King of California (2007)

Ever hear that saying about the fine line between insanity and genius? Well, King of California is themed around that old statement. It stars Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood.

Douglas plays Charlie, a bipolar patient that after a two year stay at an inpatient psychiatric facility is discharged back into the world. Sufferers of bipolar disease often exhibit grandiose ideas, and poor impulse control (at least in the manic phase). While he may not be a danger to self or others, and hence not need to be in the hospital, let's say that his disease is hardly cured. Shouldering much of the burden is his daughter, Miranda ( played by Wood). With the absence of her father, she had a lot of growing up to do quickly, and supported herself by working double shifts at the local Mickey D's despite being a minor. With her father back on her doorstep, her burden only increases, and the theme of who is really the adult here runs throughout this film.

The plot of King of California focuses on Charlie's latest "big idea" that he came up with while he was in the hospital from their library and the internet. He is hot on the trail to buried Spanish treasure left by a missionary Monk back in the 1600's, a Father Torres. While he has no money, there's no stopping Charlie as he buys a GPS unit, a metal detector, and even rents a backhoe for the big dig. Hot on the trail, the landscape of California has changed a little bit in the last three centuries, and he thinks that the buried treasure is smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood's Costco of all places. With a singularity of purpose, he plunges ahead towards the truth, as pictured in the image below.

The King of California has much going for it. For starters, the acting performances were well done. I don't know if Douglas spent time observing mental patients, but I believed that he was manic for most of the film. The flashbacks, unlike in many films, were also well done, appropriately inserted (with cues to make it obvious it was a flashback), and adds to the depth of the characters, and their unusual father-daughter relationship. The overall plot of chasing down a treasure is also engaging, and kept my attention throughout.

The part where this film stumbles is the end. It kind of feels like a song on the radio turned off midway, rather than ending on a strong major chord. While we do get answers on the treasure, and the veracity of Charlie's delusion, somehow it felt less than satisfying. Even given the lackluster ending, I can still recommend King of California to those looking for something a few magnitudes away from the mundane, and a good character study on bipolar disease.

Overall Grade: B+

Reviewed by Jonas

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman (2006)

Neil Gaiman is an eclectic writer, and this collection of short works illustrates his range. There are over thirty pieces in Fragile Things, fairly evenly split between poetry and short stories with a novella tossed in at the end. As is the case with large and eccentric collections, not everything will be to everyone's taste, but there will probably be something in the book for everyone.

Overall, the poetry is a little weak. Gaiman is a very evocative writer and while the poetry certainly has mood, it rarely seems to do much beyond setting a mood. Gaiman's great strength lies in plotting and in bringing mythology (or Ur-mythology) into a contemporary setting. Poetry is not a form which is conducive to elaborate, tight plotting; the poems, therefore, do not play to Gaiman's strengths.

The short stories are, on the whole, better than the poems. They run the gamut from pretty good to quite exceptional with side trips into funny on one side and disturbing on the other. The two best short stories in the book exemplify this. Harlequin Valentine is disturbing and excellent, while Sunbird is funny and excellent. Both have those elements of modernizing fantasy and myth that Gaiman does so well. A Study in Emerald is also quite good; it is a mishmash of Lovecraftian Cthulhu mythos and a Sherlock Holmes story and works well.

The final entry in the book is The Monarch of the Glen, a novella which revisits the world of American Gods. It is one of the best, if not the best, things in the book, showcasing everything Gaiman does well. Interesting characters, tight plotting, wonderful slightly odd settings and resonant images from old stories (in this case bits of Beowulf among others) transplanted into the 21st century with such skill that they do not seem out of place at all.

As I mentioned, such a diverse book is almost guaranteed to have some hits and some misses. There are more hits than misses in Fragile Things and several of the hits are bullseyes. For completists, it's a must have, for those unfamiliar with Gaiman's work, it would be a good way to get a sample of his various styles and some pointers toward further reading.

Overall Grade: B+ (with a few B-'s and a couple of A+'s)

Corvus Corax, Venus Vina Musica (Noir Records, 2006)

The eccentric German Medieval band Corvus Corax first got my attention a couple of years ago when a compilation of their first decade of music, called Best of Corvus Corax, became their debut American release. The songs the band performs may be meticulously researched from or inspired by ancient (mostly Latin) texts, but their arrangements, mostly featuring an army of bagpipes backed by a barrage of drums, are designed to maximize the energy and mayhem. Their latest album, called Venus Vina Musica, was released in the fall of 2006.

