Red Dead Redemption Original Soundtrack (OST)

Marketers, take note! The ultimate factor in convincing my husband and I to pre-order Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption, as opposed to waiting a year or two for the price to cut in half as is our usual game-buying habit, was not the free DLC or the map poster, but the free inclusion of the game's soundtrack with all pre-ordered copies. Soundtracks are expensive, game soundtracks especially so, and we figured we couldn't go too wrong gambling on a Western soundtrack - a relatively new genre, they're hard to screw up, and many a forgettable or outright crappy cowboy flick has been elevated by its solid musical score. And I can rarely get enough of the soundtrack from LucasArts' old PC game, Outlaws.

Red Dead Redemption is a solid game, memorable, intriguing, and fun, but its soundtrack is exceptional, a great listen even when separated from its in-game context. Composers Bill Elm and Woody Jackson have brought the Western musical genre into the present, doing two notable things most Western soundtrack composers don't: heavily incorporating both contemporary musical influences and musical influences from the time period their story takes place in. The end result is a lesson in what fusion should sound like. Elm and Jackson's skills have even created a handful of acid jazz-fueled tracks that would sound at home on Lalo Schiffrin's score for Bullitt, or even on The A-Team - but don't sound out of place here, on an album for a Wild West video game released in 2010. Mexican influences are also clear and present, which is swell seeing as how the game's second act plays out south of the border. The only place this album hiccups a bit is on its final track, a vocal number called "Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie", whose lyrics and tone disagree with the game's conclusion and led me to believe that it would be soaked in hopelessness and despair, when its bittersweet ending was actually quite the opposite (much to my relief, though it was still quite emotionally draining).

The closing track's relation to the game's story aside, Red Dead Redemption (OST) is a basically perfect record. For music lovers, soundtrack afficionados, and anyone who likes a good Western, this is something well worth looking up regardless of whether or not you'd play the game.

Red Dead Bittersweet Irony

It is not uncommon, on highly anticipated game release dates, for obsessive/impatient/image-conscious gamers to "call in sick" so that they can try hot new titles ASAP. As I was standing in line at EB Games to pick up my anniversary present - a special ed. pre-order of Red Dead Redemption - observing the two-dozen-odd 18-35 white males surrounding me, trying not to be too self-conscious as the only woman in the room and cursing my coughs, sneezes, and especially cursing my fever, I couldn't help but take some amusement in the irony that, the first time I ever got a pre-ordered new release, I actually was sick.

Turns out the game's pretty sweet, too. More on that in sixty hours or so. I need to go sneeze some more first, and the cows need herding.

Iron Man 2

It's hard to sell a sequel to film critics. It's easy to sell them to audiences in a fiscal sense, but until Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2, the most recent good sequel in popular consciousness was Terminator 2. A good film with the word "2" in the title is a confusing beast for professional critics, a good comic-book film with the word "2" in the title doubly so. The resulting effect caused by Iron Man 2 has been reviews which say, "there was too much action, and not enough talking, booo", or "it was okay, but there was too much talking and not enough action. Booo." Would it surprise you to learn that I think neither is accurate?

Iron Man 2 picks up where the first film left off, with Tony Stark announcing his secret identity and showboating it like no one's business, with an appropriately ludicrous introduction that works because of how thoroughly Tony's character was cemented in Iron Man. No, wait, scratch that. Iron Man 2 picks up with Russian career prisoner Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) being given a reason to finally get off his butt and seek revenge for the apparent wrong done to his father by Tony's father fourty years earlier. Rourke is a careful actor, one who has a knack for making a character both over-the-top and down to earth at the same time, and that talent serves this film very well. One critic complained that "it's hard to fear a villain who wears reading glasses, chews toothpicks and coos sweet nothings to a pet cockatoo", but I'd argue that it is these quiet, matter-of-fact eccentricities - and normal things, like being pudgy and wearing reading glasses - that make Vanko so scary, especially when combined with Rourke's sleepy portrayal that seems to suit a man who's spent most of his life in and out of Russian prisons. And who (aside from Russian speakers) knows what he's actually saying to his bird? For all we know, it could be twisted and disturbing sweet nothings, like when Emily Watson moans that she's going to bite Adam Sandler's face off at the end of Punch-Drunk Love. At any rate, Rourke is a standout, producing a character who's also a believable person.

Though the cast is uniformly excellent, special mention must be made of Sam Rockwell as Stark's chief rival in the Department of Defense contracts game, Justin Hammer. Taking on the typically thankless role of the hero's less successful, less charismatic, less intelligent, extremely irritating foil, the film is Rockwell's to steal - and steal it, he does. His scenes with Mickey Rourke are just great, and he perfectly delivers what will probably be this film's most memorable bit of dialogue, in a scene in which he tries to sell Rhodey a new type of bunker-buster missile.

This film does have a bit of an awkward pace, but it's nothing to write home about, and what really stands out is how short the fights are. There's a decent bit of set-up, particularly when Vanko's alter-ego Whiplash is introduced against the backdrop of the Monaco Grand Prix, but when heroes and villains actually start hitting each other, epic boss fights last perhaps fourty seconds. It's like someone actually sat down and asked themselves, "if two people capable of causing massive destruction actually tried to kill each other, what would happen?" - this isn't two giants punching each other in the head for twenty minutes (*cough*Transformers!*cough*).

But, let's face it, the question I've been asked the most is, "is it better than the first film?" No. Is it Spider-Man 2? Not quite. Is it a solid film with great writing, acting, directing, and really great superhero action? Yes. Frankly, the only thing I'm truly disappointed with is that the infamous briefcase suit made a quick but crucial appearance - but there was no word on whether or not it harnessed the power of MAGNETS! Go for the movie, stay for the credits, stay for the scene after the credits, and look forward to the next Avenger film.

Good News, Everyone! It's Star Wars Day!

May the fourth be with you.