Games I Played in 2013

Another year's gone by, and I've helped myself to another bushel of tabletop games. This list is coming out a year late, but without further ado I give you the games I played in 2013, in a vague order of preference.

1. Letters from Whitechapel
2. Legendary: A Marvel Deckbuilding Game
3. Magic: The Gathering
4. Power Grid

5. ZOMBIES!!!
6. Microscope

7. War of the Ring
8. BANG!
9. Fluxx
10. Settlers of Catan

11. Thurn and Taxis

12. Boomtown

13. Darkplane: Conquest (my very own game)

As with last year's list, these are mostly games that I hadn't played before. I'm including a few that I hadn't played in some time, just for the purpose of covering those few extras that I like. Below I'll review them all in ascending order.

In the descriptions below, I'm including a Nerd Factor. The scale is 1 to 10, where 1 is a party game that you could play with the least nerdy people you know, and 10 is Dungeons & Dragons.



13. DARKPLANE: CONQUEST
Competitive Board Game (3-6 hours, 2-8 players)
Nerd Factor: 8

Some of you may have already read my comments about having designed and playtested a board game of my own this past year during unemployment. I'm putting this on my list because I ended up playing it about seven times last year (with rules getting fixed, updated, simplified, and just plain cut as we went). I took it to a game convention in New Jersey (my first), where I got some awesome feedback that resulted in me abandoning the project because it needed a major overhaul. Instead of spending hours to fix it, I got a job. My wife's happy the phase ended.

Basically it was Risk plus Power Grid plus Magic: The Gathering. It was too much--too big, too long, and too complicated. But like someone else we know, I had a blast making it, and maybe there's a future for it once it gets simplified.


12. BOOMTOWN
Competitive Economic Card Game (30-60 minutes, 3-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 3

This was a fun little game that hinges on auction strategy--when to stop bidding--which is something I'm terrible at. It's telling that the winner of our game was the player who won the fewest auctions. Basically, you're setting up mines, taverns, and other establishments in the Old West. You build in different towns (represented by the color of the card) in hopes of making money off the others who have set up in your town. The game's over when the deck runs out of mining spaces. Whoever can cash out the highest wins.

I had a great time playing, but Boomtown certainly reaffirmed that I'm weak in economic games. It was easy to learn without being too straightfoward, so that was a major plus. My interest in it might not hold up if played every night of the week, but I'd definitely do a couple more rounds without reservation.


11. THURN AND TAXIS
Competitive Euro-Style Strategy Game (40-60 minutes, 2-4 players)
Nerd Factor: 2

In Thurn and Taxis, you're a German coach driver trying to extend your route as effectively as possible. You're collecting cards (representing German cities) in an attempt to finish the route--quickly, but not so quick that you can't make a few Deutsche Marks. It was a blast--a typical Euro-style game with simple, engaging rules. If it weren't in such good company on this list, it would have been one of my favorites.

10. SETTLERS OF CATAN
Competitive Euro-Style Economic Game (40-80 minutes, 3-4 players)
Nerd Factor: 4

I played Settlers so much in High School that I had to put it away for a while. I opened it back up this year and experienced a flood of memories from eight years ago. I'll be honest, though--I'm kind of bored by it, despite the fact that I rarely win these days. That's the reason I'm putting it on the bottom half of this list. If my desire to master the strategy can't overcome my ambivalence toward the game, it's not a good sign. I have a couple expansions (I'm dying to try Cities & Knights, which is one of two games I own that I've never been played), so maybe those will breathe some life back into Settlers for me.

9. FLUXX
Competitive Card Game (5-30 minutes, 2-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 2

I enjoyed learning Fluxx a lot. It's fast, unpredictable, and has great themed sets that are pretty cheap. The rules are simple enough for anyone to learn in just a couple minutes. My one gripe is that I think I like the idea of the game slightly more than I like playing it.

You start with two rules: draw one card, play one card. The cards you draw might be actions you can take, new rules to add to the game, goals that set the victory condition, keepers (good items or characters that you keep), or creepers (bad things that stop you from winning). If you meet whatever goal is out on the table, you win. It goes fast. Most games are less than 15 minutes. The main conceit of Fluxx is how the rules change nearly every turn. It's a cool idea, and a great game to pull out when you want to kill 20 minutes.

I have the Cthulhu Fluxx set. There are tons of them: Stoner Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx, Star Fluxx, Monty Python Fluxx, and more.