The album begins rather somberly, with a short Latin dirge titled "Anti Dolores Capitis," featuring some deep, infernal chanting at the end. Then the frenzy kicks in with the title track, which I'm guessing is a celebration of wine, women, and song. Most of the songs and instrumentals follow in a similar vein, but the band does break from its basic formula a bit as the album proceeds. The twelve tracks include a rhythmically complex Balkan-flavored instrumental, a French song in a 6/8 rhythm that reminded me a lot of African music, a tune suitable for belly dancing, a dark ominous waltz, and an increasingly frenetic jig. The highlight of the album is the extended jam "Sanyogita," which clocks in at nearly seven minutes. On this track the band demonstrates an ability to gradually build up the tension, instead of simply letting it rip from the start.

Corvus Corax are probably not for everybody -- their presentation is rather bizarre, they don't use the typical assortment of instruments, and subtlety is not one of their strong points -- but I find them to be both interesting and entertaining. When most people think about primal energy or intensity in music, they invariably think about rock and roll, not anything older than that, and certainly not anything a lot older than that. Corvus Corax takes a different approach, and shows that the energy that rock and roll taps into has been a part of music for as long as there's been music.

Overall grade: B

reviewed by Scott

MAG BLAST, Third Edition

Zzzzt! Fweeeeee! P'ting, P'ting!

Well, what sounds would you make to simulate spaceships blasting each other? Self-made sound effects are just part of the fun of Mag Blast, a goofy card game of blowing up your opponent's ships.

Each player gets a command ship, which has 8 hull points, a colored zone on each side, and a special ability that's either ongoing or usable three times per game. Players then get six fleet ship cards and get to place four of them around their command ship, Ships have a speed (how many zones they can move), hull strength (how much damage they can take before blowing up) and turrets (that dictate what color(s) blasts that ship can fire); a few can sweep mines or launch squadrons. Then the game begins.

Each turn a player can discard as many cards as they want. Next they draw up to five cards, reinforce (turn in cards with three of the same symbol or one of each symbol to get a new fleet ship), and maneuver (move ships to protect exposed zones or target an opponent's zone). Then it's time to blast!

Each ship can fire a blast card, worth 1, 3, or 5 points, at another ship in its zone. You defeat an opponent by doing eight points of damage to their commnad ship; if a fleet ship is in that zone, though, you have to target the fleet ship before going after the command ship. Players may also play action cards (that do anything from give free fleet ships to dodge blasts), launch squadrons or fighters that temporarily inflict damage (if they don't destroy their target that turn the damage goes away) and return to the player's hand, or combine a successful blast with a Direct Hit and Direct Effect card that do anything from steal a ship to destroy the target immediately.

Mag Blast is a simple slugfest -- and a very fun one. While there's some strategy in terms of keeping or discarding cards (do you keep the Direct Hit and Direct Effect cards and wait for a clear shot, or do you discard to get more cards to use), most play consists of moving ships to your exposed zones and then shooting away at your opponents. The powers of each command ship are useful, but none are powerful enough to guarantee a win. The right action card can make the difference between victory and defeat. And goofy art from John Kovalic adds to the humorous element of this game. Mag Blast is quick, simple, and extremely enjoyable.

Oh yes, there is a rule that states you have to make a sound effect when firing a blast, or the blast misses and gets discarded. So get ready to make some pretty silly sounds!

Overall grade: B+

Reviewed by James Lynch

Gary Gygax, 1938-2008

The world of role-playing and strategy gaming lost its most cherished icon when Gary Gygax passed away yesterday at the age of 69. A life-long resident of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Gygax discovered strategy games in 1953, and quickly developed a passion for not only playing complicated games, but modifying and adapting them as well. Among other innovations, he came up with the idea of using dice beyond the traditional six-sided variety. In 1967 he organized a gathering of twenty gamers in his basement, which developed into an annual event known as Gen Con. This event quickly evolved into the biggest gaming convention in the country.

But that's not what Gygax is best known for. Always a fan of Medieval fantasy and miniatures, Gygax and his friends started to develop a series of rules for creating settings in which humans, dwarves, and elves freely interacted and heroically fought against all sorts of mythical creatures. He and his friend Don Kaye founded Tactical Studies Rules, or TSR, in 1973 to publish their work, and then released the first version of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. Gygax continued to watch over the game's evolution, and the first major alteration of the game came in the form of a series of hardcover books, all written by Gygax, under the name Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. These books, in particular, gave the game the massive cult following it continues to have today, and were the primary influence on all role-playing games that have followed.

Gygax and TSR split acrimoniously in the mid-1980's. It's a long story whose details most D&D fans are familiar with, so I'll spare you the exposition. Gygax did some other work in the gaming field after this, but relative to the heyday of D&D in the late seventies and early eighties, he kept a fairly low profile the rest of his life.

