The Fortnightly

Priorities

2010-12-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

This week there was an unconscionable filibuster that went on in the senate. I'm not talking about Bernie Sanders. What he did wasn't technically a filibuster. I'm talking about the one you didn't hear about, the GOP filibuster that killed the 9/11 first responders bill.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act as it was to be called after a detective and first responder to the World Trade center and died of lung failure at the age of 34, was to set aside roughly 7.4 Billion dollars to assist those who suffered long-term health injuries and illness from helping the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

What Bernie Sanders did on Friday was essentially a 9.5 hour speech. A filibuster is technically a far more cold and insulting practice of parliamentary procedure. The Republicans said we're not voting on anything until you extend the tax cuts.

GOP senators also expressed "concern" about giving more money that wasn't specifically designated to any existing program.

How the Senate views Americans:

John Paulson (left; hedge fund manger seen here defending himself in front of congress) 9/11 First responders (right)

So here's the logic. 9/11 first responders, heroes who rushed into the ruble without any thought of their own personal safety, the very people who most personify what is best about America, can't get more money for their health care in covering the effects of their heroism. Because millionaires and billionaires, including many of the people who run the banks which got us into this mess, won't be getting their tax cut extended.

According to the Congressional budget Office, as of 2007, only 6 years into the Bush tax cuts, the tax cuts added FOUR TIMES the amount of money to the deficit than entitlement programs during that same period. Now, that's a flashy stat but it is a bit misleading. That just covers the votes during the Bush administration and most entitlement programs go back decades. But it shows where legislative priorities are, and that's what this is about. How it's "irresponsible" to add 7 pr 8 Billion to the deficit to help 9/11 responders. But it's un-American to let these tax cuts expire which aid less than 2% of Americans and will add anywhere from 700 Billion to 1 trillion to the deficit by extending them. That the senate is essentially saying that the lives of those making over 250,000 a year are worth, in terms of monetary investment on the part of the government, over 100 times as much as those who selflessly put their lives on the line when America needed them most.

Extending the tax cuts is not only poor financial policy. Extending it at the expense of helping those who helped strangers when they didn't have to...that's a stab in the back to all that is good and decent about humanity. It's unsound and dangerous moral judgment, and this is a moral issue. It is about placing the needs of the few above the wants of the many. Yes, many if not most of our most wealthy give money to charities, and many do great and profound good throughout the world. But at a time when our nation is on a course to become economically bankrupt, we cannot afford to protect policies that completely morally bankrupt our nation as well.

New Site

2010-12-08T11:05:00.002-07:00

I'll still post my original articles on here. But for a more current, more frequently updated site check out:

http://thefortnightly.tumblr.com/

The 31 Best Horror Films of The Decade (2000-10)

2010-10-30T14:18:00.009-06:00

Ju-On: The Grudge ('03)

A film that takes us back to the very first horror films, where it wasn't a Freudian psychological terror but rather an expression of madness and alienation. Just a gorgeous film, the scariest of the decade that demands repeat viewings. If you don't believe me, consider that Sam Raimi said it was the scariest film he's ever seen.
Shaun of the Dead

One of the best expressions of post-modernity in any film, this is a love story on many levels: for a genre, the people who made the classic zombie fims, the films themselves, between a man and his best friend, and a crew that loves to work together creatively.
The Ring (02)

Ringu was good. The Ring Virus (Korean) is more of an adaptation of the novel. But The Ring is the best film made from Koji Suzuki's story of a cursed video tape. In large part because the American version takes out the spirituality of Ringu, at times even inverting it to the point where no good deed goes unpunished. In this film there is no hope, no redemption, no salvation, and no relatable justification for the curse.
The Happiness of the Katakuris

Fourth on this list, and probably higher on my list of any films from this decade, this isn't exactly a horror film. Then again it's not exactly a comedy, mystery, musical, drama, romance, claymation film either. Takashi Miike's best film concerns a family trying stay together and open a hotel, despite the best efforts of a curse, a police manhunt, and the frequent dead house guest. It's not scary, but a must see and one of the absolute best films of the decade.
The Host

Horror stories at their best are archetypal and few other films have been so succesful using a Jungian view of the fairy tale as this film. On the surface its an excellent monster movie with scientific and socio-political overtones. At it's core its a universal story of a fractured family descending into hell in order to come to terms with death, and conquer it through their love for each other via individual redemption.
The Orphanage

Another film about a family (or two) coming to terms with tragedy, and life through death. It's also perfectly crafted creepiness.
Land of the Dead

One of the most succesful political films of the past decade, Land of the Dead was Romero's return to using his Zombie fun-house mirror in order to reflect an absurd satire on America's reaction to terrorism, the handling of the Iraq War, and Immigration.
Kairo(Pulse)

More of a drama than a horror film, this is a meditation on lonliness and alienation compounded by an increasing seperation through technological invasion of social space. It's slow, ambiguous, yet apocalyptic, tragic, and effectively frightening.
Shutter (04)

This Thai horror film has it all (great characters, great set-ups, great atmosphere), and it's all done amazingly well, confidently, and at a swift pace.
Audition

In Miike's best films genre borders are not only crossed, but distress inside the story creates a collapse of the narrative and genre structures. Here a romance film becomes a tale of obsession, a tragedy, and then something far more terrifying. Ringu may have put Asian horror on the map but this film made certain we were paying attention, even if, like myself, you weren't able to sit through the final 15 minutes.
Noroi

Koji Shiraishi takes the found-footage film to new levels incorporating enough different types of footage to make this a full-fledged documentary style look at the people affected by one terrifying and maddening curse.
The Descent
Let The Right One In
REC
Splinter
Identity
Session 9

A film that's as much about what you hear as what you see; utilizing a real-life location of many a haunting, this is one disturbing and creepy film that has gotten greater appreciation over the years.
Pontypool
The Call of Cthulhu (05)
The Devil's Backbone

Del Torro at his most Dickensian, this is his most well-conceived (and creepiest) film that's both a ghost story, a tragedy, and a war film.
The Others
Paranormal Activity
A Tale of Two Sisters
28 Days Later...
The Interview

Made in 98 in Australia but not readily available in the US until 2 years later, this film is essentially Hugo Weaving and Tony Martin talking across a table for100 tension bulding minutes. Mixes the narrative uncertainty of the Usual Suspects with the disturbing cabdor of The Vanishing.
The Mothman Prophecies

An underrated mainstream film that's genuinely creepy, a bit subversive, and with a standout soundtrack.
Jeepers Creepers
Gu Si (Silk)

A mess of a film, but as original and imaginitive a ghost story I've seen. The story doesn't always make sense but it's exciting, creepy, smart, and unlike much else you've seen.
Bloody Reunion (aka to Sir With Love)
May

It's a story that's familiar to us all; the isolated, troubled teen girl with a mysterious dark side, but this film has a twist: the characters are presented as three-dimensional people, often kind but flawed, all trying to navigate difficult situations. Which makes what happens all the more tragic and frightening.
Fido

In many ways this is Blue Velvet remade with Zombies: this coming of age tale is a comedy that takes place in an alternate 1950's, but it too is about a sub-terranian element which reveals the evil and existential malaise hiding behind a superficial sub-urban Americana. In fact the climaxes of the two films are almost shot for shot.

Honorable Mention:
The Eye (02)

Fragile

Hellraiser V: Inferno

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Drag me to Hell

Martyrs

Either you think this is the artful realization of the torture film or like me think it's a self- important mess of torture porn, you can't deny that this is one of the most ballsy and important horror films of the decade.

Them (ils)

Great Films that my or may not be horror but are some of the best of the decade:

INLAND EMPIRE

Mulholland Dr.

