skags all have brilliant little details that separate one from another. As you go up the scale, they not only get bigger, but their armour changes, and they start to develop more ridges and their colours change.

The environmental effects that guns and certain enemies give off should be mentioned as well. With the slight set back of occasionally lagging out my Xbox when you have roughly a billion of these things going off around you, they make for far more interesting (and gratifying) combat situations. There’s nothing quite like watching an electrocuted enemy’s head explode to make you enjoy your work, or watching them turn to ash from the fire you turned them into.

Sounds

There isn’t much to say for the typical sounds. The music was an afterthought, not that you really notice it all that often. The guns sound like guns. The vehicles sound like vehicles, with revving engines and the like. Where the sounds really shine is in the actual voice acting. The scripts they got people to read from had to have raised some eyebrows. phrases like “You gonna squeal before we fuck ya?” are thrown around with nigh-reckless abandon.

The scripting for the main characters (that is, not your character, but the main ones you interact with) is quite good, and in many cases quite funny. Anything that comes out of Tannis’ mouth is always worth waiting around to listen to.

Your own characters are pared back to a couple of reactive statements. When you stand around for a while, find some loot (awesome or otherwise), spawn a vehicle, etc. These sorts of actions will reward you with a passing phrase. That’s it though. Borderlands takes what I call the ‘Legend of Legia‘ approach to conversations, wherein you never actually say anything, but your actions apparently handle all the gabbing for you.

Issues

Two things really got me about Borderlands. The first is that the vehicles all perform as if on ice. And the driver is severely impaired. And the developers that made the physics engines just gave up on life half way through the vehicle portion. Your control is spotty, and it’s surprisingly easy to wedge your car into invisible barriers or walls or other cars, which results in you having to get out and punch your car back onto the ground. It can get pretty annoying in a multiplayer game when your partners have cars and decide to be dicks and just drive into you which results in both cars getting stuck.

Fun times.

The other is a mild annoyance with your character and their general excitement whenever you open a chest. They say things like ‘This is amazing‘ or ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before!‘ But you know what? You fucking have seen things like this before. Like a million goddamned times. You see a lot of guns. statements like ‘This is amazing’ should be reserved for weaponry that is actually amazing. At the very least something on par with your current equipment.

It’d be so much better to be a high level player, open a box, and have your character spout something like ‘Well this is useless’ or ‘More junk for the shops’ or even ‘What the fuck is this? They actually put this in a chest? Assholes!’ I would love for my character to become more jaded the higher level they became.

Extra Goodies

If you invest your time into Borderlands, and enjoy the overall environment, might I suggest you invest some more money and pick up any or all of the expansions? They add an easy 10 hours of gameplay to the game per DLC, and the writing in them tends to be as good, if not better than the originals.

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned

Not Dr. Zed. Dr. Zed, his evil brother. Seriously. The moustache is totally convincing. This one is your typical Zombie expansion. You have to aim for the head, corrosive and electric weaponry don’t work very well, and you will get swarmed. Lots of fun, and probably one of the funniest DLCs in terms of writing.

Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot

This expansion features arena battles. Basically an endurance run regardless of how many players you have in the arena. The point of this one is to go rounds with the local folk and try not to die. This gets harder the longer you stay in the arenas. Basically get this one if you’ve done everything else and you hate yourself just a little bit.

The Secret Armory of Generall Knoxx

Remember how much fun fighting the Crimson Lance was in the original Borderlands? No? Annoying as shit you say? Well get ready to do that all over again, but more! This expansion brings in a bunch of new vehicles (oh boy.) and pits you against the Crimson Lance for most of it. It also comes with a secret extra boss that you have to be level 60 or so to even attempt.

Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution

Easily has the best writing of the DLCs. This one features Claptraps revolting against their masters, and your job revolves around stopping them. As an added bonus the local populace becomes assimilated by the Claptraps, which results in some weird-looking enemies that say things like ‘please just let me die‘ and ‘come with me if you want to die.‘ Oh, and you get to shoot Claptraps. A lot of them. And they drop panties that you can collect for achievements. Yup.