Dungeons & Dragons has always been the kind of game that's enormously popular with a small group of people. Gary Gygax was hardly a household name, but to those who did know of him, he was much revered. As somebody who's played role-playing games, especially D&D, for over twenty-five years, I kind of feel as though I've lost a childhood friend. Gygax might not have created Middle Earth, but he made possible the creation of all sorts of other similar worlds. Each of these worlds was shaped by a particular group of players, who through their own tastes and personalities, produced something that was unique and, at least to the participants, special.

The Hooters, Time Stand Still (Hooters Music, 2008)

Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian first met in the seventies, while taking a class on the synthesizer at the University of Pennsylvania. Together they played in a couple of different bands in the Philadelphia rock scene, before starting The Hooters in 1980. Consisting of Hyman (vocals, keyboards, melodica), Bazilian (vocals, guitar, mandolin, saxophone), Andy King (bass and vocals), John Lilley (rhythm guitar), and David Uosikkinen (drums), The Hooters recorded an independent album in 1983 before a huge opportunity came their way courtesy of Rick Chertoff, a classmate of Hyman and Bazilian who had gone on to be a producer. Chertoff was working on an album with an unknown singer named Cyndi Lauper, and he needed a backing band for a number of songs. The resulting album She's So Unusual produced several major hit singles, including "Time After Time," co-written by Lauper and Hyman. This quickly led to The Hooters getting a major label signing.

Aided by MTV, 1985's Nervous Night quickly gained The Hooters a national following. "All You Zombies" may have been a reggae song about the Old Testament, and the power pop songs "And We Danced" and "Day By Day" may have both featured prominent use of the mandolin, but the band's quirkiness went over well at least initially. On One Way Home from 1987, the band aimed for more depth and generally succeeded. "Satellite" poked fun at televangelism and "Johnny B" dealt with addiction, while "Karla With A K" is a folk-rock classic. The album was a major hit in Europe, especially in Germany, but their following at home started to quickly vanish. Andy King left after this, and was replaced by Fran Smith. Zig Zag, released in 1989, is one of the great lost albums of the eighties. Mixing all kinds of styles and lyrical themes, the album addressed many of the issues facing a rapidly changing world. Their adaptation of "500 Miles" captured the essence of the demonstration in China's Tianamen Square, an event that was horribly and tragically unsuccessful on its own terms but set the stage for the collapse of the rest of the Communist world. "Give The Music Back" turned out to be a very prophetic lament of the hostile corporate takeover of the music industry. Zig Zag got basically no attention at all in the United States, though, while selling strongly in Europe. The band made one more album in 1993, called Out of Body. They band tried a little too hard to get back on American radio with it, and the album not only seemed mostly forced, but failed to get anybody's attention here.

The Hooters more or less fizzled out at that point, although Hyman and Bazilian showed they were still capable of boosting other people's careers. Rick Chertoff again recruited their help to work on an album he was producing by a new singer named Joan Osborne. Osborne's debut album Relish was also a major hit, with Bazilian penning the album's biggest single "One of Us." Hyman, Bazilian, and Chertoff also collaborated on Largo, an intriguing 1998 album featuring many guest performers that basically celebrated the many facets of the immigrant experience in America. The Hooters played as a group on one track, but that appeared to be the end of their story. Then, in 2001, Hyman, Bazilian, Lilley, Uosikkinen, and Smith reunited for a concert in honor of a Philadelphia disc jockey. Originally a one-off performance, the band soon discovered that there was still a considerable demand for their music in Germany -- "Johnny B" has apparently become something of a barroom anthem over there -- and the band have crossed the Atlantic for a tour every summer since 2003. Other than warm-up shows in Philadelphia, though, The Hooters still haven't had much luck generating interest here.

Now, however, at least they have a new album to promote. Time Stand Still was recorded piecemeal over the past couple of years, and released last fall in Europe and this month in the United States. It marks the first new Hooters album in fifteen years. In addition to co-producing the album, Hyman and Bazilian co-wrote almost all of the tracks, except for a cover of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" and a song they wrote with Lilley called "Ordinary Lives." The mullets and bright-colored suits are mercifully long gone, but otherwise The Hooters remarkably pick up right where they left off. The most refreshing thing I discovered when listening to the new record is that the band have held on to the boyish enthusiasm that characterized all their best music. Most of the album consists of bright, energetic rockers featuring The Hooters' trademark blend of mandolins and accordions with rock instruments. Bazilian and especially Hyman both show a bit of wear in their voices, but the band's energy and spirit make up for it. The tone for the album is set by the positive, upbeat opening song "I'm Alive," a celebration of simply being here. The album's title tune is another catchy song, with Hyman and Bazilian singing about all the things they'd do if time was never an issue. The album does include a few good softer songs as well. "Until You Dare" is a solid ballad about taking chances, and "Ordinary Lives" reflects the band's healthy perspective on getting older. My favorite song on the new record is "Where The Wind May Blow," a minor-key rocker about navigating your way through troubled times. The Hooters finish the album with a bonus track called "White Jeans," a really fun, comical song about the ups and downs of the first band they played in when they were younger.