The White Ribbon

Eastern Promises

No Country for Old Men

Hot Fuzz

Notable Omissions I haven't seen:

Dog Soldiers

Ginger Snaps

Thirst

Taxidermia

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Paranormal Activity 2

2010-10-24T00:53:00.002-06:00

* * *
Dir. Tod Williams

When Paranormal Activity 2 was announced I was not at all expecting I'd even see the movie, expecting that the film would get everything wrong that the first film got right: the minimalism, the structure, etc. It sounded like and was a cash-grab. But this cash-grab far exceeds any possible expectation.

People have made somewhat of a deal about how this didn't bomb like Blair Witch 2. But BW2 was nothing like the original, instead a mainstream Hollywood horror film aimed at teens. Paranormal Activity 2 is almost the same film as the first, but it's also just as good.

One question I often ask myself is if a film justifies its own existence. This film passes with flying colors, acting both as a prequel, sequel, and complication of the first film. People who missed the first won't be lost, but will miss some of the dark humor and added sense of dread and even tragedy of those who've seen the first. The sequel concerns Katie's sister, her older successful husband, her step-daughter, and her newborn son, who, after an apparent robbery, install security cameras and of course catch something they weren't expecting.

This film isn't as scary as the first, though it does include one scene that I think was scarier than anything in the first. However, it is far more disturbing, and like the first, sticks with you after you leave the theater. In many ways, this film has less happening in it than the first film, in terms of set pieces. Williams, this is his first non-indie drama, makes this film all about dread. That was what made the first film such a success and an important film in the subgenre. After Blair Witch all of the found-footage horror films used the shaky-cam aesthetic. This gave the viewer a first person point of view, a sense of confusion, and often nausea. But PA gave us extraordinary dread and horror in a static frame, the many doors, closets, and hallways giving us a myriad of possibilities for horror to come out of, giving the viewer a more detached third person point of view. Why this is brilliant is that it plays directly off of the psychological explanations of the Haunted House film in which the house acts as a microcosm for the psyche. In these films the horror comes more from the viewer imprinting their own fears onto the "blank" space created by the static frame.

I believe that one of the reasons that these films have been such successes, its not like there hadn't been found-footage horror films in the last decade, is their structure. The failure of American horror films in the past decade has been the inability to learn the right lessons from the Asian horror films. Unlike in the 1940's when Universal co-opted the atmosphere and style from the German expressionist directors, Hollywood instead adapted the stories. The problem is that what was revelatory about the Asian films was their narrative disruptions. Either in genre's being cannibalized or falling apart into horror (like Miike's films) or in a use of a non-linear non-causal approach (like the Ju-on films). The French new horror has followed in the Asian horror in terms of providing film where the narrative is unreliable, uncertain, and unstable.

The Paranormal Activity films are some of the few American films that use a similar structure, albeit as a byproduct of the function of its gimmick. The films events are shown in a sliding scale of linearity and add an extra dimension of dread to the viewer. This works even stronger in this film, its best moments being when you are unsure if the part you are watching is prequel or sequel. The order in which we are shown the six cameras that are used in the film is repeated and this adds a sense of inevitability that adds to the narrative.

The film is not without its flaws. The film looks too "good" at times, the ending is too messy, and the characters don't feel as developed as they did in the first film; the overly superstitious Latina maid being the most embarrassing aspect of this. However, the film does a good job of ethically dealing with an infant in a horror film where it is in danger. I was watching closely to see how they would film these scenes, and with clever use of post-sound or a puppet (the switching between the cameras makes for a nice "organic" and unnoticeable edit), the child actor doesn't seem to have been exposed to any of the traumatic elements of the film.

He that Endureth

2010-10-19T17:35:00.006-06:00

Def By Temptation (1990)
Dir: James Bond III
* * * *

I'm not sure what I'd call Def by Temptation. It's not, as its Troma release would suggest, a standard b(or/to z)-horror film. This film falls into that strange and amazing area between the art film and the schlock film. It is a film that should not work: a devotional religious splatter comedy about a succubus, that not only works, but is quite incredible and effective.

Yes, the acting is iffy (except for a solidly fun performance by Bill Nunn ), the editing is clumsy and bordering on inept at times, and there were some scenes where it was obvious they were covering for lost or bad sound. But it's also obvious that this film, the only film by Bond, was a labour of love, crafted the best he was able, and full of the vitality of a movie made by people who wanted to be a part of it. On a technical level the cinematography by Ernest Dickerson (Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X) is what holds the film together, and provides some incredibly composed shots on a shoe-string budget. What makes the exploitation film a marvel, when it attempts to be something greater, is the creativity involved in over-coming the limitations and difficulties of both the genre and the budget and level of talent. This film is a perfect example of that, and the way the film uses a Deren like space/time in editing to work around limitations on it's access to locations, and in creating a backstory, is quite remarkable.

But what makes this film stand out is its earnestness. It's able to realize it's absurdity enough to be fun, have fun, but is also focused enough that it is able to be serious when it needs to be, and surprisingly moving in its convictions. Bond dedicated this to his late Father and his Grand-father and this is an obvious personal project. The acting often evokes a non-fictional quality, especially in scenes between Bond and Hardison, the score is vibrant, the make-up stands up to a studio film, and through vivid dream sequences and some quite creative set pieces, time and again this film demonstrates a confidence and purposefulness that is rare in any type of film.

31 Films for Halloween #5

2010-10-13T01:21:00.004-06:00

Raw Meat
aka Death Line (1972)
Dir: Gary Sherman
* 1/2

sub-genre: Mystery.
scare type: there's like two "look out behind you" scenes and a very dated haircut.
scare level: 2/10

Raw Meat has something of a reputation in the UK, or so I've read, as a milestone in the horror genre and sort of a bridge between the stuffy studio horror films and more raw films like Texas Chain Saw. After watching this film the only thing I can figure is that for the gore-weary (or deprived) UK this would have had more of an exploitation film quality than other films at the time, and that for the time when the UK was unable to see a great deal of the exploitation classics perhaps this would make for a place-filler (considering that in the US Last House on the Left came out the same year, by comparison, this seems far out of date). What I see in this film is an anachronism, a film before its time in that it's just like the tepid thrillers that MGM would release in the late 70's hoping to cash in on some of the exploitation audience.

The film starts out extremely promising, borrowing from every Giallo film ever made (which borrowed from Hitchcock) where an American comes across a man in danger and is caught up in an investigation into some bloody goings-on. The problem is that for the next 70 minutes or so you have scenes of the American and his girlfriend talking cut between scenes of the subway dwelling killer moping around cut between scenes of Donald Pleasance and Norman Rossington (who you'll recognize from A Hard Day's Night) making all sorts of sarcastic remarks and getting drunk. Pleasance could be seen as a post-modern disruption of the narrative if the narrative wasn't already falling apart or not really going anywhere. This is a slow, dark (in that I couldn't see what was going on at times), disappointing film. Tension is created then abruptly distracted, characters tell us the back-story then go out of their way to remind us later on in the film, there are mentions of social issues that are incredibly forced (perhaps the result of an American directing a very British film in which a specific region plays a role?), and yet the Pleasance scenes are so loose they seem from a completely different film.

Sherman did make a great, under-seen horror gem, but it's not this film, it was 1981's Dead and Buried. And someday I think there will be a great horror film made about a subway (sorry, CHUD), the material is all there, but all of the attempts I've seen so far have really missed the mark.

31 films for Halloween #4

2010-10-13T01:11:00.005-06:00

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)
Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura
* *

Sub-genre: splatter comedy, action
scare type: disgust, but you get bored with it really quickly.
scare level: 2/10. More of an "eww."

Nishimura is a most accomplished make-up artist (if you've seen Suicide Club's opening wave-o-blood sequence that was him) so it's no surprise that this film is a showcase for his gore fx and probably breaks the record for use of fake blood after the 10 minute mark. This is the fountain-type, there's no attempt to be real type of blood that, which at points in the film, seems to dominant the entire frame.