Overall

It took me a little while to fall in love with Borderlands, but in the end it’s been the one game in my collection that has utterly succeeded in its ROI. It’s legitimately entertaining, doesn’t really lull that much, and has a great selection of DLCs that all feature game mechanics that will appeal to everyone.

8/10

Yeah, I didn’t really stand a chance.

Synopsis

So the story of Professor Layon and the Diabolical Box starts off pretty much where we ended last time. I assume no more than a month has passed between stories. This isn’t important, I’m just giving context here.

Anyways, the Professor and Luke are sent a message from one of the Professors old friends. Said letter contains the friend’s ramblings about getting his hands on something called the Elysian Box. This box is said to kill any person who opens it. Of course the friend opened said box, and no one has heard from him since.

The Professor and Luke go to investigate, where the find their friend prone on the ground. After some additional investigation, the Professor and Luke make for an elaborate train that their old friend had a ticket to. The story gets decidedly more messed up from that point on.

Oh and of course you are solving puzzles pretty much from the get go.

Mechanics

Very little has changed, in terms of basic game mechanics. You still tap your way around the map looking for hidden Hint Coins (a currency used to buy hints to puzzles that have you flummoxed) and hidden puzzles. You have to solve puzzles to progress throughout the story, and there are points when you need to solve a certain amount of puzzles in order to progress.

There are three mini-games built in which I shall quickly go over:

• Broken Camera: Within the story you are given the task of repairing a camera. This involves finding the pieces, and then assembling them all so that everything fits within the frame of the camera. This isn’t as hard as you’d think so long as you look at it practically. The flash goes in the flash area, the plunger goes in the plunger area, and the lens goes in the lens area.Once you have built the camera, you can take photos of certain areas and have a most fun/infuriating time spotting the three differences between them. Succeeding in this usually results in being able to find yourself a hidden puzzle.
• Fat Hamster: You are given the task of getting a rather obnoxious and impressively obese hamster into shape. You are given a selection of hamster toys throughout the story which you can use to make the hamster run to. Getting him to run to enough things, lowers his weight. When you get him to a rank of 0 (in shape) he returns the favor by obnoxiously pointing out the location of hidden coins on the screens your traverse.
• Magic Tea Set: The magic tea set is given to you by an old woman after completing a set of puzzles from her. The idea of the tea set is to create 12 teas using a variety of ingredients that you pick up along your travels. But what is the point of making tea if not to share them with people?This comes to the second part of the game: helping others. Throughout the game, you will come across people who appear to be sweating. Approaching them at this point will give you a dialogue where you have to give them a tea that will meet their requirements. This can be a total pain in the ass if you screw up, because you’ll have to go back and forth to that screen until they’re sweating again so that you can have another shot.

Other than that, the game plays out pretty much identically as the previous installment. The puzzles will ask you to circle, draw lines, or input a number. Or slide things. Lets not forget the God-forsaken slider puzzles. There are enough of those to make you hate your life, I can assure you.

Oh, and yes, there are secret doors in the Bonus puzzle rooms. No I have not opened any because my girlfriend happened to save over my completed game from the first game. That means no code which means no secret doors for me. I know what’s behind them, but I’m not telling.

Words from the Wise

There isn’t really too much I can give in terms of advice. I’m not going to answer any riddles here, so if you’re looking for those, you’ll have to try somewhere else. Having said that, here are some things you can do to make your life a little easier.

• Tap everywhere. You never know where puzzles or hint coins are located. The hamster won’t show up every time, so be thorough. Beyond that, the hamster won’t point out puzzles, so you’ll have to scrounge for those yourself.
• Think hard before you answer. I can’t tell you how many times I lost points because I was impulsive with my answer. Just take a beat and think about your answer before you click that submit button.
• Don’t be afraid to use hint coins. They’re there for a reason. Sure you may want to man through it and not use any, but that doesn’t make your awesome, it wastes your time on stupid puzzles that could be solved much quicker if you just took a hint.
• Don’t feel bad about cheating. I did it, and I don’t feel bad. There are some puzzles that will blow your mind way open, and as such it will simply be beyond you to answer them. I cheated on most of the sliding puzzles, and one or two math ones. I don’t feel bad because after putting in 1000+ moves into each slider puzzle, I decided to bow out and let the Internet guide me. As for the math questions? Well when you have to make a Quadratic Equation just to figure something out? Go fuck yourself. I signed up for riddles, not math.

