Public Enemies

On the surface, Public Enemies seems to be about bank robbers. But it's actually about the triumphs and travails of celebrities in a time of great upheaval – which is to say, it's about Hollywood today.

Johnny Depp, playing Dillinger, is charismatic, masculine, bold, even reckless. He seems unwilling to admit that his lifestyle is a dead-end, preferring instead to live in the moment. And yet he seeks human companionship in Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), swooping in to claim her as his "girl" without really asking her permission. He is a titan among men, striding into her humdrum life to sweep Billie off her heels and, throwing caution to the wind, seek his own fortune.

Christian Bale, playing Special Agent Melvin Purvis, is the man tasked with taking Dillinger down. He navigates the world of public opinion and the bumbling incompetency of a young FBI task force not yet hardened by adversity. Purvis has a lot to prove, balancing his own morality with a new era of government ruthlessness.

This movie isn't really about facts, though. A trip through Wikipedia shows the number of liberties – and there are many – that the movie took with actual events. Instead, Michael Mann tries to craft a narrative out of the battle between these two sides, creating the classic duality where two actors at the top of their game face off.

Purvis is the principled, dark, brooding character that bucks authority and follows his own noble path by being smarter and more dedicated than the authorities in charge. Dillinger is the wild man that criminals turn to, pushed to the edge because of the Great Depression and the law. Both men have nothing to lose but their very souls. If this sounds familiar, it's pretty much the same plot as The Dark Knight, only with gangsters instead of comic book villains.

For all the great action sequences, close-ups, and monologues, there isn't much we know about the characters in the end. Without the benefit of a prequel like The Dark Knight, Purvis is as much a cipher as Dillinger. Missing is the exploration of the environments that helped craft the careers of both men, and it becomes clear that Mann is more interested in making modern analogies (about torture, about wiretapping, and government abuse in general) than sharing a sense of history.

And that's the problem. While Public Enemies retells the tale, more or less, of the rise and fall of Dillinger, it fails to provide the backdrop for why it happened. We get occasional insights into the evolution of the FBI, but not of public sentiment, of the Great Depression, of how society helped create cops and robbers. At one point Dillinger provides a veiled reference to his past that's just as cryptic as the Joker's – because it doesn't really matter. This movie isn't about why things happened; it's more about giving two actors their chance to shine.

In that regard Public Enemies is a success. It's long, filled with philosophical dialogue and occasionally improbable shootouts. Although there's a stab at some kind of pathos, connecting Dillinger's own devil-may-care lifestyle with his romance ("blackbird"), it feels contrived. The most compelling character is steel-eyed Charles Winstead, played by the awesome Stephen Lang. I'd rather see a movie just about him…and got my wish with Avatar.

EXPO - Magic of the White City

Like so many other viewers, I came round to viewing EXPO – The Magic of the White City ("EXPO") because I read The Devil in the White City (The White City) first. Sort of. Actually, my wife read The White City years after I did and, her curiosity piqued, rented the DVD.

EXPO is about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, an exposition of such majesty, scope, corruption, and expense that it is a feat unparalleled in America today. The closest we have to the Fair is Disney World, a lineage most explicitly drawn in The White City; Walt Disney's father, Elias, was a construction worker on some of the buildings at the fair.

EXPO is narrated by Gene Wilder. I'm admit to a bias – I'm a big fan of Young Frankenstein and he's the only "celebrity sighting" I've ever encountered in real life. Wilder's getting on in age (the DVD was produced in 2005), so there's now a bit of a whistle to his speech. Still, his lilting voice has enough emotion and wry humor to make his narration enjoyable. And there is a lot of narration.

We tend to think of previous American centuries as quaintly backward, where such modern notions as political correctness and global unity didn't exist. And while EXPO is careful to point out that American culture still had its own foibles and intolerance endemic to the time, the World's Fair put all those to shame. It was a global unification of wealth, prosperity, and cultural exchange in a way that's inconceivable in today's contentious world. We can learn a lot from the Chicago World's Fair.

EXPO uses old maps and photographs to detail events at the fair whenever possible, with few computer graphics or animation. There are occasional shots of live actors, none whom particularly add anything of value to the narrative. In fact, it's clear that the producers felt that the medium was a little dry, because there are copious live action shots of a belly dancer interspersed with discussion of the Midway.

Minor quibbles aside, EXPO works overtime to try to encompass the grandeur of such a huge undertaking without losing sight of the details. As a result, it necessarily glosses over some pieces (rampant corruption, the aforementioned Devil himself who is the subject of The White City book) and emphasizes others (global diversity, architecture, and the first appearances of American staples). That's okay though; EXPO is a huge undertaking with such a sweepingly broad subject that it's better served as a companion piece to a book. Like The Devil in the White City.

What's of interest to gamers is the White City itself. It brought together vastly different groups from around the world, including popular entertainers, royalty, and indigenous peoples. Role-playing games set in this era are often constrained by political norms, but the 1893 World's Fair is an exception to the rule. Just about anyone from anywhere could be justified as being in Chicago during the Fair's existence.

