Biggest Surprise Success
- Fiery Furnaces - Widow City: Stomp, stomp! "Brother and sister" may be the most frowned-upon relationship in all of rock these days, but you won't find NME eating Friedberger out anytime soon.
- Juno: After watching the TV spots a reasonable man will conclude that this movie is Napoleon Dynamite II: At Least Ellen Page is Really Hot. After seeing the first few minutes of the film, said reasonable man will groan as his conclusion is apparently confirmed. After seeing the entirety of the film, said reasonable man will be proven drastically wrong and be shaken from the tenets of reason themselves.
- Portal: The game that almost did more bad than good by spreading an empty sloganeering virus among kids desperate to fill the yawning gap left from growing out of Homestarrunner.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Isn't it also your job to not get cut down by my breathtakingly elegant dissertations on parkour vis a vis assassination? C'est la vie.
Napoleon.In.Rags: But I suppose we have a duty to treat this seriously. Mmm.
paris.by.night: Ah, yes, the "violent parkour"...
paris.by.night: we never really addressed that, did we?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Not to its justified extent. Allow me to extend the metaphor!
paris.by.night: Please.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The good assassin is he who springs out of nowhere, is a mere part of the shadows until his blade is at your throat.Napoleon.In.Rags: The great assassin is he who hides in plain sight as a mediocre individual unworthy of your attention until his poison starts affecting your nerves.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The master assassin is he who, until the very moment you die, has you thinking this is a terrible assassin.
Napoleon.In.Rags: I trust my metaphor (fuck's sake!) is not lost on you?
paris.by.night: Good, great, master? Seems fine to me, but the best assassin is and always will be the one who is his own target. "Compensated suicide"-- or, in a manner of speaking, ritualism --
Napoleon.In.Rags: Ritualism! Out come the ouija boards and jeweled daggers, my friend: there be demons afoot!
paris.by.night: Ho, ho! But do you see the importance of my "best assassin" idea? Mr. Newell, I believe, was compensated.... more than adequately... for his aquisition of a handful of Digipen students who'd ultimately be responsible for "The Ca-- Portal."
Napoleon.In.Rags: ... regrettably, I *do* see. But this raises another important yet only tangentially related point: Did we err in refusing to nominate Assassin's Creed?
paris.by.night: We'd have to cut through a few levels of abstraction to nominate Creed, and my leaves aren't rustling. The problem, you see, is that Creed's only SURPRISE was its apparent critical failure! The game was hyped beyond belief, beyond hype. To see it nominated as "Biggest Surprise Success" would imply that we were surprised to see it succeed only after reading how others received it which, I daresay, would not reflect too kindly on our own industry awareness.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fuck ethos.
paris.by.night: :)
Napoleon.In.Rags: But sadly, we must return to the topic at hand, having dispatched that mischeivous little creature.
paris.by.night: So it's safe to say... Portal's out on the grounds of its apparent contractual self-murder?
Napoleon.In.Rags: We can safely eliminate Portal with little to no fanfare: Newell proved himself an assassin of middling capability.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Mmm.
paris.by.night: Hah! We draw the same conclusion.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Spare me your allegations about the supposed behaviors of great minds, montresor.
Napoleon.In.Rags: It comes down to the two then!
paris.by.night: Widow City's next. I know this nomination's mostly mine -- are you familiar with it at all?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Break it down for me: how hot is Eleanor Friedberger?
paris.by.night: Look it up with your favorite image search -- alright, down boy! Google Image Search -- and you'll get a varying story. All that really matters is how she looks performing "The Philadelphia Grand Jury" and my friend, she is hot.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Aaaaaaahhhh... not convinced.
paris.by.night: We'll return to this, yes?
paris.by.night: Juno, Juno... break it down for me.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Well I've expounded at length already on her merits as a bait-and-switch artist. What makes her wholly unique among the pseudo-genre (I can hear you wincing, academia) is that the switch is sweeter than all the baits I've had arrayed before me.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Imagine!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Imagine you're seeing a movie with all the trappings of a failure.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Let me throw a few elements of the film at you, mmm? React honestly.
paris.by.night: You're telling me to "imagine"... with, surely, the knowledge that I'm going to return with Imagine Dead John Lennon?
Napoleon.In.Rags: A har har har!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fact #1: Juno is written by a former stripper-blogger who calls herself "Diablo Cody". Reaction?
paris.by.night: My "myspace celebrity" sense is tingling! I don't really know how to react....
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fact #2: Michael "Superbad" Cera. Let that sink in, boy.
paris.by.night: I must confess my confusion, dear sir!
paris.by.night: Are you trying to sell me on this film or repel me from it? Because the Amy Winehouse award is comi--
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fact #3: It deals with the classic "family comedy" issue of teen pregnancy! You FUCKER!
paris.by.night: Well congratulations. I seem to be hoodwinked.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The jack pops out of the box and a rendition of Pop Goes The Weasel starts up. We laugh because it's funny.
