Kat, the main character in Gravity Rush for the PS Vita (SCEA, PlayStation.com)

Every so often during a gaming event, you come across a game tucked away in a corner that people seem ready and willing to ignore. In some instances the lack of attention is warranted, but sometimes they represent a true glimmer of ingenuity within the onslaught of sequels, explosions, and cookie cutter franchises. Gravity Rush (known as Gravity Daze in Japan), developed by Japan Studio, was a wonderful surprise and it was a shame the game did not have greater representation at PlayStation’s Spring Showcase.

Gravity Rush revolves around a young woman named Kat who lives in a floating city and mysteriously gains the ability to defy gravity (there is also an unexplained “gravity storm” and enemies called the “Nevi” that Kat must defeat in order to protect the people of her home city). At first the gravity defying gameplay was disorienting but the game’s logical design quickly became apparent.

The player can make Kat float by pressing the right bumper. While she’s floating, the player can aim her (either by using tilt controls or by using the analogue sticks) at an object or building and send her careening in the direction the reticule is aimed. Kat will “stick” to whatever surface she comes in contact with during flight. Using her powers, she can walk along walls, on the underside of bridges, up lampposts and so forth.

However, Kat can only use her gravity-defying abilities for a short time; once her power meter runs out she will plummet to the ground. We also managed to these powers to pick up objects and fling them at enemies. Kat can also perform a powerful flying kick by floating in the air and attacking an enemy.

Gravity manipulation can result in some unusual viewpoints and situations. (SCEA, PlayStation.com)

All this gravity manipulation might get old fast, but the game’s ingenuity became apparent when we completed a story mission requiring stealth. The mission was simply to get to a location and steal an object without being spotted by the police.

Since Kat does not have any special stealth skills she needs to rely on her ability to walk along walls and the sides of objects in order to avoid detection. This means the player needs to strategically and carefully plan out where to sneak past the police, dictating a more thoughtful approach than simply making Kat blast through the environment.

The game also boasts gorgeous visuals, beautiful comic-book/anime style cutscenes, and an intuitive touchscreen world-map. Gravity Rush seems like a game that uses the Vita intelligently without forcing Vita based controls on the player. Gravity Rush could be just the kind of game Sony needs to promote in order to entice gamers to pick up a Vita.

Gravity Rush launches in North America on June 12th, exclusively on the PlayStation Vita.

It’s that time again! We’ve another great contest for our readers in Toronto. Dork Shelf wants to send five lucky winners and their guests to see a screening of the Canadian indie thriller The Corridor in Toronto on Friday, May 18th at 9:00 PM at the Projection Booth Cinema (1035 Gerrard St East)

Here’s the official synposis of The Corridor: They’ve been the best of buddies for more than a decade, but now they’re changing – getting married, getting promoted, going bald, going insane. During a male-bonding weekend, they will discover a spectral corridor through the woods – an impossible hallway where none should be. It will lead these five men into fear, into betrayal, and into the biggest change of them all: by weekend’s finish… they’ll be dead.

Be sure to read our full review of this Fantasia Film Fest Audience Award winner here.

The Corridor opens in Toronto at the Projection Booth Cinema on Friday, May 18th and we’d like to give you a chance at winning one of five pairs of double passes to the Friday screening. Simply email contest@dorkshelf.com with THE CORRIDOR in the subject line. Only one entry per person, please. For additional chances to win, like the contest announcement on our Facebook page and/or re-Tweet the announcement from our Twitter! Deadline for entries is 11:59pm on Wednesday, May 16th.

Good luck, and as always, stay tuned to Dork Shelf for more great contests and giveaways!

Below you can read our interview with the trio and find out how Luke Skywalker got involved, how their music would be classified as X-Files, and what kind of hats they wear in this band and all their other bands.

Then go see them celebrate the release of Crayon Wars on June 1 at Sneaky Dee’s.

Dork Shelf: When and how did the band start, and how did you get to where you are now?

Wendy Leung: The long story is that this band is an evolution of my solo work. When i finished my last record I realized the music I was making wasn’t really in line with what I love to listen to. The musicians I was working with were also turning their focus onto other projects so it was a great opportunity to rethink and bring new collaborators on board. I wanted to create songs that focused on vocals and beats so I decided to experiment with drum machines on top of live drums. We were a 4-piece originally; half the songs on Crayon Wars were written with live drums, and the others were completed after our drummer left the band.

DS: Why did you change the name of the band?

WL: I think the music outgrew the name. I’ve always thought us as a band rather than “me with some musicians helping out.” We played as “Wendy Leung” for a couple of years but it was confusing to explain that the name referred to the entire band and not just me as a singer/songwriter. This record also sounds entirely different from my old stuff so it makes sense that it’s its own thing. We threw names back and forth for a long time before landing on one that stuck, which is why the change didn’t happen sooner. Crayon Wars is actually one that we came up with but it sounded more like an album title than a band name to me so we saved it. There are some others that also stuck but for completely the wrong reasons, so we figure one day we’ll make a line of “rejected band name” t-shirts to sell at our merch table…

DS: Can you explain the story behind Crayon Wars and the process of making it?

Owen Norquay: So there was this giant war between the reds and the blues and the leader of the red was named Luke Skywalker and he was a centipede. He fought with a hundred light sabers against his arch nemesis Baby Blue Bear and his tertiary nemesis Large Small Pox in order to save Crayon City. He was destroyed. By Little Sheep-Bird.

Dean Marino: Oh wait, you mean the record?

WL: Crayon Wars (the album) is a collection of songs I wrote both before and after we formed this band. We began recording in Owen’s house with Cameron Harding engineering and finished at Dean’s (now closed) studio, Chemical Sound. Because we were so close to the project we wanted an outside ear for mixing so we reached out to a childhood friend of Owen’s in NYC, Evan Sutton, who specializes in electronic music and sound design. The entire process took about a year and a half; we took our time and put a lot of thought into every little detail along the way, so we’re extremely happy with how it turned out.

DS: How have you developed your sound? How would you classify it?

DM: I would classify it as top secret.

ON: It’s an X-File.

WL: [hums the X-Files theme song]… It’s funny, my songs have always been described as dark and melancholic but I think this is the lightest collection yet. At least the most danceable, anyway. We’re veering back towards the dark side from a sonic perspective though, so stay tuned for that in the next album.

DS: What’s it like being a musician in Toronto?

WL: It’s pretty awesome. There’s so much going on in this city that you could go out every night of the week for months and see a different local band each night. There’s also a great sense of community – bands are really supportive of each other, and sometimes you end up meeting people to start new things with. I think it’s common for musicians in the city to have more than one project on the go.

DS: What’s it like for all three of you being in multiple bands? How do you prioritize? How do each entity’s sounds influence this band?

WL: We get to wear different hats in each of the bands we’re in.

DM: I wear a fedora in my other band – and I shred.

ON: In this band I wear a toupé.

WL: My hat falls off in the other band because I dance so much. Wendy Versus is kind of my baby – I pour my heart and soul into it but I also spend a lot of time managing the logistics, paperwork, etc. I love playing in Papermaps because it’s pure fun, and because it’s such a different genre from what I’m used to it pushes my creative boundaries.

ON: My roles are different in each band – I’m the primary beat-maker in this one but I’m heavily influenced by working with my brother Chris, who writes the beats for Soi Disant.

DM: It’s nice to play different roles in the various projects I’m involved in. It keeps me “fit” musically. I really like playing in Wendy Versus because it allows me to focus on my guitar playing (rather than carrying the whole performance, like in Papermaps). Musically, it’s exciting because I get to explore more atmospheric textures than the more concrete stuff I do in other bands.

DS: Where do you like to play in Toronto?

WL: I think we can all agree that we feel at home at Rancho Relaxo, not because of the venue necessarily but because Two Way Monologues, which puts on most of their shows, has always been supportive of all of our respective musical projects over the years. After that I have to say I quite like The Cameron House. It’s a smaller space but it’s intimate and great for quieter acts.

DM: We’re lucky to live in a city with so many great venues! I think it really comes down to who’s there more than where we are at any given time.

ON: Any place with a stage and a mic!

DS: What other local acts do you like?

WL: Lovely Killbots, who we’re so happy to have playing our album release party! I also love Ketch Harbour Wolves, and Volcano Playground.

