Five films in this months film fight, a little bit more interesting than last month.

Steven Soderbergh impressed a lot of people when he remade rat pack classic, Ocean’s Eleven. For some people’s tastes the script was over-polished, a hundred writers making every line zing until the words practically lit up Clooney and Pitt’s teeth. It did, however, feature an entertaining (if somewhat silly) heist. In true Hollywood fashion, a sequel was inevitable.

Ocean’s Twelve. It lacks the polish of it’s predecessor (a good film), but is also missing a plot, reasonable nudges by the director, and crucially a heist. You see, although the team desperately need to get millions of dollars, you never actually see them commit a robbery. A few glimpses are shown retrospectively but it’s not enough to satisfy. That the key heist was pulled off in such an incongruous fashion to what one would hope for (it’s not a real spoiler to say it was a simple bag switch) is disappointing. If you can’t be satisfied with looking at the mugs of Hollywood A-listers as they show off what is essentially their summer vacation mess around, don’t bother.

Another remake next, Assault On Precinct 13. Almost entirely predictable, following the standard spot the stiff rules to the letter, only verging off where a modern film must. The cast put in reasonable performances and the isolated in the city motif works well to create an urban tension. Not bad, just not original; perhaps what should be expected from a safe remake.

We’re now several days after Million Dollar Baby took home the lion’s share of this year’s Oscars. It deserved every one of them. Although the character played by Clint Eastwood is an awkward stereotype to begin with, his good natured mean streak wins out in the end. The story itself is gripping, punching you through every blow that Hilary Swank’s character (perfectly realised, I might add) had to go through to get respect, and the struggle beyond that. Fantastic film.

A documentary to get a little change. The premise of The Yes Men is solid: activists set up a satirical website for the WTO and were then mistaken as representatives. They then proceed to give atrocious talks which represent WTO policy as it really is, as opposed to how it is stated by the organisation. The pranks are amusing, and the response is gob smacking, but the film is let down in several ways.

Firstly, the Yes Men themselves come across as prima-donnas. They seem to be in it for the attention more than the issues at hand. In fact, there is one scene fairly far into the film when they are speaking to another activist and he educates them on WTO policy; the very same thing they’ve been apparently blindly protesting. The editing is also lacklustre. While their lateness for one conference (forgetting about time zones) is an amusing aside, the film is filled with, well, filler. This might have made an amusing 45 minute TV show, but there is clearly not enough material to warrant an 80 minute cinema release.

Finally, live action anime from Japan, Casshern. Now, you might be asking how a live action animated film would work. The answer: human actors in appropriately ridiculous costumes, in front of huge CGI sets. Strangely the aesthetic almost works. Almost. It’s let down by an emptiness and some poor colouring choices. Sure, the world is supposed to be a dystopian future, but a few more people (drones) in the huge streets would make it fit in with perceptions better.

Sadly, the film itself is dreadful. Truly awful. I like anime, but this is of the low quality, silly, ill-planned variety. Stupid characters, overly long monologues about vague rubbish, an overarching philosophy that has only a few scraps of meat to it; bad. The timing is off (way too long), the directing is shameful, the characterisation is woeful. After seeing it, you’ll be dumbfounded by how it could go so wrong after an almost promising first half hour. Bad.

So, without a doubt, this months winner is Million Dollar Baby. The Academy finally got something right.

Biffy Clyro were the band to be watching this month. Not content with launching a single for the awesome “One One Word Comes To Mind” from their third album, Infinity Land, they played a UK tour (which has now moved into a small European leg) and did several radio sessions and signings along the way. Their Zane Lowe session featured one of the finest covers of their carrer, a very Biffy reworking of Franz Ferdinand’s biggest hit, “Take Me Out”. ‘Mon the Biffy.

Biffy were supported by Hell Is For Heroes. They also released a new single this month to promote their forthcoming album, “Transmit/Disrupt”. The single, “Models For The Programme”, included a very nice piece of limited edition pink vinyl.