If this seems like the perfect setting for a mystery adventure, Peter Nepstad agrees. He produced the text-based interactive fiction 1893: A World's Fair Mystery. Featuring over 30 hours of gameplay and employing over 500 archival photographs, Nepstad's exhaustive research brings to life dozens of interactive characters. Nepstad's game provides plenty of material for Game Masters who want to use the Fair as a setting for their own campaigns. It's the closest thing to being there.

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds is supposedly about Nazi-hunting in World War II, a revenge fantasy where Jewish-American guerillas (or terrorists, as the Nazis point out) are tasked with spreading fear and loathing throughout France. Led by the rustic Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the Basterds have but one task: to each collect 100 Nazi scalps. Please note: this review contains spoilers.

One might think, given the title and the trailers, that this is an action film filled with the occasional machinegun dialogue Quentin Tarantino is famous for. It's quite the opposite: a series of measured vignettes in which the tension is ratcheted up to feverish heights, then explodes in quick, messy violence.

The opening scene sets the stage: Han Landa (Christoph Waltz), AKA "The Jew Hunter," does what he does best in France. As such, he is the nemesis of spies and revolutionaries hiding in plain sight. Landa hunts down Shosanna's (Melanie Laurent) family in a terrifying exchange that culminates in the death of her family. Out of mere whim, ego, or simply being true to his hawk-like nature, Landa lets Shosanna escape. Her survival will have grave repercussions for the German war effort.

These two plots, the Basterds and Shosanna's revenge, eventually intertwine when Hitler and his entourage arrive to view a special showing of a Nazi-propaganda film (Stolz der Nation) in Paris. The film stars Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), a Nazi war hero who singlehandedly killed dozens of enemies from a sniper tower.

Tarantino never just makes a film to tell a story, as evidenced by the obvious digressions from history he takes with Basterds. He films a vibe, an expression -- in doing so, Tarantion comments on the nature of the cinema and our own humanity. And this time, he's aiming his camera at the audience.

You see, this film isn't just about Nazi hunting, or Pitt's funny accent, or the tension between agents who know their social repartee will end in blood; it's about violence in the movies and how we glorify it. And Tarantino is merciless as he judges every person involved with the film guilty:

The producers are guilty: Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) is a simpering suck-up who is far too enamored with the approval of his audience to see how vile his film is.

The actors are guilty: Actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is a duplicitous murderer who shoots an unarmed man in cold blood. Zoller, the star of Stolz der Nation, has no stomach to watch his own murders taking place on the big screen but is only too happy to bully a woman with his affections.

Even the projectionist is guilty: Shosanna is so consumed with her revenge that only in killing a man does she finally see his humanity.

But the most guilty of all is the audience in the theater watching Stolz der Nation. They are shot, burned, and blown to bits at the end. That was the goal, of course – to kill as many Nazis as possible, right? It's just a goal that doesn't seem quite so laudable if you happen to be a member of the audience.

From the images of soldiers dying in the Nazi propaganda film to the graphic scenes of Nazis being scalped, Tarantino holds up a mirror. Are you enjoying this, he asks? Because if so…

You're the basterd.

Changeling

Changeling is most famous for being produced by Clint Eastwood and its lead actress, Angelina Jolie. Those two names unfortunately overshadow a disturbing true tale of one woman's struggle to find her son.

The film follows Christine Collins (Jolie), a single mother rising in the ranks of the 1920s workforce in Los Angeles. When the hectic workday demands of single parenthood conspire against her, Collins is forced to leave her son Walter alone at home. And then Walter disappears.

But that's not the story. Changeling focuses on what happens to Collins afterwards. The LAPD, under increasing pressure for its thuggish behavior, is desperate for an easy PR-win. When a child comes forward claiming to be Walter, the LAPD publicly declares the case solved. There's just one problem: it's not Walter.

What happens next is a heartbreaking tale of male-dominated institutions bringing their full weight to bear against a single mother without family, friends, or resources. Fortunately, her plight gains the attention of Reverend Gustav Briegleb (the always superb John Malkovich), who uses Collins as part of his public chess game with the LAPD. As tensions escalate and Collins continues to deny the faux Walter as her real son, she is committed to a mental institution to shut her up. The story would end there, if it weren't for evidence that Walter was murdered by Gordon Stewart Northcott.

The status of Jolie as an object of male lust often obscures her acting ability, and it is all the more evident here, where she plays a meek woman who only wants the police to find her son. Her nemesis is Captain J. J. Jones, played by Jeffrey Donovan, he of Burn Notice fame. Donovan seems a little uncomfortable in the role; he slips in and out of his Irish accent and he doesn't always exhibit the hard-edged indifference that makes the character so loathsome.

Changeling's author is the eponymous J. Michael Straczynski, most famous for Babylon 5 but also a scriptwriter for numerous cartoons, Jake and the Fatman, Murder She Wrote, and Walker Texas Ranger. Straczynski knows how to spin an investigative yarn and his attention to detail shows in the film. This is as much a commentary on the changing role of technology, media, and women in American society as it is a historical tale. Oddly, some attributes are glossed over: Northcott's mother is notably missing, as is the fact that many of the political and legal improvements made at the conclusion of the film were ultimately reversed.

