In mouse we trust. Secret of "Ghost of a Tale" success.

After more than two years of silence I have decided to continue my blog. It will be conducted in the same way like the last post, though the range of discussed subjects will be broadened.

The first thing I want to tell you after the break is extraordinary game called "Ghost of a Tale". Indie project that gained money from sponsors using platforms like Indiegogo. Many people, who wrote reviews on it, mostly emphasized good graphics, lovely concept of speaking animals and catchy setting.

Though, all these things are brought to gamers because of several other features we need to outline further. Firstly, let me tell you about the story. In the world, where Rats fought the Great Green Flame, you wake up as a mouse-bard called Tillo in one of the rats' prisones. You have lost your wife and have to find the way to find her.

Narrative in Ghost of a Tale is told to us through small dialogs, remarks and descriptions of items just like in Dark Souls games. Actually, many gameplay mechanics here also repeat ones in Dark Souls. For example, you cannot pause game using inventory, can collect armor sets with the same bonus system as in DS and etc. Though, the main difference lies in the absence of fights during the game, because you need to finish all quests being sneaky.

Narrative and attention to the details are two key features of this game and they are connected a lot. Even though, territory for playing is rather small, you can spend dozen of hours exploring it for the secrets and riddles that reveal you complex nature of storyline. Details focusing allows player to choose the way you want to play. At some point, you can just wear guards' armor and play in it till the end of the game, because you don't want to confront with rats. Even such a small element of gameplay like necessity of filling the lamp with gas makes you believe the story in this game.

Despite the quite simple narrative in its essence, form of its delivery to the player and referring to details gives players an opportunity to explore the whole universe of this game, being just on an island of it. Hope, this approach will be taken by other developers as clever example of dialog with players.

Perverse capitalism of the "High-Rise"

It is actually funny that I'm starting a new destination of my blog with this review. I like capitalism for the two things. Firstly, for how closer it makes people to each other. You have to communicate with others to get the best goods. Secondly, capitalism is a model that produces the highest efficiency in economy. James Ballard wrote a book "High-Rise" to show people the other angle of the things I just have told about.

The movie is trying to put viewers into the vortex of their misunderstanding the life itself. People are fighting for the food in the supermarket. The "noble" and rich woman is proposing to have sex on the ground to anyone in the crowd. A guy is frying dog on the skewer. Perfect social nightmare caused by the domination of market. Ben Wheatley, who has directed the movie, was trying to convey an atmosphere of the book, where human nature was terribly changing just because of some problems with electricity.

In my opinion, the main concept of this movie is lying in the assumption that society, where rich people have power to do anything they want and poor ones are limited in their possibilities just by money, intends to be cruel and mad. The central character of the story is typical middle-class doctor, who is satisfied with the life in such a strange place. If you understand the author's logic, his satisfaction is obvious. You don't need to fight with poor people and don't have to make pressure on the rich. In some way, High-Rise is the small model of capitalistic society with all the problems it has, but in hyperbolised form.

The last thought is rather important. Ballard and Wheatley overrated the negative influence of the market and showed us some form of "perverse capitalism", where people are not trying to communicate and prefer primitive ways of getting what they want. In fact, this makes you feel some irrealistic disgust to the film. Real life is surely not so optimistic and capitalism is not so fair as you can think I'm trying to show you, but it is certainly better than in "High-Rise"

"Zootopia" - be an animal you want to be

Well, I have been visiting my friends in one town near to Moscow, while the billboard of the local cinema showed the message: "Zootopia" prerelease on 28th of February. I thought that it would be nice idea to take a look at this popular movie earlier than others, so we bought the tickets.

How. Perfect. The. Destiny. Is.

You know, from the first minute of the film I have understood that it is better than anything I actually have seen last year. Deep idea on the contrast with funny humor and exceptionally remarkable characters. The story of Judith was so close to me and to all the people, who left their small town searching for the better life in the city. You can see here, how hard to change your life reaching unreal goals, being newbie in some sphere. Many of you will recognize here difficulties in the relationships with people on a new job. The problem of tolerance and kindness for people, who are different from you is also arised here.

