Oh, hello there. I didn't notice you peering over at me as I write my first Nerd Alert. What's that you say? You'd like to hear about some nerdy news and happenings for the near future? Well, I'm not Zoltar, so lower your expectations. And get out of that oversized suit, because I'm not going to magically make you a grown up. Quite the opposite.
Thinking about my nerdiest interests, my thoughts first turned to movies. So, I thought I'd get you up to speed on some movie-related business. A note: if you are in a large group of girls, please refrain from reading these events aloud.
Sept. 21: Sensory Overloads
OK, yes, there will be punk music. And yes, some of that music will be done by local favorites like Girl Trouble, Red Hex, and Trees and Timber. And yes, this is a function that will be held at a bar.
But look, the real draw here is the film. And not just the film, but also the accompanying interpretive dance. That's right, Isaac Olsen's German expressionist film, Ich Hunger, will be screened with an accompanying performance by the BareFoot Collective. Let's see, we got black and white, German expressionism, plus interpretive dance? Respectfully, I'd call that firmly in the realm of Nerd Alert.
Olsen's tale of a creature-boy roaming the German wilderness and devouring the village's hapless tourists will be an odd and entrancing pairing with the BareFoot Collective's elegant performance.
Video Game Movies
It's no secret that the history of video game movies is spotty at best. Oh, I can't lie to you. Video game movies are awful! Just awful!
Ever since the soft part of my skull hardened up and I began to think like a real live person, I started to see through the bullshit that is Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (the first one's kinda OK, actually), and countless other failed adaptations of game to screen.
But there's one poor soul who seeks to fix this. Producer Avi Arad (Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men) recently did an interview with the video game website Kotaku where he talked about the games he's seeking to turn into films: Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, and Uncharted.
"... the moment one video game movie goes through the roof, it's the same thing that I've been through with comic books," Arad said, speaking of his success in the comic book movie world.
Here's the problem, though. All of those games Arad is working to turn into movies are already so deeply based in the language of film. Uncharted, the action-adventure; Mass Effect, the science fiction; Metal Gear Solid, the spy thriller. The only reason these games exist is because they take their cues from film archetypes.
Adapting any of the games to the screen should be a snap, in as much as making any genre movie is a snap. Taking tropes and slightly adjusting them has been the tactic of film for as long as tropes have existed.
I want to see those goddamn Super Mario turtles turned into a real movie. I want to see a Street Fighter movie where there are actual street fighters - not some military conflict on a discreet island in the Pacific.
Capturing the actual vibe of a video game in movie form is difficult - as evidenced by that interminable first-person sequence in the Doom movie - but that doesn't mean we have to resort to effectively taking storyboards of movie clichés and then transposing them back on the screen.
That's all for now, nerds. See you on the boards.
SENSORY OVERLOADS, w/ Girl Trouble, Red Hex, Trees and Timber, the Jilly Rizzo, the BareFoot Collective, 8 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 21, The New Frontier Lounge, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, $6, 253.572.4020