Time Stand Still is the work of a veteran band back after a long layoff who, instead of aiming to make a masterpiece or trying to mass-market themselves to an audience that probably won't notice, sound content to just be themselves and have fun making music together. I don't harbor any illusions of The Hooters winning over a whole generation of new fans, but old fans who've stuck around will be very pleased with this effort.

Overall grade: B+

reviewed by Scott

The Manhattan Project (1986)

So with the Academy Awards this week, I was supposed to go out and watch all the films that won, right? Well, it takes a lot of work to swim upstream sometimes, and I looked at a film from 1986 instead. Specifically, I don't remember hearing anything about this film called The Manhattan Project, so I decided to take a look as the title intrigued me.

No, this is not the documentary of the top secret WW II project that resulted in the making of the first atomic bomb. While that would make a compelling film, this one focuses on a scientist in the mid 80's that comes up with a method of making ultra pure plutonium for use in atomic bombs. The government decides to fast track it, and they setup a new lab in Ithaca, NY, not far from Cornell University. The scientist, played by John Lithgow, takes an attraction in his realtor, Elizabeth Stephens (Jill Eikenberry). He decides to befriend Elizabeth's son, Paul (Christopher Collett) who is scientifically precocious. Next thing we know we have Paul getting the grand tour of a top secret governmental facility. Kind of implausible so far, no? Well, it gets worse when Paul decides to head back there, and sneak out some plutonium with the assistance of his new girlfriend. Uh, huh. Then to bring attention to the nuclear issue, what better way than to build a nuclear bomb for the regional science fair. Yeah, like any of this is going to happen.

Despite that The Manhattan Project is completely implausible, it was entertaining on some zany level. Perhaps it was just nostalgia on my part, but it did remind of the high school science fairs, although no one showed up with a nuclear bomb (I did try to replicate the Mendel genetics experiment, but I couldn't even get one seed to grow! I also did one on wind energy, but I was probably too far ahead of my time, but then again, it's still too far ahead for most folks). Anyway, getting back to the film, while it's not well acted, and you have to suspend some belief to help the plot along, it's not the worst film ever. It does have a certain element of suspense and kind of a "thriller lite" as we never really think the world is about to detonate. After all, when else but the 1980's could one make a film about a teenager making a nuclear bomb in their bedroom? These days, Homeland Security would probably censor it.

Overall Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007)

I Could Never Be Your Woman is another entry into the ever popular romantic comedy genre. It stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. The key to a good romantic comedy is there needs to be something keeping the lovers apart, and in this case it is their age. Once the film gets underway, we learn that Pfeiffer's character, Rosie, a television screenwriter, is over forty years old. Rudd plays Adam, a twenty something actor that is playing a high school student on her TV show. Clearly age is keeping them apart, and that is the stumbling block.

Juxtaposed on top of this is Rosie's teenage daughter, Izzie (Saoirse Ronan) who is tossing her Barbie dolls for teenagehood as the film progresses. While the relationship between the adults seems artificial, she is the one strong performance in this film (not counting the Henry Winkler cameo, gotta love "The Fonz").

Adding to the wackiness, and artificialness is Tracey Ullman, who gets tossed into far too many scenes as Mother Nature. It doesn't add anything to the story, and rather serves to distract as she wanders onto a Hollywood backlot. I think some type of narration or voice over would have worked much better than to have her in the middle of a scenes where she clearly didn't belong.

Cutting to the chase, I Could Never Be Your Woman is a lackluster film, and easy to skip. Think of it as "I Could Never Be Your Film;" the few catchy one liners can't save this film from mediocrity.

Overall Grade: C

Reviewed by Jonas

Justice League: The New Frontier

Nostalgia and newness mix in the direct-to-dvd animated movie Justice League: The New Frontier. This story, based on the comic book of the same name (or "graphic novel," for those who don't like to admit they enjoyed a comic book), imagines a time when superheroes were both feared and loved.

It's the 1950s, and public resentment and government legislation have driven many heroes into retirement. The Flash (Neil Patrick Harris) and Batman (Jeremy Sisto) are outlaws, Wonder Woman (Lucy Lawless) travels overseas engaging in some rough help for women, and Superman (Kyle MacLachlan) has accepted the government's restrictions. Meanwhile pilot Hal Jordan (David Borneaz) is on his own journey to fly to the stars -- and the martian J'onn J'onzz (Miguel Ferrer) was transported to Earth.