DM: Born Ruffians, The Elwins and lately I’ve been excited about a Guelph-based band called From East to Exit.

ON: Little Foot Long Foot, Meanwood, Rock Plaza Central, Orchards.

DS: What’s on your Dork Shelf (movies, books, music, games)?

WL: X-Files, Fringe, The O.C. DVD sets, the Infernal Affairs trilogy, most of Coupland’s fiction, and my Colecovision console with such excellent games as Frogger, Smurfs, and Q-Bert. In iTunes rotation is a lot of electro-pop but on my shelf are vinyl of The National, Florence + The Machine, Jay-Z.

DM: Blade Runner; it’s like a basic course in existentialism and film noir all at once. Also I’d like to own every Stanley Kubrick film. I’m addicted to buying books, including ones by Don DeLillo, Nicholson, Baker, Nick Hornby.

ON: Star Trek: all of the series and movies except Enterprise. I only read non-fiction books ’cause unlike Dean I LIKE FACTS…

DM: I also have a large collection of non-fiction! And I like Tame Impala.

ON: …and I’ve never owned a video game console. That being said I do relax with Tiger Woods Masters Golf on the Wii from time to time. I also never listen to music.

DS: What’s next for Wendy Versus?

WL: We’re releasing Crayon Wars (vinyl and digital) June 1, throwing a party in its honour at Sneaky Dee’s with Lovely Killbots, Mix Chopin, and Patrick Grant. After that we’ve got a NXNE showcase at The Cameron House on June 16, and then we’ll be gearing up for an August tour with Papermaps.

DS: What else should we know about Wendy Versus?

WL: We’re all left-handed, and I think all wear the same size pants.

ON: It’s weird playing in a band where I’m so much older than everybody else.

DM: Uh…yeah. And, we’re actually nice people so you should stop us on the street if you see us.

WL: It’s true!

ON: Free hugs!

Director David Weaver might one of this country’s most intriguing directors, but he’s not exactly a nice, quiet Canadian filmmaker. His darker sensibilities are best characterized by his second feature Siblings, a superbly sick 2004 comedy about a few children who kill their parents and try to form a new fractured family while covering up the crime. That sensibility was founded in his ensemble debut Century Hotel and continues into his latest feature The Samaritan.

The new film feels like a vintage neo-noir harking back to late 80s/early 90s crime movies and stars the one-and-only Samuel L. Jackson. He plays a veteran grifter who just got out of a hefty prison sentence with plans to play it straight. Of course, that sort of lifestyle isn’t easy to escape, and with Jackson’s late partner’s son (a delightfully deranged turn from Luke Kirby) currently in trouble with a local crimelord (played by Tom Wilkinson with uncharacteristic bloodlust) it’s only a matter of time before he slips back into the con world. But if you know anything about Sam Jackson, you can assume that none of the guilty parties will be let off easy.

With The Samaritan opening this Friday, we got a chance to chat with David Weaver about the inception/inspiration for his new film, the challenges of creating genre movies in Canada, and what it was like to work with the great Samuel L. Jackson. (Note: Weaver dropped one pretty hefty spoiler during the interview, but we’ve provided a warning if you desperately don’t want to know).

Dork Shelf: I thought The Samaritan had a nice, old fashioned feeling as a crime movie, almost  like a traditional noir or even a neo-noir like The Grifters. Could you talk a little bit about that influence?

David Weaver: Well, it’s interesting, I had a film prof say to me once that all directors are just remaking the movies that they loved when they were teenagers. (Laughs) Unfortunately that’s very true for me. I guess I haven’t grown at all. I’m still making the movies I would have made when I was 16 years old. I’ll leave you to decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

But for sure, those were movies that I saw when I was growing up and really loved. For me, the inspiration for making the movie was always early Neil Jordon movies like The Crying Game or Mona Lisa. The Usual Suspects is another one that fits into that genre. I just feel that those movies don’t seem to be made much anymore. There were a flurry of those made in the 90s and then they seemed to die down a bit. There aren’t many noirish movies made today, and the few that are made, from my perspective, are artificial. There isn’t much atmosphere to them and they aren’t character driven. Or they’re studio movies, like something Denzel Washington or Tony Scott would make together, that are kind of mechanistic. You know, every five minutes something explodes and it’s shot with 16 cameras and beautifully lit. They’re great in their own way, but they aren’t that kind of smaller-scale character driven neo-noir that I grew up loving. So, when you are fortunate enough to get to make films, you start to look around and think, “Why don’t we make movies like that anymore?” I thought that this film was unabashedly an attempt to revive that genre and I think that’s what appealed to people all the way down the line to make this movie.

DS: Was it difficult to get a movie within that genre and with such dark themes made in Canada?

DW: Oh yeah. Look, I went to film school in the States, but at the same time I grew up in Toronto and I live in Toronto. One of the things that I try to do as a filmmaker is put the Toronto that I know up on screen. I don’t think that’s in a lot of movies. When people think of Toronto in films they think of the Egoyan or Cronenberg Toronto which is very cold and lost. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a vision of Toronto, it’s just not the Toronto that I see.

DS: Yeah, or Toronto will stand in as New York or another city.

DW: Right, which is even worse. So a big part of it was to embrace the noir genre, but also to unabashedly try to make it work for the city that I love. You know, a great part of those movies is that when you see them, you feel Los Angeles in Chinatown or you feel New York in a Sidney Lumet movie or you feel London in the Neil Jordon movies. I don’t see why as a Canadian filmmaker we can’t do that. It seems to me that we have this great unexploited setting. So that was part of it. And then you know, it’s a difficult type of movie to get made. It’s a hard thing to make a movie that so unabashedly dark. You’ll have people come to you and say, “Could you somehow change the twist?” And what I tried to explain to people is that the kind of movie that we were talking about just a minute ago really committed to their characters and to the idea that tough things do happen in life. That’s the great thing about film noir is that going right back to the 30s, it looks into the darker corners of life. And that’s what I’m interested in as a filmmaker, those dark corners.

DS: It strikes me that writing a credible con job is very difficult. How did you approach doing constructing those sequences?

DW: I wrote the movie with Elan Mastai and I think one of the great things about writing the film was that he had a real appreciation for those movies as well, so you have the excitement of writing with someone who is totally on the same page. You get into this back-and-forth of trying to top each other with the con. You know, “What if this happens?” or “What if we throw in this twist?” I think that’s a part of the joy of writing this sort of movie. We drew on other con movies, but we never limited ourselves. A lot of what goes on including the notion of “The Samaritan” was just stuff that we invented. That’s part of the pleasure of it, getting to embrace the vernacular of those movies. Some of it like talking about “the grift” or that sort of thing comes out of other movies. But then you start to go with it and build on it. About half of it is stuff we found elsewhere and half of it is what we came up with on our own.

DS: I have to ask, how did you get Samuel L. Jackson and how was directing him? From what I understand, he’s very good at throwing around the word “motherfucker” and I’m sure it would be tough to be on the wrong side of that exchange.

DW: (Laughs) Well, when you know Sam, “motherfucker” kind of loses its sting after you’ve heard it a few times. You learn how many different ways it can be said. It’s not just used in anger. It could be, “Hey motherfucker, I loved your script,” which is quite pleasant. Anyways, the story is very banal unfortunately. I have a rep in LA who used to play golf with Sam. He never pitched him everything because he didn’t think it was appropriate. But he loved our script for The Samaritan and passed it along to Sam. It was a great moment because I found out on a Thursday and then on a Monday they wanted to buy it. They were nice enough to insist that I stayed attached, so I scraped together all of the air miles that I could and flew to LA. I made the incredible mistake of watching Pulp Fiction the night before (laughs), but I met Sam Jackson and he was a fascinating guy right from the beginning. He loved the material and he got what it was about.

One of the things that I think Sam saw in it was that there’s a sort of analogy in a way between what con artists do in terms of taking on a persona and what actors do. I think that was something that he was always very interested in. When his character commits to doing the con, he goes through an actor-like process to prepare for the role. I thought that was also what was amazing about Sam as a performer, in a way. He comes to the set in a very complete fashion. With a lot of actors, even Tom Wilkinson, they come and ask you, “How do you see this guy?” or “What should I wear?” There’s isn’t a lot of that with Sam. You write it, he takes it and creates the guy. You can modulate the performance, but that’s your relationship with him. So, it’s a little different than it is with a lot of actors. As a director, I think you come to appreciate that. There’s a certainty there that isn’t always the case in making a film. It can be intellectually and emotionally exhausting to make all of the decisions and it’s great to work with someone who has that level of self-assurance and doesn’t need any handholding.