Surprisingly there's a lot here, the problem is it's all wasted and instead we're shown a make-up effect showcase that's impressive, but incoherent. The film has moments where it wants to work as an absurdist fable like Robocop, Paul Verhooven was definitely an influence, and the film could have worked to express our own uncomfortable relationship with technology, pollution, and other aspects of modern life which make us uncomfortable in our own skin as with a film like Tetsuo: The Iron Man. You can add all the twisted and bizarre elements you want but in the end, a formulaic cop/revenge action film is just a formulaic cop/revenge action film.

31 films for Halloween #3

2010-10-10T13:56:00.006-06:00

aka. The Gates of Hell, aka The City of the Living Dead
Dir: Lucio Fulci
*1/2

Sub-genre: Gore, apocalyptic horror, zombie film (barely)
Scare level: 3/10
Scare Type: disgust

Fulci is one of the more frustrating horror directors (I would be hesitant to call him an auteur because even though he's one of the big names, his style is indebted to Argento but also to the more exploitative types like D'Amato) in his ability to make a great film and a lackluster film nearly simultaneously. This film falls into the later category. A thread bare and rather ridiculous (even for an Italian horror film) storyline is essentially just an excuse for some gory set pieces. The film has some nice atmosphere in the Dunwich scenes, but it's slow, and there isn't a sense of any real dread or danger. The only real plus here is the soundtrack, not the wanna-be Goblin score, but the disembodied screaming and other effects which attempt to create a soundscape. However, the New York scenes break this up with traditional exploitation type melodramatic strings. The next year, 1981, Fulci would make what is his best full out horror film, and a much better film about a gate to hell, The Beyond (aka The Seven Doors of Death). That film has all of the apocalyptic atmosphere and dread that this film lacks, as well as much more organically composed scenes of violence (Fulci reveals real artistry in that film's opening as well as in it's final reveal which is really one of the best in horror cinema). This isn't the most inept or terrible film, but there are few things as unfulfilling as a tedious, slow horror film. Argento made some awful film messes but they typically have enough imagination or interesting ideas to make them much more watchable.

31 Films for Halloween #2

2010-10-09T17:33:00.004-06:00

A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
Dir: Kim Ji-Woon
* * * *

Subgenres: Psychological horror, Gothic horror, haunted house.
Scare level: 7/10
scare type: the "what's in the box? "

Loosely based on the Korean folktale "Janghwa Hongreyeon jeon" A Tale of Two Sisters is a vivid and terrifying film fairy tale film with a clever post-modern streak. It begins, as a many a traditional fairy tale does, with two sisters whose lives are made miserable by an evil step-mother. But as the step-mother attempts to control her house hold, weird stuff begin to transpire. It's at this point that the film displays a confidence rarely seen in films of the genre, changing the viewer's sympathies, breaking up the narrative, and employing on dream logic. In fact, the film itself, seems to recognize what nearly every haunted house film ever made doesn't: the house is a rather ubiquitous dream symbol for the mind, or specifically the subconscious. Highlighting images of closets, covered bird cages, and drapery, seems to show a knowledge of dream symbolism suggesting that there is a secret here. As the film reaches the climax, this idea, and the supernatural/fairy tale aspect two are insuperably linked. This can be disorienting, and its meant to be, to viewers, however, the overall eerie mood, made by subtle reveals, and the gorgeous imagery of the film: it's use of color, light, and shadow is remarkable.

Ji-Woon has made a number of films about family's dealing with violent or supernatural crises (Quiet Family, Coming Out), and this too deals with a family in crisis with supernatural elements. But it's focus isn't' on the family as a unit, so much is it about the individual components of a family, and how these components can fail, and the effect this has on the other individuals in that family unit. The ending of the film may linger for a bit too long, but this is a gorgeous, and sufficiently scary film.

31 Films for Halloween #1

2010-10-08T02:11:00.006-06:00

Snuff: A Documentary about Killing on Camera
Dir. Paul Von Stoetzel
**1/2

I decided to set some rules for myself going into this attempt at Halloween movie watching. I set a minimum of at least 1 documentary, 1 silent film, a film from each of the important era's: studio Hollywood, 70's exploitation, a recent film, and at least 1 film from the major centers of horror films outside of the US: Italy, Japan, the UK.

So, I start this year with a doc about the most notorious and mythic of all horror films, the snuff film. However, unlike other documentaries I've seen, this doesn't celebrate the development of the urban legend which has built the mystique around the snuff film and its effect on films and other media (cf. the episode of the UK's series The Dark Side of Pornography entitled "Does snuff exist?" for that). Rather, this is a deeply sobering film that looks into the absolute worst desires of humanity. This is an interesting turn, however, the film has an internal tension: it lacks enough interviews to feel like an adequate sampling pool for a talking heads doc, but the few it has have stories which, in and of themselves, would have made interesting films on their own. Instead we're given a depressing and ethically questionable inquiry into how a culture could produce people who would want to create snuff films.

History isn't the focus here, but it gives just enough to give you an unclear background, with most of it not starting until Vietnam (all questions about early cinema, Edison's morbid fascinations with death, the role of spectacle in the grand-fathers of the mondo film could have been interesting) and even then the film leaves out important developments in the mythical pseudo-genre: Crime scene photography, Peeping Tom, the Manson Family, Paul Schrader's Hardcore, Videodrome, the Charlie Sheen Guinea Pig incident, and most importantly the Zapruder film (and all of it's pre-video copies and bootlegs).

While it's history and focus are a bit off, this film does raise important issues about the implications of viewing violence and the responsibility on behalf of the viewer when consuming images.

Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for me and my monkey...oh wait I shouldn't have mentioned my monkey. Looks like its time to hide Mr. Beppo.

2010-09-24T14:44:00.002-06:00

OR the dangers of Schandenfreude in the Internet Age

A few weeks ago I thought Christine O'Donnell was Chris O'Donnell's new persona. "Good for him." I thought. Turns out it was a young Delaware Senatorial candidate. You all know her by now, her stance on masturbation, which actually does flow logically if one is to consider themselves a staunch conservative Christian, how she dabbled in witchcraft, etc. etc.

And of course the press is having a field day. MSNBC is loving it, Fox News is putting on its righteous indignation face, and CNN is reading twitter feeds.

But if there's one thing I've learned from my father who's been working in Washington for over 20 years now: if something's news, that just means there's an even bigger story that isn't being reported. And in this case the story is actually quite obvious. Both parties have become so focused on the bizarre that we forget banal things like, well let's say what a candidate thinks about important things.

You could say this fallout from the tabloidization of the news media post the Lewinsky scandal, or politics after Karl Rove's destruction of John McCain in 2000. Either way, people are getting elected or defeated on things that don't entirely matter, and in many cases mask their ideas.

But you may be saying, but Jacob you criticize people all the time for things they say. That's true, and yes, I have said things. Everyone has, and in the internet age it's all up for grabs. Everything is on video, audio, cellphone tape. Can anyone imagine what Nixon would have been like had he lived today? But there are three types of things people say that get noticed, in order of exposure:
1) insensitive things. These are racially, sexually, gender-related, sexual preference related comments that get a lot of coverage in that order, more or less. The media really doesn't have a rubric, nor the sociological understanding necessary to place these into context, and the dialogue usually devolves into "Why can't I, a white person, say the "n-word?"" In short, this is the fault of neo-liberal mythology and revisionist history, and I'd probably do best to point you toward Charles Mill's work, The Racial Contract perhaps his best.
2)Wacky things: These are the odd soundbites that make something insignificant and then make them define a person: Al Gore's comment on the internet, Dennis Kucinich seeing a UFO (and as if that makes one unqualified for the presidency, we forget that President Ford saw one while in office). These make for diversions away from things like issues, which are usually too complex to put into easily digestible soundbites, and turn our candidates into caricatures. This is what's going on now, and I'll get to that shortly.
3) Contradictions and hypocrisy. This is the least reported and the most common. Obama's changing promises about Gitmo, health care, etc. The many faces of Mitt Romney, John McCain 3.0. These are the only one of these "things people say" that really matters because they deal with issues. BUT there is a difference between a contradictions and flip-flops. The latter seem to be the things we get pre-occupied with. When an elected official has different sets of values depending on which political party they are aligned with, that is hypocrisy. That is an important thing. We should stop caring about flip-flops. People should be allowed to change their minds. In fact, I would rather our elected officials change their minds based on facts rather than charge hell or highwater into policies that are based on their own views, facts be damned. Did Obama change is policy on Afghanistan? Yes, but I would hope that the president would focus on the reality instead of the politics. Though his Bush-ian semantic game of "ending" the Iraq war while we still have troops there sort of shows he wants to have his cake and eat it too.