Overall

The writing, voice acting, and overall story was fantastically. The puzzles were, overall, enjoyable and gave my brain a workout. Having said that, slider puzzles and complex math questions can all go die in a fire. I’m aware that they’re concepts and cannot die in a physical fire. I can still wish for the concepts to die in a conceptual fire. Other than those, the rest of the puzzles were pretty solid.

The music was well done. Hell I’d go so far as to say that the music in this one was far better than the last game. The artwork was top notch, and it translated perfectly into the videos. Even the CG used in the videos was some of the best I’ve seen when blending CG and animation.

The story was odd, border-line cryptic, and had all the little details that really made the story come together. If you can take the extra time to talk to everyone in the game, you’ll get a much better understanding of what’s going on and gain a much better understanding of the depth to which the writers actually went.

All in all, it’s an enjoy able game and it’s a good way to kill 30 hours of time.

8/10

Writern Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, 500 Days of Summer is shockingly not about global warming. No, the story revolves around two people: Tom Hansen (played by the under-rated Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (played by equally under-rated Zooey Deschanel). Two people who met almost by chance, talked, dated, broke up, met again, and all the highs and lows that happen throughout.

Tom works at a greeting card company, where he thinks up slogans for the company, and prototypes cards. Summer comes into the company as the bosses new assistant. Though Tom tries to fight it, he is drawn to Summer for reasons he can’t explain. You see Tom has always believed in “the one” and felt quite certain that Summer was it. Summer on the other hand doesn’t really believe in boyfriends or any of that “fate” stuff.

Tom falls in love.

Summer doesn’t.

Within the first five minutes, you are introduced to every major character, and thrown right into the darkest part of the film. 2 minutes after that, you are thrown into the lightest part. It’s almost mind-boggling, but it holds itself together beautifully.

What I Liked

I am a huge fan of how this film was shot. amazingly simple yet strong shots really helped bring home. simple things like Tom on the Bus, freaking out about the song on his iPod, to he and Summer sitting in the Diner at the start of the movie, to the single best example of a movie breaking into a full-out choreographed song and dance number. Everything about the filmography had me, director Marc Webb does nothing less than stellar in the direction of this movie. The transitioning between scenes gave it an almost Tarantino feel, except for you know what the hell is going on. I loved the subtle use of colours and foliage changing that was a small foreshadow of how the next scene was going to play out.

I loved loved loved the use of typography in this movie. Now sadly, I’m not so much of a typophile to be able to tell you what font specifically was used, but I know it’s one I’ve seen, and it worked so very well for this movie. The transitioning between days was made that much better by the simple numeric counter that was featured (in said font, of course).

And lets not forget the music. From the Smiths to Feist, this movie ranges all over the place. What really impressed me though was how well the music actually went with each scene. Some of the musical choices might have been considered a little out of the way, but they really helped bring in the subtly of feeling that the audience needed. The soundtrack to this movie will be getting into my iTunes one way or the other, I can assure you of that.

I’m also going to give a shout out to whoever built the sets and/or found the locations to do the shots. There are some stunning locations in that movie. So much so that it made me want to crawl into the movie just so I could look around in wonder.

What I Disliked

Though I love Matthew Gray Gubler, his use in this movie was woefully contrived. He was quite literally “the friend” that you needed to fill in scenes or to say specific lines. His character, though enjoyable, was one-dimensional, and little was done to really add to it. His one moving line was too little too late to save the character.

The ending. Or, at least I should say the near ending. When Tom and Summer meet up and talk about what’s happened to them, I felt a little annoyed that Tom let Summer get off so lightly. Maybe I’m just a bitter person, but I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have been as big of a man.