[Now entering Spoilerish territory]

DS: When did you start working on The Samaritan? From what I understand, the screenplay has been around for a few years.

DW: Yeah, the idea came to me about five or six years ago or maybe even longer. I’ll leave it up to you about what to include about this in terms of avoiding spoilers, but the movie has been criticized because of the similarities to [REDACTED].

DS: That’s definitely something I had planned to bring up.

DW: Yeah, it’s a mixed thing. I have a lot of admiration for [REDACTED] and think it’s a great accomplishment. But at the same time, this idea actually preceded [REDACTED]. I actually hadn’t seen that movie when I started working on the script with Elan Mastai. Elan might have seen it. Inevitably, you face this question when you discover a similarity like that and wonder, “Should we drop this or go another way?” I didn’t want to because the idea that I had was to focus very closely on the consequences of this huge revelation. I always thought of The Crying Game.

What I loved about that movie was that a lot of times in say an M Night Shyamalan movie, the big twist comes in the last few minutes. Those are great movies, don’t get me wrong, but I like films like The Crying Game or Psycho where the twist is added into the story and then you see all of the dominos fall afterwards. So, we made the choice to write the script and it made its way to Sam. He saw read it and felt the same way. So that’s why for me, it’s very different than [REDACTED]. It’s not really a revenge film. It’s more a consequence of a decision that he made 20-30 years earlier.

[Now leaving spoilerish territory, have a nice day.]

DS: Since you’ve done so much TV work, could you speak a little bit about the difference between directing TV versus features?

DW: It’s funny to me that people perceive that. I don’t feel that I’ve done a lot of TV in particular, but I do feel like I’ve gotten to do a lot of different things in TV that I never would have done if I hadn’t been asked. That’s probably the best way to put it. I think the big difference is that in television, you’re hired like a craftsman to do a job and you hope to satisfy the people who hired you. It’s like you’re building a table and you try to craft it and make it strong and suit the function required. On my feature films, I’m really not interested in anyone else’s opinion (Laughs). I mean, I listen to my collaborators, but the reason why I make films and why I spent 5 years working on The Samaritan is because ultimately I want to see the movie. In the end that’s the most important to me with my films. I want to make something that sings to me. I’d love it if someone else likes it and obviously it’s great if it makes money. But ultimately, I made movie for me and created something I wanted to see. Like we were talking earlier about those neo-noir movies that disappeared. Not even Neil Jordon is making Neil Jordon movies anymore, so if he’s not going to do it, I’ll do it for myself (Laughs). The biggest pleasure of a film for me is looking at it when it’s finished. If it doesn’t work for you, I’m very sorry, but that’s the attitude I had.

DS: Are you working on any new films now?

DW: I’m trying to make a movie called Moon Palace, which is entirely different. It’s based on the last short film I made that went to a lot of film festivals. It’s about a guy who wants to be a writer and answers a want ad for a Chinese restaurant. The owner has bugged all of the tables in the restaurant and wants someone to sit in the back and write personalized fortunes for everyone based on their conversations. Then a girl comes in and he falls in love with her, but can’t explain how he knows everything about her. It’s a little urban comedy based on simple ideas of fate and whether or not we can manufacture our fate. So, that’s what I’m hoping to do next.

Hey there, boys and girls of all ages. What kind of bird are you? Take your time thinking up the answer to that question because the answer plays heavily into our next great contest! Dork Shelf and the wonderful people over at Entertainment One want to send fifteen lucky winners and their guests to see the latest film from Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums director Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom, in Toronto on Thursday, May 24th at 7:00pm.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of two twelve-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing off-shore — and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in more ways than anyone can handle. Bruce Willis plays the local sheriff. Edward Norton is a Khaki Scout troop leader. Bill Murray and Frances McDormand portray the young girl’s parents. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the boy and girl.

For your chance to win, simply email contest@dorkshelf.com with MOONRISE KINGDOM in the subject line. Answer the question “What kind of bird are you?” in the email, and please provide us with a mailing address in case you win. (Your name will not be added to any mailing lists.) Please only one entry per person/household. For additional chances to win, like the contest announcement on our Facebook page and/or re-Tweet the announcement from our Twitter! Deadline for entries is 11:59pm on Sunday, May 20th.

Moonrise Kingdom opens in Toronto on Friday, June 1st, but here’s a couple of clips to whet your appetite. And as always, stay tuned to Dork Shelf for more great contests and giveaways!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mors Westford brings the pain in Game of Thrones: The Game. (Cyanide Studios)

Fans of the Game of Thrones television show should take care: Game of Thrones: The Game is first and foremost an old-school role playing game. The game looks as though it was designed with RPG fans in mind as opposed to offering something more familiar for fans of the television series. In many ways, GoT:TG has more in common with George Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire books than the HBO drama. Still, the developers managed to work in the likenesses of some of the characters from the show offering a little continuity between the game and the HBO series.

GoT:TG relies on standard RPG systems of inventory management, loot gathering, skill trees, lengthy dialogue scenes, and slower/strategic combat. The section of the game we played took place in King’s Landing – specifically Chataya’s Brothel and the dungeons and labyrinths below the Red Keep. The visuals are not overly impressive but the twisting alleyways of city and the dark dungeons under the Red Keep feel right for the world of Westeros.

It seems that most of the player’s time will be spent in combat or engaging in long conversations between characters. Combat centers on selecting, readying, and activating skills and abilities to create a series of attacks. This means that the player must choose carefully in order to ensure that Mors or Alester can use ranged, melee, and healing abilities in the right order for maximum effect.

Character abilities are accessed through radial menus. While accessing them, the game does not pause but everything simply slows down (similar to what you’ll find in The Witcher 2). As a result you can still be attacked while searching for the right ability to activate, which offers a bit of extra tension and strategy to the game.

Thankfully, it looks like the Game of Thrones RPG is not trying to pander to the fans of the HBO series but is a game designed with gamers and RPG fans in mind. Fans of the books may also have incentive to play since the game will visit locations the HBO series has either ignored or not yet covered. The game also features its own unique 30-hour narrative that takes place near the end of book one – Atlus’ Aram Jabbari mentioned that people around the realm are still talking about Ned Stark, “and it will rhyme with his first name, if you know what I mean.”

Overall, Game of Thrones: The Game looks promising as a throwback to old-school RPGs with a focus on careful character progression, thoughtful leveling, and strategic gameplay. It launches May 15 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC

Make sure to check out our interview with Aram Jabbari, PR & Sales Manager at Atlus, as he talks with us about Game of Thrones.

If surprise is crucial to humour, then I fear that Cohen’s brand of shock-comedy may have an even shorter shelf life than most. Following the mixed-to-hostile reception that greeted Bruno, The Dictator feels like a retreat to the comfort zone. President Aladeen (Cohen) is allegedly the dictator of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya, but his braying voice, his vaguely Middle Eastern ethnicity, and his racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny (to a pregnant female character: “Will you be having a boy, or an abortion?”) may give you flashbacks of a certain reporter from Kazakhstan. This time, the action is entirely scripted; Cohen can’t really be expected to maintain the Candid Camera schtick as his fame grows, but given that we’ve seen this kind of humor in the high-wire context of Cohen and Charles’ docu-comedies, The Dictator can’t help feeling a little watered-down.

But that wouldn’t matter if the laughs were there. The deeper problem is that Aladeen is the most repellant character Cohen and Charles have yet given us. Ali G, Borat, and Bruno were not good people, but they were more ignorant than cruel. Aladeen is the first Cohen protagonist who is proudly evil, executing staff members for minor infractions and talking about rape as if it were brunch. When Aladeen arrives in New York to speak at the United Nations, revolutionaries kidnap him, switching him with a double to bring civil rights to Wadiya (they disguise Aladeen by shaving his ludicrous beard, and the audience is startled by a rare appearance of Sacha Baron Cohen’s unadorned face). Aladeen is rescued by Zoey (Anna Faris), a vegan/feminist/environmentalist grocery store owner who mistakes him for a freedom fighter, and when Aladeen tours her store, he punctures the PC atmosphere with a torrent of verbal abuse: a black employee is “a sub-Saharan,” a woman with amputated hands is “Captain Hook,” and so on.