The problem is we are electing people based on image. Images made up of the aggregate of the wacky things they say, not the issues they believe in or want to implement. The biggest failing of the democrats this election cycle has been their willingness to toss the Tea Party into the fringe, to make light of their candidates as oddballs, and that is what disqualifies them from office. Instead the Dems should point out that the Tea Party is actually just the Republican party with some new theatrics. At first I thought that the Tea Party was the GOP trying to exorcise the Neo-Liberal elements which were adopted by the Reagan and Bush('s) administrations. And this is the GOP's biggest mistake with the Tea Party. They've rushed to embrace it and make it part of their strategy. The problem is, is that the GOP still refuses to recognize the fact that their constituents, not the pundits which claim to be populists, are calling for a return to a libertarian philosophy, while the GOP establishment and its pundits are afraid to let go of the whole War on Terror philosophy with patriot acts and a more intrusive government. So, despite what the media says, or forces into their narrative, or what silly and wacky things, even at times crazy things candidates may say, the fact is that we have two parties, both of which are far closer to each other than they'd like to admit, and which nobody in America is happy with. If anyone has reason for dissatisfaction it's the American left, which has been ignored yet again by a democratic president. Obama has done something I never thought possible which was make Bill Clinton look liberal. Ignore all the disinformation on both sides regarding the health care reform act and basically Obama is President Bush who takes a bit more time and advice into consideration. The disaffected right has the Tea Party. It's time the Left stops being content with being amused by the right and take their own supposed leaders to task.

Frights, Faith, and Fundamentalism

2010-08-28T00:31:00.006-06:00

The Last Exorcism
Dir. Daniel Stamm
* * * 1/2

The Last Exorcism interested me for only one reason, initially. Not that it looked any good; it seemed like a quickly pieced together Paranormal Activity clone. I consider myself an expert on horror films, and while I've seen lots of films that consider Catholic's dealing with the demonic, as well that feature scenes of New Age, Hindu, Islamic, and a variety of African folk religions involved in exorcisms, I have not seen a film in which a non-Catholic Christian has been involved in one (this is a point the film addresses itself). For a genre fanatic like me this is something that excited me. I didn't expect the film to be any good.

But the film is really really good. I always get a special pleasure seeing a film that is miles better than it has any right to be and this is such a film. As I sat down in the theatre it was suddenly filled with 12 year old's, what seemed to be an entire junior high's worth. I was really wishing they'd made the film R-rated so I wouldn't have to be an old man and yell at the kids to shut up. They were probably expecting a fun-house horror film, something like Paranormal Activity with various bumps and jump scenes. And they reacted as such during the previews, but as the film went on they were surprisingly quiet.

I think this is for two reasons, and they're both the strong points of the film. First, the characters are excellent. Cotton Marucs (excellently portrayed by veteran TV actor Patrick Fabian) is a compelling character who'd be compelling in any type of film. And while the rest of the cast doesn't get to really time to develop, the characters are smart, and don't do stupid things. Second, this is a very old-school horror film. It takes it's time to set things up, it doesn't show much, and it's scares aren't so much from jumps or that annoying smash edit sound thing, but rather a sickening feeling in your gut that comes from a realization.

The use of a documentary style works not just as a gimmick here, or because it worked in Blair Witch or Paranormal. It works here because the film, made by a guy who started out in docs and the film has some really funny jokes that only people who've made documentaries would fully appreciate, deals with what is real and what is not. Cotton is a Reverend, because he's good at it. His father was one, and since he was 10 Cotton's been pounding the pulpit and performing exorcisms. But when Cotton's son is born with health problems he realizes that he may have never believed in anything he's done and after becoming worried that exorcisms are ultimately harmful and at times deadly, he decides to perform one last exorcism and expose the tricks to his trade. This is a fascinating documentary, but since this is a horror film, he comes across complications. The thing is we're never sure what exactly those complications are. Is this a real possession? A case of repression against a fundamentalist upbringing? A psychological reaction to shame? A family with dark secrets?

The sixth chapter of Ephesians is read several times throughout this film. In that chapter Paul tells the Church at Ephesus to put on the whole armor of God. Why?

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12, KJV)."

Even the twist ending which I think everyone agrees was a mistake, points the central concern of this film to this verse, and to a question about it: what happens when we are called to wrestle flesh and blood? What then is a person to do to spiritually survive?

The conflict of the film is not so much Cotton against a possible demon, but rather Cotton's approach to the situation versus Louis, the father of the supposedly possessed girl, about what course of action to take.

And that is where's this tale of evangelical exorcism differs from most others. The traditional exorcism film is confined to a tight location, but in this film evil isn't confined to a location, it moves around and shows up wherever and whenever it wants. And the characters seem to undertake more action in relation to the situation than in most other exorcism films.

However, the film is bookended by examples of the institutions Paul mentions in that verse. At the start of the film Cotton explains how poverty, isolation, and hopelessness make an area (in this case Louisiana, not a random choice for a setting in the least) prime for exorcisms, and the film leaves us with an evil institution; perhaps that's the film's most Protestant element, that the underlying struggle is the individual versus the institution be it a church or a father figure.

The film is ambiguous and troubling enough to be thought provoking. This should be a disposable little summer scare film but I can't stop thinking about it. That's not just a sign of a good horror movie, that's a sign of a good movie period.

In the 1960's and 70's the demonic films all dealt with innocent children being corrupted by an evil force that caused anxiety in the adults. This mirrored the contemporary youth movements and counter-cultures of the time. And the fact that the films dealt mostly with young women definitely reflected the feminist and sexual revolutions. But these films also served a very different purpose. Films like The Exorcist brought faith back into cinema at a time when, in America, religion was being fundamentally, and often successfully, challenged for the first time on a broad front.

But what about the recent crop of possession films? The demon film was mostly absent from mainstream horror for nearly two decades. However, in the past year alone there have been three: Paranormal Activity, Rec 2, and The Last Exorcism, and technically you can probably count Drag me to Hell also, since it does have a possession scene in it. Why have these films popped up now and what are they telling us about ourselves?

I should note that there was another recent trio of films that came out about 5 years ago: Requiem, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and The Exorcist: The Beginning. These films dealt with misreading evil, seeing evil when there's only human pain and suffering, and instances where religious intervention lead to more suffering and death than there would be had it not acted (this theme is very present in Schrader's version of The Exorcist prequel). However, none of these films really made a major splash in terms of box office or the zeitgeist. It should be noted that Scott Derickson (Rose) and Paul Schrader both have made careers of exploring faith on screen, and perhaps this was a matter of timing.

Like the films from the 60's and 70's, the victims in Paranormal Activity and TLE are young women. However, unlike the films from the classical era of possession films, the concern of these films is not so much on the safety or purity of the women. Rather on the perils of the men who are trying to help or understand them. The audience isn't aligned with a mother figure or a troubled priest but with the camera itself and their own well being and survival: all of these films use a documentary style. This style suggests or at times implicates the spectator in wanting to see a manifestation of evil, yet as an audience we are instead taken to dangerous places and not shown anything definitive, nor do we ever see the evil itself. In Paranormal Activity the presence of a camera actually provokes the demons, and the ending of the film has the demon recognizing the viewer. I won't give away TLE but there is a very striking scene that involves the camera itself.