The wide specter of important questions that this movie asks you is supplemented with diverse, but very individualistic characters. Nick Wilde is typical citizen, who has felt all the problems of intolerance and decided to hide his weaknesses from the world. Judith embodies herself the naivety and dreaminess of provincial girl, who wants to prove everyone she can reach every goal she set for herself. The other characters are shown to form realistic image of life in the big city and, what is very important, they don't make you think only about negative sides of this life.

Technical characteristics of the movie are higher than mountains. Wonderful animation, truly painted emotions of the animals and so cute furry style I actually want to look at again and again. The Shakira's song was catchy even from the trailer and inside the film it for sure makes you watch titles till the end.

Maybe the main idea of this movie, besides tolerance and reaching your dreams, is that moving ahead is dangerous but very useful for finding new friends. Judith wanted people to notice her, to allow her to be the policeman despite being a rabbit. Surely, she got it, but also she got a new friend.

To live in Zootopia means to be the animal you want to be. To be with people, you want to be. To have a good life, you surely want to have.

Characters- 10/10

Script - 10/10

Music - 10/10

Animation- 10/10

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Life

It is obvious that all the movies about space and travelling between the stars are associated with something kinda like "Doctor Who" or "Star Wars". In fact, these TV-shows and movies tell us about noble travellers that face the dangerous things all the journey. However, one unusual british man, whose name is Douglas Adams made a gift to the world in 1979 through writing the wonderful novel. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" has made a true revolution in the understanding of sci-fi genre. In 2005 the movie with Martin Freeman performing the main role, ordinary man from Earth, provided viewers with 25% of original spirit of the "Guide...". Nevertheless, it was enough to show non-British audience, how deep and exciting sci-fi can be.

I will speak about the book, not the movie, because the novel is much more impressive. It is the story about a man Arthur Dent, who didn't manage to prevent the demolition of his house for the purpose of building a highway. However, the humanity, as Arthur, didn't manage this problem too. The Galaxy also needs a highway, and the demolition of Earth is required for this. An alien friend of the main character Ford Prefect had helped him to get outta planet just before the Earth has exploded. Fortunately, Ford is one of the editors of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which can be useful in all the difficult cases...

It can sound as another story about travelling, but it is not so simple, as you can think. In fact, Adams shows us different philosophical and political problems of our life through agressive and from times to times dangerous humour. Why is it dangerous? The story consists of modern society criticism in form of asking questions than can be too obvious to answer for stupid people. What is the main question of life? What things can the ruler of the Universe do? How can the pure kindness become pure evil? Different books of this novel series show us the diversity of complex problems that the human beings face now. You can think that money is the most important part of modern communication, but it will not disapprove the statement about unhappiness of these pieces of paper, which leads to the unhappiness of its owners.

In fact, the main idea I want to tell about is that through the elements of sci-fi you can provide the readers with serious thoughts on human life. You can make people think of what they are doing with their world and how important is to look around you searching for the problem to solve. Douglas Adams reached this purpose better than everyone I've ever read.

Don't panic.

Idea - 10
Characters - 10
Story - 10
Writing Style - 10

Banished. New age of the historical drama.

Sorry for being absent for a year, but it was really hard time. Well then, I continue to tell you about the most interesting and unusual TV-series.

And the first one I want to speak about after a long break is "Banished". It is the lovely historical drama that was on air a year ago. Actually, it was one of the unique series I've been watching ongoing, what is quiet hard for me. But the time I've spent worth it.

When you're starting to watch historical drama, you think about whether historical events that will be the topic of TV-series are interersting for you or not. The story of "Banished" is based on the building of a colony in Australia in the eighteenth century. Few prisoners are trying to survive on this cruel continent in terms of the lack of food, conflicts with guardians and tight relationships with other prisoners.

