April 16, 2012
Mindf#$% Movies
by Matthew Baldwin on The Morning News
by Matthew Baldwin on The Morning News
There’s a certain brand of movie that I most enjoy. Some people call them “Puzzle Movies.” Others call them “Brain Burners.” Each has, at some point or another, been referred to as “that flick I watched while I was baked out of my mind.”
But the phrase I find myself employing, when casting around for a succinct term for the entire genre, is “Mindf#$% Movies.” It’s an expression I picked up from a college roommate of mine, an enormous Star Trek: The Next Generation fan who adored those episodes when the nature of reality itself was called into question, usually after the holodeck went berserk or Q showed up and hornswoggled everyone into thinking they were intergalactic dung beetles (or whatever…I never really followed the show myself).
Mindf#$%ers aren’t just Dadaism by another name—there has to be some rationale for the mayhem, even if it’s far-fetched (orbiting hallucination-inducing lasers!) or lame (it was all a dream!).
And they are not those movies where the audience (and the characters) think they know what’s happening, only to discover in the final moments some key twist that turns everything on its head. (Bruce Willis was balding the whole time?!) I love those films as well, but that’s not what we’re discussing. In Mindf#$% Movies you know that Something Is Going On. It’s just not clear what.
Primer
Do We Really Have To Finish Games?
It’s usually clear where a novel or film begins and ends. But what about a game? Today, games exist at all lengths. They can be five-minute narratives, hundred-hour undertakings, or even potentially endless preoccupations. How do we know when we’re done with a game, or when we’ve actually started? Below, Kill Screen founder Jamin Warren and staff writer Michael Thomsen debate the act of reviewing, understanding, and “finishing” games.
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