None of that detracts from the tale. Whenever a child is endangered, every parent can't help but be alternately terrified and enthralled. We keep hoping for a happy resolution, knowing that it will never come. The best we ask for is that Collins finds some semblance of justice and peace – if not for her missing son, then for herself.

Although it takes a long time to get to its conclusion, Changeling delivers. This is a powerful, heart-wrenching film.

What If? 2

The What If series is one of those weighty, awesome tomes that looks good on your bookshelf. It screams, "I'm smart AND countercultural!" But that's not why I bought the hardcover. I bought it because it was half price at Borders and I like alternate history.

The problem is that Robert Cowley, the editor, doesn't seem to have much influence with the myriad of authors who contributed essays to the book. Some essays are satirical, some are deadly earnest, some are written as fictional narrative of historical events, others are written in a question and answer format. The overall book is thus widely uneven, with some authors providing a solid grounding in how history unfolded and explaining how it might have diverged, and others just simply spouting in stream-of-consciousness and expecting the reader to know enough about historical details to appreciate the divergence. I prefer the former to the latter, and I suspect most casual readers of this sort of book feel the same way.

The stories are still a lot of fun, but they tend to be interesting only insofar as the reader is cares about that particular time period. None of these essays will make a fanatical historian out of you, and some of them might turn you off to the authors entirely. Some of the poorer examples include the author burdened with explaining a world in which Jesus Christ doesn't die on the cross; we end up with a breezy self-reflective narrative rather than a rigorous historical examination. Conversely, it's interesting to see Theodore F. Cook support Gavin Menzies' theory of China discovering America.

What If? 2 isn't a bad book, but it's a challenging one. The essays are meant to be read side-by-side with historical summaries, and readers are advised to brush up on their history before diving in.

Defiance

It's very easy to assume that Defiance is a wish-fulfillment revenge narrative wherein we finally witness stories of common folks who resisted the Nazis with tooth and nail. A certain entertainment magazine reviewer blithely dismissed the entire film as too "Hollywood," because Tuvia (Daniel Craig) murders the entire family who assisted in the Nazis in wiping out his family. The review's assessment couldn't be further from the truth.

Defiance is the true story of Tuvia and Zus Bielski (Liev Schrieber), two brothers who lived on the fringes of polite Jewish society by surviving in the deep woods, more akin to bandits than heroes. Where Tuvia is cool-headed, Zus is dangerously violent. The two soon discover a widening circle of friends and distant relatives seeking their protection, until Tuvia is moved to rescue Jews from a ghetto. Now he has to contend with well-bred city folks who know nothing about surviving in the Russian winter.

Defiance never glamorizes death. The Nazi attacks share less screen time, presumably because audiences need no convincing about the nature of their crimes. But even the Bielski retaliation against German troops is miserable -- Germans plead for their lives even as they are executed. War, Defiance tells us, is reprehensible, and it is a task for rough men. The question is if rough men are responsible for protecting the weak. Why should soldiers protect civilians?

Every ugly part of war is on full display here: defections, in-fighting, disease, starvation, alliances of convenience (between men and women, Russians and Jews), bigotry, incompetence, loss of faith, and yes, brutal, bloody revenge. By the end of the film, audiences are less likely to feel vindicated as they are disgusted by the places Defiance takes us. This is not a feel good film, not even as a revenge fantasy.

Defiance doesn't cover every angle. As criminals themselves, the Bielskis surely committed crimes we don't see on screen (see the Wikipedia entry on the Bielski partisans for more). But it is hardly a glamorized portrayal of their experience.

What Ifs? Of American History

As a gamer, I have a special fondness for the What If series. Many gaming scenarios have been built around the different realities occuring from alternate history - heck, anyone can speculate on a different outcome of the Civil War, World War II, or the possibility of World War III. What If brings a level of expertise to the table, "preeminent historians" according to the back cover.

An important staple of an alternative history series is education, demonstrating how things could be different if a particular event or choice wasn't made. I learned a lot more about World War II from this book by what didn't happen, which helped reinforce why events unfolded as they did. In that regard, alternate history scenarios are a great teaching tool.

Unfortunately, the editor (and I blame the editor, Robert Cowley) doesn't seem to be able to rein in his writers. With this many essays, there's bound to be some differences in quality. But the writers never agree on the RULES of the essays themselves.

Not all the essays actually lay out alternate history. Some of the essays are essentially summed up as "WHEW! Boy are we lucky things turned out the way they did!" Which isn't nearly as educational as showing what could have happened. There are plenty of other experts that can simply tell us about the near misses of history.

Not all of the essays are grounded in actual history. It's fine to lay out alternate history, but for a neophyte who isn't familiar with the timeline of events, speculation without a comparison to the actual events just muddles the waters. When the writers use active voice, you have no idea if our guide to history is in fact speculating or retelling actual events as they happened. Opinion? Fact? Hypothesis? It's never clear.