As for plot, Justice League: The New Frontier can be divided in two halves. The first half involves a mysterious force called the Center, that affects the weak-minded and results in cultist followings and suicides. The second half has a giant monster that the heroes must fight.

The focus of this movie isn't any of the big three -- Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman -- but rather three other characters. The Flash has to deal with being a public hero that no one trusts or likes, while Hal Jordan keeps trying to do the right thing on his road to heroics. (If you don't who he becomes, I won't spoil it for you.) And J'onn J'onzz functions as the character providing an outsider's view on the state of the world.

Justice League: The New Frontier is for more mature audiences, both in its older visual style and the large amount of violence and blood present. (There's a suicide before the opening credits.) Unfortunately, by working in so many characters the movie can't focus on many of them. Except for the Flash, Hal, and J'onn most characters get very little time in the movie. Heck, Green Arrow spends more time flying a plane than shooting arrows! And except for the social commentary, the story isn't that unusual.

The voice talent is excellent here. Lucy Lawless is such a natural choice for Wonder Woman, it's surprising this is her first take on the role; and Neil Patrick Harris shines as the Flash, balancing his idealism in being a hero with the frustration at the world around him. There is also support from Kyra Sedgwick as Lois Lane and Brooke Shields as Carol Ferris.

Justice League: The New Frontier is a decent movie, strengthened by its voices and visuals but weakened by an overabundance of characters. This isn't required viewing, but it's a fun romp for those who freely admit that they read comic books.

(The dvd comes in both a standard edition -- with commentaries, history, and a preview of the upcoming Batman anime cartoon -- and a deluxe edition with a feature on the Legion of Doom, plus three episodes from the Justice League cartoon.)

Overall grade: B

Reviewed by James Lynch

Smash Lab, Season One, Discovery

It seems like the Discovery Channel has one runaway hit these days: Mythbusters. Some days, they can show reruns from morning to night, and faithful fans flock to see the great myths of our day tested. Unfortunately, it's hard to make a whole channel out of one show.

So, in the 10 PM Wednesday time slot, after Mythbusters, Discovery has been airing a new show for the last few weeks by the name of Smash Lab. The idea is that a team of four crafty science types take existing materials, and try to reengineer them to solve a problem in ways that would make any Lifehacker proud. Examples of recent attempts include fireproofing a home with Nanogel, blastproofing a house with truck bed liner, and using a magnetic descent system for high rise fire escape. Like Mythbusters, things are tried on a smaller scale, and we end with something going down in flames or being destroyed.

To put it bluntly, this is no Mythbusters. While the team all have their strengths, I don't necessarily buy into their labels as three are really engineers, and the last is an industrial designer. (As an aside, I don't think of engineers as scientists, even though they certainly use science). Anyway, with Mythbusters, it never feels dumbed down, even when they're doing something useless, ridiculous, or just clowning around in some goofy outfit. In comparison, Smash Lab has a dumbed down feel as they rarely explain any of the science beyond a very cursory level that many of us outgrew by elementary school. It's a shame because this is another missed opportunity to (a) get children more educated in science, and (b) get more adults interested in the why's and the how's of our physical universe (obscure reference inserted). Also contributing to the dumbed down feel of the show is that each time they go to commercial break, they come back and give a lengthy summary of the last few minutes as if I had the attention span of a gnat.

If the show is really this bad, why the heck am I watching it? I suppose it's from a lack of other science related television choices, and I've probably painted it poorer than it really is (also, I've probably seen just about every Mythbusters episode, and many a few times). For example, when writing this article, I came across the Smash Lab blog. In it, they expand on, and give some of the physics behind what they're doing. It's too bad that more of that type of content doesn't make it into the show. While I'm sure a whiteboard full of formulas won't make for compelling TV, we shouldn't have to get a Sesame Street version of science brought to us by the letter "n" and the number "5." Catch Smash Lab on Wednesdays at 10 PM, or online here for the next few months, just be prepared to be talked down to.

Overall Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

PS: I've found that fast forwarding the show after each commercial break, thereby bypassing the incessant summarization makes Smash Lab a lot more watchable.

The Big Bad Swim (2006)

Hmmm. Let's take a bunch of adults that are taking an adult "learn to swim class" at the local community pool (I recall this as the "guppy" level at summer camp). We'll make it a combination drama and comedy, a "dramedy" if you will. We'll try to give plenty of the characters some depth, and make them a little complex. What do we get? On the one hand is the film The Big Bad Swim, and on the other hand, it doesn't amount to all that much.

Brewster plays Amy Pierson, a soon to be divorced calculus teacher that is entering a mid life crisis as her husband, a teacher at the same school, has an affair with a coworker. She decides in the middle of this to learn to swim. While there, the instructor, Hunter McCarthy (Ricky Ullman) portrays one who has his own damage, and while he knows how to swim, he has his own set of issues that he carries around. And thus it goes on with each character flawed in some way, and all coming together with the common goal of learning to swim.

