In the in between time I busied myself by reading one novel, starting another, watching Lost, beginning The Wire, and downloading Red Alert 3 for my Mac from Direct2drive. ( d2d had a great sale on Mac games. I know, I know, there aren’t that many of them, but what is there is good. Plus, you Mac haters might shut your pie holes a little in April when Valve unleashes Steam for Mac.)

Anyway, here are a few micro reviews of what I have been doing:

Reads

In the past month I tore through Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. A description of the book posted on Amazon describes it as “a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands.” – Amazon

“a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. ”

Of course the novel ends up being more than that. Death becomes a character who reflects on humanity as fearsome and scary, and his job as a choir over-all.  Liesel Meminger though is a small gem and miracle amongst us in Death’s world. Liesel’s story ultimately says something about kindness and quiet dignity. Zusak’s oddly narrated story is endearing and reflective of something bigger so few of us are actually willing to look at – the pitiful degradations we put one another through, while missing the simple beauty and kindness of a few. The Book Thief is one of those top tier books I will probably read again and again.

I also started Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon and it is completely different. The book is a choir in the first few pages. I’m still waiting to be hooked. The depressed tone of interlinking plots of souls adrift Chaon maps out may be too much for end of the winter doldrums. I keep reading though.

Television

Lost:

Lies! All lies. Those damn ABC promos promising new reveals and new answers every episode are lies. I believed them for the first week or so too until each episode’s plot had me as baffled as shit and coming up with new theories every week. Honestly though, if everything were given away with still weeks left I guess having all the answers would be kind of ridiculous. But still.

Over-all I feel the series is particularly strong for an ending. I find the sideways storylines to be intriguing and a nice narrative bookend to the beginning of the series where pieces of the casts’ lives were revealed without any clear sense of where we as viewers might end up. The mix of outcomes in the parallel reality is intriguing. For some characters the situation would be so much better, for others bittersweet, and for some, like Charlie, horrible.

And what is happening on the island is insane. Some of my favorite characters are being drug through the coals, while others just remain annoying. Poor, poor Sayid. And how have producers and writers introduced even more new characters, given them enough background to let me engage them on some level, and then discard a few all within a short time span? Tight writing, editing, and directing I suppose.

Over-all, I am not disappointed yet with the grand swan song of one of my favorite series.

Archer

Archer is a first run animated spy agency spoof that appears on FX. The main story centers around a self-absorbed man of mystery named Sterling Archer and his baffoonish interaction with his equally self-centered mother, Malory Archer, who runs spy agency ISIS, ex-girlfriend and fellow spy Lana Kane, and comptroller Cyril Figgis.

The humor in the series is bawdy (there is usually one dead hooker/dead hooker joke per episode) and is able to maintain humor for its 20 or so minutes of airtime.

In some strange ways the show’s humor is  reminescent of Arrested Development with its timing and dialogue. This might have something to do with the fact that actress Jessica Walters voices mother Malory and was the matriarch of that other late, lamented series. Her Mallory character definitely treats her child the same way as Lucille Bluthe did her brood.

Luckily, for me anyway, FX announced it already ordered up a second season of the show. Lucky for everyone else, FX has a practice of re-airing episodes of their regular series on a consistent basis in order for everyone else to catch up.

The Wire

I am ashamed. This series aired from 2002-2008 and within that time frame I saw zero episodes. I heard raves, pleadings, and pledged to see this series, but was never willing to pony up the subscription to HBO. When seasons came out on DVD, they got pushed down my Netflix que. If there is a sacrifice I need to make to the great television gods for this, I willing do so. I was a fool not to heed the warnings of my friends and professional reviewers.

I am just now mid-way through season one. The show had me at the first five minutes. It is a tightly written drama with all of the cops-and-drug-dealer grit I can handle set in Baltimore. The dialogue has me speaking differently after each marathon viewing session. Pacing is phenomenal. The characters are engaging enough to hook me by episode two.

Of course, as I said, I should have doubted none of this since the show is created by David Simon, who also gave us Homicide: Life on the Street, another great little crime drama set in Baltimore, which was, up until The Wire, the best damn little crime drama in the last 20 years on television.

And finally, a show to look forward to:

Justified

Though the pilot has yet to air, I am curious about this show set in Harlan, KY. Being born and raised in the state what I gather from commercials is FX creators took the Dukes of Hazard, gave them bazookas a white supremist chip on their shoulders, and then brought a cowboy to town to clean things up. Besides locale, I find the concept intriguing enough to see it, because it seems to be an interesting mish-mash of genres (Western and crime). Also, lead actor Timothy Olyphant as Raylin Givins, the new sheriff in town, brings enough attitude to pull off a Clint Eastwood draw to make you want to see him kick ass.

In that character there is also a good chance for High Plains Drifter to meet Dirty Harry, since I expect Givins to bring some big city problems hinted at in the commercials to his small home town. Of course this might reflect more on the similarities of the character’s Eastwood played than any nuanced differences.

Anyway, I’m back in the saddle and will be back with more reflections as soon as I visit the local comic shop.

The rendering of locals was superb. The controls were simple enough. Gamers forgive me, but I was happy it wasn’t a first person shooter.(I find most first person games too hectic, with exceptions like Elder Scrolls and a few other Bethesda productions like Fall Out 3 that break the action up with story). Re-spawning in the game wasn’t too bad and play on “normal” wasn’t necessarily so tough that it felt like impossible play for someone like me. Plus, I liked the mish-mash of story genres: A little Romancing of the Stone, Indiana Jones, and some crazy horror movie set in a U-boat.

Basically it showed some originality and was easy entry level stuff for me. And it fit into the basic matrix of sandbox/shooter that I find appealing compared to most of the first person games out there.

So far, about 6 hours of game play in, Uncharted 2 hasn’t disappointed either. If anything the game seems to expand on all the elements that worked so well in the first with an exception of the set up of the story. The cuts back and forth between past and present were a little to long, at least that is how it felt to me. I imagine there is a pay off in the structure of the games narrative, but when I popped the game in I wanted to jump into some action NOW.

Anyway, as I was saying, Uncharted 2 offers some highly entertaining new environments for Mr. Drake to do his jumping, running, and gunning. We meet some new characters and are reintroduced to some familiar ones as well. As the pacing of the story picks up the action pushing everything forward becomes very fluid. The dialog and humor between characters work. I also like the fact that for the most part Drake is never alone. He always has a partner with him, which fits nicely in terms of story telling and other other plot/action devices.

As far as graphics go, I have very few complaints. The worst, I think, is the tear effects for the eyes on the characters. The very shiny gloss irritates and distracts me, especially in the cinematic cuts. The best though is the blending between cuts and game play. it all views seamlessly, which is nice.

Over-all I am impressed with the game and look forward to digging into the online part of the game, which I really have not touched as of yet.  It was well worth the breaking of my saving some cash rule to play a game that works well for story telling and as a distraction.