Finally, some of the essays are outright fiction, Joe McCarthy's Secret Life being the most egregious example. So what, exactly, is this essay trying to prove? How easy it would be for McCarthy to actually be a member of the communists he was rooting out? What's the lesson here?

Some of these essays have been reprinted from the What If series before, which is odd - I imagine the group interested in this series already read the first volume and their inclusion "as a bonus" seems a little disingenuous. If the plan was to have this volume be a reference, it falls short of its goals.

That said, What Ifs? of American History is an interesting if uneven collection of opinions, predictions, and history lessons about America. Worth reading, but you might want to keep a history textbook nearby.

My Tank is Fight

I bought My Tank is Fight at World Fantasy Con when I was looking for something to buy in the dealer's room. It appealed to my peculiar tastes: weird history, alternate history fiction, technical details of weapons and armor, and a good dose of humor. In other words, the same stuff you find in most role-playing game books these days (if you can find them). So in a rare move, I bought myself a brand-new book.

As weird history, My Tank is Fight does an admirable job of spotlighting the various weapons conceived for World War II that were impractical from the start. Divided into land, sea, and air, these devices are mostly from the Germans (with one Canadian/American exception), spawned from sheer desperation as the war waned. They can be categorized as two different types:

Bigger is Better: The same old boring weapon, only GINORMOUS. Beyond the cost of creating these monstrosities, they were too heavy to actually use (giant tanks can't cross bridges) or too obvious a target for the Allied bombers.

Combine This With That: Combining a tank with a plane, or a submarine with a tank. Yes, technically these devices could conquer two types of terrain, but they ended up being pretty terrible at traversing both.

As if all these historical details are too boring to keep an adult's attention span focused, the book has frequent jokes - some funny, some just plain sophomoric - wherein the author slips into first person. It's a little jarring, when the rest of the book is relatively somber.

Additionally, there are fiction vignettes highlighting Nazis, Russians, and an American reporter's experiences with these superweapons in an alternate history where they're actually created and used. The Russian sniper's story is interesting but too brief, with no satisfying resolution. The Nazi tank commander's story isn't really wrapped up, while the Nazi pilot's story is wrapped up but out of sequence, which muddles the narrative. Finally there's the American reporter, who is by far the most fun.

Spoiler alert as I dive into the conclusion of the book here...

Nazi Germany explodes a nuclear bomb over New York City. This seems to be taken very lightly in the fictional narrative, with the author indicating that "although the Americans wanted to immediately bomb Germany, cooler heads prevailed and they bombed Japan instead."

Sorry, I don't buy it. After America's experience with 9/11 and Iraq, a Nazi atom bomb detonating over New York seems like it would garner a much more ferocious reaction. Unfortunately, there's really not room for My Tank is Fight to explore the implications of this hugely history-altering event. The bigger news seems to be the cover-up of Nazi space exploration. In comparison to the massacre of thousands of Americans, giving a fig about a single Nazi still stuck on a German space station seems a bit trite.

Ultimately, My Tank is Fight is a breezy, entertaining read. I kept thinking, "this would be fantastic for a game!" - be it a role-playing game or a first-person shooter set in World War II, wherein the boss battles feature these preposterous super weapons. If you have an interest in alternate history or World War II history, but are too lazy to do any actual research, this is the book for you.

Mel Gibson's Apocalypto

My father saw Apocalypto, bought the movie, and demanded I watch it. So on Christmas Eve, my brother, my father, and I gathered around to watch a heartwarming family movie about human sacrifice.

I knew a lot more about Aztec and Mayan culture than my relatives, so much of what happened (or was about to happen) took on special significance for me. When Jaguar Paw's (Rudy Youngblood) tribe is attacked by the Aztecs and carried off instead of killed, we know it's not to live a life of slaves. It's something much worse.

Jaguar Paw's pregnant wife and young child manage to evade capture by lowering themselves into a well, but they're trapped there. If it rains, they drown. If the Aztecs find them, they're sacrificed. And thus we have a race against time, as Jaguar Paw must both escape captivity and pursuit, all in an effort to save his young family from certain doom.

Apocalypto encompasses everything you ever wanted to know about Aztecs. It's all here: black panthers, Aztec martial prowess, steaming jungles, ziggurats, and a twist ending that ties it all neatly in a historical bow. If the movie wasn't so violent, high school teachers every would be showing this movie as a snapshot of history.

The violence is actually not that bad. A scene where an Aztec is mauled by a panther is more graphic than the heart sacrifices performed atop the grisly temples. Much more exciting are the thrilling chase and combat sequences, some of the best on foot.

Given that this is a film about a time before modern convention, it's amazing how Gibson fits in movie conventions usually associated with car chases. There are twists in Jaguar Paw's escape and his hunt by the Aztecs that are worthy of any action movie.

Did I mention that this entire movie is subtitled? The movie's so enthralling that you stop noticing it a few seconds in. Apocalypto's that good. Sure, it's a blood-drenched action thriller in another language. But what did you expect from Mel Gibson?