The Dictator has a lot of scenes like that, where the laughs curdle and die from the sheer unpleasantness of the material. We’ve come to expect taboo-busting comedy from Cohen and Charles, but this time there is little meaning except to simply pick at taboos. Consider a contrived scene where Aladeen has to deliver a baby on the grocery store floor: the gags are predictably gross (up to and including a POV shot from a body part not known for its POV shots) but also arbitrary, as if Cohen and Charles felt the need to push the envelope and so landed on a scenario that involved a vagina and a newborn. Cohen and Charles sometimes succeed in shocking us, like when Aladeen goes on an extended riff about the time he raped a group of 14-year-old boys, but there is no satirical point to redeem the ugliness of the comedy. All Cohen and Charles tell us is that we’re easily shocked by child rape.

What The Dictator lacks is a reason for its offenses. Borat said that America was little more advanced than the xenophobic Kazakhstani, and the admittedly scattershot Bruno was at least a full-frontal assault on America’s sexual hang-ups. The Dictator only starts to cook in its last ten minutes, when Aladeen delivers a speech about the joys of oppressive dictatorship – a system in which 1% of the country controls the wealth, elections are rigged, one man and his family controls the media, and uses fear to turn the populace against its own best interests. The notion that Wadiya’s dictatorship is as free as America’s democracy is the kind of ballsy idea worthy of Cohen and Charles; had it been the thesis instead of a throwaway gag, The Dictator might not have been a big-budget summer comedy, but it would have been something.

What we’re left with is the niggling question of why Cohen and Charles wanted to make this movie in the first place. In Borat and Bruno, the grossness of their cultural stereotypes was often redeemed by the potency of their satire and the audaciousness of their approach. For most of The Dictator, they’re content to stick with the culture-clash shenanigans. Perhaps a tortured argument could be made that Cohen and Charles are using comic excess to demystify evil, a la Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, but I think this gives them too much credit. I don’t think I’m out of line to be offended by a gag in which a black man’s decapitated head is used for fellatio, and I think Cohen’s Jewishness is becoming an increasingly thin defense for his many jokes about the Holocaust and Holocaust denial. I’m also beginning to grow weary of his caricatured depiction of the Middle East. Cohen and Charles are smart filmmakers, but The Dictator makes a good case for all that recent talk of “hipster racism.”

Chronicle (2012, Josh Trank) – Quite possibly the most fully realized and surprising first person shot “found footage” film of all time, the superhero(ish) drama Chronicle tells a dark and bold story that feels painfully real and heartbreaking despite its genre trappings. While it’s undeniably excellent, the home viewing experience actually increases the intimacy of the film’s dramatic elements.

The film opens as unflinchingly as possible. Shy and emotionally damaged Seattle teenager Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) has recently bought a video camera to document attacks by his abusive, drunken father and the final days of his mother, who’s in the final stages of terminal cancer. Andrew brings the camera everywhere he goes almost as if it’s a security blanket for him to inoculate himself from the outside world. His only real “friend” is his pseudo-intellectual cousin Matt (Alex Russell), who seemingly thinks everything “cool” is beneath him. One night outside a rave where Andrew nearly gets the crap beaten out of him for accidentally filming some drunken bro’s girlfriend, Matt and the coolest kid in school/future shoe-in for class president Steve (Friday Night Lights’ Michael B. Jordan), force a worried Andrew into using his camera to document a mysterious cavern deep in the woods that houses a giant glowing crystal. After coming in contact with the crystal, the boys begin to develop telekinetic powers allowing them to move and manipulate matter. At first, they strengthen their powers with an escalating series of silly dares and childish pranks (as teenagers are naturally wont to do even without superpowers), but when the more mature Andrew begins to question his friends commitment to doing something with these powers, fissures in their close friendship quickly begin to develop leaving Steve and Matt to question Andrew’s very sanity.

First time director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis (son of Blues Brothers director John) create a wonderful “slow burn” with their storytelling abilities, crafting a story that unfolds naturally, growing more unsettling as it goes on. It’s hard not to talk about the joys of the plotting and pacing without spoiling it, but it’s not hard to say that this film looks phenomenal, utilizing the fact that everyone has a camera nowadays making for an “as it happens” sense of immediacy to a story that could’ve very easily failed in lesser hands.

The Blu-ray/DVD/Digital combo pack includes the Director’s Cut of the film, that’s not necessarily darker in tone, but adds a couple of nice character notes missing from the theatrical release. There’s also a deleted scene that doesn’t change very much and some interesting pre-production camera tests and storyboards. (Andrew Parker)

Albert Nobbs (2011, Rodrigo Garcia) – Featuring some great performances and a mostly inspired story, Albert Nobbs still manages to be a bit of a letdown thanks to some wonky plotting and awkward pacing. Still, this awards season notable from last year featuring Glenn Close playing a closeted woman moonlighting as a 19^th century male butler works better on the small screen than it did in theatres thanks to its Masterpiece Theatre styled compression.

Squirreling away all of her earnings under the floorboards of her room in the Irish hotel she’s been working at under an assumed identity for years, Nobbs finds her life thrown into flux by the arrival of a painter (Janet McTeer) harbouring the same secrets she does. After learning that she might be able to be happy by being herself, Nobbs finds herself emotionally pushed and pulled after being undercover for so long that she’s possibly forgotten how to be a woman.

Close gives a commanding performance in a role that she played on stage back in the early 80s, but she’s a bit too old for the part as its written. McTeer is the real live wire here, and positively revelatory as a woman completely comfortable with her lot in life, but wary of those around her. Unfortunately, as Nobbs starts opening up, the story collapses inward on itself, glossing over some pretty major plot points in passing including the introduction of a villainous subplot that comes across as being too half baked to make a real impact. But at home, it’s also easier to appreciate some nice supporting performances from Mia Wasikowska (as the maid Albert secretly pines for) and Brendan Gleeson as the kindly in house doctor.

The DVD contains no special features, but it looks and sounds nice. (Andrew Parker)

Rampart (2011, Oren Moverman) – Despite being the mind behind the brilliant L.A. Confidential, writer James Ellroy’s work rarely transitions well to the big screen. Much like graphic novelist Frank Miller, Ellroy needs a director who can temper his sometimes unnecessarily over the top and formulaic material into a watchable package. With Ellroy’s latest outing Rampart, director Oren Moverman show’s that he’s simply not up to the challenge leading to film that feels wholly indistinguishable from the author’s past big screen outings about dirty Los Angeles cops.

The year is 1999 and Woody Harrelson stars as police detective David Brown, a man feared by outsiders and police administrators and respected greatly by a lot of his fellow officers. Naturally, like most main characters in an Ellroy film, Brown is a bigoted, boozy, womanizing mess of a man with an innate sense of personal justice who deplores violence against women despite constantly using them as objects. Working out of the already disgraced Rampart division of the LAPD, Brown becomes a scapegoat for greater corruption following his disturbing beating of a man trying to flee the scene of a car accident. At the end of his rope and down on his luck, an increasingly desperate Brown finds himself tangentially involved in the robbery of an underground poker game that he intended to hit himself to pay for his legal defences.

Despite a big name cast of heavy hitters in leading and supporting roles where all of them except for Ned Beatty (as a Great Gazoo-like cop turned informant that just pops up when needed by the story) give good performances, there’s nothing very new going on here. A maddeningly muddled final third and a bizarrely abrupt left field ending also doesn’t do the material any favours. If you’ve seen previous Ellroy adaptations like Dark Blue, Street Kings, or Cop, you know the entire story already.

The Blu-ray has a somewhat muddied picture quality during the film’s numerous bleached-out sequences, but the sound mix is clear. Special features include a commentary from Moverman that does explain some of the film’s shortcomings quite well, and a behind the scenes featurette. (Andrew Parker)

Hell on Wheels, Season One (2011-12, Joe & Tony Gayton, creators) – Using the backdrop of the U.S. Westward Expansion just after the ending of the Civil War, Joe and Tony Gayton’s tale of personal revenge and rampant greed has become one of television’s most addictive new series. Airing on AMC and shot in Calgary, the scope and vision of this series is stunning, and the scripts for individual episodes of the first season pull very few punches with gutsy performances to match.