The Mars Volta finally followed up mind-blowing debut album, “De-Loused in The Comatorium”, with an album whose track titles are equally bizarre. “Frances The Mute” is a 5-track masterpiece (split into 13 tracks on the CD listing for legal reasons), each containing distinct (and named) movements. The first four tracks sound essentially like an astonishing intro for 30-minute finale, Cassandra Geminni (yes that is the correct spelling.) Even this early on, a contender for album of the year.

Preparing to get back into full touring mode for their new album, Idlewild played a short acoustic set in Glasgow. Playing on the release date of the first single, “Love Steals Us From Loneliness”, the set mixed up old favourites with some new numbers. While the band have certainly moved away from their punk indie roots, the new sound is pleasant enough.

RockRage put up a number of band fonts, which should be a good resource for fan sites and those interested in typography (there are some very nice fonts in there).

Reel Big Fish announced that their new album will be called “We’re Not Happy Til You’re Not Happy”, which will include an update of one of their finer songs, “Beer”. Let’s hope they don’t ruin it.

Queens Of The Stone Age unveil their first single since the band suffered major line-up changes (basically, Nick and Mark left or were kicked out, depending on who you ask). “Little Sister” seems slightly toned down from previous work in terms of driving guitar riffs, but with drumming that suits the mellower sound.

The finale of this series on Games (which has taken far longer than the 5 days I had intended) is about the finest category of game known to man, the humble drinking game.

Now, those who know me are probably aware of my appreciation for the artform. What better way to share my knowledge of games to drink by than a post on some of the finer examples on Solitude.

Notes: For the purposes of these games “a drink” is defined in a unit which suits your tipple of choice. Generally, the preferred unit is the finger; the amount of drink that placing your finger around your glass would mark. This has the bonus of generally compensating for body mass since larger people tend to have larger fingers.

You will also require a deck of cards, with jokers, handy.

First game is the warm-up game, Odds And Evens. Sit in a circle and when it is your turn take a card from the deck which has been placed in the centre. If it is odd (this includes jacks and kings), you take a drink. If it is even (this includes queens), you don’t. Simple. Understand that this is a warm-up game. It’s not particularly interesting, but should be played at break neck speed. If it takes more than 2 minutes to go through all 52 cards, you’re playing it wrong.

Then there is the slightly more complicated main event: Fuck You. Again, sit in circle with the shuffled deck in the middle, taking cards in turn. This time each card represents a different action which must be performed:

Ace

Take one drink.

Two

Take two drinks.

Three

Take three drinks.

Four

The half card. We’ll come back to this.

Five

The players on your left and right both take a drink.

Six

The player on your right drinks.

Seven

The toilet card. We’ll come back to this.

Eight

The Fuck You card. We’ll come back to this also.

Nine

The player on your left drinks.

Ten

Everyone (including yourself) drinks.

Jack

Where it gets interesting. Nominate another player to take a drink.

Queen

Nominate another player to take 2 drinks.

King

Nominate another player to take 3 drinks.

Joker

Nominate another player to finish their glass, regardless of how much remains.

Fairly simple. Now those 3 cards we said we’d come back to: the 4, 7 and 8. If you draw any of those cards, take it and hide it immediately. You can keep them and play them when appropriate until all the cards in the deck are depleted (at which point all cards are returned).

If you have a 7, you may use it to go to the toilet at any point. This is the only way you are allowed to go. If you have a 4 and are nominated to take some drinks, you can play it and half the number you have to take. If you have an 8 and are nominated to take some drinks, you can play it and say “Fuck You”. The person who nominated you must now drink double what you would have had to otherwise.

The effects of the 4 and 8 can be chained for interesting effect. In fact, I’ve seen all four 8’s chained together. Not pretty.

And that is “Fuck You”.

