Creed

One of the recurring concepts I’ve seen in Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens reviews is that two 2015 movies have become shorthand for long-awaited sequels, Jurassic World and Creed. Like Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Rocky both had their last sequel come out about a decade ago. Also, they return to the formula of the first movie in the franchise while focusing on new characters, with returning favorites added in to pass the torch. The difference being Creed had the smarts to build on and redeem the Rocky franchise, while Jurassic World merely expressed an affection for Jurassic Park and not even necessarily its sequels.

We all know that Apollo Creed died heroically fighting for freedom and James Brown against the Soviet parody of humanity, Ivan Drago, shortly before the Italian Stallion saved the western world. What we didn’t know was that Apollo had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy before his big comeback. It’s perhaps an unfair way to diminish that character, especially since Carl Weathers wasn’t in the film, but given Apollo’s discontent at the start of Rocky IV, it’s not entirely far-fetched. Anyway, that child, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) is born after his father’s death, especially unfortunate because Adonis is a natural fighter.

The younger Creed ends up being adopted and raised by Apollo’s widow (Phylicia Rashad), but a comfortable life isn’t for him. Adonis quits he sweet office job and moves to a tiny Philadelphia apartment in search of the legendary Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone, perhaps the least necessary parenthetical I’ve ever written) to train him. Rocky’s still running his restaurant and visiting Adrian’s grave every day, but he takes a liking to the kid and feels something of a debt to Apollo. Also, Adonis meets a beautiful neighbor (Tessa Thompson) in a cute little subplot that probably isn’t necessary but is important to maintaining The Formula and setting things up for Creed Part II: Rocky VIII.

Creed was directed by Ryan Coogler (who previously collaborated with Jordan on his directorial debut, Fruitvale Station), based on a script by him and Aaron Covington. That’s a big change of pace for the series, which had thus far mostly been written and directed by Stallone himself. For that reason, I went in expecting a modern boxing movie with some Rocky flavor thrown in. That is not the case, as once Rocky gets into the movie, he becomes a de facto co-lead. And while a contemporary and more down-to-earth film than you might expect from this franchise, tonally I don’t think it was that far from where Stallone left it in Rocky Balboa.

Ultimately, I found Creed a very pleasing film – one I think would be satisfying for newcomers but remaining quite rewarding for long-time fans. My biggest gripe was a little one: Where were Apollo’s other kids? I’m pretty sure we saw Apollo and his wife had a daughter and a son in the other movies. This is the kind of thing that could have been easily addressed in a throw away line, but it wasn’t, so now I’m worried. Come on guys, what’s the canon here?

Room

The movie Room is an adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel, which itself is inspired by the real-life Fritzl case. It’s a rare instance of the fictional story actually being much less horrific than the truth: Josef Fritzl hid his daughter, Elisabeth, in a bunker below his house for 24 years. In that time, he abused her, raped her, and fathered seven children, some of whom were forced to live with their mother, having never experienced life outside the room. It’s a sickeningly intriguing story, one that had no trouble capturing the public’s interest. But Gone Girl this is not, Room is a substantially introspective film, far less interested with guessing at an explanation for this madness than it is with showing what it could have been like to live with it.

Jack (Jacob Tremblay) has just turned five at the beginning at the beginning of the movie. He has lived his entire life in one tiny room, with a heavy, electronically locking door and only a single skylight to offer a tiny glimpse of outside world. He lives with his mother (Brie Larson), who does her best to keep him healthy and clean and safe. They have never been separated, and Jack’s only other links to the rest of the world is their TV and Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), their captor who routinely visits to provide supplies and rape Ma.

A lot of the success of Room can be contributed to the sheer power and grace of the performances by Tremblay and Larson, respectively a child actor and a younger-than-me actor. Seeing the world through Jack’s eyes is a weird experience that only works because of how earnest Tremblay is in the role. And Larson does such a great job bringing out the vulnerability and rage of someone in her position – to the point where someone in the audience of the screening I saw was audibly disturbed by the movie, and possibly had to walk out.

But I should be clear that Room is not great for bringing a terrible crime to life. No, Room transcends the crime thriller genre and becomes a story about complacency and freedom, about the painfulness of change. Especially it is about the power of unconditional love, and the good and bad consequences of those feelings. Much of the movie is shot in POV or close up, director Lenny Abrahamson wants you to feel this story, and it’s hard not to. I walked out of the movie loving it for that visceral nature. But believe me, it’s smart and absolutely worthy of its heavy themes. Truly an illuminative reminder that actually it’s not that the world is as big as our imagination, but that our imaginations is only as big as the world.

Geographer – Ghost Modern

I think I write about this every time I write about Geographer, but whatever, here I go again. I feel like a crazy person for liking Geographer as much as I do. More specifically, I think it’s super weird that a band that appears to be totally credible and established and cable of putting out quality recordings on major platforms gets nothing written about them on a national level. There wasn’t a review for Ghost Modern in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The AV Club, hell, I can’t even find a mention of this band anywhere on local mega-hip station KEXP. This shouldn’t be happening, I’m not this cool or smart. Did Geographer do some really bad shit and everyone knows about it but me? That seems the most likely explanation.