Former rebel soldier Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount) joins up with the building of the real transcontinental railroad with the express purpose of using it to track down the Union soldiers that murdered his wife and child. His journey will bring him into contact with the real life, ruthless railroad tycoon Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney), local Indian tribes who see the railroad ending life as they know it, various hustlers, freed slaves working on the cheap) (including rapper Common playing a mixed race worker who slowly starts to understand Cullen), and an assortment of hustlers and thieves aboard the titular project where people die or get murdered on a daily basis.

The Gayton’s attention to period detail raise the series to something on par with the beloved Deadwood in terms of demystifying American History. As Cullen, Mount crafts one of the most endearing anti-heroes in recent memory, and Meaney stands as one of the greatest villains. Sharp writing and impressive production design (which really can’t be cheap) elevates the show to a level of artistic integrity that few shows today outside of Mad Men can match.

The 3-disc DVD includes all ten episodes of the first season and almost two hours of special features, including character bios, a look at the show’s history, a three minute look at an intense train crash from episode nine and how they pulled it off on a meagre budget, and about 30 minutes of raw behind the scenes footage. (Andrew Parker)

Hard Core Logo 2 (2011, Bruce McDonald) – Hard Core Logo 2 may feature a title that promises franchise continuity, but that’s pretty well where the similarities between this sequel and the original end. Both are rock-mock-docs with McDonald playing a fictionalized version of himself, but while the original movie was a seriocomic slice of the punk lifestyle, the sequel is more of a meta comedy about documentary ethics. Though fans of the original needn’t worry about this sequel topping what came before, taken on its own terms Hard Core Logo 2 is still an interesting little movie. It’s never destined to become another Canuck cult classic, but it is one of the better projects that McDonald has cranked out over the last few years.

The sequel opens with McDonald recalling the death of Joe Dick, the hardcore punk front man who shot himself in the head in the closing moments of the first film (sorry for the spoiler, but it’s kind of crucial to discuss this movie). This fictionalized version of McDonald always felt somewhat guilty that the movie ended with a friend’s death, but he’s been more than compensated by the film industry success that came along with it. He’s now living in Los Angeles making a fortune directing a biblical Western series Pilgrim that’s often referred to as “the Christian Kung Fu.” Unfortunately, his success suddenly disappears when the star of the show is caught with an underage prostitute in Thailand and the religious financers pull the plug. Around the same time, Die Mannequin’s Care Failure (playing herself) contacts Bruce claming to be possessed by Joe Dick and the director with nothing else on his plate heads out to film her recording a new album with a Wiccan cinematographer. Once he gets there, he doesn’t buy the whole possession thing, but he is surprised to see Logo 1 side character Bucky Haight (Julian Richlings) producing the album. Bruce decides to force a documentary out of the situation regardless, abusing his subjects while going a we bit crazy.

The story’s about as far away from Hard Core Logo as possible. None of the main characters from the first film actually make an appearance outside of archival footage from the first movie. Only McDonald and Richlings directly connect the film and it’s a bit odd that they chose to go with the numerical title given how thin the connective tissue really is. Yes, there are musical montages and scenes of characters getting shitfaced on whatever substance they can find, but gone is the awkward comradely and broken family relationships between bandmates that defined the first movie. Instead we’ve got a collection of bitter characters who all seem to hate each other (particularly Bruce) bumping heads and screaming at the director for fostering negativity for the sake his movie, much like he did to kill Joe Dick.

If you can get past how different Hard Core Logo 2 is from its predecessor, there’s actually quite a bit to enjoy. McDonald is pretty strong and entertaining as an asshole version of himself in the lead role, playing a selfish filmmaker with glee. Failure does more vamping for the camera more than acting, but that works well enough for her limited role and Richings is always a compelling screen presence, especially as this vindictive, creepy punk god. Though filled with way too much voiceover from the director that becomes very irritating very quickly, McDonald has an interesting little comedy yarn to spin about a documentary filmmaker spiraling out of control. What seems to be the plot in the movie (the Joe Dick possession thing) quickly vanishes into the background and the subject becomes McDonald alienating his collaborators while creating an intrusive, abusive documentary. Like a Charlie Kaufman flick, the movie is about its own making and it can be quite funny to watch this cracked version of McDonald burning his few remaining bridges. There was an abusive filmmaker/subject relationship in the original film that this sequel brings to the forefront and ties them together, it’s just too bad that this sequel came first rather than something about the actual bandmates (apparently that was supposed to be Trigger before scheduinge conflicts lead to cross-gender recasting).

Now, there is a pretty big problem in Hard Core Logo 2 that almost derails it. McDonald perhaps has a little too much fun delving into self-conscious filmmaking and disappears up his own ass just a little bit just before the credits role. The self-conscious filmmaking games become more and more excessive as the movie goes on and the comedy also starts to drain away. By the time the movie reaches a ludicrous afterlife finale, McDonald has completely gone off the rails. This sequel was never destined to be a classic, but with that ending it’s am interestingly flawed work at best. That’s real a shame because the director had plenty of clever ideas, scenes, and characters in play before the movie got away from him. Still, it’s at least an intriguing and entertaining effort from one of Canada’s most productive filmmakers. Compared to the tossed off The Movie Is Broken, it’s quite a strong Bruce McDonald joint, if not nearly as satisfying as Trigger. If you enjoy the director and the original film, it’s something definitely worth seeing with lowered expectations. Despite what the title suggests, this ain’t no Hard Core Logo, but it’s at least an interesting little flick with its own flawed oddball approach to the mock-rock-doc subgenre.  (Phil Brown)

Wrestlemania XXVIII (2012) – Look guys, I just spent the past month pretty much looking at documentaries non-stop, and I needed something to blow off steam. Having missed it when it actually aired and being a not so closeted wrestling fan, I finally caught up to the latest edition of WWE’s Wrestlemania on Blu-ray. I watched this while eating a shitload of tacos I made at home to unlearn pretty much everything I had beaten into my brain for a month straight. I regret nothing, both in terms of watching most of those documentaries or watching this Pay-Per-View in HD over a full month after it happened. Also, as one of the best Wrestlemanias of the past decade or so, it’s pretty much rekindled my love of “sports entertainment.”

Headlined by the return of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to the squared circle to face the equally beloved and hated John Cena in a surprisingly great match considering Cena’s limited in-ring presence and Rock’s time away, the card is stolen away, however, by a heavily hyped “Hell in a Cell” match between Triple H and The Undertaker (with Shawn Michaels as guest referee) and a WWE title match between CM Punk and Chris Jericho, seemingly for the right to call themselves the best in the world at what they do.

The rest of the card has some mixed results with a five on five tag match to determine the control of the company and the opening World Heavyweight Title match (between the usually reliable Daniel Bryan and Sheamus) getting the shortest ends of the stick, but those three are so classic that it elevates the entire package.

The Blu-ray includes looks back at the development of the Triple H/Undertaker, Cena/Rock, and Punk/Jericho rivalries for people like myself who had absolutely no free time the past several months. There’s also a second disc featuring the annual WWE Hall of Fame ceremony where Ron Simmons, Mil Mascaras, The Four Horsemen (including Ric Flair for a second time), Mike Tyson, and Edge get inducted. It’s cool to see here, because this is the unedited 3 hour version of the ceremony instead of what aired on television, and the stories and speeches are more satisfying for fans than what makes it to air. Except in the case of Mike Tyson, but his batshit crazy speech almost justifies the purchase of the Blu-ray entirely. (Andrew Parker)

Great Expectations (2011, TV, Brian Kirk) – If high culture is more your style and you can’t get enough Dickens adaptations, this 3 hour miniseries from the BBC and PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre will hold literary fans over until later this year when Mike Newell drops his retelling of the same story.

Compressed mainly to focus on the love story aspect of the orphaned Pip’s relationship to the more well to do orphan Estella and how her caretaker Miss Havisham isn’t having any of it, this production more closely resembles the modernized Ethan Hawke starring effort from 1997, but it’s helped along by some great lead performances from Douglas Booth (as Pip), Gillian Anderson (as Miss Havisham), and Ray Winstone (as the escaped convict Abel). It’s not the best telling of the story and it never really justifies existing since everything is so truncated, but it’s still a game effort on the production side of things.