8. BANG!
Semi-Cooperative Card Game (20-90 minutes, 4-7 players)
Nerd Factor: 3

If you haven't played BANG!, you're missing out. It's Mafia (or Werewolf) played with cards, set in a Spaghetti Western. It's actually an Italian game, which makes the setting come full circle. The cards are printed in both Italian and English, which is fun.

Basically, everyone's got a secret role (Sheriff, Deputy, Outlaw, Renegade) with a different victory condition, but the Sherrif is the only player's role that anyone knows. So you have to figure out who everyone is, then kill the people not on your team. The card play is what makes this game a blast. Highly recommended.


7. WAR OF THE RING
Semi-Cooperative War Game (1-2 hours, 2-4 players)
Nerd Factor: 6

I got this game as a gift years ago, and had only played it once before going off to college and forgetting about it. Turns out it's great. The art is gorgeous (done by John Howe, who was one of the prime concept artists for the Lord of the Rings movies), and the whole play experience does a great job of emulating the story and character motivations of the Lord of the Rings novels.

It's set up like Risk (with much more even-handed rules), with one player or team controlling Sauron and his minions and the other player/team controlling the good guys. You have to destroy the ring before Sauron either finds it or conquers Middle-Earth. The coolest thing about War of the Ring is the action dice. In order to determine what you can do on your turn, you roll dice. The symbols that come up are actions you can take. It's a clever mechanic that I'd love to see in more games.

Probably the most compelling aspect of War of the Ring is that the war is optional. You don't necessarily have to fight battles and conquer territories to win, which is why you might play this instead of Lord of the Rings Risk, for example. If you want to focus on the race to claim the ring or destroy it, it's actually a strong tactic.


6. MICROSCOPE
Cooperative Roleplaying Game (1-2 hours, 2-4 players)
Nerd Factor: 6

Microscope is a game I heard a lot about before playing it. It's a strange hybrid of (minimal/optional) roleplaying and macro-storytelling. It reminds me of mapping a screenplay, but here the goal is to map a set of historical periods from a predetermined start to a predetermined end. It's a pretty strange game, and definitely not for everyone, but if you like collaborative storytelling and intricate fictional worlds or histories, Microscope might be right up your alley.

I'm honestly not sure how else to describe it. Everyone agrees on a group-generated list of what must or must not exist in the history you're about to create, and then you take turns writing historical details on cards. There's a structure to it, but I'd have to describe the whole thing for it to make sense. This is a game with a lot of creative leeway, which is its biggest selling point and biggest flaw. I like the idea a lot, but my experience involved some annoying players who accidentally ruined the game by taking too much whacked-out creative license. With the right crowd, though, it's probably a blast.


5. ZOMBIES!!!
Competitive Board Game (40-60 minutes, 2-6 players)
Nerd Factor: 4

Zombies!!! is basically Escape, but it plays more like a watered-down Zombicide. Throughout the game, players place tiles that represent new areas in the city. Each one has particular locations and resources you can gather (bullets and med-kits). There are also zombies everywhere, and you have to escape to the city's helipad before you die. Very simple, very fun. I'd like to play with more of the expansions, since the game felt a little too streamlined for my taste. I bet more pieces and cards would spice things up. Still, this is totally worth getting if you're into zombies, especially for $20, which is a steal.


4. POWER GRID
Competitive Economic Game (1-2 hours, 2-6 players)
Nerd Factor: 5

I've played Power Grid a few times now, and I'm still not sure I know how to win. It's a relatively simple game, but its use of tokens to simulate supply and demand is a clever mechanic that deepens the strategy a lot. You play an electric company trying to power 20 U.S. cities (or German cities, if you play on the board's reverse side). I like that the winner isn't who has the most money--it's the player who can use the money most efficiently. There are surprisingly few economic games that take this angle. For that alone, Power Grid is among the best of them.


3. MAGIC: THE GATHERING
Collectible Card Game (20-40 minutes/your entire life, 2+ players)
Nerd Factor: 7

One of the oldest collectible card games is also the best one without competition. I played a bit of Magic when I was a teenager in the 90s, but 2013 was the year they got me. If you've never played, here's how it works: 1) buy a crap-ton of cards in different colors 2) build your own deck using the extremely versatile and nuanced mechanics of the game 3) play the game against other people. This is really three games in one, because each of those steps would be fun by itself. But a game that puts all three into one beautifully illustrated and relentlessly addictive package? If you're surprised to know that there are professionals who do nothing but play this game for a living, this is why. It might be the most successful game model ever conceived.