Finally, there is the Family Guy Drinking Game. Put on an episode of the classic TV show and drink any time any of the following events occur:

• Stu acts camp or tries to kill Lois.
• Peter does or says something stupid.
• Brian says something sarcastic.
• Quagmire says “Al-right”.
• There is a flashback or cut away of any sort.
• The evil monkey appears.

Twenty minutes of drinking, two minutes of plot. The most hardcore drinking game that doesn’t involve bleach or anti-personnel mines.

That is all.

Monopoly. Pretty much everyone has played it at some point. We here at Solitude think it’s the king of all boardgames (although it can’t match Uno or Downfall in the broader scope of games) and were curious as to other peoples tactics. A quick survey revealed some interesting approaches:

• Medium Is The Message – the orange and red blocks are the properties to get with this tactic. They form a significant chunk of the board and are quite a good building block. Not too pricey, good returns.
• Scattergun – Grab at least one from every set and force everyone to operate through you. If you can stop sets being consolidated by players, you can control who makes progress in the game. Not a good long term tactic though, as you yourself don’t have any great capital.
• Favourite Colour – Simply pick the properties who belong to set colours that you like. Not the most tactical of all tactics, but in the particular instance of this person it might pay off. Incidentally, they went for blue, pink and yellow; good strong corner and some more diverse, upscale property.
• The Middle Man – Buy both utilities and all four train stations. This provides a large income when it pays off, but leaves your empire a little scattered for my liking.
• Rich Hostages – Get Park Lane and Mayfair. In my opinion, these properties are next to worthless on their own (until the endgame) but are great bargaining chips as so many other players want them. People like to appear opulent, so capitalise on it.
• Poor Man’s Row – The brown and blue properties of the first side are key. Snap them up early while people are clamouring for more ambitious streets and then build as many hotels as the house rules allow on them. Suddenly dirt cheap properties become the scourge of everyone.
• They’re Not Making It Anymore – They don’t make land anymore, so buy everything you can. Absolutely without regard. Similar to Scattergun, the greater risk of bankruptcy is balanced by the chances you might just get a set.

My final suggestion is to not buy more than two stations. The returns on them just aren’t worth it. If you’re buying a side or a corner, get the stations that are nearby but no more.

Any other tactics?

Before Christmas, the Nintendo DS was released in Japan. Not just another handheld, it represents a real evolution in the way in which people will play games; the first genuine game-changer since the original Gameboy.

Here is a product that has been designed to give users a significantly new experience, by providing them with new toys in hardware from the eponymous dual screen, to the touch screen and stylus, to the microphone, and the wireless hardware. Already people are coming up with innovate uses for these. Band Brothers turns any nearby systems into instruments for mini jam sessions (only one copy of the game is needed, the rest are suppled wirelessly). The new Wario Ware game is as mad as ever, mixing candle-blowing games (through the mic) with snow-boarding (touch screen), and getting progressively sillier. Metroid: Hunters, although the controls are being re-jigged, should be using the touch screen for first person aiming, beating mice for accuracy.

The hardware and software deliver a revolutionary experience. The price point is right. Support is coming from all corners. Know what? It doesn’t matter a bit.

The Sony PSP is coming. It doesn’t do anything particularly new in terms of gaming. It plays games, it has wireless, it has memory cards, and it has a very nice screen (you need to see one of these in action to understand just how nice). It’s not better, it doesn’t do anything significantly new, but it will win.

When Sony breached the mass-market for gaming a few years ago, they guaranteed themselves years of success. Each new machine is hailed as magnificent, whether it looks like a black heater or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s notoriously hard to develop for, or the controller is really quite poor and not up to scratch compared to a competitor’s previous generation. They can make it kill the battery in 2-3 hours and people will still clamour for it (as is the case with several prominent PSP launch titles). Until Sony shoot themselves in the foot through bad marketing (unlikely) or being stupidly restrictive with licensing (Nintendo’s own folly, but certainly more likely), they will own it.

Sadly, the masses equate Sony with cool and Nintendo with kids. No amount of revolution will take the crown.