The Blu-ray contains no special features. (Andrew Parker)

The Devil Inside (2012, William Brent Bell) - KILL IT WITH FUCKING FIRE. (Andrew Parker)

Also out this week: One for the Money

Lena Headey's likeness as Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones: The Game (Cyanide Studios)

Much of the western world is currently enthralled by Westeros, thanks to the HBO series Game of Thrones adapted from George R. R.  Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire novels. It’s probably no surprise, then, that a videogame is in the works. What might surprise you, however, is that Game of Thrones: The Game has been in development for more than seven years.

Cyanide Studios, the company known for other videogames based on classic fantasy franchises such as Blood Bowl and Confrontation, got together with HBO when both parties were deep in development of their respective projects to make sure that the game included some of the now-iconic elements of HBO’s interpretation.

We spoke with Aram Jabbari, PR & Sales Manager at the game’s publisher Atlus, at Sony’s PlayStation Spring Showcase. We chatter about what players can expect when they boot up GoT:TG and how familiar the settings and characters will be to those who have been faithfully following the television series.

Dork Shelf: When did development start on the game, and how did you interact with HBO while it was working on the television show?

Aram Jabbari: The game’s development began well before the show. The developers, Cyanide, came to George Martin with an idea for the game that added to the canon but didn’t break it. They wanted something that was like a new book. They worked on it together and they got it to a point that it was true to Game of Thrones.

(Cyanide Studios)

DS: How familiar will the game be to those who watch the HBO show, but haven’t read the books?

AJ: James Cosmo, who plays Commander Mormont, lent his voice and his likeness. Conleth Hill, who plays Lord Varys, lent his voice and likeness. Lena Headey lent her likeness to the game. It’s a really great partnership with HBO. The developers reached out to them and they were able to forge that relationship.

When HBO aired the show, Cyanide had the opportunity to work with HBO to put in the voices, the likenesses, those elements, the music, into the game, and you can kind of see that, especially in the pre-order bonus art book that we’re giving out.

But there are things, in almost every place, [from the original designs.] But no one who watches the show will say to themselves, “this looks very different.” A lot of elements are very loyal to the very successful interpretation that HBO created. But there are vestiges of the fact that Cyanide has been working for seven years, from the conceptual stage to the completion, to make this game a reality.

DS: Who are the characters that we follow in GoT: TG?

AJ: You play as one of two original characters, Mors Westford and Alester Sarwick. One of the reasons for two original characters is the ability to tell a new story as opposed to being locked into deaths and all sorts of other fixed histories that the other characters are in.

Mors is a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch, Alester is a red priest of R’hllor. They both get a mission to find a girl by the name of Jane, and by that point forward, they are on a collision course with each other. So you don’t really know what this girl’s nature is, or what the purpose of this is, but that’s where things really get going. And you go from The Wall to King’s Landing, you go to new areas as well. Overall it’s like: you’ve read it, you’ve watched it, now you get to play it.

DS: At what point during the Song of Ice and Fire timeline does GoT: TG take place?

AJ: The events happen roughly around the end of the first book. You’ll hear people talking about Ned Stark, and it will rhyme with his first name, if you know what I mean.

DS: What locations will we see and visit throughout the game?

AJ: There are a number of different places in King’s Landing – for example the Iron Throne Room. At The Wall you’ll be able to visit Castle Black. You’ll be able to go to Mole’s Town, but as well there are a number of elements, characters maybe, who don’t appear in the HBO show, who either haven’t appeared yet or maybe have been written out entirely, like Chataya and her brothel in King’s Landing, Quorin Halfhand, and references to a lot of other characters in the books.

DS: How open are the environments in the game? Will we be able to explore the cities in any great depth?

AJ: For the most part the game is linear, because it’s so heavily driven by the story, it’s not an open world game in the Skyrim sense. It’s much more akin to a game like Dragon Age: Origins, the original Witcher. You’ll go to new areas and you’ll have the opportunity for main quests and side quests and things like that. You’ll be able to explore around King’s Landing, for example, but ultimately the game is a chapter-by-chapter perspective that alternates back and forth just like the books, and you’re moving towards, ultimately, the narrative’s conclusion.

DS: What was it like harmonizing the videogame with the television show when Cyanide and HBO were already knee-deep in their own versions of the projects?

SJ: That’s one of those things where the developers had done a lot of work, but they recognized the importance of how popular the show would become, and it was one of those things where they felt like it would add much richness to the game. To have the music, this is so iconic to the show, to have the visuals and likenesses that are so iconic.

Stay tuned later this week, when Dork Shelf’s James Farrington takes up the sword (or DualShock 3, as it were) and gives us his gameplay impressions.

Game of Thrones: The Game launches May 15 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

About thirty Middle Easterners wave flags and chant “Aladeen! Aladeen!” as Sacha Baron Cohen enters the Waldorf Astoria ballroom. It’s the New York press junket for The Dictator, his new comedy about a fascist dictator in America, and as with Borat (2006) and Bruno (2009), Cohen will be doing all of his press in character. Wearing a transparently phony beard and surrounded by buxom “virgin guards,” Cohen takes to the podium, surrounded by three portraits of himself and a logo for the “International Alliance of Constitutional Dictatorships.” Today, we’ll be pretending that Cohen is General Aladeen, dictator of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya.

“Welcome journalists of zah Zionist media, and death to zah West!” says Cohen. “Today, I wish to highlight dah innocent victims of a global human tragedy: dictators! Zese brave leaders are suffering daily victimization and brutality from zah suppose-ed crime of embezzalling money, oppressing zeir people, and doing a tiny little bit of genocide! In a-reeecent years, tyrants all ovah dah world have fallen one by one: Saddaaahm… Keem Jong-Eeel… Gadaffheee… and Oprah!

“Dere are steel some supporters of dictatorsheeps! On buh-half of my dear friend and doubles tennis partner President Assad of Syria, I want to thank thah United Nations for deir brave inaction over Syria! Thirteen months and steel no Security Council resolution! You guys are amazing! You have done next to nothing for thah Syrian people, but remember, you can always do less! Now please, let’s get some questions, anyone from zah North Korean press?”

We’ve been asked to submit our questions ahead of time, and we’ll be called to the microphone if ours is selected. This would normally be a breach of journalistic etiquette, but to be fair to Paramount, it’s probably what General Aladeen would have wanted.

“So general,” says a reporter, “is it true or just a rumour that you have been banned from British TV?”

“Yes, thees ees true, thah BBC has introduced sanctions against me!” says Cohen/Aladeen. “Dey have banned me from all dah BBC channels, and also dah BBC radio, ees true! Look, nobody is a bigger fan of state-sponsored-spensor—spensor—“ He trips on his accent. “Sorry, I have somezing in my mouth… Don’t worry, eet’s not vhat you’re thinking…”

He continues. “Nobody ees a bigger fan of zah state-sponsored-censorship than me, but zee BBC took it too far. All I wanted to do on dah BBC was use their airwaves to promote my anti-West, anti-Zionist platform, and quell zose nasty rumours about dah Holocaust! I guess no good deed goes unpunished!”

Dead silence. Cohen smiles a little. “I guess zat joke does not go down well in New York!”

As usual with Cohen, much of the humour comes from his character’s cheerfully grotesque anti-Semitism. When a reporter blurts out, “And yes, I’m a Jew,” there is some laughter as Cohen takes a moment to mug. He looks down at the podium, and blinks his eyes, and shakes his head, as if panting from taking a long run. “You are putting me in a very deefeecult position.” He smiles. “I suppose I should not be surprised. We are in New York wis za media. I will answer your question, I do not have a problem with Jews. It’s just descendants of zah tribe of Moses.”

“General, what Hollywood celebrity do you have the most in common with?” This reporter has a difficult-to-place accent.

“Are you a-from Australia?

“No, South Africa.”

“Ah! Okay, dey have a good history as well… Ah, it has to be Mel Geeebson! In fact, recently in Wadiya, we made heem our Public Relations Expert! Aldough he has said some pretty offensive things recently, like saying he would work with Jews, we half made heem the head recently of our Museum of Eeentolerance!”

When Cohen was pretending to be Borat and Bruno, those characters were promoting faux-documentaries. If there’s a conceptual problem with today’s junket, it’s that since General Aladeen is a character in a fictional movie, it’s hard to tell if we be asking him about a movie he should theoretically have no knowledge of, or if we should we continue asking him questions about important political issues. Most of the reporters settle somewhere in-between by asking about show business.