Oh wait, yes, the actual ending. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but the name choice at the end of the film. Really? You actually went for that? Not even the least bit ashamed at the contrived selection? No? Well you should be.

Overall

I am a big fan of this movie. I may even pick up the DVD and add it to my very small pile of “DVDs I Can Be Snobby About Because I Love Them So Much” That’s right, I have that pile, and I am snobby about the movies in it. Don’t get me started on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we’ll be here for a while.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth the drive and the money. I would know, as I am a semi-extreme case. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s simple yet complex. It’s everything I wanted out of a movie, and it was delivered to me in spades.

P.S. Thank you 500 Days of Summer for not using Hand-drawn block text for your movie. There seems to be a trend with indie films and that damned font-face.

8.5/10

Recently, I found an all-classical FM station broadcasting out of Toronto that I can actually listen to in Brantford, Cambridge, and Kitchener-Waterloo. This may not sound like anything impressive – who even listens to FM radio anymore – but if you have ever tried to listen to Toronto-based radio in those areas, you would know what I’m talking about. There is something about this strip of land that just destroys radio signals.

Regardless, since I’ve found this station, I have yet to change it back to the others that I listen to. Classical 96.3FM does an amazing job of not only featuring brilliant classical music, past and present, but also features spots like “Sunday night at the Opera”, “The Greatest Music Of All Time…” and spoken poetry. How can you not love this?

Though I feel their website could use a little information architecture – It’s rather busy and cramped in some places- they offer a surprising amount of content for a radio station website. They have an online listening section as the Internet radio is all the rage now, and even the “What Was That Piece” list: a minute to minute feature of every song they’ve played throughout the day and the entire week previous.

I must also mention that though they play the typical classical music, they also feature some fantastic choice music, moving opera pieces, and even arrangements from movies (Lord of the Rings, Forest Gump, and Star Trek to name a few). I actually got home and sat in my car for an additional 6 minutes to listen to the end of Misere Me, Deus by Gregorio Allegri, a moving choir piece. The best part is that I have no idea who that is yet, but thanks to the station and their website, I can find out.

If you’re in the mood for some audible culture, Classical 96.3FM is a station to tune into. If you aren’t in the Toronto area, attach yourself to their Internet radio player.

P.S. be warned: All of the personallities they have working there can hypnotise you with their voice. Every damned one.

To start, I want to say that I’m going to avoid explaining  Evil Dead The Musical is so chalked full of tribute lines that it’s a little impressive that they got some of them in. I admit that one or two of them feel a little forced, overall they had excellent delivery and got great crowd reactions. The Dialogue was pretty solid throughout the entire play, and true to the movie there were so many bad puns and plays on words that it was killing my a little on the inside.

This killing was in the best way possible, of course.

Ryan Ward does an almost creepy job of emulating Bruce Campbell while at the same time giving the role his own touch. He delivers the 12 gauge S-Mart speech so well that everyone who knew it were saying it along with him. Truly fantastic. The rest of the cast do a great job of bringing the show to life, and without them the show probably wouldn’t have been nearly as good as it was. Special mention has to be given to Tenja Hagenberg and Mike Nahrgang for standing out and nearly stealing the show with such solid acting. Truly fantastic.

The songs were, quite frankly, rather rude. I’m not complaining about it as I tend to swear more than your average sailor. The singing was entertaining, on key, and far better than I was expecting. The sound in the Diesel Playhouse really helped make the experience that much better. When you have song titles like: “Stupid Bitch”, “What the Fuck was That?”, “All the Men in my Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons”, and “Ode to an Accidental Stabbing” you know you’re in for a good show.

I have to give special mention to the props, or a lack therein. The sparcity of the props really made for an interesting performance, and really puts the pressure on the actors to deliver a strong show. The props played a subtle but important role by accenting everyones work. Especially the blood.

There was a lot of blood.

