Warmest Reception
- Kanye West - Graduation: This year we saw Mr. West's Godzilla take on Mr. Jackson's King Kong (Oh Lord did you hear that horrible man make that horrible racist comment?) and emerge squarely triumphant, once again proving that the Japanese are superior to your defective shit. A nod of recognition to Mr. West for integrating Akira and Daft Punk into this masterwork.
- Ratatouille: You're smirking. You're chuckling and saying "He's being ironic, eh? He's gotta be, right? Eh, eh?" as if there's someone next to you. But you are going to shut up and sit down; you are going to take off those Buddy Holly glasses and shave off that pathetic goatee; you are going to enjoy this movie about a rat who wants to be a chef.
- Halo 3: Driver + Halo - Halo 2
Napoleon.In.Rags: We nominated Halo 3 for something?
paris.by.night: Can we even call this "our" nomination? We're on the outside looking in.
Napoleon.In.Rags: No, that's the thing. I respect the fact that, under our experimental paramaters, we get one petri dish that ends up with the festering mass of bacteria culture in the shape of a ring-world. Teacher looks over, shakes her head in disappointment, and remarks that we'll never be scientists.
Napoleon.In.Rags: I lay no blame on the scientists, nor on the bacteria! You have to understand that it's the teacher we're gunning for here (navigate that metaphor, you assholes).
paris.by.night: The PTA reaches its consensus: "No need!"
Napoleon.In.Rags: Overpaid union fuckers.
paris.by.night: That Halo is a terribly derivative product -- and not a terribly selective one in derivation -- is not a major concern.
paris.by.night: The major concern is that it plays to a DANGEROUSLY Winehousesque denominator!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Oh, naturally. I mean, it's our cultural obligation at this point to ensure that, as the erudite, are superior to Halo fans. Ideally our Tarquinian declaration should feature at least two of the following: thumbing our noses at their perceived over-consumption of alcohol, insisting that "they'll work for us one day", and reaffirming that the true artists of the FPS genre are some indie company from Estonia who have a experimental, post-tactical RPG-RTS-FPS project whose single-player campaign takes place in Foucault's frontal lobe.
Napoleon.In.Rags: I leave the honors to you?
paris.by.night: I daresay that, in failing to see this matter in the simple light it so clearly wants to cast itself in, we find ourselves too detached to judge. We have two major comedies on our hands here: one featuring a space marine who wants to be relevant and the other with a rat that wants to be a chef!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Ah, and how he really, honestly wants to be a chef. I like that, I like that a lot.
paris.by.night: We also find that, in our "entertainment city" of wobbly buildings and winding streets, that the rat and the chef are classically opposed! Distilling them to a "before-and-after", the "revers de la medaille"...
paris.by.night: Well
paris.by.night: Cities are burning with towns aflame! Cities are burning with towns aflame!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Oh, keep your ghosts under the sheet.
Napoleon.In.Rags: You'll have time allotted for a soliloquy after we properly introduce our final contender.
paris.by.night: My dear man, we already have; Godzilla and burning cities go together like Scott P--
Napoleon.In.Rags: Godzilla! My, you are simply lethal with the segues, seeing as our good friend Mr. West is apparently an aficionado of Nippon.
Burial?: See there's one thing for which I certainly grant Mr. West due respect. Bono, as we all know, has for years clutched his plaque inscribed with World's Most Important Rock Band like the greedy child he is.
paris.by.night: (The Joshua Tree's dead, you know.)
Napoleon.In.Rags: Who but Mr. West shall finally step up and - with an appropriately braggadocious gesture - pry it from the Irishman's skeletal claw?
Napoleon.In.Rags: And here we have the beauty of it! Bono is thinking - aren't we all thinking? - about Mr. West "But he's not even a rock band!"
Napoleon.In.Rags: How can he say it, though? He's already put one foot into The Africa Problem. Anything he does here drags that foot further in: zugzwang.
paris.by.night: That Bono's "status" is still capable of passing from hand to hand is a reassuring sign that pop is alive! Fuck raw-- rock, fuck ra-- hip-hop! Pop, my dear! We need only worry when we find one man becomes the symbol, a fate Bono has managed to avoid despite his best efforts...
paris.by.night: but I find that, again, we are undersimplifying.
paris.by.night: Say that, as a hypothetical, the city should burn down due to whatever combination of pop's death, Godzilla's arrival, and rat chefs.
paris.by.night: RELEVANCE is key. Who is relevant in that world?
paris.by.night: The pop star's ABSENCE hurt the city. The monster lacks purpose as he stands over the wreckage... but that rat's got a lot of homeless men and women to feed.
Napoleon.In.Rags: It's the difference between Alexander the Conqueror and Alexander the Great.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The new monarch promises them a meal and an education each day. He makes life enjoyable, injects a small amount of purpose here or there. Perhaps a tenth of the city's populace realize that he is a rat, and they do nothing but nod knowingly to one another. Meanwhile the pop star is desperately busking (art is not allowed in this society), Godzilla is no longer relevant (there cannot be fear without the majesty of skyscrapers), and Halo 3 scratches its head on the sidelines wondering how the fuck it got nominated for anything.
