Reviews of 8 BIT are coming in--so far, except for The Reeler, they've all been from the game world. There's one at Game Set Watch, and another at VH1 Game Break. While enthusiastic overall, these game scene reviews seem ill-at-ease or defensive about the film's art context. The writer at gaygamer.net, however, is comfortable talking about that and makes some good points about the movie's relationship to art theory, e.g.:...[A]rtist/scholar Mary Flanagan approaches the topic from a more theoretical level, which is incredibly helpful to an informed outsider but also frustrating simply because theory, especially when coupled with too much deconstructionism, can pretty much be death to art and creative thinking. Maybe that’s just the chip on my shoulder. Flanagan, at any rate, asks some really important questions about the impact of games and gaming technology on our culture and, therefore, on ourselves, and she seems eager to stress how important is it not to allow these questions to go unanswered. Peel away the temporary DIY art-trends and this moment with Mary Flanagan is the secret heart of 8 BIT.
The film spends a little too much time proving it knows it’s beyond modernism and postmodernism, which is both an easy out and obvious, and therefore boring. I would have liked a little more talk about what the creative movements going on in 8 BIT mean for the future of this strange crossroads between games, technology, and art, and a little less PoMo (or po-PoMo, I guess), but on the whole 8 BIT rocked my world. If you’re an art dude, a game girl, a culture maven, a theory freak, or just plain interested, you’ll be glad you saw it.
I like the way the relative "hotness" of the movie's talking heads comes in as an evaluation criterion in this review. (Alex Galloway, call your agent.) It's true, some folks featured in the film are exquisite and that might subtly affect how you view the subject matter, but mostly it will not be mentioned by critics. That is, since it's supposedly a documentary and not a star-driven movie. Elements of the latter inevitably creep in, though, especially when the cast is as well-lit and shot as they are in 8 BIT. The two films I would most compare 8 BIT to are Painters Painting and Iara Lee's Modulations. Concerning the latter, I remember a friend commenting that "the British critics (Simon Reynolds and Kodwo Eshun) have beautiful mouths and teeth." When you're sitting in a dark room and the parts in question are enormous, you notice these things.
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Reviews of 8 BIT are coming in--so far, except for The Reeler, they've all been from the game world. There's one at Game Set Watch, and another at VH1 Game Break. While enthusiastic overall, these game scene reviews seem ill-at-ease or defensive about the film's art context. The writer at gaygamer.net, however, is comfortable talking about that and makes some good points about the movie's relationship to art theory, e.g.: I like the way the relative "hotness" of the movie's talking heads comes in as an evaluation criterion in this review. (Alex Galloway, call your agent.) It's true, some folks featured in the film are exquisite and that might subtly affect how you view the subject matter, but mostly it will not be mentioned by critics. That is, since it's supposedly a documentary and not a star-driven movie. Elements of the latter inevitably creep in, though, especially when the cast is as well-lit and shot as they are in 8 BIT. The two films I would most compare 8 BIT to are Painters Painting and Iara Lee's Modulations. Concerning the latter, I remember a friend commenting that "the British critics (Simon Reynolds and Kodwo Eshun) have beautiful mouths and teeth." When you're sitting in a dark room and the parts in question are enormous, you notice these things.
- tom moody 10-13-2006 9:51 pm