Let me take a moment to explain the ‘Splatter Zone.’ If you are sitting in the splatter zone, you will get soaked in faux-blood. They even hand out poncos to people who want them. The blood they use apparently washes out easily, but somehow still smells exactly like blood. It sorta freaked me out when I smelt it and I wasn’t even in the zone. The Splatter Zone was also completely sold out when I went to purchase tickets, though you do pay a premium to be there. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure it would have been totally worth it.

I was so entertained by the show, I and emplore everyone to go and see it. The show ends September 6th of this year, so get out and see it. For twenty bucks, you can’t go wrong.

8/10

As for some technical things, I made this design using a grid, 980 to be precise. the design itself is actually, 940 pixels wide, though that’s because my fireworks file has a 20 pixel gutter on the sides, which you can’t really notice in this design.

I only use one font throughout the entire site (Arial). This is usually a bit of a no-no but I went with it, and made sure that all my headings were differentiated from the content. I also made sure my line-spacing was tall enough so that the body text didn’t become hard to read.

I’ve moved most of my former pages into lists found in the footer. I decided that this website was about what I write, and so having those extra pages wasn’t worth it, nor are they main focus of this site.

The left bar is widget-driven, with the exception of the calendar which is always there.

The top four panels will change the site’s colours using jQuery.

Now for things that I know are messed up:

1. PNGImages seem to be resizing weird in ie6. Seems to have something to do with the pngFix jQuery library I’m using. I will be looking into this.
2. The Left nav can over-lap the footer on ie6. I’m not fixing this because I’m sick of ie6, and I had to make enough concessions in my design just to make it work. As far as I’m concerned it’s a hit I’m willing to take. Upgrade people.
3. The resume and portfolio links go to a coming soon page (my next projects)
4. Old posts have some content repeated. This is due to my taking advantage of the Excerpt in this design more than the old one. I’ve got to go back through the old posts and update them. Not looking forward to it.
5. Some posts contain images that mess the layout up. Once again I’ve got to go through those posts and update the sizes. As I’m using a smaller content column, I’ve got to update all those posts. Also not looking forward to that.
6. I’ve still got to test it, but I think there could be a bug with the OpenID plugin with this layout. (comment section)
7. When logged in ie7 (only) the Submit button for comments is behind the text box.

And with this out of the way, we’ll see how my schedule adjusts.

P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.

Flowers for Algernon is a heart-aching story about a Charlie, a mentally-handicapped 32 year-old man who wants to be smart. He can read and write, and works hard to learn so that he can become smart so people will like him. He works are Donners bakery where Mr. Donner gives him 11 dollars a week plus all the food he wants. When approached with the opportunity of a lifetime – the chance to be made smart intelligent – he feels that his ship has come in. He takes the opportunity and is given a second chance at life, becoming smarter by the day.

His intelligence eventually surpasses that of the scientists that granted him the chance, and he starts to understand the world in a way no one else can. He is eventually ostracized due to his high intelligence, and he finds that he is now more lonely than he was before the operation. Sadly, when Alergnon, a lab mouse that had the same operation done to him, suddenly deteriorates, George is struck with the fact that the same could very well happen to him.

I didn’t know what to make of this book at the beginning. The writing was childish and hard to read, riddled with typos and horrible spelling. In many cases it reminded me of the recent LOLCats Internet meme. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it, you don’t want to know. I was drawn in though, and the transition between sub-standard intelligence to brilliance happened so naturally that I didn’t even notice.

The novel then follows Charlie as his intellect explodes, and his emotional self tries to catch up. In many ways it reads like someone who’s growing up at an exceptional rate. Daniel Keyes does a fantastic job of getting across the pain and trails that Charlie has to go through. The only thing that really irritated me was the involvement of alcohol, and the weird side-effects that is left in its wake. I know that it was a required plot-device, but he could have just left the one incident.

Reading about Charlie’s eventual mental demise and knowing that he can do nothing to stop it is heart-breaking. You watch as he tries desperately to continue reading in hopes that he can retain some of his knowledge. You see how the woman he loves is pushed away for her own good, despite the obvious pain on both parts. Charlie starts to lash out at the world for reasons he doesn’t understand, because he has no other outlet. He becomes frustrated and angry at himself, and it only becomes worse as the deterioration continues.