I’ve been a Geographer fan since I stumbled upon their (or his? I think it’s actually just one guy who tours with a band) cover of “Age of Consent,” the best New Order song. Then I liked their 2012 album, Myth, but couldn’t write about it because I found out about it way after 2012. I think Ghost Modern is probably in the same league, and I’ve definitely listened to it the most of all three Geographer albums. In broad strokes I’d say the first album was the electro pop one, the second was the dream pop one, and this one is the closest to indie rock, in the Arcade Fire sense. In fact, “I’m Ready” has kinda been one of my anthems this year, it’s one of those great songs that just swells up into a pretty ball of awesome. Check it out for yourself, since I know you haven’t heard it… unless you’re that soulmate of mine that actually knows this band and this album.

This is perhaps Geographer’s most sonically adventurous album yet, exploring mixes of the band’s signature synths, strings, and Mike Deni’s falsetto. It goes light, it goes dark, it goes weird (a little bit). Sometimes it’s kind of like Muse, sometimes it’s kind of like Freelance Whales, sometimes it’s like St. Vincent or The National or whatever, you know how it goes. Pretty much if you like the general vibe of the music I tend to review positively, I implore you to look up Geographer. I feel like a lone explorer out in a massive expanse here, with no one else writing or talking about this band. If only I had a map or some sort of expert on like the land and shit.

Favorite Tracks: “I’m Ready,” “The Guest,” “Falling Apart”

Halo 5: Guardians

When it came out, Halo 3 seemed like the biggest deal in the world. It was everywhere – there was a Mountain Dew Flavor, Paul made a song about it… It was huge. I remember hearing about it, and later one of the Call of Duty games, in the context of video games usurping film as the biggest media releases of a year. That was then. The last eight years have made the world a lot more corporate. Now, I could barely hear anything about Halo 5‘s release between ads for Star Wars jewelry.

Seriously, it’s been about a month since Halo 5: Guardians came out and it feels like nobody is talking about it anymore. The holidays are coming, isn’t this supposed to be a system seller? Microsoft called Guardians the biggest Halo launch yet, for what it’s worth, but it simply doesn’t feel like it matters anymore. It’s not an event like these games used to be, and for non-hardcore fans of the series, that’s probably a fair level of excitement.

Guardians has moved me very little, a dismaying reality since I’ve dug pretty much all the main Halo games. This is Halo‘s big debut on modern consoles, it should be a massive showcase for the Xbox One, and to be fair, it doesn’t falter at most of what it tries. Maybe it’s just sequel fatigue, but Guardians just doesn’t stand out for me compared to games like Titanfall, Destiny, or that brief bit of Overwatch I got to play this weekend.

Take the fact that the game looks good, for an example. Not great, not the best looking game this generation or even this year, but good. And it runs at a solid 60 frames per second, which is great. But characters all look big and bulky, your guns take up a ton of the screen, and a few of the environments are pretty bland. So it’s solid, but not amazing, you know?

That problem extends to the single player story too, which I’m inclined to give a pass to since none of the Halo stories have been good. But I won’t because this one is short, bares no resemblance to any of the trailers we had been shown, and ends on a disappointing cliffhanger. You spend your time switching between a desperate Master Chief and his squad searching for Cortana, and a new, misled Spartan team led by the guy who plays Luke Cage for the Netflix branch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was super confusing, with much left unexplained and again, a big dumb cliffhanger way too soon. But people don’t play these games alone anyway (which is why it’s disappointing there’s no split screen story mode).

At this point, almost everything you’d expect to be in Halo multiplayer is there. They recently patched in big team battle, and the other essential modes are all available in the Arena. I never really cared for most of them. The big new addition is a second multiplayer mode, called Warzone, separate from the Arena, which is like an even bigger team battle. It’s an evolving mode that challenges you with different objectives, like taking out powerful NPCs, while you battle the other team for territory. It’s pretty cool and definitely the most fun I had in Guardians, even though it’s centered around the game’s most troubling aspect.

This is a game free of map pack DLC, which I think is great. Map pack DLC is terrible in multiplayer games, all it does is fracture the community. Unfortunately, in its place is a card pack system. You get points for completing matches and performing well, and you can use these points (or real money) to buy packs of cards. These cards give you weapons and vehicles for Warzone, as well as boosts and cosmetic unlocks. Those cards are the only way to get better weapons and vehicles in Warzone, aside from taking them from an enemy player. It fucked with my head that, for example, when my team needed a tank, I was inclined to not spawn one just because I only had one tank card and I didn’t want to waste it. Of course, for really good players and rich players, this won’t be a problem, making the whole system all the more distressing.

Mostly my problem was that because of the cards, my incentive to keep playing the game was just gone. Sure, there was cool armor I wanted to get, but without a direct path to it, why bother? I have no interest in grinding booster packs, I did that once with Mass Effect 3 and don’t really want to do it again. At least a game like Hearthstone gives you an alternate path to acquiring a card you want if you’re really unlucky, here you’ve just gotta wait and cross your fingers.

On the other hand, free maps are great. Making sure everyone who plays Halo 5 has access to everything that really matters is great. But as someone who plays online alone, and consistently places in about the middle-to-lower third of my team’s leaderboards, there’s just not enough incentive here to really get into the game. At least not right now, when so many great games are begging for my time. Halo used to be the biggest thing in the world. Now it will have to settle for having been the biggest thing that week.