The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, December 9, 2008 -5 A ers, afi many playing sian pu game, hallucir a nev deluge blocks down nary g happen ing hou in L-s blocks a eat gyri showers The enough wrote a Howeve the str attache talked "Tetris, a "bi metaph inventic The a cultu to categ ent, irrr a cohes can see ture an ate the see. An a differ deeply our cul everywl of every ris" on applicat 8-bit beauty ccording to some, there's a even 8-by-16 seats, to create a grid- "condition"called the Tetris like background while using people Effect where "Tetris" play- in colored t-shirts as pixels. For ter many, example, in his "Tetris"-based film, hours of he has people sitting in colored the Rus- t-shirts in groups of 2-by-2 to cre- zzle block ate the square block (the "O" block), begin to and people sitting in rows of 1-by- nate about 4 to create the long blocks (the "I" er-ending block). Using stop-motion photog- of "Tetris" raphy, people move from seat to seat floating WHITNEY between takes and, in the final cut, an imagi- POW these "blocks" appear to float down rid. This the movie seating grid and arrange s during waking and sleep- themselves like pieces in a "Tetris" irs - those affected dream game. (If the image isn't that clear ape and reverse L-shape for you, you can view Reymond's and see S-blocks while they GAME OVER Project art series at os and while they're taking www.NotSoNoisy.com/gameover/ s. index.) Tetris Effect generated To compliment the visual 8-bit talk that Wired magazine homages with auditory ones, there short piece on it in 1994. are also relatively new musicians er, instead of talking about that have begun to use the beeps 'ange visual phenomenon and blips of 8-bit games to create d to the game, the article music. Here you can hear the strik- about the addictiveness of ing 8-bit "TSEEW!" of a laser beam " calling the Tetris Effect zap or the "DING!" of coin-catching ochemical, reductionistic in a "Mario" game used repeat- or, if you will, for curiosity, edly to create jingles or catchy pop on, and creative urge." tunes. The 8-bit music genre itself Tetris Effect can be seen as has been lovinglynamed "chiptune" ral metaphor for our want and has gathered an underground gorize and organize differ- following of indie music and video egular-seeming objects into game enthusiasts alike. ive system. It's here that we One pioneering chiptune art- the interplay between cul- ist is Nullsleep, the moniker for d what we create: We cre- Jeremiah Johnson, who attended organization we'd like to the Engineering and Applied Sci- d, if we look at "Tetris" in ence program at Columbia Univer- ent light, we can see how sity. An average show of his will video games have saturated showcase the use of augmented ture because the game is Nintendo consoles and hand-held here and has become a facet Game Boys to create the twitchy, yday life. We can find "Tet- nostalgia-inducing sounds that calculators, iPods, Facebook coalesce into legitimate musical ions and key chains. And pieces. The songs themselves con- sist of complex musical layers that use harmonies, melodies and rhyth- mic elements to differentiate these ages from our pieces from simple one-line "Mary Had a Little Lamb"-type ditties. eo gam e past (Nullsleep's music is available for free download online at his website, ifluence the www.Nullsleep.com.) The 1980s game aesthetics have work of today. become aheavy influence in con- temporary art. Current pop-art aes- thetics have been borrowed from what was heavily influential and play the game to spend our ground-breaking two decades ago rded hours or minutes, even - video games. There's an interest- cades after the game's cre- ing interplay between artists and their artwork that can be see when ris" is just one video game analyzing pixel art and chiptune raks to the ubiquity of gam- music, because culture and art are ture and the prevalence of intimately intertwined. While War- t aesthetics as they move hol was producingsilk screen prints he realm of "nerdiness" of Campbell's soup cans and Brillo op culture. Although we pads (icons that were significant ind the 8-bit generation in to the emerging consumer society 0s with the pixilated play- in the 1960s), contemporary art- s of the Nintendo Entertain- ists are harkening back to images 'stem ("Super Mario Bros.") that were important and iconic to Atari ("Galaga"), the 8-bit them - which include images from hetic still hangs around not the pixilated screens of the NES the form of pop culture (we and Atari. It seems like our simple w who Mario and Luigi are) childhood time-passer has become art, which takes the form of something of a generational and xel art and chiptune music. cultural icon. Iwill panish you so hard, Punisher makes his viewers pay the price Iml vid in arti we still open-en two der ation. "Tetr that spe ing cult 8-bit ar from t into pr left beh the 198 grounds ment Sy and the art aest only in all know but pop 8-bit pix Film's comic book violence entertaining but empty By BLAKE GOBLE Daily Film Editor "Punisher: War Zone" is one of the most mali- cious, moronic and masoch- istic films to ever be released this side of a "Saw" movie. Its gore necessitates barf bags and Punisher| theprotagonistmeritsforgive- War Zone ness when he doesn't deserve it. The villains smack of racial At Quality16 ignorance and big guns are and Showcase glorified in a way that would Lionsgate make even Clint Eastwood blush. It's comic book revenge at its worst. Yet, despite its abhorrent nastiness, this is one hell of a show. Fast and mean, "War Zone" is a guilty plea- sure of the highest order. A candy-colored fan- tasia of gore and crazy shit, this is the stupider, funnier side of comic book adaptations. It's just fun. Based on the scandalous Marvel comics, this is the third iteration of the skull- : shirted vigilante's war on uf crime. Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson, TV's "Rome") is the Punisher, a victim of ; gang violence that left his wife and two children slaughtered. Five years on the job, and far from being done, Frank is the ultimate gangbuster. Cops let him slip by, and the feds want him locked up. No one can touch him because he's just too good. But there are two mainstorieshere.Yes, "War Zone" isn't entirely wanton revenge. Frank first accidentally creates an arch-nemesis, named Jig- saw (Dominic West, TV's "The Wire"). Why's he called Jigsaw? Well, remember the scene in the 1989 "Batman" where Jack Nicholson isdropped in a vat of acid? Here it's a glass crusher, and it's very intentional - and verygraphic. Frank also screws up and accidentally kills a federal agent. In the wake of the accident, he makes an effort to atone by trying to make good with the wife of his wrong target. Heart-felt clearly, but these are not what "Punisher" sto- ries are all about. "War Zone" is no exception to the nonsen- sical, over-the-top violence other "Punisher" stories have perpetuated. Done in a guilt-free, pop-minded manner, "War Zone" is everything the comics are about. Frank is a spectacularly efficient mass murderer, and were he not the lead character, this would pretty much be a slasher flick. Yet it's not meant to make us sym- pathetic with Frank. We just can't help but be amused by his efficiency. Directed with extra cheese by Lexi Alexan- der ("Green Street Hooligans"), the point of this film is to laugh uncomfortably at the graphic violence: makeshift stabbings, kidneys eaten and faces turned to roast fuckin' beef. (Don't worry, it's funnier onscreen). Normally this kind of violence would make even the mosthardened people cringe. It's bru- tal. But the ploy here is to not take anything seriously. "War Zone" works as a parody of itself bythe end, and in that respect, it ain't half bad. The repetitive glee in Frank Castle's ram- page certainly has the foundation for a great drinking game. Considering the top-notch production values despite the budget, clever effects, quick pacing and general willingness of the cast and crew to not take themselves too seriously, this is much better than it should be. "War Zone" makes a fine B-movie. Far more fun than the dark 2004 "Punisher," and far better than the 1989 Dolph Lundgren "Punisher," "War Zone" is furious fancy. Pixilated art is the norm for the NES, with its unclear, tile-like visu- als - think of NES Mario in all of his blocky, tri-colored glory, where his mustache is a series of brown blocks in the middle of a beige- block face. Pixel art is simply blocky. We can see the indi- vidual pixels (or smallest units of display on a monitor) as obvi- ous squares that sit next to one another like colored tiles. This seems to be the general premise for the art genre itself. Pixel art itself may be kind of counter-intuitive since we've approached the realm of hyper- realistic video gaming and CGI, where computer-character hot girls look like hot girls ("Soul Calibur IV") and mulleted bad- ass gaming protagonists look, well, badass ("Metal Gear Solid 4"). But in games like "Space Invaders," for the 8-bit Atari, you just have to use your imagi- nation to turn the strange shell- fish-looking blobs with eyes into ominous-looking aliens. But there's something charming about the unclear, block-like characters in these consoles, and contemporary artists are already beginning to make their homages to the Atari using unlikely materials and familiar themes. Guillaume Reymond is one such French- Swiss artist who works with the pixilated art realm in mind, but instead of working with col- ored pixels, he uses stop-motion video, movie theater seats and people in colored t-shirts. Reymond's series "GAME OVER Project" uses stop- motion video to create strik- ing mini-films that emulate the flying pixels of "Space Invaders" or "Tetris." He uses movie theater seating, in its Pow is an avid "Tetris" player and sees S-shaped blocks just about every day in her dreams. E-mail her at poww@umich.edu. S U O K U Michigan Head*Pain & Neurological Institute is conducting a research study evaluating an investigational medication for the treatment of migraines. Participants must: o Be 18 years or older - Experience . to 8 headaches per month for the past 2 months if you qualify, you will receive study related exams and study medication at no cost to you. In addition, you will be compensated for your time and travel expenses. For more information, please call a study coordinator at (734) 677-6000, option 4. Learn more about participating in research at www. MHNI.com.