My favorite thing about this game is that each color (or suit) of cards has a unique overarching strategy to it. Every card of that color plays into different aspects of the color's strategy. That means that you can mix colors to create really nuanced approach to the game. I have an assortment of decks spanning all the colors, and making new ones just never stops being fun.


2. LEGENDARY
Semi-cooperative Deckbuilding Game (1-2 hours, 2-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 4

For my birthday last year, I went out on a limb and bought this new game with a lame title from a publisher that doesn't usually make games. Upper Deck is a trading card company. They make baseball cards and a few comic-book collectibles. So when I played Legendary, I was very surprised how good it was. It's a cooperative deck-builder that pits 1-5 players against a mastermind card (Magneto, Thanos, Dr. Doom, Galactus, and other Marvel baddies). You have to fight the mastermind 4 times before he defeats you in order to win.

Legendary basically plays like Dominion crossed with Arkham Horror. The game has mechanics for creating obstacles like villains capturing bystanders and giving wounds to the players, and you can build a powerful strategy as you choose which cards and heroes to add to your deck of superheroic acts. It has long set-up and clean-up times, but I still play it more than any other game I own.

The base game comes with the Avengers, Spider-Man, a bunch of the X-Men, and a few other notable heroes. So far I've bought every expansion, getting me sets like the Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Friends, and a huge batch of villains. The Legendary Villains game lets you play as the bad guys, and is fully compatible with the rest of the game. When mixed, it lets you try interesting team-ups like Magneto and Professor X, or Thor and Loki, or Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. As you can tell, I can't quite get enough of this one.


1. LETTERS FROM WHITECHAPEL
Semi-cooperative Board Game (1-3 hours, 2-6 players)
Nerd Factor: 4

This game may not be the most-played in my library, but it's easily the most popular. In it, one player assumes the role of Jack the Ripper, while the others form an opposing team of detectives. Over the course of four nights, or rounds, Jack kills and tries to escape into his secret hideout before getting caught. To catch him, the detectives scour the nearly 200 numbered locations on the board for clues. If they do their work well, they can find a trail leading to Jack's lair and catch him before he kills his fifth victim.

Letters from Whitechapel got a lot of good press a few years ago, but quickly went out of print. I had been keeping my eye out for its return about a year when I heard that the geniuses at Fantasy Flight Games were printing a revised version. I scooped it up as soon as it became available, and I've never been more satisfied by a board game. It plays a touch long, depending on the personalities at the table, but it's sure to keep the attention of even casual players. Best game I played in 2013, hands down.

A New Kid on the Marvel Block

Guardians of the Galaxy is the first new title from Marvel Studios that wasn't centered on one of the traditional "Big Five" characters (Hulk, Cap, Thor, Wolverine, Spider-Man) since the first Iron Man in 2008.* As such it's not only daring, it's telling of what Kevin Feige and his flunkies bring to the table when setting up a new franchise. The movie is smart, hilarious, and driven by deliciously flawed characters, but in the hurry to tell the story it becomes so busy that it overshadows how good its core really is.

Granted, I came in with high expectations fueled by Rotten Tomatoes ratings and a love for the source material. This neighborhood of comicland is one I'm intimately familiar with. I've read almost everything there is to read from "cosmic" Marvel, and I've been waiting for it to make its big-screen debut for years. The 2008 comic run of Guardians is one of my favorites--phenomenally drawn, and written with a fantastic understanding of what makes the characters compelling. James Gunn, the director of the film adaptation, has taken a lot of liberties, but his movie has the same two basic virtues--characters and visuals.

The movie's about a group of prisoners fighting to get their paws on a piece of expensive contraband, and accidentally becoming the only ones capable of saving a planet under attack. Peter Quill, a Han Solo wannabe who was abducted from Earth as a child is played brilliantly by rising star Chris Pratt, who manages to capture Quill's stunted maturity without ever losing his charm. He becomes the de facto leader of these galactic misfits, and the force that eventually forges them into a dysfunctional, amoral, but bonded family.

It's nice to see a Marvel movie that isn't really about superheroes. Yes, some of them are super-powered, and yes, they have moments of heroism, but the story feels like a nice change of pace from the Avengers-fueled films that Marvel has exclusively produced up till now. The Guardians are, as one space-cop puts it, a bunch of a-holes. They don't like each other (at first), they don't like most of the galaxy, and they don't really like doing what's right. They're reluctant without ever feeling passive, and this fresh dynamic is the most liberating thing about Guardians.