300

I have tremendous respect for Frank Miller, having been exposed to his reimagining of Batman at an early age. Miller infused Batman with mature dignity, heavy with grief over what he was doing but doing it anyway. No wonder, then, that the tale of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae appealed to him enough to create a graphic novel.

I've heard that comics were originally movie story boards that someone decided to sell, so it's no wonder that, when the director has respect for Miller's material (as Robert Rodriguez did with Sin City), the end result is nothing short of breathtaking. But there's a lot of ego and a lot of money in Hollywood, and it takes a clear-minded director to subsume his own inclinations and stay true to Miller's material. Zack Snyder follows in Rodriguez's footsteps and the end result...

Well the end result was a theater packed with kids, who, five minutes into the film, become utterly silent.

The movie's plot is somewhat beside the point. 300's really an experience, not a movie. It's everything cool about Gladiator's war against the barbarian tribes, everything amazing about Achilles' fighting style and six-pack abs in Troy, all the special effects of Clash of the Titans brought up to date for the modern age, everything terrifying about the villain from Stargate, and a whole heap of the Lord of the Rings' saber rattling wrapped up into one glorious, bloody fight to the death.

Squeamish about gore? This movie is not for you. 300 doesn't just show you death, it rolls around in it and makes it beautiful. Limbs, heads, entrails...all of it spatters and smears on screen.

Don't like violence? This movie is not for you. 300 kills and kills and kills, and when the bodies are heaped so high that you can make a wall out of them, it kills everybody else too.

Machismo annoys you? This movie is not for you. Men joke as they skewer their helpless enemies, make fun of Athenian "boy lovers," and keep a running murder tally for who can rack up the most kills. Gimli and Legolas would be jealous.

Want to be politically correct? This movie is not for you. 300 is a retelling of a Greek war from the perspective of the Greeks. Persians are the enemy, and they are demonized in every way imaginable, both figuratively (the Immortals wear demonic masks) and literally (yep, that's a goat-headed monster playing the flute).

300 is about a leader and his 299 best friends standing to the last to do what's right, to bow to no man when every logic dictates otherwise, to die for king and yes, country because history will remember you as a hero. Back when we remembered what heroes were. And you find yourself cheering, because this is how many men secretly wish they could die...not in a hospital, not walking across the street, but with a sword in their hand and piles of enemies at their feet.

I loved the movie. My brother loved the movie. My sister-in-law loved the movie. My pregnant wife loved the movie too.

And the other 296 kids in the audience? They gave it a standing ovation.

King Arthur

After watching Troy, I figured King Arthur would be much of the same - a semi-historical retelling of a legend, minus the fantastical elements. I was half right.

This is the King Arthur as historians imagine him to be. Not a thoroughly medieval knight, but a Roman military leader, struggling to retain control of Britain after the fall of Rome. Abandoned by his allies and surrounded on all sides by barbarians, Arthur must rally his infamous horsemen and apply Roman law to a lawless land.

Well, at least that's what the History Channel told me. There's more to the plot. However, the plot was difficult to understand because of the extremely poor sound quality of the film. The audio crew obviously had some challenges, since the majority of the action takes place outdoors. Everyone mumbles every line, such that important points are lost.

To wit, Artorius Castus (King Arthur, played by Clive Owen) is looking forward to releasing his Sarmatian foederati (his knights) from service after a long campaign of battling the natives. It's impossible to name who the natives are, because nobody ever pronounced their names clearly - research finally uncovered "woads," but for a long time I thought it was "vulgs" or "wolves" or "wrothes."

In addition, the Saxons lurk north of a great wall that divides the civilized Roman world in Britain from the barbarian-types. The Saxons are ill defined, looking a bit like Norse Vikings but not actually called Vikings. Which is odd, given that every other character tied to the Arthurian legend IS given his "proper" name, even when it makes no sense for said character to have said name.

Cerdric (Stellan Skarsgard) leads the Saxons, a Really Bad Guy ™. Or at least, he's supposed to be a bad guy. Instead, he settles for whispering every line in a gravelly voice that's supposed to convince us Cerdric, and indeed all the Saxons, are awful, wicked people who deserve to die.

With the Saxons on the move and the Woads getting bolder every day, Artorius just wants to go home. If this plot sounds familiar, it's because every semi-historical movie has been trying to capture the success of Gladiator, including mimicking the plot. It doesn't work here.

Unfortunately, a badly accented Italian bishop comes to deliver news that the knights have one more mission before they will be released back to Rome. It's a rescue mission to a governor's son, who is right in the path of the rampaging Saxons.

The Saxons are such bad guys that even the Woads, led by Merlin (Stephen Dillane), figure they have a better chance at uniting with the foreign occupation, so they decide to make peace with Arthur against a common enemy. It doesn't hurt that Guinevere (played by a wild-eyed Keira Knightley) improves Roman/Woad relations by sleeping with Arthur. Knightley plays Guinevere with wild-eyed abandon, a supposedly ferocious hellcat who can take out Saxons half-naked and with a thin sword. She simply doesn't have the physical presence to pull it off.