Rec 2 seems to be the odd film out here; it's Spanish, was made by a director who has dealt with spiritual themes before, and while it is stylistically a doc-horror film it's as much an action film as it is anything else. But Rec 2 gives us a more visible view of one of the themes in these recent films. The Rec films deal not so much with evil, but rather with the lengths we will go, and in particular institutions: the church, and the government will go to contain it. The question of at what point does physical harm or collateral damage outweigh the containment or negation of evil is an element of both Rec 2 and TLE. Are these films responses to fundamentalism and the terrorism it breeds? Or are they reactions to our nations' attempts to try and control things like "Axises of Evil?" The Rec films basically concern how the Catholic Church's attempt at pre- emptively stopping evil backfires and is subsequently made even worse by military overkill in an attempt at keeping normalcy. In Paranormal Activity the boyfriend's desire to both understand and drive the demon that has invaded his home out of hiding makes matters far worse.

TLE differs most here, in that it could be read as a defense of fundamentalism and aggressive action against threatening forces. It could be read as positing that since there exists active institutions of evil there must be active institutions of good (or anti-evil, is perhaps a better explanation of the thought since it's not so much doing good but rather preventing evil), and any sort of middle ground in between, any liberal view of either, leads to disaster. The twist ending is perhaps the most troubling element of the film that seems to suggest this reading of the film.

The formal mode of these films ultimately leaves the burden on the viewer. These films are questions not reinforcements. All three films end with the same shot, that is both a shot and a plot element. The film and the form have collided at the point of most immediate contact with the viewer. We are left with a shot from an unmanned camera. Who is supposedly watching? Nearly all of these documentary horror films are presented as or implied to be "found-footage" that is they were shot and left behind from a doomed incident. What this suggests is that this footage alone is incomplete and must be made into something by the person who found them, in this case the viewer. The author is, in most cases, doubly dead; physically and interpretively. In this case Blair Witch is the first of the truly found-footage films, in that it has no textually recognized filter that it passes through. While Cannibal Holocaust is probably the first of these films to have found-footage it is framed by the story of a news editor who is trying to decide if he should air the footage or not. And another film, The Last Broadcast, that predates Blair Witch, highlights the director's manipulation of the footage. These recent films do not; they present themselves more directly to the viewer. This final shot, of the unmanned camera, plays upon the idea that the viewer can scare themselves far worse than anyone else. And the realization that they made the film, more or less, or even by extension the events of the film by watching the footage, works to effectively make the viewer frighten and disturb themselves. Further, since the camera is not being operated, it's operator usually dead, and since we helped create the film through our viewing of it, we are now the only person left who participated in the events in the film, since the making of the film and its events are tied together, alive. The question of what happens to us, and what do we do with the camera now that it's ours doesn't so much serve as a Brechtian call to action, but rather presents us with a decision to make on some level, one that is quite similar to that of faith: do we accept responsibility for what has just occurred (the film) or do we write off the event as artificial and justify away our place in it? It's a decision these films try to put weight behind, because, whether we pick the camera up and keep shooting or leave it on the ground we do so at our own peril.

The 20 Best Beatles Songs Covers and 10 that are probably better than the original

2010-08-23T01:17:00.021-06:00

I watched Sir Paul McCartney (or the person who replaced the original Paul) get his Gershwin Prize on PBS a week or so ago, and while I thought some of the performances of his songs (luckily nobody played a John song from the Beatles catalog) were done quite well, it did get me thinking, what are the great Beatles cover songs?

Actually, contrary to popular belief, the most covered song to date of a Beatles song isn't Yesterday, but rather Eleanor Rigby. I'm not sure if that's because it's counting all the classical tribute albums, but that's what I read. To give you an idea of how covered the Beatles were during there own time especially, here's a great youtube channel devoted solely to Beatles covers.

Now, to put this into perspective, covers were far more plentiful, contemporaneous, and held in different esteem than they are today. In fact, it wasn't uncommon to have two versions of the same song on that charts at the same time. Artists didn't really seem to mind too much, and in fact the Beatles themselves covered a great number of songs themselves. The problem was that the majority of these songs really didn't venture too far away from the original, either a sound alike to fill out an album and get someone to pick up that album (in fact you'd be surprised by the number of "greatest hits" albums of Beatles songs were released by bands who weren't the Beatles (and more recently The Smithereens covered With the Beatles sound for sound just to show they could do it I guess) , a song made "safer" usually in delivery or presentation, or a "crooner-ization" of the Beatles love songs. Paul's songs (Michelle, Let it Be, Yesterday) were staples of these albums, where singers approached them as if they were Broadway show stoppers and throwing in an excessive amount of strings, reverb, and bravado.

20 Yesterday, Carla Thomas
From a Live Stax Revue performance, Thomas, the Queen of Memphis soul, does some nice understated vocals on this song that is too often over sung, but the real star is the backing by the Mar-Keys, and in particular the piano by James Johnson

19 Hello, Goodbye, Bud Shank with Chet Baker
Shank had already done an album of Beatles covers before this song, but it's Baker who steals the show.

18 The Long and Winding Road, Ray Charles with the Count Basie Orchestra
This was always one of the most overdone Beatles songs when covered (Air Supply's version being perhaps the best worst example of it). This is a toned down and soulful version, and does something most versions can't do and even the original had trouble with, and that's how to transition to and from the chorus.

17 Hey Jude, The Bar Kays
From the first album after nearly the entire band was killed in the same plane crash that killed Otis Redding, this is a tremendously funky, soulful neat instrumental. It gets a little bogged down toward the end, but its opening is terrific.

16 I Saw Her Standing There, The Tubes
as a punk song this works quite well. If you don't know The Tubes, they're one of the many seminal punk bands that were unknown in the USA but had big influence on the UK bands that would later get the credit for inventing the genre. In fact, a line from the Tubes first album would later give The Clash the title for their album Give em enough Rope.

15 Let it Be, The Persuasions
Let it Be as an outright gospel song in gorgeous acapella.

14 A Hard Day's Night, Billy Preston
This may be cheating since Billy's essentially a Beatle. From an esoteric album (thrown together by an unknown budget record company sometime in the 70's) with one of the best cover's in history, this is a Sly Stone arranged, barely recognizable version of the song that really sounds like it's being played by someone who's had a hard day's night.

13 I Want to Hold Your Hand, Al Green
It's quick, it's loose, it's terrific.

12 Everybody's got Something to Hide Except for me and my monkey, The Feelies
From the legendary American Underground band's debut record this song isn't high on people's list of Beatles standards, but it works great as a post-punk expression of anxiety.

11And I Love Her, The Holmes Brothers
A smokey, blues cover from the venerable Virginia band.

10 Tell me Why, April Wine
Somehow this songs works just as good as a 1970's power ballad.

9 She's a Woman, Jeff Beck
Possibly the best song by Beck, one of the great guitarists of all time, and shows his ability to interpret and paint a picture using his axe (and whatever that tube straw thing that Frampton popularized).

8 Help, Deep Purple
If you read the lyrics of a good number of songs John's wrote you can tell he's writing about his battles with depression...only those songs were all too fast paced for you to notice, see: "I don't want to spoil the party," or "I'll Cry Instead." Help! is almost literal as he got (Yer Blues being the most literal) and of those songs perhaps the most upbeat sounding, even though written during one of his serious bouts of the illness. From Deep Purple's first proper album, this cover gives the song a slower, darker, more plaintive feel that seems to better facilitate the lyrics. Deep Purple's first incarnation, the pre-Smoke on the Water band, is really one of the most underrated bands of all-time.

7 Yesterday, Marvin Gaye
There are so many featured vocalist-type covers of this song it's sickening, but they all follow the same pattern of Bacarach inspired strings and gilded delivery (not that the string part here is anything to sneeze at). Gaye treats this less like Bach and more like a soul confessional, taking liberties with the lyrics and delivering an absolutely stunning vocal performance. With Paul's Yesterday you feel the melancholy, with Marvin's you feel the vital necessity.