Aside from Pratt (who is the best thing about this movie), Dave Bautista's Drax shines brightest. The character is perfectly written in a heightened, pseudo-Elizabethan speech that offers amusing juxtaposition with Drax's feeble intelligence. It helps that he's played by a professional wrestler, but don't think that means that Bautista's performance isn't charismatic, intimate, and really smart. He made the movie for me.

Zoe Saldana is sadly stiff as Gamora, a deadly assassin who begins the movie with the intent of betraying her villainous adoptive father. She has some great lines, but what bothered me about Gamora was the same thing that bothered me about Thanos** and the other high-status aliens in the movie--they sound really pedestrian. It might be the fact that they're played by American actors without any sort of heightened accent, or it might be that I'm too picky about dialect stuff (being an actor). It's a small thing, but when you're playing a Shakespearean villain (and standing next to classically trained Lee Pace), you need to heighten it. Do Standard American, not General American. Sound like Orson Welles, not your college roommate. My perception was that several characters in the movie had a hard time selling their galactically high status because of the way they spoke. Maybe this is just me, though.

If I had one significant complaint about Guardians of the Galaxy, it's that the script and visuals, otherwise fantastic for a summer action flick, were really overactive. Gunn feels the need to explain way more than he has to with regard to character and setting exposition. While most of this exposition takes the form of loglines spouted out during mostly-interesting scenes, they build up to the point where you start to lose stuff. The Star Wars movies prove that you don't need to explain weird things in a pulpy space opera. You can just show them and let the quirkiness speak for itself. I think if you cut half the exposition, Guardians would make just as much sense, and you'd actually be able to take more of it in on a first viewing. More than that, it would be easier to realize how ingenious the central characters and their emotional arcs are.

The same goes for the movie's visuals. Their design is flawless. Gunn and production designer Charles Wood have brought the color back to space for the first time since Farscape. Their sets are a canvas of the bizarre and vibrant. They also admirably employed practical effects in places where Jackson or Lucas would have used CGI. That fact alone gets Guardians in my good books. But make no mistake, there's a butt-ton of CGI, including three entirely animated characters. This only bothered me when the scales tipped so that my eye was drawn to the computer effects more than the practical ones. The result is large stretches of action scenes so busy my eye couldn't decide where to go, which had the unfortunate effect of drawing my mind away from how truly beautiful the movie is.

Still, it's hard to complain about a summer blockbuster being a summer blockbuster (unless you pretentiously know the comic characters inside and out), so I can't help but recommend Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a great sci-fi movie, and full of unexpected delight. Go see it, because I made a bet that it would make $110,200,522.70 at the opening weekend box office.

*We forget that Iron Man wasn't well known outside of the comics before his movie. Now he's become an A-lister, but it wasn't always that way.

**Thanos I found to be extremely disappointing. In a movie with plenty of blue/green/purple/red pseudo-humans in practical prosthetics, you'd think they wouldn't need for Thanos to be entirely CGI. Did they learn nothing from The Hobbit? It's really hard to care about a CGI villain.

The Oscars: Fields I'm willing to die on

Let me get the obvious out of the way--the Oscars are a 3+ hour commercial for Hollywood. The winners aren't always representative of the best work being done in the industry, and it's a little silly that we continue to get conned into thinking that the awards are the ultimate designation of success in the film industry.

Okay, whew, that's over. Now I'm going to go on and on about my Oscar picks.

There are a few awards that I have strong opinions on, and I thought I'd share them for you to read during the breaks from the endless pandering. These are the fields I'm willing to die on, and rest assured, if they turn out differently I'll be cranky for a couple days. I didn't get around to seeing absolutely everything, but I think I've seen enough to have this conversation.

Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave

I found myself in conscious awe of the dialogue in 12 Years a Slave. It was rich, poetic, and yet incredibly direct. For my money it beat out Tony Kushner's nominated screenplay for Lincoln. Argo won the Oscar last year, but I think Lincoln was the favorite for this category. If 12 Years a Slave is better than Lincoln, it follows that only a juggernaut should beat it. I don't think one was nominated that deserves that honor. Granted, I haven't seen Philomena or Before Midnight, but they seem like underdogs in this fight.