After rescuing the boy, Arthur and his knights are faced with a difficult choice: leave the land they now call home for a homeland they can barely remember, or fight and probably die to defend their new home.

There are so many knights who are all scruffy and dark-haired that they blur together. To help distinguish each character, they are given a fighting style and a weapon - none of which strive for even a smidgen of historical accuracy. One knight fights with spiked knuckles, another with two long swords, a third in a rapier style, another with a saber, one with a club, etc. None of this would be a problem if it weren't for the long text intro (and advertising) that proclaims this movie is based on historical fact.

For reasons that only the writers can explain, Sir Bors (Ray Winstone) is by far the most charismatic character and has the most lines - even more than Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd). Bors was a relatively minor character in Arthurian legend, but apparently his comic relief was sorely needed in a film that takes itself far too seriously.

Lancelot exchanges glances with Guinevere and there's plenty of jokes implying he's a womanizer, but no romance. Bors talks a lot about his own prowess in bed, his family, and his home. Galahad (Hugh Dancy) and Gawain (Joel Edgerton) argue with each other a lot (and since they're brothers, it often seems like one actor arguing with himself).

Throughout the story, we discover Arthur is a Christian and his knights are not. But even Arthur thinks a little differently - he follows the teachings of Pelagius, a Celtic monk who believed in free will. When Pelagius is banished excommunicated, Arthur seriously rethinks returning to Rome.

There's a lot of talk about religion and ethics in the treatment of the Woads, of prisoners, and the knights, but none of it is portrayed with any real emotion. The combat scenes are disjointed, probably to keep the movie to a PG-13 rating. At least Troy had the guts to go for an R rating and show combat in all its gory detail.

King Arthur has all the horrible attributes of First Knight, barely resembling the myth from which its characters are named. And yet it hides behind the accuracy of supposed historical research, which quickly falls apart upon examination (and watching the History Channel).

In the end, the most exciting scene is a battle against the Saxons on an ice-covered lake. Good stuff, certainly enough to be entertaining. But it could have been so much more.

King Arthur is like Troy without Brad Pitt. It has all the will and none of the acting ability, directorial talent, or plot to back it up.

Troy

My wife's a "fan" of Brad Pitt, so it only made sense that I would inevitably see Troy. She comes with me to see Kate Beckinsale fight vampires all the time, so I figure we're even.

It's easy to categorize Troy as a movie in the vein of the sweeping historical epics like Spartacus and The Ten Commandments. The musical score swells, lots of extras mill about, and the camera moves slowly over panoramic views. Only in the 21st century, the musical score still swells, digitized extras using the Massive engine (first invented for Lord of the Rings) makes the extras mill about, and the camera moves slowly over computer-generated panoramic views. For all intents and purposes, the effect is largely the same.

It's easier to categorize what Troy is not...

Troy is NOT Gladiator. Troy has far too many characters to focus exclusively on one man's revenge. Unfortunately, Troy tries to do just that in the character of Achilles (Brad Pitt). It doesn't work, if only because one has difficulty sympathizing with a killing machine. Even if that killing machine walks around half-naked displaying his tanned washboard abs. Lots of men could empathize with The Spaniard. There's very few folks to like in Troy.

Troy is NOT Helen of Troy. There were plenty of flaws with Helen of Troy, not the least of which being that if you're going to use the premise that Helen's really worth launching a thousand ships for, she better be incredibly hot. Helen of Troy's Helen simply didn't have that much allure. Fortunately, the Helen of this movie (Diane Kruger) is very attractive. On the other hand, her beauty is largely wasted because this is not about romance. Where the Iliad played up the star-crossed lovers angle, this movie makes it clear (over and over and OVER) that the war is actually about much less noble aims. In other words, Helen's just an excuse to start a war that would have happened anyway. Which is sort of like saying that Moses just sort of made up the Ten Commandments. I imagine Charlton Heston would have made a much less impressive movie as a result.

Troy is NOT Clash of the Titans. Every mythical or supernatural trace has been eradicated from the script. Achilles isn't invulnerable ("why else would I use a shield?"). You won't see a bearded Zeus arguing with...well, anybody.

Troy is a semi-realistic retelling of an event, with the presumption - one might say, arrogant assumption - that the Iliad is in fact an embellishment of the whole thing. In transforming it into a simple if somewhat overblown war story, it has parallels to Americas' conflict with Iraq. A powerful nation attacks a smaller country for construed reasons (Helen), only to find the protracted war to be more costly than expected. Indeed, there's even weapons of mass destruction - flaming balls of straw unleashed on slumbering Greeks.

Troy has its moments. Achilles is a true martial artist and his combat is breathtaking. Achilles himself is part of the scenery. Brad Pitt, at 40-years-old, looks like he was sculpted from marble. He FEELS like a hero of Greek myth. Eric Bana's furrowed brow lends a tinge of regret to Hector. And Orlando Bloom is suitably whiny and impetuous as Paris. Heck, even Sean Bean plays the role of Odysseus, lending his measured tones to a man who has seen so much that he has his own string of movies.