The novel really makes you take a hard look at your own life and take stock of what you really have. We see a man who had so little given the entire world, only to watch as it is slowly taken away from him. It also points out that though mentally-handicapped people may not have the intelligence of the average person, that are still people that should be treated with love and respect. A lot of important questions and observations are made in this book, and considering it was written in 1959 (the original short story) I’m impressed with how many social norms were brought into question. It isn’t shocking to know that this book has been and is continually banned in places across the world. The truth can be a harsh light, and not everyone wants to look right at it.

I’m glad I had the chance to read this, and I’d read it again in a heartbeat. I’m 42 years past it’s original release date, but it’s still topical.

8.5/10

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is a recluse who, as recluses tend to do, hides himself from the world. He shuns the advances of a girl from work (Kelli Garner), and avoids any sort of situation (i.e., breakfast) with anyone. After a bit of a confrontation with his sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer), he gets a Real Doll, Bianca, from the web and claims he “met her on the internet”. She is wheelchair-bound, but very sweet. Lars treats her like she’s completely real and the town decides to go along with it to help Lars through whatever psychological delusion he is having. As a result the whole town bonds with Bianca, and helps Lars come to terms with how the world works.

And no, he doesn’t sleep with Bianca.

I found it surprisingly entertaining, though a bit run of the mill. I saw everything coming before it happened including the ending. I’m not saying that’s bad by any means because it was a very sweet movie, and made me smile for a good while after watching it. It’s just a nice movie to watch, especially when you’re feeling a bit of a recluse yourself.

It has a strong feeling of coming of age, but by throwing it through such a different light it allows you to appreciate it without having the cast all 28-year-olds pretending they’re 17 at the prom. There are deeper moral lessons to be found within the film, if you’re willing to look for them; the largest and most prominent is the idea that you should help those you love, regardless of what that means. There is a scene where Gus and Karin argue about going along with the Real Doll that I just have to quote here:

Lars Lindstrom: You don’t care.
Karin: We don’t care? We do care!
Lars Lindstrom: No you don’t.
Karin: That is just not true! God! Every person in this town bends over backward to make Bianca feel at home. Why do you think she has so many places to go and so much to do? Huh? Huh? Because of you! Because – all these people – love you! We push her wheelchair. We drive her to work. We drive her home. We wash her. We dress her. We get her up, and put her to bed. We carry her. And she is not petite, Lars. Bianca is a big, big girl! None of this is easy – for any of us – but we do it… Oh! We do it for you! So don’t you dare tell me how we don’t care.
[walks into house and slams door]

Something about this scene just touched me. It’s so strong and so honest that it endeared me to Karin for the rest of the movie.

The music (and in many scenes the stark lack of) was amazing, and I’m trying to get my grubby little hands on it. It’s been a while since I’ve seen music that suits a movie so well. Ryan Gosling gives an admirable performance as Lars, and kudos must also go to Karin, his sister-in-law. The cinematography was top notch considering one of the actors wasn’t even real. Despite this setback, scenes are still filled with the emotion needed to carry it through with flying colours.

I have to complain about two things. The first is the rest of the cast: everyone else seems very cookie cutter. The older brother who snorts at the idea of his brother having a delusion; The awkward-cute girl that likes Lars; the work pervert; the black girl; the knitting circle; etc. Lars and Karin are the only two characters with any real character. My second annoyance is with the multiple instances of montages. At least four happen throughout the film, and I couldn’t help but let it bug me.

Watch this movie. It won’t win any awards, but it’s a solid movie from every aspect. Good story, great acting, fantastic music, and a warm fuzzy moral in the end.

7.5/10

It’s silly, I know, but I have a problem with brain teasers. I can’t put them down without getting really angry at myself for giving up. I will constantly think about the problem until I’ve answered it. It’s really quite unhealthy. So what do you think happens when I come across a game like Professor Layton and the Curious Village?

I lose sleep.