Best Original Screenplay: Not Nebraska, please, please, please

It wasn't difficult to see what Nebraska's screenplay was trying to do. That's the point. It was so on the nose that I found myself getting two steps ahead of it for its entire duration. I knew what the ending would be the moment the truck was mentioned, and I knew what sort of character development we were in for as soon as the music started at the opening credits. Bob Nelson's got a short resume, and in this movie I thought his inexperience showed. So, if it wins, I'll be pissed.

Best Animated Short Film: "Feral" all the way

I watched most of the animated shorts this year, and I thought "Feral" by Daniel Sousa was the clear frontrunner. It's a visually entrancing story about a feral child unable to cope with civilization. It has some clear post-colonial undertones (which always draw me in), but it managed to tell a captivating story in 10 minutes with no dialogue. Well done.

Best Documentary Feature: Dirty Wars

Dirty Wars is one of the most affecting docs I've ever watched--it has the intrigue of All the President's Men, and all the heart of Hotel Rwanda. And it's beautifully shot for a documentary. The reality of the War on Terror is uncomfortable and a little frightening, but this is a story that needs to be heard.

I also loved The Act of Killing, but I'm voting against it because I think Dirty Wars is more urgent a film. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, it needs to win, for no other reason than that the President (who we all know will be watching) realizes that someone's watching him.

But seriously, see The Act of Killing--it's gripping in a train wreck sort of way. That last scene. Man.

Best Cinematography: Llewyn Davis better punch Nebraska in its bread basket

Okay, there's a bit of bias here. I loved Inside Llewyn Davis, and was crushed when it wasn't nominated for much beyond this category. And, as some of you noticed this morning, I hated Nebraska's cinematography, from its lighting to its camerawork to the cheap-looking black and white. Llewyn Davis has an incredibly foggy look--the lights bled into infinite shadows in the back of many scenes, and it created this surreal effect of entering a dark tunnel for two hours.Bruno Delbonnel is a genius. Of course, I realize that this is a film that's more polished than the purposefully low-fi Nebraska, but the same logic would call a stick figure better than an oil painting. That's only true if that stick figure's got some seriously powerful thought behind it. In my opinion, Nebraska was too predictable to have that.

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender--in your face, racists!

There was something so human about Michael Fassbender's horrendous character in 12 Years a Slave. It stands in stark contrast to how too many racists are characterized in Hollywood films. We don't see them as people, because we're afraid to admit that they're all too similar to us. I loved Fassbender in this role because he wasn't a caricature, and that's an example that should be followed. Also, I think that the strength of the opposition is all built on the writing, not so much on the acting. Across the board, Jared Leto included (although his performance was great).

Best Picture: 12 Years again

Not too much to say about this that I haven't already said in my review here. For me, 12 Years a Slave took the trash out. No contest.

Wall Street's for the Wolves

Since I'm redoubling my efforts to see the movies that are getting Oscar buzz, I went to see The Wolf of Wall Street, which seemed to be getting pretty polarized responses. Here's my take: it's funny, it's scathing, and it's a little brilliant, but in shooting for comedy, it loses its edge just enough that the message gets muddled.

Wall Street's a brutal satire of capitalism and the cult of money, and in many parts of the movie it gets its point across. I loved the scenes at Stratton Oakmont, where everyday Americans foamed at the mouth, beat their chests, and screamed profanity, cursing everything but money. It was hilarity of the scary-but-true variety, and Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) acting like a televangelist healer at the head of all this money-worship wasn't lost on me.

As I thought about it in relationship to some of Scorsese's previous work, I started to think of Wall Street as a third part of an informal trilogy about American institutions--the other two parts being Goodfellas and Gangs of New York. All three involve a naive-but-talented protagonist climbing the ranks of an organization and getting seduced by its decadence. All three are also (in my opinion) a bit long and a bit meandering. But each takes a different slice of American history and deconstructs it. In theory, The Wolf of Wall Street is the culminating stroke in a series of important and intellectual films.

Here's the problem. The movie's marketed to college-age males, a fact that becomes obvious as you watch the trailers that play before it. I doubt, though, that most college guys are interested in a deconstruction of American materialism. I'd wager they're in it for the partying and the unclothed boobs, the sheer number of which discourages an effort to count them. But hey, if you want to see some naked chicks, I won't stop you--although, if that's what you want, you'll find more satisfying and time-efficient resources elsewhere. So why does The Wolf of Wall Street want to draw in an audience that's going to miss its point? Well, money. Isn't it ironic.