Most charming in our eyes: Juno
Slowest Burner
- Burial - Untrue: Well, Archangel is the "Hottest Record In The World" according to Thom Yorke.
- There Will Be Blood: I'm going to bury you underground, Eli. I'm going to bury you underground.
- Once: This crafty little vixen had me hoodwinked. Aside from the fact that she leaves her protagonists unnamed in a thoroughly surreptitious way, she makes you wait until the post-viewing Wikipedia read to realize she's a fuckin' musical. I hate her for deceiving me, but I'll always love her for being able to do so.
paris.by.night: That seems fair: however slow-burning, what's the value in an extinguished fire? (Oh, stop that, Homer! You're acting like I cut your dick off!)
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now, now. I want you to cease threatening the genitalia of epic poets.
paris.by.night: ... Indeed. It seems we have ... yes, Burial's contribution to discuss first. Initial thoughts?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Who the fuck is he?
paris.by.night: Look! Out there, in the woods! It's a camp of UKGarage fans -- or do you call it "dubstep" now, my darlings?
paris.by.night: Of course you do.
Napoleon.In.Rags: No, seriously! Who the fuck is he! I
mean, I understand that he's an experimental anonymous underground hyperdub recording artist. But being a decent human being there is something chilling about his refusal to, y'know, enjoy the limelight a bit!paris.by.night: Experimental. I have a problem with calling Burial's work "experimental", I gotta say. Is it an experiment if you plug your beat into a digital delay line, throw the result into an envelope controlled filter and sprinkle some tape hiss over it? Yeah, that's right, Mr. (Ms.?) Burial! I've seen an electronic production studio! What's wrong-- were you counting on my only other exposure to the genre being We Are The Night?
paris.by.night: Note how I address you as if you were Burial. The troubling matter is that I don't know you aren't.
Napoleon.In.Rags: A necessary aside: the Chemical Brothers are not the night. They are the opposite of the night, and by this I do not mean to say they are day either. They are the hypothetical abscence of night if you can imagine that without spouting "B-b-but Mr. Copernicus said-" at me.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Burial has been eliminated from this competition. He (SHE?) can take his (HER?!?) bags and go home (BUT WHAT IF HE/SHE ALREADY IS HOME? AWWW SHIT I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND).
paris.by.night: Hah. That's exactly what Mr. Burial would do - try to get his nomination discounted in order to stay out of the limelight. I got yer number. But I'm willing to move on...paris.by.night: Aah, haha, yes!
paris.by.night: There Will Be Blood!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Oh, right. This one wins it, naturally.
Napoleon.In.Rags: What's the competition again? Some Irishmen making decent music?
paris.by.night: [Checking papers] "Once."
Napoleon.In.Rags: Well Christ!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Unless this award will somehow help Bono solve The Africa Problem I think our debate ends here.
paris.by.night: Agreed. Besides, how can he EVER hope to solve it if he keeps releasing shit like Untrue?
Most charming in our eyes: There Will Be Blood
Best Genre Study
- Crysis: You're gonna need a bigger fuckin' box, kid.
- Heavenly Sword: Kai, after being HUNG and apparently breaking her neck with a loud crack!, shoots an evil birdman general with a crossbow. He delivers his last line with an arrow in his forehead before falling to the earth: "Style. That had style."
- Death Proof: What's that you say? "The other one was better", you say? Kid, you ain't gonna find an Italian Vogue in my Lebanon, Tennessee.
Napoleon.In.Rags: I'll make you a deal. Keep your dick in your pants and I won't append to the prefix "post-" to anything throughout the course of this debate.
paris.by.night: And I, in turn, will maintain a safe distance from Mr. Pilgrim.
Napoleon.In.Rags: An impressive jab, my friend. But one has to honestly wonder: if we're a Genre Culture blog as we claim to be, isn't this the most important category of the year?
paris.by.night: It's customary enough these days for "genre" to not give two shits about itself. But please, let us discuss CRYSIS.
Napoleon.In.Rags: For reference:
Napoleon.In.Rags: Are we inside the box or out?
paris.by.night: He makes CONTACT with a positively deceptive left hook!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Awwwww fuck.
paris.by.night: That fuckin' SMARTS!
paris.by.night: But I'd like to point something out.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Mm?
paris.by.night: Doesn't the fact you needed to ask at all prove that Crysis hasn't done its job?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Come to think of it, it's wintertime. Couldn't hear the leaves rustling even if we tried.
paris.by.night: Better luck next time, Crytek! Case closed (with a wink!)
paris.by.night: We're left with Heavenly Sword and.... no, I'm checking the list of nominees and it looks like Heavenly Sword is the only other one! This is an embarrassing oversight, it'll hurt our ethos, but you know what they say:
Napoleon.In.Rags: We must develop a post-ethos society?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fuck, I just said it.
paris.by.night: FUCK Kieron.
Most charming in our eyes: Heavenly Sword
