Creeped Out by Coraline

With Coraline, author Neil Gaiman once again shows his versatility. From the mind of the man who gave us the entire “Sandman” collection of graphic novels, as well as “American Gods”, “Anansi Boys”, and “Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” clearly wrote this novel with the intent to entertain a younger demographic. Of course, he gets to scare the little buggers in the process too. Gaiman has proven in the past that he truly knows what buttons to press in order to send chills down one’s spine. In this particular book, he preys on the fears everyone has as far as loneliness, abandonment, abduction, rats, and of course, the darkness.

Coraline Jones has just moved into an old house with her parents. The house is divided into four flats, and as Coraline goes exploring, she meets former actresses Mrs. Forcible and Mrs. Spink, Mr. Bobo who trains mice, and an arrogant black cat. When she finds a key to the drawing room, she enters a dark corridor and sees, strangely enough, a house similar to the one she just moved into. Here she meets The Other Mother and The Other Father, people who look almost exactly like her parents, save that they have buttons for eyes. Coraline finds these mirror parents more interesting than her own but when she returns to her own home, she can’t find her real mother and father. Discovering that the Other Mother had kidnapped them so that she could keep Coraline forever, the young girl has to find the courage to rescue her parents while avoiding the creepy-crawlies in the night.

There are definite echoes of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” here, particularly when Coraline enters the other world as Alice did in “Through the Looking Glass”. Instead of a Red Queen, Coraline must instead face the menace of the Beldam, a creature who claims to love Coraline but only wants to collect her. Rather than a White Rabbit, Coraline talks to the nameless cat, a haughty feline who acts as her mentor.

Just like “Alice”, Gaiman weaves a creepy story that has as one of its themes the idea of growing up. He touched on it in his novel “InterWorld” a few years ago, but in “Coraline”, it is a bit more subtle. Everyone goes through times where they wish their parents were cooler or that they hopes their lives weren’t quite so boring. But, when they are presented with the alternative, one really should be careful with what one wishes for because nothing comes free.

The novel version of “Coraline” features a few illustrations by frequent Gaiman collaborator Dave McKean. As one who is used to McKean’s work, he’s not your typical comic book artist. The art that accompanies the novel is abstract and (to put it simply) on the weird end of the spectrum, but in this case, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. McKean’s illustrations give just the right amount of creepiness and menace to send chills down any reader’s spine.

In P. Craig Russell’s graphic novel adaptation of “Coraline”, what we once could only visualize with our minds, Russell draws Coraline’s strange adventure in sequential form. Since he has also collaborated with Gaiman a few times in the past, there is no drop off in quality of art in this graphic novel. Though not as abstract as McKean’s art, Russell draws Coraline and the rest of the characters in the novel as real people. When he gets to the monsters like the Beldam though, Russell gets to let loose. These aren’t just creepy anymore, they’re downright dangerous and destructive. It’s a nice contrast from McKean, and it doesn’t take away from the appreciation of either version.

Game Off

As an avid video game player for over 20 years, I’ve seen the evolution of gaming firsthand. From the old Atari console to the Nintendo Family Computer all the way to the sleek Playstation 3, I’ve seen them all and I’ve played them all. With games like The Sims and Second Life being prevalent in recent years, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that a lot of people have been escaping their rather mundane existence by participating in video games instead. But if instead of playing as simple pixilated, computer-generated characters, we controlled real humans instead, could that be the next step in video game evolution?

That’s the main premise behind Gerard Butler’s action-adventure Gamer. In the near future, game developer Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) has created two hugely popular games: “Society” is like The Sims except that gamers control actual people through nanites in their brains. In the case of “Slayers”, gamers play a first-person shooter (ala-Doom) by controlling ex-convicts with the same nanite-infected brains. If a slayer wins 30 battles, he goes free. A former military man named Tillman (Butler) is accused of murder and forced to participate in “Slayers” as the character Kable. Controlled by 17-year old trustfund baby Simon (Logan Lerman), Kable is three wins away from freedom. However, an activist group called Humanz claims that the nanite technology has a more ominous purpose. Can Tillman escape the game and reclaim his life?

Clearly, Gamer has been influenced by films like Death Race, The Matrix, The Running Man, and even Tron. The vision of a dystopian future where people are used for violent entertainment has been shown on film many times before. This film’s draw for me (aside from the über-cool Butler in another action flick) is the concept of humans as videogame characters. I particularly enjoyed the “Society” segments where the people actually acted like “Sims”. There was a lot of gratuitous violence here, and the script isn’t all that inspired. Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are the same people behind Jason Statham’s action flick Crank, so Gamer is in the same vein. Lots of jump cuts, and dirty action kind of left me feeling dizzy after a while. Maybe it was because the filmmakers wanted to emphasize how first-person shooting games are supposed to make you feel.