I'm not speculating either. Plenty of audiences have mistaken Scorsese's satire for sincerity. I recognize that a lot of people didn't meet the movie halfway, but at some point a filmmaker is accountable for whether his statement reaches the audience. Especially when the film is all about the statement, which Wall Street seems to be. My impression is that Scorsese had so much fun depicting the depravity of Belfort and his entourage that his enjoyment bleeds into the presentation, and as a result his film's bite is dulled.

I'd be surprised if a woman really liked this movie. Granted, the masses of hookers and strippers probably balance out the gender representation, but from a feminist perspective it's a complete bust. Let me throw it into sharp relief: not once in the entire movie do we hear a woman speak to another woman. Wall Street fails the most primitive element of the Bechdel Test. Shame on you, Mr. Scorsese. I refuse to believe that there was nowhere in the three hours of DiCaprio snorting crack off prostitutes' various body parts that you could have inserted two women having an audible conversation.

Maybe I was less impressed by Wall Street because its message isn't new or innovative to me. I'm pretty disgusted by the mundane materialism that I see every day, so watching a farcically heightened version of it didn't deepen that sentiment. It only blurred the line between this movie and any other inane, college-targeted sex comedy.

My recommendation? If you love Scorsese, you'll probably enjoy the movie. And don't get me wrong, it's hilarious--funnier than most of his stuff, and in the same style of half-hearted, twisted farce that's now pretty signature for him. But for my money (and time), I'd rather watch Goodfellas, which is less funny but twice as meaningful.

Cracking Llewyn Davis

I love folk music, especially pre-Dylan traditional folk. Also, my wife and I are actors struggling to make ends meet by doing what we love. These two facts make me the precise target audience of Joel and Ethan Coen's most recent movie, Inside Llewyn Davis, which follows a folk singer whose refusal to compromise his artistic passion is gradually drowning him. It's a layered examination of the artist's soul that I found almost too subtle to immediately appreciate. Like a good puzzle, it's better looking once it's cracked. It might even be the most mature Coen offering yet.

Those who have lived or worked closely with me will understand why I quickly related to Llewyn Davis. He doesn't have a practical bone in his body, and relies--directly or indirectly--on a lot of people to take care of his most basic needs. On the surface, it's because he's too poor to afford rent, but there's also an underlying disconnect between him and the rest of the world that's the source of both his brooding impotence and his artistic soul. I felt like I understood him, so I liked him.

At several points, Llewyn demonstrates that compromising his passion is to him synonymous with death. There's probably nothing he fears more than becoming his father, a former union man of the Merchant Marine whose joyless life has culminated in near-total paralysis. It's the fight against returning to the Merchant Marine himself that sows disaster for Llewyn and those closest to him. We slowly realize (as he does) that he has two options--sell out and have a career, or drown in his own artistic integrity. Both would leave him miserable. It's a dearly bought epiphany that hurts to watch.

Llewyn's definitely got flaws. My wife Bethany (being one of many practically-minded people who have to remind me to eat and sleep) had some trouble feeling for Llewyn when he refused any suggestion of structure or compromise. The only thing stopping us from not caring about him is that his screw-up lifestyle hurts him more than anyone else. I didn't have a problem with him, personally.

I was captivated by Oscar Isaac, who delivers an intimate and charismatic performance both musically and emotionally. In fact, I thought all of the performances were great. Seeing Carrie Mulligan play edgy was like meeting up with a High School friend who's gotten cooler. And all the action is captured in deliberate, tender cinematography that I'd call pretty near perfect.

The whole movie's in the music, and actually the music came first, as it did in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coens' last collaboration with music producer T-Bone Burnett. This one may not be as much of a fan-pleaser, but if you know your folk, you'll see it's got ten times the research as O Brother's soundtrack. Llewyn's sound is moody, raw, and a little ahead of his time (1961), despite being firmly rooted in the traditional. He gravitates toward bluesy arrangements of melancholy and self-effacing songs like "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me" and "The Death of Queen Jane."