“What did you think of The Hunger Games, and are you thinking of instituting such an event in Wadiya?”

“What ees dah point? North Korea has done it literally! Now, King Keeem Jong-Ooon eez doing hiz verjion of Dah Biggest Loser; seven million people are competing to see who can lose zee most weight. Are zere any more Jews here? I want to know, yes, put your hands up?” Several hands go up. Cohen points to them one by one, and whispers animatedly to his “Virgin Guards.” “Do vee have enough sacks?” he stage-whispers. “No problem! Zank you!”

Cohen puts on an entertaining show: the way he inhabits characters while still keeping tongue firmly in cheek is impressive and downright paradoxical. He’s quick on his feet, always able to steer things on track whenever foolish reporters try to ad-lib with him. I’d pay good money to see a Sacha Baron Cohen do this as a one-man show. And yet… I’m not sure how much I appreciate seeing it for free at a press conference at the Waldorf.

Like Peter Sellers, Cohen has eluded a public persona, making a career of disappearing into other people. He has submitted to very few long interviews out of character, and indeed, very few short ones. Maybe he worries that explaining his process would ruin his mystique, but because his improvisational comedies are so unique and audacious, and because his material is so troubling (dealing as it does with sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and the tricky line between xenophobia and meta-xenophobia), few comedians warrant serious analysis as much as him.

I keep thinking about the questions I’d like to ask Sacha Baron Cohen, not General Aladeen. How different is making a scripted comedy like The Dictator from an improvised comedy like Borat? Is the process of creating, shaping, and refining characters any different? How long does it take to rehearse these characters? What is it like to spend months at a time as Borat, and how easy is it to shake that character once you get home? Is it fair to call Borat and Bruno “documentaries”? When you’re making those films, do you ever fear for your safety? The last time you wrote and starred in a scripted comedy was Ali G Indahouse; how did that experience inform The Dictator?  How has your working relationship with director Larry Charles evolved over the years, and is it markedly different on a scripted film? What’s the difference between working on your own projects and working with Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese?

Your characters are ignorant and bigoted; how much do you worry about making them too likable, or not likable enough? As a practicing Jew, what draws you to humour about anti-Semitism? Do you worry that these jokes will be misinterpreted by some audience members, and is it the artist’s responsibility to worry about what the audience thinks? How about jokes about groups to which you don’t belong: gay people, black people, women, and Middle Easterners? Are there any topics you wouldn’t joke about, and are there any times you think you’ve gone too far?

What do you say to the accusation that you exploited the poor people of Moroeini, Romania (where the Kazakhstan scenes from Borat were shot)? The frat boys in Borat – they were certainly jerks, but did they really deserve to have their lives ruined? Is Bruno a homophobic creation, or an absurdist depiction of a homophobe’s perception of homosexuality, or both, or neither? Let’s say a guy like Bruno shows up on your hunting trip and comes into your tent with a dildo – would you feel a little peeved? What do you make of the hostility that greeted Bruno in some quarters?

I’m certain that Cohen would have smart and articulate answers to these questions. Soon I hope to hear them.

Alright you sissies, you pansies, you sushi-eating, latte-swigging libtards, listen up: from this point on, it’s no girls allowed in this Sylvester Stallone column ‘cause we’re entering the Golden (Stallolden?) Era. You may think you’re a man because you’ve seen Rocky a buncha times or can make a jokey reference to “that Stallone porno,” but with Rocky III (1982) and First Blood (1982) we’ve arrived at the period that’ll put fire in your belly and hair on your chest (margin of error: Rhinestone). These are the years that defined the persona we think of when we think about “Sylvester Stallone.” The mid-80s may not have been our man’s best or riskiest era, but it was undoubtedly his Stalloniest.

Say goodbye to Rocky Balboa for the foreseeable future. Oh sure, Rocky III features a character named “Rocky” who happens to be a boxer, but forget it. The affable lug you knew from parts I and II – the one with the leather jacket and the felt hat who fawned over Adrian and loved his dog – is gone, replaced to a snarling brick of a man with gelled hair, tailored suits, and, evidently, no dog (seriously Sly, what happened to the dog? Is he okay?). Where Rocky and Rocky II were quiet and leisurely, as much about romance and working-class Philly as boxing, Rocky III is a lean, mean kitsch machine. At 99 minutes, it’s the shortest Rocky so far, boiling the series down to an essential formula as rigid and dependable as the James Bond series. It takes the basic template of the earlier films, eliminating most of the human qualities and magnifying the ridiculousness. Just to clarify: Rocky III is a movie where Rocky fights Hulk Hogan, and that’s just a throwaway scene near the beginning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rocky III opens after Balboa’s victory against Apollo Creed, a three-year period in which he shows up on magazine covers, telethons, ads, The Muppet Show, and, that ultimate signifier of extraordinary fame, his own pinball machine. Much has changed since the days of Rocky II when he could barely wander his way through a TV commercial. Now, when he arrives to bail Resident Bumbler® Paulie (Burt Young) out of jail, it’s clear they’re in opposite socioeconomic brackets. And, since the rematch with Apollo, Rocky’s been coasting, fighting a string of run-of-the-mill fighters while Clubber Lang (Mr. T), a tough young fighter, gains momentum. For these years, Rocky’s trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) has been purposefully avoiding the up-and-comer, seeing him as a real threat to Rocky’s stardom. “It was my job ta keep ya safe and keep ya winnin’,” he grunts. Yes, in these past three years, Rocky has lost his edge. He has nothing left to fight for, no longer just a man and his will to survive. So many times, it happened too fast: he traded his passion for glory. He lost his grip on the dreams of the past, and now must fight just to keep them alive.

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But Mr. T also shines a light on the most unsettling facet of the Rocky series: its exclusively white-working-class perception of “the underdog story.” To James Lipton, Stallone spoke of being inspired by the journeyman boxer Chuck Wepner, who surprised everyone by knocking Muhammad Ali down. Stallone described Ali as “the perfect fighter,” in contrast to Wepner, “a real American working-class stiff who takes it on the chin.” For the third movie in a row, Rocky has been pitted against an arrogant, tough-talking black man, and for the third time Rocky’s humility and determination lead to victory (although to be fair to Stallone, we do see Clubber training hard in a few montages).

Rocky III tries to cover its ass by bringing back Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), retired and humbled, as Rocky’s new manager (Clubber Lang pushed the beloved Mickey, triggering a heart attack – boo! hiss!). As with Rocky, Apollo is barely the same character anymore – wise, noble, more Morgan Freeman than Muhammad Ali. When Apollo takes Rocky to the gym he used to train in, and a swarm of African Americans greets our hero, it comes across as a little condescending. These scenes are redeemed, just barely, by the magnetism of Carl Weathers, who somehow makes Apollo’s inexplicable transformation believable.

What I find troubling is that Clubber and Apollo, two brash trash-talkers, are both such thinly veiled Ali caricatures. I don’t think Stallone was motivated by a racist agenda, but the first three Rockys can be read as white working-class wish-fulfillment fantasies to reclaim boxing from a certain kind of uppity black. When Rocky tells Clubber, “You know you got a big mouth,” I cringe a little. Don’t you think it would have felt different if a white actor had shown up in the ring dressed as Uncle Sam instead of Carl Weathers? And don’t you think it would have carried less of a charge if a white actor, instead of Mr. T, told Adrian, “Hey woman, since your man ain’t got no heart, maybe you’d like to see a real man”?

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Incidentally, I’d also like to address these ongoing accusations that Rocky III is somehow “homoerotic.” Frankly, I find these accusations absurd. There is nothing in any way homoerotic about anything in this movie.

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It’s easy to lament the relative dearth of artistic ambition in large swaths of Stallone’s career, but in his defense, he pulled off the impressive feat of creating two durable, iconic characters. What’s interesting is that Rocky Balboa and John Rambo should be such opposites. After serving in ‘Nam, numbing himself with slaughter, watching his entire battalion get their guts torn out, and turning himself into the perfect killing machine*, Rambo returns home to find himself vilified by protestors, ignored by politicians, and bypassed by Americans at large, who just want to move on.  “To me, Rambo is a modern Frankenstein,” Stallone told James Lipton. “You took this normal body and converted it basically into a machine to go out and do the dirty work. Then, he was basically punished, thrown out, castigated, for doing the job he was trained to do. Nobody ever said, ‘Come back and meet the family’.”