6 Revolution #9, Kurt Hoffman's Band of Weeds
It's sort of a joke when someone requests this song, since it's a non-song, it's a musique concrete piece, or an early glitch record. Yet, this is a faithful, though shorter instrumental version of the song. Not only does this get points for a high degree of difficulty, but it's a pretty great cut too.

5 With a Little Help from my Friends, Joe Cocker
Aka the Wonder Years theme song (sorry Life Goes on, you missed the list here). The most obvious song on this list. There's something to be said for Ringo's version of this song; it's tighter, probably his best vocal delivery. But Cocker knocks this out of the park, and when he says he gets high, you know he meant it. Plus there's no silly Billy Shears introduction (yes, I said silly). Watch out for a tremendous bass part. Then again one could say that Cocker may take this a bit too seriously.

4. Hey Jude, Wilson Pickett
Most versions of this song get caught in the trap of too much repetition of the chorus, or breaking down into a nah-nah-nah mess; this song avoids that through the clever use of a horn section (that drops in like a linebacker). While Pickett's vocals are expected to be great an extraordinary extended guitar solo by Duane Allman (!) is just icing on the cake. In fact, this solo was so good that somebody named Clapton called to give the session musician his break.
Some strange trivia (ie. famous people playing other people's famous guitar solos): Duane would play the solo on Layla, one of the greatest solos of all time. Eric played the solo for George Harrison on While my Guitar Gently Weeps, and an uncredited George played guitar on Cream's Badge.

3 We Can Work it Out, Stevie Wonder
Where do I start? The gnarling keyboard part? The self-harmonizing which may be Stevie's best vocal performance? A song that's bursting past the seems with life? It's like All Along the Watchtower; Dylan's is good, but Hendrix's is jaw dropping. Same thing here, where an artist like Wonder totally amplifies a work through their artistic vision.

2 Across the Universe, Liabach

When Slovenian art/industrial/metal band Laibach covered Let it Be in its entirety you expected some strange things. But how about a tearjerkingly gorgeous, heavenly version of Across the Universe? This song got destroyed by Phil Specter's over indulgent production on Let it Be, yet here, the production is elegant, childlike, and simplistic in it's beauty a four part harmony (exploiting the echoes of the voices) set to a music box like harpsichord and minimalist organ part. Listen to this before seeing the video for best effect (seriously it's a terrible music video unless they're aiming for a send-up on wanna be art videos). As a whole their album may be better (technically it's more rich) than the Beatles version in its original state; see also their version of I me Mine, which is probably more accurate as far as what George was probably feeling at the time.

1 Here, There, and Everywhere, Emmylou Harris
The Beatles ran through this song far too quickly. However, this was song was one of the most covered songs that was taken to the other extreme; slowed down and turned into a bombastic vocal set piece. Here, Harris makes a subtle gender shift to the narration and turns this into a song of yearning, adding a level of vulnerability, pensiveness, and desire to the song, which is highlighted by an extremely moody guitar part, strategically deployed strings, and Harris' amazing vocals. But what makes this song an all-time classic is what may be the saddest and greatest harmonica solo in rock music history. A great cover is when an artists makes a song their own; this cover makes it sound feel like something so personal you almost feel like you're intruding by listening to it.

Sigh no More

2010-08-04T12:29:00.003-06:00

* * * 1/2
Sigh no More
Mumford & Sons

This folk/rock album from across the pond has taken a while to reach me, perhaps since reading the British press can tire me out trying to get past a lot of hype and expectations to actually find anything.

While Sigh was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize, and wend double-platinum in the UK and Australia last year the album didn't get released until this year in the US. Probably because labels probably were unsure of how to market this. It's too mainstream in terms of its orchestration and delivery for the indie folk scene and too down to earth and rough for mainstream alt-rock (though it's gotten pretty solid airplay here on the local alternative station). For instance the ability to emote in a dramatic song is unthinkable here in the US for indie bands (probably a result of Connor Oberest's nearly absurdly emotive delivery) while bands like Glassvegas and We Were Promised Jet Packs (and M&S) do it so well, though far more nuanced than your average emo-alt rockers.

Mumford & Sons is a welcome respite from pretty much everything in the UK music scene. This sounds something like a heavier version of an early Frames record, and it's nice to hear banjo's and dobros on rock songs that aren't some sort of Celtic inspired punk.

The sound lies somewhere in between the more polished Fairport Convention records and the lo-fi freak folk sound that' we're up to our ears in here in the US (at times it feels like a throw back to late 90's roots rock records). What sets it apart from its contemporaries is an earnestness even while it does strive for the epic nature of songs that seems so inherent in UK folk music. This is a solid and promising album even though it runs a bit too long and there isn't too much variety or chances taken on this album.

Like a Modern Man

2010-08-03T22:57:00.005-06:00

* * * * *

The Suburbs
Arcade Fire

"With my old friends I can remember when
You cut your hair, I never saw you again
Now the cities we live in could be distant stars
And I search for you in every passing car "
-Suburban War

I've listened to The Suburbs thrice and I still don't feel I have a handle of it. What I can say is that the Arcade Fire have cemented themselves as one of the greatest bands of all-time. This album sounds nothing like their first two, tangentially it sounds like and is thematically related to their debut EP (though, the closest Arcade Fire has come to the sound on The Suburbs was on Antichrist Television Blues) and yet doesn't feel like a re-invention; this is a natural progression.

What the Arcade Fire has done is create their most dense, challenging album to date. Listening to their early unreleased recordings and their EP you can definately notice something missing from the AF. However, with Funeral the music felt like it had to be made, that it wasn't music for the sake of music, but the only expression of feelings needing immediate escape. This album doesn't seem to have that immediacy at first, until you realize that its creating the very feeling that its trying to explain, work out, and escape from. It too is a necessary expression of desperation, one that's every bit as complex and difficult to explain as this album.

Butler's lyrics are less esoteric than they have been, yet he weaves his most cohesive and sprawling (like the Suburbs) set of songs that deal with the spiritual malaise of the suburbs (both as a construct and an idea) as seen by someone in their late 20's or early 30's. I've always seen Butler as an expressionist, and this album is further evidence to support that; the songs musically recall the subject matter of wasted and circular days, lost time, and frustration at being unable to escape from middle-class complacency: where the magical world of childhood is open now to a world of limited possibilities and deceptively Sisyphus-ian tasks such as mowing the lawn, 9-5 jobs, or taking out the garbage (since the Talking Heads are always used in conversations about Arcade Fire, and I guess one could view Once in a Lifetime.
as a thematically predating Synecdoche).

In my dream I was almost there
Then they pulled me aside and said you’re going nowhere
They say we are the chosen few
But we waste it
And that’s why we’re still waiting
On a number from the modern man
Maybe when you’re older you will understand
Why you don’t feel right
Why you can’t sleep at night now
-Modern Man

This is also a heavily intertextual album to their previous two, both musically and lyrically, and an album that has motifs running through-out itself. However, the songs are so organically woven in they don't call attention to themselves. There is a restrained power on this album that displays a high level of musical maturity.

Funeral began with a retelling of the Garden of Eden story. This album reads like the apocryphal stories of Adam and Eve after the garden trying in vain to return, only to find struggle, desolation, in repeating cycles. It's the Neighborhood of Funeral revisited after the corruption of the world in Neon Bible.

Funeral:
And the power’s out in the heart of man,
take it from your heart put in your hand.
And there’s something wrong in the heart of man,
you take it from your heart and put it in your hand!

Neon Bible:
Every spark of friendship and love
will die without a home

The Suburbs:
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there’s no end in sight
I need the darkness. Someone, please cut the lights!
-Sprawl II

The trajectory of the album, from routine acceptance to a final question/near plea of achieving transcendence, is subtle; while many writers are comparing this album to Springsteen, the album really finds a cousin in The Who's Quadrophenia in the way both albums use themes and motifs as characterizations, then breaks them down to mask the yearning or angst below the facades. Or in Husker Du's Zen Arcade where the music is used to initially obscure then highlight, then obscure again a search for meaning. It makes for an enthralling listen; an album ready to be discovered again and again. And like those albums an absolute classic.