Early on, we hear a snippet of Llewyn's gorgeous recording of "Dink's Song" in duet with his late partner. It sounds young, optimistic, and more mainstream than the stuff he's playing now, which openly challenges his audience. It's the Hard Day's Night to his Abbey Road. He plays it again, just before the movie's heartbreaking conclusion, and the transformation that we've almost unconsciously witnessed is a little haunting. He's barely clinging to life by the time we glimpse an up-and-coming Bob Dylan play "Farewell" (his own interpretation of "Dink's Song") as Llewyn steps out. That's extremely significant. It's the arrival of the era of singer-songwriters, an era of which Llewyn will never be a part.

If there's one big problem with Inside Llewyn Davis, it's the fact that you have to pick up on these somewhat obscure suggestions implanted in the music if you want to understand exactly what the Coens are trying to say. The Dylan moment is a good example. If you don't know that it's Dylan, or what he did for folk music, you don't get that Llewyn Davis's chances of a career are eclipsing. Likewise, it takes a little familiarity with the folk genre to recognize the subtle things that distinguish Llewyn's music from that of the corny, more pop artists whose careers are taking off. It took me a few hours to piece it all together.

There's a funny circular structure to the movie too, which actively tricks you into confusing the chronology of events. It threw me a lot when I saw it, but the more I think about it, the more it starts to make sense. It's actually become, for me, one of the film's best selling points. I won't spoil it, but I do think it's good to be warned. I found Richard Brody's article pretty illuminating. If you don't mind spoilers, or if you've seen the movie already, check it out.

I'd guess that Llewyn Davis is a movie that reveals itself better with a rewatch. If that's not the kind of movie you want to see, maybe skip it. If you're an artist or into music, especially folk, go get tickets right now, because this is a movie that's as important as it is engrossing.

Twelve Years a Slave

My favorite reviews to do are the ones that discuss why I feel the way I do about a movie. I think there's more of a point if I'm challenged by the process of dissecting what I liked or didn't. This isn't one of those reviews. I'm not writing because I have anything unique to say. I'm writing because I feel an obligation to just plain praise this movie. 12 Years a Slave is one of the best movies I've seen. It's powerful, uncomfortable, gripping, horrifying, and has zero body fat.

There's a sort of historical subgenre that's coalesced in the last 20 years or so that a friend of mine calls White Guilt Porn. White guilt is itself a somewhat misunderstood phenomenon/problem, but White Guilt Porn's goal is to manipulate white people into feeling guilty about American slavery and racism so that they're emotionally moved by a movie. It also gives a false impression that we've overcome racism by making us feel less racist than the racists in the movie, who are always caricatures. The Help (a movie I liked in spite of itself) had this problem in a big way. Remember the Titans was one of the first I recall seeing. Even Amistad and Lincoln, pretty good movies about white people defending black people, had a few tablespoons of White Guilt Porn thrown in. 12 Years a Slave leaves these films in the dust because it lacks the main ingredient of the White Guilt Porn subgenre. Its intended audience doesn't exclude black people.

You see, the four movies I mentioned aren't about black characters. They have black characters in them, but those characters largely function to give the white characters an objective. The black characters tend not to accomplish much beyond walking through doors white people open for them. This is purposeful on the part of the producers.

Another purposeful tactic is that in these movies, you can immediately name who's a racist and who's not--good guys and bad guys. They consciously avoid confronting the reality that racists are people. They're us. Most of us are still racist (some more than others), even after seeing these movies. We don't change by watching them, because we never look at Bryce Dallas Howard eating poop and see ourselves. We're comforted by the clear message that we're more like Emma Stone.

My point is that 12 Years a Slave doesn't pander to white people. They're invited to the party, don't get me wrong, but this is a story about a black man overcoming something appalling and becoming a different person. The racists in it are incredibly human. They're played with immense subtlety and devotion by Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Garrett Dillahunt, and Paul Giamatti to name my favorites. I particularly appreciate the Benedict Cumberbatch character because he means well, and he saves Solomon's life, but in the end he just isn't willing to confront the fact that he's doing something wrong. He's us.

But no one overshadows Chiwetel Ejiofor, and that's good. The movie relies on him and it pays off. He's vulnerable but voracious, titanic but subtle. I just want to kiss him and Steve McQueen on the mouth for this movie. What they put us through is tough to swallow. There are very few things that can make me wince, but I found myself cringing over and over because I loved these people and almost couldn't believe what they were going through. And what we see in the movie isn't exaggerated or explicit. It's tamer than a lot of slavery horror stories out there. But the honesty is so palpable it hurts--more than if it had embellished.