Most charming in our eyes: Ratatouille
The Amy-Fuckin'-Whinehouse Award
- The Shins - Wincing The Night Away: It's not "The Shins" that are offensive per se but rather the-- holy fuck, no, it is The Shins!
- Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works: CHUGGA-CHUGGA-chikka-chikka-chikka-wukkawiggawaaaaaaaaaagawaggawiggawugga- reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew-eeeeeeeeeeew-eeeeeeeeeew-lilillillelelelelolooooooooo-CHUGGA- CHUGGA-rikka-rikka-rikka-CHONG
- Call of Duty 4: Who fantasizes about the Iraq war? Cut it out.
paris.by.night: I once asked a Vietnam veteran how he felt about the sudden surge of games covering and romanticizing his war. His response: "Well, are they good games?"
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now which causes them to get more offended?
Napoleon.In.Rags: A string of shitty direct-to-Gamestop-clearance-section shoot 'em ups that never get mentioned until some delightfully witty forum poster decides he has to have a unique response on the "Worst Games Ever" thread, or the types that make the murder of innocent pixelated Vietnamese citizens, y'know, a rollicking good time?
paris.by.night: We have to consider the impact the relative closure of a decades-long buffer in his reaction, of course, but the fact remains that COD4 cannot be objectively judged through the a soldier's lens. Rather, the issue becomes the entire concept (the entire institution?) of Playing War in the War Times.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Well if the standard FPS gives the meek, scrawny gamer the testicular fortitude to tell his internet brethren that he's going to "coeme over ther eand kikk there f@gg0t a$$", is COD4 going to get them to... serve their country like men? Right?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Wait, what? No, that's wrong. What the fuck is wrong with that, why did I say that?
paris.by.night: Almost.
paris.by.night: Here, let's decontextualize this to a fair extent:
paris.by.night: add 20 years. We're either out of Iraq or it's so far on the backburner it becomes self-sustaining: veterans have the time buffer the aforementioned Vietnam vet was afforded.
paris.by.night: Let's continue out on the limb we've set up and suppose those veterans ask the SAME QUESTION, one of objective design merit.
paris.by.night: How do you think we'll have to respond?
Napoleon.In.Rags: If there's a flag nearby, we salute like hell and do as many push-ups as they tell us to. I'm not going toe to toe with one of those fuckers!
paris.by.night: Now yer catchin' on!
paris.by.night: Next contender: The Sh-- no, you know what, DEP AND the Shins.
paris.by.night: That's the same nomination. Who's responsible for this?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now, now. I'm sure if you Venn Diagram'd it up, there'd only be a relatively small union in what makes them undesirable.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Allow me this platform to introduce readers to the concept of the John-Paul Axis! I trust you're already familiar?
paris.by.night: Of course -- you've always done a terribly better job of doing it justice, though.
Napoleon.In.Rags: See, the concept is that only two Beatles (It's always the fuckin' Beatles! Fuck!) mattered. John is The Experimentation and Paul is The Aestheticism.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Each band, film, game, person, etc. has their place on this axis - as well as on the success/failure access. Astute readers can look forward to a graphical representation of this in future installments, with each individual entity occupying a unique spot on the graph.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now, the Shins... they fail on an entirely Paul level. We get it, you think you're entitled to beat your girlfriend and churn out tiresome twang-pop just because Zach Braff name-dropped you for shits and giggles.
paris.by.night: No, don't even graph the goddamn Shins.
Napoleon.In.Rags: ... are they even a band?
Napoleon.In.Rags: As in, do we have any confirmation of that? Has anyone ever definitely proved that they make music?
paris.by.night: I thought it was a gang... ?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Shit... we gotta get someone monitoring these guys' activity!
paris.by.night: They robbed me once. You expectin' me to follow up with "of 70 megabytes" or "of an hour of my life?" No, fuck that, they fuckin' ROBBED me.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Shit, James Mercer even SOUNDS like the name of a guy who runs a cult!
paris.by.night: Plus... I don't want to sound too presumptuous here, but he crooned to my wallet as he held it, something about an envelope controlled filter...Napoleon.In.Rags: That's gotta be their angle. They run around spreading their propoganda and mugging those who won't listen. Any who try to resist them are met with the hand of their enforcers, a shadowy group known as DEP.
paris.by.night: That Venn Diagram is getting more and more pessimistic by the minute.
Napoleon.In.Rags: So how does this work now?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Do we award it to the cult leader or his prize pit bull?
Napoleon.In.Rags: I mean.... is this for achievement in a negative field, or negative achievement?
paris.by.night: Or for, in COD4's case, unabashed negativity?
paris.by.night: Wait... wait a minute.
paris.by.night: Stop this.
paris.by.night: Which of the above would be most likely to be completely strung out and threaten a ceaselessly cheering audience?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Hmm... well if that's our measuring stick, I'll have to choose-
Napoleon.In.Rags: I'll have to... to choo- ch-
Napoleon.In.Rags: ch- ... Chugga-chikka-chugga-REEEEEEEEEEAAAAaaaawwww-wigga-wikka-WAUGH.
paris.by.night: So be it.
Amy Winehouse: HOLDIN YOUU
Most charming in our eyes: Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
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