I was surprised with the many cameos in this film, particularly with actors like Milo Ventimiglia, Sam Witwer, and especially the great John Leguizamo. I mean, this isn’t exactly going to be remembered as a classic of the genre, if you know what I mean. Kyra Sedgwick, Keith David, and John de Lancie were also severely underused in this film, a real shame considering how the movie desperately needed good acting and actors to lift it from its not so lofty perch.

No More Bad Games?

It disgusts me when I hear of stuff like Far Eastern University's star guard Andy Barroca being accused of game-fixing. I'm disgusted not only because the concept is so reprehensible to me, but also because it spits in the face of the integrity of basketball. For the Tamaraws basketball program to pick on one of their own and leave him out to dry, let's just say it smacks of people refusing to take responsibility for why their team couldn't win a game and looking for a scapegoat instead.

Since time immemorial, basketball in the Philippines has been marred by rumors of players throwing games or shaving points in order to satisfy some unscrupulous people. Whether it be professionals in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), or amateurs in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) or National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), when a particular player doesn't play like he's expected to, people start saying that "he's on the take" or colloquially speaking, "nagbenta siya".

In simplest terms, "benta" literally means selling games. That could refer to a player only scoring this number of points as agreed upon. It could also refer to a team not scoring more than a certain number for a quarter or for the entire game. These are, of course, supposedly agreed upon between the player and certain shady individuals.

Taking all of these into consideration, FEU has accused Barroca of the time-honored tradition of game-fixing, particularly in their game against Ateneo de Manila on September 12, 2009. Barroca burned Ateneo and smaller point guard Jai Reyes for 8 first quarter points, but never scored again after that. The Tamaraws led the Blue Eagles by 18 big points late in the third quarter, yet were bombarded by a 22-4 run in the fourth that they never recovered from. Ateneo won the game 74-73, and within days, Barroca was accused of game-fixing.

In recent years, FEU has been embroiled in controversies similar to this. Just two years ago, swingman JR Gerilla was among the Tamaraws accused of game-fixing as FEU dropped most of their Team A roster. Last year, team captain Mac Baracael was even shot (!) outside the Morayta campus because he either fixed a game, or refused to fix a game (depending on who you ask). That case has yet to be resolved and, happily for Mac, he's actually okay now. University of the East's Bonbon Custodio was also called a game-fixer some seasons ago when his play would dip after exploding on offense in other games. A lot of De La Salle University alumni still claim that their superstar point guard Mike "Cool Cat" Cortez received a huge payment in order to throw Game 3 of the UAAP Finals against Ateneo.

It's like nowadays, in the UAAP particularly, if you're a proven big time performer and you suddenly have a bad game, "eh di malamang nagbenta 'yan!" One is not allowed to have any sub-par games anymore. Every player is held to such unbelievably high standards that any slippage is deemed due to shady dealings. Again, history tells us that this kind of stuff has happened in the Philippines in the past. But should every circumstance of poor on-court performance be given the nefarious game-fixing label? Now, Barroca has supposedly chosen to get out of the FEU team altogether. In the midst of a playoff run and 30 units away from completing his degree, he is leaving the basketball team because his integrity has come into question.

My question is: what happens the next time a supposedly "reliable" scoring option on FEU falters at a crucial moment? Will the team hang him out to dry as well? Will he also be accused of game-fixing and lacking the integrity to play college basketball?

Prawns Among Us

As a long time fan of science fiction, I'd like to believe that I've seen a lot of crazy shit in that genre. From the big budget blockbusters in Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogy to old school sci-fi like Tron and even TV series like Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, and Fringe. I've seen all of these and I'd like to consider myself a pseudo-expert on the subject. Therefore when I heard that LOTR director Petr Jackson was going to produce a new sci-fi film called District 9, I was curious about how this new offering would shape up.

In 1982, a large alien ship arrive on Earth and settled above Johannesburg, South Africa. The aliens from the ship were discovered to be malnourished, leaderless, and generally undesirable. They were eventually forcefully removed from their ship and relocated to an area in Joburg called District 9. Over the course of two decades, the aliens (derogatorily called "prawns") have turned District 9 into a slum. The South African governments assigns a private military contractor named Multinational United (MNU) to evict the prawns from their dwelling and relocated again to smaller, even less familiar territory. Leading the MNU team is Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlton Copley), who has spent most of his career behind a desk. While evicting the aliens, Wikus accidentally stumbles upon a canister that one of the alien scientists (whom the MNU people have called Christopher Johnson) has been using to extract fuel. Exposure to the canister affects Wikus' physiology, suddenly making him the most wanted man on the planet.