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If Rocky is the American dream personified – a “bum from the neighborhood” who rose to the top thanks to hard work and good luck – then the alienated, war-scarred Rambo is someone the American dream excludes. Still, they share a few characteristics: 1) rugged individualism (probably the defining trait of a Stallonian Protagonist), and 2) their raw energy is channeled into something powerful by a strong-willed trainer. For Rocky, it’s Mickey; for Rambo, it’s Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna), the man who turned him into a killing machine/the man who warns everyone about what a badass this dude is (“I didn’t come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him”). Oh, also 3) they have great big muscles. Can’t forget those.

Until the final scenes, Rambo is opaque: an expressionless hulk who speaks only rarely, in monosyllables. When arrested by a small-town sheriff who thinks he’s some sorta longhaired hippie scum, Rambo has Vietnam flashbacks, and makes short work of every goddamn person in the police station. In the midst of a full-on mental breakdown, Rambo flees to the wildnerness, and as the police hunt him down, he calls on all his military training to fight his own personal Vietnam. Come to think of it, since the police are the ones mired in the unwinnable conflict, maybe they’re the ones fighting their own Vietnam. Some food for thought, folks

As with the first Rocky, the dirty, gritty First Blood is so tonally different than its sequels it hardly feels like the same franchise, and as with Rocky, it’s easy to forget how good it is. Just as Rocky III focuses single-mindedly on the boxing, First Blood forgoes the usual romance and comedy-relief subplots, and has as little music and dialogue as possible. The action is intense, but compared to the explosions of future installments, it’s mostly human-scaled and brutal. Most surprising is how powerful and, yes, understated its political edge is. Astonishingly, when Stallone saw the first cut, he reportedly insisted on big cuts to his own part, eliminating most of the speeches about Vietnam to let audiences infer Rambo’s desperation.

A dirty secret: before starting this marathon, I had never actually seen First Blood. I know, I know, and I call myself a Professional Stallone Historian. Having only ever seen the jingoistic sequels, what surprised me about First Blood is how objectively it treats its protagonist. The film is sympathetic to Rambo’s plight, but it’s also smart enough to regard him as something of a madman. Rambo: First Blood Part II, the much more popular sequel, is the movie Rambo might have made about himself.

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It’s always a pleasure to see a game that has such an imaginative structure and design that we cannot help but smile as we play. Papo & Yo from Minority Media (@we_are_minority) is a puzzle-platformer that tasks the player with manipulating the environment in order to reach new areas and, in turn, progress through the level. On the surface the game might sound boring, but the ways in which the developers have created dynamic environments is so whimsically delightful that everyone who picks up the game should be grinning from ear to ear.

More surprising is a narrative that focuses on the difficulties of dealing with alcohol addiction. In Papo & Yo the player controls Quico: a young South American boy with an overactive imagination.

Quico must manipulate his environment in order to create platforms that he can jump across to reach new areas. In our demo the puzzles predominantly focused on moving small square buildings to create platforms. Quico interacts with these buildings through magical white levers, keys, gears, and… cardboard boxes?

Cardboard boxes (with windows and doors drawn on them) allow Quico to “pick up” buildings and move them. Basically a cardboard box, made-up to look like a house, is connected to a “real” building in the environment. Picking up the box makes a building float off the ground. Move Quico, and in turn the box, and the building will follow. Drop the box and the building drops in the new position the player has moved it to. Now combine all of these different interactive elements and there is the potential for a truly engrossing puzzle-platformer game.

Beyond manipulating buildings the player also has companions in the form of a small robot named Lula and a monster named… well, Monster. We did not get a chance to interact with Monster but we did play some with Lula. Lula gives Quico the ability to extend the length of his jumps and Quico can throw Lula to buttons throughout the environment to unlock doors and move platforms.

During PlayStation’s 2012 Spring Showcase we had a chance to talk with Charles-William Bibaud, Line Producer on Papo & Yo, about the development of the game, its unique narrative, and the challenges of trying to translate lived experiences into an interactive medium.

Dork Shelf: Can you tell us a little about Minority Media, such as any particular goals you have as a developer?

Charles-William Bibaud: Minority was founded a little bit more than a year ago by a small group of relatively experienced game developers that decided to go and found an independent studio to be able to provide some more, I would say, different original content that you’re maybe not used to seeing that often coming out from big companies.

DS: How long has Papo & Yo been in development?

CWB: It’s been in development almost a year now.

DS: Could you talk about how working with Sony’s Pub Fund changed the development process on the game?

CWB: It’s a great initiative and a great help. We are in Canada so we have a bit of support from the Canadian government as well, through the Canada Media Fund. So this also helps independent developers to create great content. But Sony also supports the developer financially, and on a promotion level, which is a great help to us because sometimes independent developers have great ideas and original content to bring, however they do not have the financial means to bring that great content and product to market. So Sony’s support is great.

DS: What can you tell us about the origin of the narrative in Papo & Yo?

CWB: It’s inspired from a true story from our creative director, Vander Caballero, who is also one of the founders of the company. He was a small, poor kid in South America dealing with a tough relationship with his father, who was addicted to alcohol. So it wasn’t always easy. He wanted to tell his own story through a game.

DS: Was there any particular difficulties in trying to translate a true story into the creative medium of video games?

CWB: Yes. Absolutely. That was one of our main challenges because we not only wanted to provide a great gameplay experience but on top of that we wanted to make sure we can tell a relatively deep and intense story through this game. It’s a different medium than film, of course, so it’s mostly told through interactivity but also some cinematic sequences that help you to understand a bit more.

DS: The game takes place in South America, could you explain how the locales you’ve used in the game influence the puzzles or vice-versa?

CWB: Obviously it influenced the look of the game because South America is super colourful, even though those places are sometimes in poorer regions. There are plenty of small houses to interact with via magical elements through the game. So it [South America] provided a great environment to do super interesting stuff. It is inspired from there but there is also the use of the imagination, which allows us to be more creative and free in terms of gameplay and interactive elements.

DS: We’ve seen predominantly urban environments so far. Does the game take place in any other environments?

CWB: I don’t want to reveal too much of the game because I think the best experience is when you discover it. You begin in a place that is a relatively realistic looking with a touch of imagination. However, you will move to a different type of environment in terms of realistic environments like jungle, with more plants, but also in terms of the imagination side of it. Sometimes you progress through the main character’s own emotions. So some levels will be darker some others will be more abstract because just like when you are dreaming your dream is not always as focused. So you’re going to see some really funky stuff.

DS: Is the narrative in the game predominantly linear or are there chances for branching paths?

CWB: The narrative is predominantly linear because we really wanted to tell the story and it is a relatively complicated story to tell through the game. However, the relationship you’re building with the characters is purely interactive. You’re going to build your relationship with Monster and with Lula, the little robot, and as you play with them you will develop a real attachment to those characters. And they will help you to solve puzzles and progress through the game. So there is interactivity in the actual character development.

DS: We’ve seen some of the interaction with the characters but can you tell us, without giving too much away, how those character interactions influence the gameplay and puzzles?

CWB: Yes. When you meet the new character Lula, he will provide you with some special abilities. You will also be able to trigger some special magic elements that Quico maybe would not be able to do by himself.

Same thing with Monster. He has the downside of going into a frenzy if he eats frogs. So that creates another dynamic  – he is your friend and you love him but if he turns into a rage because he’s eaten a frog he’s going to be uncontrollable. So now you have to solve the puzzle with Monster being frustrated. Sometimes he is also calm so he is going to also have his own specific things that only he can do to help you go through some of the different puzzles.

DS: We noticed in the demo we played that there was a brief interactive cutscene. Could you explain how important interactivity is to each element of the game?

CWB: We thought that most of the emotions you feel from the game should happen through the game mechanics. When you actually live the story it’s even stronger than just watching it. So we wanted to provide as much of the story, and you’re experiences you are actually living, in an interactive form. So that’s why we tried to put as much as possible into the interactivity. Of course we can’t do it with all of it because sometimes there are things that need to be told more cinematically.

DS: Thanks for your time and we are looking forward to the completed game.

CWB: Thank you.