I will finish a puzzle, and then say to myself “just one more, it wont take long.” Next thing I know it’s 1 in the morning and I’m still feverishly solving mind-benders. I find my waking thoughts drifting back to the unsolved puzzles trying to work them out. I obsess over the words, searching for secret meanings and obtuse angles.

I love this game.

It’s one of the first games I’ve played for the DS that actually requires that you use the stylus instead of having it as a novelty. It’s direction, if a bit linear and predictable, is solid and well-written. The music and artistry throughout the game is top notch, and it even has voice acting that doesn’t suffer from Shatner syndrome or make me want to claw my ears off with rusty serving forks.

The story goes thusly: Professor Layton and his sidekick receive a letter in the mail from a duchess requesting his puzzle-solving abilities. When hey arrive, they are told that there is a golden apple hidden away somewhere in the city, along with a huge treasure store. If the Professor can find it, he’d be entitled to a cut, and thought of as a hero. Shortly after this knowledge is revealed, a murder takes place, and the Professor takes it upon himself to solve the mystery of the golden apple as well as the murder. In fact there are 10 mysteries overall that are solved by playing through the story.

Oh, did I mention that everyone in the village is obsessed with puzzles, and will prompt you to solve them with little care for whether you actually would like to or not? Yeah, that happens a lot.

My biggest problem with the game is that it’s so linear it hurts. In order for you to miss puzzles (which you can always access in the puzzle hut – don’t ask – later) all you have to do is go to every screen and talk to every person until they repeat themselves. You have to do this after every Chapter.

Actually now that I think about it, the most annoying part of the game is any of the “hidden” things, because they all require you to tap the screen like a retard, searching for that one magical pixel that will reveal unto you a coin or puzzle. It almost isn’t worth it in the end, except that you NEED coins for some puzzles simply because they are just so obtuse that logic just doesn’t really apply.

Other than that, this game is great. It’s solid from start to finish in its delivery, its novelty, its sound, and its visuals. The story is a little kiddish for me, but the exceptionally difficult puzzles (few and far between, but good God they’re there) help balance it all out. Seriously, if grade six kids can figure all these puzzles out (the script and average puzzle difficulty lands around there) they deserve a prize. I spent hours on a couple of those damned things.

I suggest picking it up and playing through it. You’ll kill time and increase brain activity by solving puzzles, you’ll be entertained, and you’ll even have some intrigue throughout the entire story. It also has a great scene involving a ferris wheel that made me laugh more than it probably should have.

8/10

Track Listing:

1. Go To Hell**
2. Decimate
3. I’m Alright Now**
4. Song For The Road**
5. Train
6. St. Peter**
7. Nobody Tells Me What To Do
8. Requiem
9. … And So You Fell**

**Clear Favorites

This man feels the music, the likes of which I haven’t seen in a good long while. His music was heart-felt and well composed. Even when he did his song “State of the Union” which was more of a spoken poem and performance art, he obviously felt his music.

As a result, Songs for the Road is a solid album, though I wouldn’t class it as Indie, despite what iTunes tells me. Easy listening is closer to the truth, but I can assure you that the tracks will swing between calm and relaxing to bouncy to depressing with little regard for your personal feelings at the time of listening. As a lot of the music is done by him alone life, the alum is similarly toned down. Many of the tracks have nothing more than a guitar and a piano, though few feature violins and if I’m not mistaken in at least one instance a cello. His voice is enjoyable to listen to and his accent actually penetrates which is rare for English singers. I don’t know why but many English artists tend to lose their accent when they sing.

The album takes a couple listens to really get into, though I picked my favorites fairly quickly. I can appreciate the other tracks – Decimate sounds like it should be at the start or end of a sitcom – more for their lyrics, even when I feel that the music doesn’t suit my personal tastes. All of the tracks have obvious thought put into their message which really elevates them amongst many of the mainstream “heart” songs that are out on the top 40.

The whole album is a little moody, though that falls right in character with David Ford himself. The result is that you will either like where he’s coming from, or think he’s trash. I love him.

7/10