True Love Cast Out All Evil

2010-07-22T00:24:00.005-06:00

True Love Cast Out All Evil
Roky Erickson with Okkervil River

* * * * *

Often it's more about the singer of the song than the song itself. Roky Erickson returns for his first album of original material in nearly 15 years backed and produced by fellow Austin musicians Okkervil River. This is not a retrospective or a nostalgia piece: this is a resurrection.

Erickson was a key figure in American music, being the frontman of the highly influential 13th Floor Elevators. In 1968, Erickson was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. After a drug arrest the next year he spent the next five years in mental hospitals where he was involuntarily subjected to electro-shock therapy. In 1974, he started to make new music, fascinated now with horror films, the devil, and aliens. While some of these recordings are amazing, he was obviously suffering from his illness, and for a while it appeared he had lost his battle with Schizophrenia, but by 2002 was in his brother's care, and after fighting a litany of legal and contractual court battles, started playing music again, now in the best health of in decades.

That's the just the Cliff's Notes version of the story. Now, if you knew none of that, this would still be a solid, solid and heartfelt album. But when you know who its coming from, it's exhilarating and deeply moving. Like Johnny Cash's American IV and V, Billy Joe Shaver's more recent albums, and Merle Haggard's songs about prison, there is something authentic in experience that can be heard in a voice that can't be faked. The album opens and closes with recordings Erickson made while a prisoner at the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally insane, slowly strings build to accompany it, and these are some of the most transcendent recordings I've ever heard; the best word to describe them is holy. The compositions are tight, focused, and accompany the lyrics (both honest, simple, and at times classic Erickson) quite well, Okkervil River (themselves not strangers to songs dealing with pain and mental illness) does a great job enhancing the songs instead of influencing them with their own sound.

Dream Logic

2010-07-16T19:14:00.007-06:00

Inception
dir. Christopher Nolan

* * * *

Nearly a decade ago a film blew mine and the minds of everyone else who saw it: Memento. It wasn't entirely because the film was told backword; that was the hook, but what looked like a gimmick turned out to be a way to articulate the psyche of the troubled character. Inception is, in some ways, Nolan's follow-up to Memento, and his third film; everything he's done after Memento have been adaptations of other people's work. And while his Batman films changed comic book films forever, this is the kind of film I and I think a lot of people who saw Memento expected Nolan to make.

Some have criticized the lack of emotion in this film; I think it has the most emotion of any Nolans' career, but Nolan isn't a director who does emotion. His films are procedural and structural character studies where the film exists more for the audience than the characters that inhabit the film (he's the inverse of a director like Clint Eastwood where character trumps both style and form). When Nolan has fallen short, and for me most glaringly in The Prestige, the problem is his attempt at creating sympathetic surrogates for the audience, but in turn in his films, for both good and ill, Nolan's characters are plot devices.

It helps to have a brilliant cast of actor's at your disposal to make this type of film. DiCaprio has starred in this year's two biggest head-scratches (Shutter Island), and handles a similar role in an even more complex structure. The difficulty in terms of performances in a film like this is that they are so fragmented linearly in editing. Having pro's from Ken Wantanabe to Tom Berenger act in these roles is more than smart casting; an off-key performance would be structurally deadly to a film like this and it would be highlighted even more so once things have been edited together. So, while Di Caprio isn't able to be as intense as he was in Shutter Island, and Joseph Gordon-Leavitt doesn't get to do much performance wise, the consistently good performances by the cast keep the film from falling apart.

Unlike Shutter Island, where the film relied on a twist that took 30 minutes to explain, there is no twist or structural slight of hand. The film's appeal is that, like Memento, it's a type of film that's so familiar to viewers. Memento was a revenge film, this is a heist movie. And it's probably the best straight-faced heist film since Heat, a film that actually has some thematic similarities to this minus all the dream stuff. Nolan doesn't hand hold, he throws us right into the film, but we can easily follow, and this mastery of procedure allows us, the audiences, to focus more on what these world's mean and tell us about the characters rather than where/when they are.

This is not a variation on The Matrix; that film was pop-culture philosophizing about the nature of reality. Inception at one point has 4 different worlds of action occurring simultaneously, but this serves not as a philosophical questioning of our existence but rather a psycho-analysis via the structural ambiguities of the film.

The film could have tightened it's finale, some of the scenes between DiCaprio and Coutilliard go on too long or are superfluous, and while it's awesome to have three simultaneously action sequences, it gets tiring no matter how fun or cool they are. But in terms of form and content this is a massive and extraordinarily rendered essay of a film. From the dream logic editing in the first third of the film, to Hans Zimmer reflecting the film's use of time via his score, the key to this film is its form. This is an essay about what Nolan does and what films could do.

To Catch a Predator

2010-07-16T13:58:00.005-06:00

Predators
Dir. Nimrod Antol
* *

The first 20 minutes or so of Predators is action film bliss: this is how they used to make 'em. And the film is definitely going for that vibe as Antal fills the film with a basket load of Easter eggs hearkening back to the first film. Basically the set up is that the Predators have decided to make their own game of Deadliest Warrior, abducting 8 of earth's best warriors and placing them on a game preserve/moon. The film goes by the book in terms of how the characters are introduced, but the situation is mercifully figured out rather quickly by the humans.

But the moment when Laurence Fishbourne shows up you might as well leave the theater because it only goes down hill from there to the point of being absurd. From that point on the film paints its characters with troubling ethnic broadstrokes and introduces an unnecessarily complicated development in regards to the predators.

The film is pretty sparse for this sort of film, there are only 3 predators and CGI is pretty limited. Brody is a strong and viable lead, and is able to be an unlikable yet rootable protagonist, but the movie lags throughout the middle and ends with a lot of flames, twists, and ideas that seem so tangentially connected to the initial set up that one feels like they're watching a line-by line checklist of studio notes of what "we" wanted to see.

The Emmy's: Who got Snubbed

2010-07-08T09:37:00.005-06:00

If you go by the number of Emmy nominations the best show on TV last year was not Mad Men, not Modern Family, not Breaking Bad, not even Lost. No, Glee got 19 nominations, the most of any show. Seriously?

Aside from that, the Emmy's were less frustrating than usual this year. But, here are my gripes:

1)John Noble: Fringe's Walter gave some of the year's most amazing performances in arguably the most difficult role on TV, yet didn't get nominated.

2) Josh Holloway: Matthew Fox, Michael Emerson, and Terry O'Quinn all got acting nominations for Lost, as did Elizabeth Mitchell as a guest actor. But really, after Terry's dual performance last season, Holloway gave the best acting performance on that show as a more subdued and complex Sawyer and I'd have given him the nomination over Fox. A case could also be made for Henry Ian Cusick's Desmond, but he wasn't exactly a regular, nor was he a guest actor.

3) Community: Joel McHale co-announced the Emmys and you'd think that would mean he'd be nominated either for his hosting The Soup or that his show Community would get some love. Neither happened. Community, my favorite comedy from last year, didn't get a single nod (nor the Soup). Alison Brie and Ken Jeong definitely deserved supporting acting nods.

4)30 for 30: I know the Emmy's are horrible when it comes to non-fiction categories but ESPN's incredible documentary series getting snubbed is indefensible.

5) Burn Notice: Veteran actress Sharon Gless got a deserved supp. Actress nod, but how about some love for this show's writing or its sleek directing?

What's the most Patriotic movies of all time?

2010-07-04T15:04:00.002-06:00

I was watching some poorly made countdown show on Reelz channel, which is the only network that I've seen that gets its ad revenue entirely from as seen on TV ads, that was counting down the top 10 most patriotic movies, of course for the 4th of July. The list was awful, and the show as basically just a series of clips; nothing was said about the movies, and I'm guessing they put on whatever films they got the rights to. So, I feel a need to balance out the universe.