Troy's strength is also its weakness. The familiarity of the characters breeds contempt. When Paris picks up a bow and fires arrows at Achilles and the hero continues to stump forward as arrow after arrow thuds into his chest, I couldn't help but flash back to Legolas (Orlando Bloom) firing a bow and Boromir (Sean Bean) stumbling to orc archery. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has not even grown cold...either Troy has an eerily similar parallel or directors are already filming an homage to Peter Jackson.

And that's the problem. Troy feels like a movie made by movie stars about some stuff that happened in the past. Troy plays fast and loose with history and with the characters, but gives the actors plenty of time to enunciate and emote. It is truly an actor's movie. It also not a great movie, in the way Cleopatra isn't a great movie but people still watch it to see the stars.

For historical buffs, Troy is a revisionist travesty. For moviegoers looking for an action flick, Troy's not exciting enough to hold their interest. For fans of Greek mythology, Troy offers almost nothing at all. Troy wants to be something entirely different...but nobody ASKED for that kind of movie. It's almost as if the director felt the actual plot of the Iliad is too juvenile for modern audiences. Homer would disagree.

Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

Tuxedo Park is a factual history lesson, in a vein similar to The Devil in the White City, only without the serial killer.

Tuxedo Park takes place a bit later, pre-World War II. It starts with the death of one of the scientists who used to visit Tuxedo Park, a veritable fortress of technology and leisure. The suicidal scientist posthumously published a fictionalized book about the goings on there and sold it as science fiction. It was so bizarre that of course, nobody suspected, although the primary subject of the novel, Alfred Loomis, knew better.

Alfred Loomis is the star of the story, a rich entrepreneur with an all-consuming, frightening intellect. He applies his own cold, nearly inhuman methodology to business and science and excels at both. Loomis is also charismatic and connects with people in a way that makes him irresistible. A veritable human whirlwind, he swept people up and sometimes left them broken and lost behind him, most notably his wife whom he tried to have committed and left for a younger woman.

Loomis invented electrocardiograms (those brainwave doohickeys that draw jagged lines as a patient sleeps) and radar and made fantastic leaps in refining the science of sonics and magnetics. If the book has a moral, it's that money brings freedom, and Loomis was the freest man on Earth. He developed what he wanted, hosted who he wanted, encouraged projects he felt had vision, and had enough influence to determine the course of events in World War II.

What's so striking is that the world needed Loomis. The author, Jennet Connant, makes striking connections that identify just how significant Loomis' contributions (and machinations) were in ensuring victory over the Axis powers. From the atom bomb to the British radar systems, Loomis' fingerprints are on them all. And it was through sheer force of will, coupled with his massive wealth that made things happen.

The book suffers from the same problems as Devil in the White City - some parts are more boring than others. It's entertaining to read about Loomis' inventions, but I had difficulty distinguishing between the various scientists. There are so many intellects that are hosted by Loomis that they start to run together; on the other hand, the book features a lot of familiar faces like Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and others. Still, the physics and complexities of the inventions, along with the internecine squabbling drag in some places.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the book is when one British physicist embarks on a journey to bring all the technological advances of Britain to America with just himself and a trunk full of highly classified documents and devices. The thought of what could happen to that trunk (and how it nearly gets lost a few times) is nerve wracking and the makings of an excellent short story or role-playing adventure. It's the kind of scenario that is usually considered to be bad form by a writer - but it really happened.

Fortunately for us, the trunk made its way safely to America. The book really picks up as the devices Loomis raced to invent are finally implemented in the war. And then, when the action finally gets going, the book is over. There is definitely a feeling of the passing of something great that people could only look at indirectly and never touch - just like the intentional destruction of the Chicago World's Fair, Loomis Tuxedo Park is abandoned, his "rad lab" of scientists disbanded, only to backstab each other during McCarthy's "Un-American" committees. Worse, Loomis' divorce left his family sharply divided - like all things, Loomis treated his relationships with an intellectual clarity that was less a romance and more calculated odds. When Loomis felt his wife was not measuring up, she was discarded along with his other failed experiments. It dims, but cannot diminish completely, Loomis' personality.

Tuxedo Park is an impressive achievement. It manages to record the origin of the American scientist, the belief that technology is inherently good, and sharply frames the slow, lumbering bureaucracies that run everything from medical achievements to military advancements. In comparison, Loomis and his teams are breathtakingly nimble at a time when the world needed speed and decisive action most. It is an important part of history and a sharp reminder that rich men, should they choose, could do great good or terrible harm. Loomis was that rare combination of brilliance and wealth that creates freedom - an aberration not likely to be seen again in my lifetime.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

I originally learned about Guns, Germs, and Steel on the RPG.net forums. It sounded like an excellent book to ground a Game Master or an author on world-building. So I put it on my wish list and last Christmas I received it as a gift. It took me this long to finish reading it, and I'm the better for it.