Overall, I found this film rather lackluster, with all the excitement of balancing my checking account. At times the characters bordered on quirky, but too often they came off as droll. While we avoided typical stereotypes, and unidimensionality that often plague these films, we traded that in for something too realistic, and without a good story. The drama is uninspiring, and the comedy is nonexistent in The Big Bad Swim.

Overall Grade: C-

Reviewed by Jonas

Men At War, Book II, The Secret Warriors

After starting off the Men At War series with The Last Heroes, it was time to turn my attention to the second book in the series, The Secret Warriors. This chapter in the role that the OSS played during WW II pushed the plot along with most of the major characters returning for another tour of duty.

The book starts and ends quite strongly, with the level of action and intensity that this author is known for. Much of the plot focuses on obtaining the uranium needed for the first atomic bombs. I never really thought about it, but the ore needed for the uranium, at least suggested in this book, came from a mine in Africa. More specifically, it was from the Belgian Congo, and was swiped from under the nose of the Germans, and smuggled out on a cargo plane. It's quite an interesting tale to hear how this was accomplished, at considerable peril. There are also some interesting cameos along the way including Charles Lindbergh (an aviation consultant during WW II), and Joseph Kennedy, Jr.

The downside of The Secret Warriors is that it sags for much of the middle, with a confusing cast of characters that make you wonder who the main players even are at times. In addition, Griffin's writing style, a terse, newspaper one, doesn't necessarily add to the excitement at times. To the best of my knowledge, the first four books of the Men At War series were originally published under a pseudonym, and while it is recognizable as Griffin, it's hardly the author's strongest work.

Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Ah, the glorious road of the champion! Honing one's skills and strength! Seeking victory, recognition, and even glory! And battling a giant ape throwing battles at you! Okay, that last part is a bit unusual, but it forms the basis of the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. And it's quite compelling.

The King of Kong looks at the world of competitive gaming -- not current video games or card games or board games, but arcade games from the 1980s. The story begins in 1982, when a LIFE Magazine photo shoot brought together some of the best arcade players at the time. Billy Mitchell held the record for Donkey Kong -- and held the record into the 21st century. He has other successes since then -- his business, his family -- and claims his determination in winning the record is how he approaches life.

The challenge to Mitchell's record comes from an unlikely person: Steve Wiebe. Steve is a family man who has had varied interests several brushes with victory but never quite reached the top; some family members and friends even wonder if he has OCD. During a period of unemployment Steve gets a Donkey Kong machine -- and tapes himself breaking the world record!

What follows is a give-and-take battle between Wiebe and Mitchell to claim the title of the greatest Donkey Kong player in the world. This begins as bragging rights within the organization that tracks record holders for arcade games, but the competition becomes more serious when the Guiness Book of World Records gets involved.

The world of competitive gaming could have become bathetic -- adults obsessed about winning at arcade games from the 1980s -- but The King of Kong transforms this into a classic battle between the underdog and the empowered. Billy Mitchell is established as the villain fairly early, from having his fans (one describes himself as Mitchell's "protege") spy on Steve Wiebe's record-breaking attempts to his questioning Wiebe mailing in a tape of his record -- then doing the same thing himself. As for Steve Wiebe, he's made out to be a simple man who broke a held record and just wants to prove it.

We also see the world around these two people. The hardcore competitive gamers appear obsessive, from referee Walter Day linking his meditation and work with keeping these records to the people who brag that they play the games every day in the hopes of breaking these records. The outside people are mostly represented by Wiebe's family: His wife alternately supports his obsession and wishes it was over, while his young daughter wonders why he cares about it at all. The end result is a nice balance of this world, from inside and outside.

A good documentary can invest the viewer in something they may not have cared about (or even known about) before, and The King of Kong delivers. Framed as a classic struggle, this documentary gets us to care about the people involved, to wonder who will come out on top concerning a game we probably haven't played in years. The King of Kong is a fascinating look at the nature of competition, the quest for perfection -- and those deadly barrels.

Overall grade: A

Reviewed by James Lynch

X by Kylie Minogue

When Kylie Minogue does her music right, it can be an enjoyable distraction, something fun to have in the background at a party or on the radio on a quick drive. That's missing from X, her latest album.

X is a very consistent combination of disco styling, synthesizers, and pithy lyrics about being in love and being in lust -- and it's not a good mixture. There are sound effects, background noises, and mixing effects that could have come from the worst club singles of the 1980s. The lyrics are painful ("To your head bone/ Temple bone/ Through your jaw bone/ To your neck bone/ Collar bone/ Medic go on/To your back bone/ Moving on/Through your hip bone When you Play it on your speakerphone") and pure fluff. There are only two decent songs on this album -- "2 Hearts" and "Sensitized" -- but even these are just passable. Since Kylie Minogue has been making music since the 1980s, one would have hoped she'd try for something a little more than overproduced club tunes.