Stepping back from the heart of the material, this is also a beautifully built film. It's stripped down. It's never haphazard, accidental, or overcompensating. It makes Lincoln look like a Disneyland commercial. Hanz Zimmer shows that he's still got it. His score does so much with so little that you almost forget the sound and fury that signified nothing in Inception. And the screenplay is, no disrespect to Tony Kushner, the best 19th century American dialogue I've ever heard. It's poetic, it's meaty, it's raw. All of that at the same time. Win, John Ridley. Win.

Go see 12 Years a Slave--especially if you're white, because this one wasn't served up just for you.

Thor Could Have Been Mighty Bad

I was pretty lukewarm on the artistic merit of Kenneth Branagh's Thor. The script was okay, the acting was good enough, and the production design erred on the side of the 90s. Ken's camerawork is almost always shallow, and I think Thor is probably his worst showing yet in that department. Watch it and tally the number of times he uses dutch tilt--it's in the hundreds. On the other hand, I love it, because I have a massive soft spot for the character Thor. So here's hoping I'm not too biased talking about the sequel.

Thor: The Dark World has already grossed more in its opening weekend than the first film has to date, so maybe I'm not alone in thoroughly enjoying it. I disagreed with some reviewers who found the first hour to be slow, others who said humor saved the movie, or Roger Ebert's comment that it was visually a "step back from Thor." More than anything else, I left thinking, "This movie could have been so bad."

Think about it--it's a superhero movie set in space, on a pseudo-Medieval fantasy world with science fiction technology. The hero goes to Earth and participates in a contemporary comedy, then plans a heist, runs a blockade by winning an X-Wing dogfight, resolves a royal family drama, and then battles to save Earth from invading aliens. This is eight movies, not one. If you thought Krull was artistically torn between ripping off Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, this is like that with additional helpings of The Great Escape, Meet the Parents, Superman, The Tudors, and Independence Day.

Miraculously, it's pretty engrossing. I think the movie carves a dangerous but ultimately successful path through all these genres. Regular HBO director and Game of Thrones helmer Alan Taylor knows his priorities. Character comes first here. That's why, as some people bemoaned, the first hour of the movie is spent setting up for the payoffs during the second hour. It's basic storytelling. How ADD are we that we can't handle a little exposition? At least Taylor does what Spielberg and Scorsese can't bring themselves to do--he tells a story in 2 hours.

Taylor's also put a masterful touch on Asgard. Its people are rich and textured, finally given the attention needed to make them feel real. Branagh's Thor basically ignores the existence of a local population. We don't see many details of how this society might actually function, or who comprises it. In Thor: The Dark World, we visit pubs, prisons, battlefields, and get a little view of the other people in the Nine Realms. There are all sorts of interesting artifacts peppered in various shots that add depth and nuance to the world.

Ooooh, we're Vikings now.

And the acting's good. Natalie Portman plays a more defined and believable Jane Foster this time around. Her romance with Thor is, ironically, a little less predetermined in the sequel, which I liked. Branagh kind of accidentally sells women short in some of his movies, and I thought both Ms. Portman and Kat Dennings did much better under a director who believes that women have value outside of sexuality. Tom Hiddleston manages to breathe vital life into the movie without upstaging the Thor-Jane relationship. Anthony Hopkins, who had some great moments in the first movie, was going through the motions a little bit here, which is too bad. Chris Hemsworth delivers as Thor. He's settled into the character since his first go, so that's nice. To be fair, though, the most challenging part of his role is maintaining his physique.

Most Improved goes to the script. The story's tight, coherent, and has a balanced pace. It's funny but not too funny, dark but not too dark, and manages to play the characters for everything they're worth. Loki's at his most devious, but also his most vulnerable. That was a very satisfying arc, aided by some last-minute scene additions at the end of post-production. I loved seeing him and Thor try to figure out what their relationship is post-Avengers. Sure, Chris Eccleston's Malekith is a simple if forgettable villain, but I thought the way in which his threat presented itself both visually and mechanically was more than gratifying. There's a fight sequence toward the end that's particularly inventive.

Why are the reviews mixed? My guess is that critics went in expecting The Dark World to be another generic sci-fi blockbuster like the poor showing we had this past summer. And, to some degree, there's no escaping that. It's a save-the-world story. We've had enough of those for one year. But what this has more than Pacific Rim or Man of Steel or Star Trek: Into Darkness is heart, nuance, and women that aren't objects. I'd put it up against any of the summer blockbusters, and against most of Marvel Studios' "phase one" films.