Director Neill Blomkamp definitely takes some risks with District 9. In interviews, he said that he chose to set his film in South Africa as that is where he grew up and it is indeed fascinating to see a science fiction setting that is not in the United States or the United Kingdom. There are of course undercurrents of racial tension in post-apartheid South Africa, and placing the prawns there certainly doesn't decrease that tension. By turning the old "alien invasion" formula on its head, instead placing the aliens on Earth forcibly and treating them like second class citizens, Blomkamp provides social commentary on how racism continues to rear its ugly head worldwide.

Copley's Wikus does come across as the everyman who is forced to go on the run, resorting to such disgusting acts that he himself once made fun of. The desperation on his face as he pleads with the prawns and tries to reconnect with his wife is also palpable. Making the aliens prawn-like and unintelligible save through subtitles only enhances the experience of seeing them as less than human, and thus expendable.

The main draw of this film for me is that the filmmakers made the presence of a hovering alien spaceship and aliens among humans seem like an everyday occurrence. It was as if they had really been there for two decades already, and everyone had gotten used to their presence. The "dirty" special effects also add to the illusion of realism that Blomkamp and the special effects crew wanted. Clearly, there is a place for sci-fi epics like the ones mentioned earlier. However, District 9 proves that, thankfully, there are still new and exciting stories waiting to be told within the genre.

Nowhere to go but Up

Over the years, I've come to really love the movies by Disney-Pixar. From Toy Story to A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, you name it. The animation has been cutting edge from the get go, but it's always the plot and the characters that carry these films. Of course they're created for kids, but there's always enough of a plot and something to pull at your heartstrings that will give adults enjoyment too.

With Up, the latest offering from Disney-Pixar, that certainly holds true. Carl Fredricksen is a shy boy who dreams of adventure and following his idol, the explorer Charles Muntz. He meets the outgoing Ellie who shares that dream, and even wants to move her clubhouse to Paradise Falls, somewhere in South America. The two eventually grow up, fall in love, and marry. Even though they can't have children, they have each other. Carl the balloon salesman wants to keep his promise to Ellie, but she gets sick and passes away. Old and irritable, Carl (now voiced by Ed Asner) still wants to keep his promise, even if it means outfitting his house with thousands of balloons and flying to Paradise Falls. Of course, he didn't count on young Wilderness Explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai) to complicate things.

As I mentioned earlier, Disney-Pixar films always feature amazing animation. The attention to detail is stunning, and seeing Up in 3-D just adds to the experience. Pixar big boss John Lasseter certainly doesn't skimp on that end. Director Pete Docter and his crew also manage to find ways to show old newsreel-like footage in modern animation when young Carl watches Charles Muntz's adventures in a moviehouse. Later in the film, as old Carl goes through Ellie's adventure book, the book also shows texture and age, just like old photos do. Needless to say, the sight of thousands of balloons rising up to lift a house and the massive Spirit of Adventure dirigible (and dog-piloted planes) were magnificent to behold as well.

Again though, the key to any good Disney-Pixar movie is the plot and the characters. Within the first five minutes of the film, you already start to feel a possible tear about to drop as you feel Carl's love for Ellie and the pain he can't hide when she dies. The later scene of going through Ellie's adventure book brings back those decidedly "adult" feelings, yet there is no shame in shedding a tear when watching a Disney-Pixar film.

The character of Russell is such a delight, especially in contrast to cantankerous Carl. Curious, talkative, and obviously intelligent, one can't help but laugh at how he bothers Carl so much. Yet there is also some sadness in Russell's life, as evidenced by his wish that his father would pin his final Wilderness Explorer badge on him someday. Other characters like Dug the talking dog (Bob Peterson), Kevin the rare bird, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma all provide nice comic relief without taking too much away from Carl and Russell. On a personal note, it was also hugely entertaining for me to hear the great Christopher Plummer's voice in Charles F. Muntz. After all, what fan of The Sound of Music wouldn't be thrilled to hear Captain Von Trapp as a bad guy?

Of all the films that I've seen so far in 2009, Up unquestionably stands out as the one with the most heart. It's pulling of your heartstrings isn't manipulative, it is genuine, it is pure, and it will make you wish that you too can find true love and that you can fulfill your dreams of flight.