Kylie Minogue has enjoyed more popularity overseas than in the United States, so it's no surprise that X hasn't been released in America. This isn't a loss for America. If you really miss the sound of Stacey Q or wish today's top 40 had more of a disco feel, you may find something good here. Otherwise, steer very clear of X.

Overall grade: D-

Reviewed by James Lynch

Nightnoise

Nightnoise were a musical quartet whose career spanned the better part of two decades. Although three quarters of the band came from Ireland, the group was based in Portland, Oregon. Despite backgrounds in traditional Irish music, classical, and jazz, the band's style has most frequently been categorized, for better or worse, as New Age. The band released seven albums between 1983 and 1997 on Windham Hill Records.

Guitarist Mícheál Ó Domhnaill was well versed in the musical traditions of his native Ireland. As part of The Bothy Band, Mícheál was rightfully considered a legendary figure in Irish folk circles, but that had translated to zero commercial success during The Bothy Band's brief but extremely noteworthy career. When the band broke up in 1979, three members -- Ó Domhnaill, his sister Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill (vocals and keyboards), and fiddler Kevin Burke -- relocated to Portland, Oregon. Mícheál made a couple of duet recordings with Burke, while Tríona recorded with the band Touchstone. After a couple of years, though, Mícheál was ready for a change of pace. He met up with Billy Oskay, a violinist originally from the town of Kingston in upstate New York. Despite Oskay's classical background, the two had plenty of common musical interests and started working together.

The duo's subdued, pensive compositions attracted the attention of Windham Hill Records, a label that was big in the genre of New Age music. In 1982, when the Donnegal quintet Clannad reinvented themselves while composing the soundtrack to the BBC mini-series Harry's Game, they swung the door to the New Age market wide open for other Irish musicians to follow. However, and not entirely without justification, the term "New Age" has some negative connotations in popular culture. Nightnoise would have to compete for shelf space in record stores with seemingly anybody with a synthesizer and tin whistle who could record enough tunes with long pauses in the melodies and not too frequent chord changes to make an album, call the album Celtic something or another, and get at least a few people to buy it. There was plenty of room in the genre for genuine artistry, though, and Windham Hill could guarantee Ó Domhnaill and Oskay a base audience. As a result, both the label and the musicians had much to benefit from the partnership that would last the full fifteen years of Nightnoise's recording career.

While the 1983 LP Nightnoise was officially credited to Billy Oskay and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill as a duo, it set the tone for the subsequent albums credited to the group Nightnoise. All the instrumental pieces were composed either by Oskay or Ó Domhnaill. In addition to the guitar and violin, all the pieces had a keyboard part, and most included a flute or whistle as well. The style of the tunes was quiet, sparse, and subdued, providing the foundation of the basic sound that Nightnoise would carry with them foe their career. The main criticism of this record, which also carried over into subsequent Nightnoise recordings, was that it requires a great deal of patience for the listener to distinguish most of the tunes from each other. There were a few exceptions, though. Ó Domhnaill's "Bridges" features a haunting theme on the guitar that lingers in the mind long after the track stops playing. The album closes with a nice extended suite of tune fragments called "The Cricket's Wicket."

The project was put on hold for a couple of years after the first release. Ó Domhnaill joined his sister Tríona in a group called Relativity which also featured the Scottish brothers Phil (accordion) and Johnny (fiddle) Cunningham from the band Silly Wizard. When Ó Domhnaill and Oskay reconvened, they recruited Irish flautist Brian Dunning and officially named themselves Nightnoise. Most of the 1987 album Something of Time was recorded as a trio, with the two founding members taking turns overdubbing keyboard tracks. It was clear that they needed a full-time keyboardist, though, and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill was the obvious first choice. Tríona played on one piece on the album, her own composition "Après-Midi," but she was a full-time member of Nightnoise from that point forward. The most distinctive track on Something of Time was the opening tune "Timewinds," an Oskay composition. Despite a synthesizer that sounds dated today -- ironically, the folk and classical elements in Nightnoise's sound generally hold up better -- "Timewinds" has a vibrance to it that most of the other tunes lack. Ó Domhnaill's jig "Wiggy Wiggy" showed off his and Dunning's Irish roots. It marked the band's first attempt to blend traditional Irish music in with the basic Nightnoise sound, and it worked pretty well. On the whole, though, Something of Time was a bit too formulaic, and I'd rate it as the weakest CD in the Nightnoise catalog.

