2013 - My Year in Books and Movies (and Games)

Finished a trilogy? Sans Ewoks? Gasp!

Lest someone accuse me of not posting often enough on my blog, or (zounds!) of ignoring it for several months at a time, as I have patently done, here is the obligatory, self-aggrandizing, and, rather fun ritual of writing up the best of all the books and movies that I have read this year.

Because I completed a Goodreads 2013 book challenge of reading 50 books, I'll start with the books, and then (because I haven't watched nearly enough movies this year) I'll come around to films. (Plus, I'd already written up the books bit)

I'll also deal with video games in this post - but that one's easy to recap right away. Like literally in the next 100 words: Game of the Year's a tie between Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Short list! (Yeah, I'll write up a review of AC4 once I'm done playing that vast open world. Ask me again in 2015 if I'm done!). Onwards...

Confession of a Book-Shopaholic

Forgive me, for I have sinned. I have always been a hoarder, and have often been called a great beginner and a lousy finisher. This, however, goes beyond the pale of even the depths that I could imagine sinking to. I have 40 books lying around the house that I paid for, but haven't read. My face - it is far too unworthy to be palmed.

Here's how it works: a book piques my interest, so I pick it up. Used to be, I bought compulsively in bookstores - these days, the Kindle and its squadron of cross-platform apps makes it easy to buy books impulsively and compulsively. Once picked up, if the book doesn't immediately grab me, or if my busy life intrudes, I tell myself I'll put them on a shelf just there. I promise to come back to them eventually. Turns out, I don't very often...

To find 40 abandoned or unread, definitely neglected books on my physical and virtual shelves was, as you can imagine, a deep shock. This then, is a public shaming (or as indirectly public as I dare make it). Let me regale you with the tale of how I got here, how I discovered my problem, and what I intend to do about it...

Sunrise, Sunset, Midnight

An American man called Jesse meets a French woman called Celine on a train in 1994, they spend a night walking around Vienna, fall in love a little 'Before Sunrise'. They part wistfully, agreeing to meet again a year from the day, and the last haunting glimpse we have of them is them smiling - perhaps at how silly that idea seems... Nine years later, Jesse has written a book about that day, and Celine walks into a book signing event in a quaint Parisian bookshop. They spend the time 'Before Sunset' walking around Paris, before Jesse has to catch a flight back to the States. They leave you, the viewer, wondering if at the end of that evening Jesse boards his flight back, or actually stays...

The latter apparently, because here they are, vacationing in Greece as a family another nine years later, and spending an all too rare date night away from real life and its cares and concerns. Or perhaps not, because although in keeping with the tradition of this brilliant now-trilogy of movies, 'nothing happens' - a lot does happen 'Before Midnight'...

Now let me say up-front that I'm an unabashed fan-boy of this phenomenon that Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy have so lovingly crafted. I've been dying to watch this movie for some time now - so I'm saying this is not a review. This is a rave, a reaction, a salute; one last, longing look at the swirls of chocolate mousse still in the bowl when you know you cannot possibly eat a lick more... this is the satisfied burp that tells you, oh no, you're too full!

Anyone that calls themselves a cinephile or a romantic must needs find a way to watch this movie; if you haven't yet watched the first two entries in the 'series', I'd suggest you watch those first. I suppose this movie stands well enough alone, but watching the first two movies will give it an extra dose of magic. I for one couldn't imagine watching this movie and not the others; or for that matter write about this latest movie without referencing the prior ones - yes, this will be a long post.

I shall do my utmost to avoid spoilers. That said, the fact that the movie exists is itself a spoiler for the end of the second movie, and some of the 'plot' has been revealed in the trailers, so those bits I will reference. And all of that is below the fold...

Game of the Year - Tomb Raider (2013)

I've played 7 out of the 10 Tomb Raider games that have come out since 1996, and across platforms (PC, Wii, and now, Xbox) - I only skipped 5, 6, and Anniversary. And before I played the new reboot of Tomb Raider that came out last month, I was one of those people that pined for the good old days of Tomb Raider 2's tigers and Venetian canals.

That has changed. Crystal Dynamics have made a reboot that rivals any reboot in any media (yes, including Batman Begins), and not only is it my favorite Tomb Raider ever, it is also my favorite game this year (so far), and it works as a remix of Indiana Jones, Lost, and your favorite FPS...

To me, this beats Assassin's Creed III at its own.... uh... game. It features better storytelling, equally good combat/ free-running, and amazing puzzles and exploration elements, all in a somewhat smaller world-size. AC better watch out, because Lara even has her own Eagle Vision now!

I started writing this post on Google+ and switched over to the blog as my raving grew in length. I now realize this is the first game I'm actually blogging about. How about that? Well it is a deserving one, that easily deserves a 9 on a scale of 10. Here's why...

Man of Tomorrow - Today

You will believe...

When Richard Donner made "Superman" in 1978, the tag-line was "You will believe a man can fly". Although Star Wars had only just come out, and Krypton could be pronounced as "CRIP-tun" by half your characters (instead of CRIP-taun) without a Reddit-y uproar, it was necessary to reassure the audience this was just a man, not an alien from another world. That world therefore had to be a pristine, crystalline, neon-lit, but ultimately sterile place backed up by the gravitas that Don Corleone brought to it.

Superman could be - had to be - the blue eyed, red-brief-on-the-outside wearing Nietzschean hero who (Fascist undertones notwithstanding) would be a bewildered Kansan in a big city that fights for 'truth, justice, and the American way'. The meanest villain imaginable for Superman in this Cold War era was nuclear weapons gone rogue, and no one took a super-hero seriously, so it was OK to reverse the Earth's spin and turn back time and for Lex Luthor to be a bumbling criminal genius with a real estate fetish...

Actually corniness was not something to be frowned at - it was a prerequisite! One of the iconic funny exchanges I remember from the movie is this mid-air snippet from when Superman saved Lois Lane as she fell out of a helicopter and off a building:

SUPERMAN: Don't worry miss, I've got you!
LOIS (hysterical): You've got me..? Who's got YOU?!

A trustworthy alien?

Fast forward 35 years and audiences no longer have trouble believing a man can fly! We've seen Neo go off and "do the Superman thing" in the Matrix movies. The Avengers have fought as a team to ward off an invasion of Earth. Alternate worlds have come alive, fully fleshed out, in their grime and bile as much as their radiance, in everything from Avatar to Game of Thrones. Zod can no longer be a promise made for a sequel in the era of instant gratification.

We leave rogue nukes for mortals like Jack Bauer to handle these days, and even cartoon fiction like 'Ben 10' is deadly serious about the origin tale, and has little tolerance for corniness. Comic books, and movies based on them, are acceptable and mainstream enough that critics spend time debating what the Joker (from The Dark Knight) represents in a post-9/11 era...

This is the perilous airstrip on which lands Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel". I thought it does the job of bringing Superman to the post-modern era well, while faltering just a little... I am not much of a star-giving reviewer, especially when the movie is about source material that I am so invested in - but if I had to, I'd give this a 3 out of 5. Let me explain why...