Jimmy McGovern wrote the script of this TV-series and in the end we see truthful drama about social problems of the first Australian colony. I think, it is the most important goal of historical dramas - to make people believe in the action on the screen.

Good play of the actors made the performance of the script totally incredible. I feel all the specter of emotions every time I've seen Russell Tovey on the screen. MyAnna Buring showed every tear so truthful, so you just can't be upset about Elizabeth Quinn every time she is doing it.

I can't say that music have shown the same high-level as the other aspects of this TV-drama. Actually it was rather usual and sometimes I even didn't notice it.

"Banished" is not just a very nice historical drama, but a "first colonist" in some spaces of this genre. I truly believe that the next experience of TV-shows and movies with historical topics will always look back for the great success of the brave British men in Australia.

Actors - 10/10

Script - 10/10

Music - 6/10

Stage direction - 9/10

Happy Valley. I like real policewoman.

I haven't been writing a lot of time, so our break we'll finish with a story about specific criminal drama called "Happy Valley". It is the TV-series from new generation of detective stories. They are interesting, unusual, and very "dualistic". Yeah, sometimes you can't just tell what is wrong and what is right in this case, you just have to do something with all the shit going around. And this is the work of our main character Catherine Keywood.

She is not young policeman officer in the town called Happy Valley. She lives with her sister, in past addicted to the heroine, has a son that don't speaks with her and a husband, with whom she divorced eight years ago. Certainly in this time in past, her daughter Rebecca made a suicide because of her baby-child Ryan (Catherine's grandson). The problem lies in the father of Ryan. He is kinda maniac and criminal bastard that went out of the jail after eight years of being there. Catherine worries about it, because this guy called Tommy Lee Royce was involved in the case she investigates at the moment.

Very unusual criminal story consists of different drama moments that help us understand main conflict based on the relationships in family. "Happy Valley" makes us think about problem of being envy in everyday life. Sometimes the picture could be very violent but it's necessary to feel all the emotions of people inside the story. I didn't notice any outstanding music in this TV-drama, except the song in opening, but it is also not so horrible to decrease the level of impression from watching this criminal drama. In whole, this is pretty interesting, unusual modern story with nice actors and well-directed atmosphere.

Actors - 8
Script - 9
Music - 6
Stage direction - 10

True Detective. Strictly criminal drama with a little sci-fi.

Don't you like Matthew McConaughey? Sure, you do. He had an "Oscar" reward for his role in "Dallas Buyers Club" and starred in the new Christopher Nolan's movie "Interstellar" (the best of the year in my modest opinion). You know, every film or TV-show with this actor is a masterpiece just because of his wonderful play. And sometimes his appearence in the project saves it from the fall.

"True Detective" became very popular because of three things: music, occultism and Matthew McConaughey. Criminal drama shows us the story of two detectives. One of them is pretty usual for a man of his profession (Woody Harrelson), but another, which name became legendary in the mind of modern teenagers, represents a new type of a detective. Rust Cole (Matthew McConaughey) is a philosopher that had a long hard lifestory. He looks at world with a criticism and some kind of hatred because of difficulties he felt on his path. Here ends the finest part of this TV-series. Then started the story about a homicide with signs of an occultism, which in core means very ordinary criminal case. Nothing actually interesting and particular in the script.

Nice soundtrack made a good job to this TV-show. Many people remember awarded opening of the "True Detective" with a very good song played there. Actually a lot of my friends began to watch this criminal drama just because of an opening. But, as for me, this is the only good part of a soundrack in the "True Detective".

Good music, nice actor's play, not bad, but not very well script made this TV-series one of the most famous criminal dramas of last year (in one line with brilliant "Fargo"), but in my opinion, "True Detective" is very second-rate type of a TV-show, made on the experience of other criminal dramas.

Actors - 9/10
Script - 5/10
Music - 7/10
Stage direction - 7/10