The next album, At The End Of The Evening, came out in 1988. Having Tríona on board for the entirety of the writing and recording process made a huge difference. For one thing, her keyboard playing provided a solid instrumental foundation for the rest of the band to build on. The title song, written and sung by Tríona, was the first Nightnoise track to feature vocals and gave the album some needed variety. Tríona's most significant contribution to the album, though, was her classic composition "At The Races." This joyously bouncy instrumental would become Nightnoise's signature track. The other really good tune on this album is Dunning's minor-key waltz "Forgotten Carnival." While not dramatically different in approach from its predecessor, At The End Of The Evening was a clear step forward for Nightnoise.

1990's The Parting Tide was a bit anomalous for the band. In general the composing responsibilities on Nightnoise albums were distributed more or less evenly between the members, but for this album, five of the nine pieces were composed by Tríona. By contrast, founding members Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and Billy Oskay composed only one tune apiece. Still, the album showed some good variety. Dunning contributed a pair of strong tunes in the waltz "Bleu" and the extended suite "The Kid In The Cot." Tríona started to lead the band into a more Irish direction with the Gaelic song "An Irish Carol" and the tune "Jig Of Sorts." Oskay's lone contribution "The Tryst" was his strongest for the band, but it would also prove to be his last. Oskay had set up his own recording studio called Big Red Studio, and he left the band to give the studio his full attention. The 1992 compilation A Windham Hill Retrospective neatly summed up Nightnoise's career up to that point. While it did mark the end of an era for the band, Nightnoise were still far from finished.

Johnny Cunningham had played with Mícheál and Tríona in Relativity, and while his speciality was the more aggressive variety of Celtic fiddle music, he was somebody that the members of Nightnoise knew well and knew they could work with. Besides, the 1993 album Shadow of Time clearly indicated that the band had become eager to work their Irish roots into the Nightnoise sound to a much greater degree than they had up to this point. Dunning's edgy jig "Silky Flanks" is arguably the one Nightnoise tune you might hear at a pub session. Tríona sang "The Rose of Tralee," a well-known Irish standard, on this CD. Mícheál's composition "The March Air" concludes with a Gaelic song whose melody had been performed at President Kennedy's funeral. And in his one lead vocal on any Nightnoise album, Mícheál reprised "Fionnghuala," a classic bit of Scots Gaelic mouth music from the repertoire of The Bothy Band. While the basic elements of Nightnoise's established sound remained firmly in place, Shadow of Time was both the most diverse and energetic Nightnoise album to date.

Nightnoise returned in 1995 with A Different Shore. While a bit more subtle than its predecessor, this album did have a few fine waltzes in Cunningham's "Morning In Madrid" and Dunning's "Clouds Go By," a nice instrumental from Ó Domhnaill called "For Eamonn" that evoked the early Nightnoise sound, and Tríona's best vocal contribution to the band in "Falling Apples." My favorite track, though, is Dunning's "The Busker on the Bridge," which features a peculiar but fun vocal interruption in the middle. Following closely on the heels of A Different Shore came the live album The White Horse Sessions, recorded mostly in a studio in front of a small Portland audience in March 1996. Most of the material came from previous recordings, but the performance included three solid new tunes and a great Celtified adaptation of Van Morrison's "Moondance." The concert had solid energy throughout, and the band seemed to finally find just the right balance between traditional and modern musical arrangements. The White Horse Sessions was arguably Nightnoise's finest recording.

It also proved to be their last. Mícheál, Tríona, and Brian Dunning returned home to Ireland, while Johnny Cunningham remained in the States. Nightnoise re-convened occasionally in Ireland with John Fitzpatrick handling the fiddling over the next few years, but the band never sat down together for long enough to record a full-length album. The recent past has been horribly cruel to the band members. Cunningham suffered a fatal heart attack in December 2003. Then, in 2006, Mícheál Ó Domhnaill passed away from a fall in his house. Any chance of Nightnoise returning to action almost certainly died with him.

How you view the legacy of Nightnoise depends a lot on your perspective. For a fan of New Age music, Nightnoise were a flagship band who brought quality and credibility to a genre that didn't always enjoy the best of reputations otherwise, and whose popularity has waned considerably in the intervening years. As a folk music fan familiar with the other work of Mícheál and Tríona and of Johnny Cunningham, I consider Nightnoise to be a worthy endeavor by some world-class performers, but most of their music fell a bit short of these musicians' best work. There were some exceptions, though. Certainly "At The Races" is a very memorable tune, and a lot of Dunning's contributions were subtly effective. To those not familiar with Nightnoise I would certainly recommend The White Horse Sessions and A Windham Hill Retrospective, followed by Shadow of Time if they decide they want to hear more.

reviewed by Scott

Reprinted with permission from The Green Man Review
Copyright 2008 The Green Man Review