But I put it down after reading one chapter into it. The author, Jared Diamond, explains on page 19 that racist explanations are "loathsome, but also...wrong. Sound evidence for the existence of human differences in intelligence that parallel human differences in technology is lacking." Then he turns around and states, "...modern "Stone Age" peoples are on the average probably more intelligent, not less intelligent, than industrialized peoples. Displaying his bias up front, Diamond states on page 21, "in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners, and they surely are superior in escaping the devastating developmental disadvantages under which most children in industrialized societies now grow up."

There's a few problems with Diamond's arguments, not the least of which is that he spends two pages arguing a point that he has no means of scientifically proving. This is ironic, given his last chapter that talks about a scientific approach to history. It's also telling that Diamond has but one source mentioned in his notes for his argument that New Guineans are smarter than Westerners.

On its surface, I don't object to Diamond's bias. It does however, taint his entire argument. It's difficult to take Diamond seriously when he devotes an entire book proving that one society's domination of another is not inherently racist but determined by a wide variety of other factors - but oh yeah, New Guineans are genetically superior. It's like listening to a priest and a die-hard atheist argue - the two are so diametrically polarized, it's difficult to consider either argument as objective.

So I put the book down and it sat on my shelf for two months. Then I decided to give Diamond another chance, because some of what he said was intriguing. To whit, Diamond provides evidence that societies excel because of a combination of geographic and societal factors.

For example, farming societies can produce more food per square foot than hunting societies. Hunters have to expend energy to carry their children, so too many hinders the tribe. Farmers can stay put and reproduce as well as feed more mouths. As time goes on, farming societies can support politicians. Politicians are better at waging war and organizing peoples than hunters, who will often leave the area and move on to a less dangerous location.

Farmers also coexist with domesticated animals. Of particular relevant for world builders are the attributes that make an animal useful for domestication, including diet (food must be easily available), growth rate (they must grow quickly enough to be productive), breed in captivity, benign disposition, not prone to panic, and social structure (herd or pack mentalities allow humans to take roles in the domesticated animals' structure). Animals are important for another reason - by coexisting with them, humans are exposed to a wider variety of diseases earlier than hunters. This is how Europeans ended up plaguing North and South Americans.

Geographically, he east-west axis of a continent allows cultures to travel easier across similar terrain as opposed to a north-south continent, which will have a wider variety of climates. This in turn makes it easier to carry foodstuffs and farming.

On the opposite extreme, unified societies can be a hindrance. China fell behind modern societies even though it led the world in chemistry, clockworks, exploration, and warfare - all because the ruling classes passed laws to prohibit their development. Conversely, Europe's fragmentation was ripe enough in its diversity to allow good ideas to eventually flourish.

Diamond's overview is breathtaking in its breadth and a critical part of our education system. It should be in every child's school texts. It helps dispel, once and for all, the racist notions that pervade common views of history - if only Diamond could keep his own biases out of the book.

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages

Another of the "Great for writers but even better for gamers" series, this book is exactly what I wanted from a reference, unlike the somewhat meandering Body Trauma in the Howdunit series. The book hits on so many topics, it's impossible to list them all: food, clothing, medicine, economy, measures, titles, saint, weapons...the list goes on and on. All are referenced in an easy to read, no commentary style that provides keywords in bold text with their definitions in each section. Even better, there's a Further Reading section at the end of each chapter.

As a springboard for further research, What Life Was Like is a prime resource. Of most immediate use to gamers with a historical bent are the date of clothing styles (to avoid anachronistic styles of dress) and a description of the day to day activities of a castle. While it's probably a bit extreme to apply all of these principles to role-playing fantasy, which is, after all, FANTASY, this book goes a long way in providing a sense of feel to an environment that's so different from the modern world, it seems fantastic.

Thus this scene: "The warrior takes a slurp from his soup bowl, then sticks another forkful of meat in his mouth as he mumbles, 'Yeah, I know him. What's it to ya?'"

Becomes this: "The warrior takes a slurp from his trencher, then sticks his knife into a hunk of meat and stuffs it in his mouth. He mumbles, 'Yeah, I know him. What's it to ya?'"

No forks til the late fourteenth century! Forget wooden bowls, people used hollowed out bread as bowls.

Also prevalent throughout this Writer's Guide are the pictures and lists. Although my own personal preference is for line drawings in a work such as this, the pictures (of period actors) do the job. Also, the lists, when they appear, are relevant and to the point, including a list of popes and kings.

There are other books in the series that would probably find an application in role-playing: Guides to Victorian England, Renaissance England, and even the Wild West. If they're anything like Everyday Life in the Middle Ages, they're worth checking out.

The Knights Templar and Their Myth

Taking a critical look at the slow and saddening destruction of the Templars, Partner removes the veil of superstition and occultism that has surrounded this knightly order for decades. It is a refreshing look at a disconcerting trend - the acceptance of history written by the winners. Too many New Age references casually mention Templars as having secret knowledge, and too many fundamentalists point to the Templars (and Masons, who have their roots in the Knights Templar) as signs of occult influence. The answer would not please either side: The Knights Templar were an ostracized group of warriors who were treated in a similar fashion to Vietnam veterans - losing a war is bad for business, and in the Templars' case, fatal.