I joked while watching it that the most patriotic film of all-time, since it didn't specify to which country it is patriotic to, was The Triumph of the Will. As far as England goes it's a toss up between Mrs. Miniver and Henry V (more so the Olivier version). If one goes by the film with the most American flags in it, Rocky probably wins (and Rocky was on their list for some reason and not Rocky IV).

So, I'll here specify American films. But this is still too vague as under this criterion I'd say birth of a Nation has a shot, since it was uber-patriotic to a certain (and scary) version of America. The same can be said of the Indian genocide operas: Stagecoach, The Plainsman, or Fort Apache.

That said, the most patriotic American film made, by the "go America!" definition is probably Frank Capra's Why we Fight series, a propaganda masterpiece that at times bested even the Nazi films. However, today its rather embarrassing.

In thinking of possible dark horses, I'd say a strong case could be made for the Godfather as a patriotic film.

So, I'll just list the 3 movies that make me feel proud of my country:

Honorable Mention: Six String Samurai, 1998, dir Lance Mungia
Wha? Stay with me...Buddy Holly traverses a post-apocalyptic USA after its been nuked by the USSR, to succeed Elvis as the King of Las Vegas, the last that remains of America. It's a road movie, it's a rock 'n roll movie...seriously this is as American as it gets.

3. The Grapes of Wrath, 1940, dir. John Ford
It's one of the great films about America from one of the great novels about America. The picture of America is not always pretty, but it shows how even at our worst, there is a sense of right and hope that can rise to overcome any occasion.

2. Bad Day at Black Rock, 1955, dir. John Sturgess
Spencer Tracy plays a one-armed stranger who drifts into a small town that has a dark secret that he's determined to expose. One of the best films ever, and one of the best films about law and justice ever made.

1. Eyes on the Prize, 1987, dir. Henry Hampton
One of the greatest American epics told on film, this mammoth yet riveting documentary masterpiece reconstructs and tells the story of the Civil Rights struggles as told by those who lived it. After over a decade of rights issues the first half of the series is finally on DVD.

After I posted this I found this list from the AV club which is pretty good as well.

Restrepo

2010-07-01T18:44:00.004-06:00

Restrepo
* * * * *
Dir. Tim Heatherington, Sebastian Junger

Restrepo is a classic war film, but also an important document: the film that perhaps best expresses the reality of fighting in Afghanistan: where Iraq had The War Tapes this is for Afghanistan. It follows the Second Platoon in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, dubbed the deadliest place on earth. We encounter difficulties with the locals (a dispute over a cow is actually part of the narrative), difficulty in identifying the enemy, the long periods of down time, and when they come the suddenness and unpredictability of battle.

The film isn't really even about the war: it's about the group of guys, a family, who are trying to get through living in a harsh environment, fire fights, homesickness, frustration with local politics, and boredom. The film is named for one of these men, who we meet and is killed trying to take an outpost that eventually bares his name; the farthest outpost the US has in that part of Afghanistan.

The film is a nerve-wracking and fragmented experience, and formally what happens to create these feelings isn't exactly great for a film, but here, the imperfections in the narrative, and the recounting of things for which visuals do not exist, works even more in the favor of expressing the experience.

The film lets the soldiers and the images speak for themselves; nothing is devoid of politics, but this is a film without any agenda other than conveying to the audience that even something as unflinching and all-access as this film can't give you any idea of what its like to fight in this war or imagine the bonds made between these soldiers. In a way this is the anti-Platoon; a film that through its complexities and moral ambiguities, or in other words its humanity, makes all platitudes, on either side of the political spectrum seem misguided at best and exploitative at worst.

Silver Docs '10: Goodbye How Are you?

2010-07-01T18:36:00.003-06:00

* * *
Dir. Boris Mitic

Goodbye how are you took Boris Mitic four years to compile and perhaps even longer to write. The film is made up of two distinct elements: the visual image and the voice-over narration. This is not an essay film per se, nor is it an experimental film. It is an old-school work of absurdist comedy: our voice over protagonist goes on a search to find a person worthy of killing in a duel. Instead he talks with his friend in aphorisms. Visually we see what could almost be considered a random series of images. What we are shown are regular and thousands of absurd images, not always going along with the narration, but all connected in some theme or against some theme in one way or another. The film is divided into 24 parts, and is an enlightening yet absurd odyssey of Eastern Europe

Mitic set out to make a film abut the Serbian satirical tradition, and instead gave us a film version of the type of literature he loved. The film is fun, and quite funny, though at times it can be a bit too much in terms of aphorisms and absurd counter points. This is the type of film that people love on the festival circuit but never really makes it to larger audiences. However, Mitic shows a lot of promise as a writer, and it will be interesting to see what his next film brings.

The Woman with the 5 Elephants

2010-07-01T18:24:00.003-06:00

The Woman with the Five Elephants
* * * * *
Dir. Vadim Jendreyko

The Woman with the Five Elephants was the best film I saw at SilverDocs, and one of the best films I've seen all year. It's full of surprises: that a film about translating Dostoevsky could be so interesting, entertaining, and moving or that this film is Jendreyko's debut.

The film is about Svetlana Geier, who, well into her 80's, continues to work on translating Dostoevsky from Russian into German. Geier is one of the most remarkable characters you'll ever meet on film, and the film lovingly portrays her as she does her work. After a series of incidents she returns to the Ukraine for the first time with her granddaughter.

But this is a multivalent narrative, and ultimately it concerns the difficulty in translation: Svetlana herself as a Ukrainian refuge in Germany; in finding the means to express the human experience, in expressing ourselves and memories to others. And this film works to show what words can't. It's a moving, intelligent, sublime, and moving film and it is all treated with the restraint and care of a master. As I try to explain in words why this is such an amazing film I am even more aware of how difficult and how much artistry is required in finding the best word for a thought.

Silver Docs '10: The Invention of Dr. Nakamats

2010-06-28T12:01:00.004-06:00

Dir. Kaspar Astrup Schroder
* * 1/2
Schroder is a Danish Visual artist, and his visual talent shows itself early in the film through its inventive title sequence. I'm not saying that the title sequence is the highlight of this film, but it's probably the most successful sequence in the film.

Perhaps the first sign of what sort of film this will be is that Mark Mothersbaugh does the score. It is a very MM score, and underscores that this is a film about a quirky character. This is an entertaining film with a staple of documentary film storytelling (the approaching date): it visits Nakamats as he prepares for his 80th birthday. While the film is funny, well paced and edited, I couldn't get past the fact that this was a film that basically said: "Hey, look at this guy? Isn't he nuts?" It's true that Nakamats seems to be playing a part at times, and at others and in general takes himself too seriously and considers his work far too important. But since we only see this side of Nakamats, and the only time he's really not doing something business related he's forcing his family to re-present his birthday present because they didn't do it with enough respect the first time. It could be that Nakamats is crazy and an unlikable guy. But to have a truly interesting story you need a protagonist who is well rounded, and has some sympathy.

Silver Docs '10: Shorts Program 2

2010-06-28T12:01:00.000-06:00

Short programs are essential in festival going. They allow you to get a better overview of the festival itself, what sorts of films are being made and accepted, in a short amount of time. However, programing them by theme can be a bit tricky, which was the lesson from this program. The five shorts were grouped together under "Still Here," but the films about mental illness and disability, also had essentially the same stylistic elements as well. So, 90 minutes of abstract and very methodical stories featuring nearly all unseen narrators made for a long, depressing block of films with little variation.

Darkness of the Day
Dir. Jay Rosenblatt
* * * *
This meditation on suicide was created using found footage from 16mm industrial and educational films (some from a landfill, others from the Prelinger archives). Rosenblatt reads the final entries in the journal of his massage therapist who jumped off a cliff, and this is inter-cut with historical suicides. Adding to this was the suicide of Rosenblatt's sister in law during the making of the film

The feeling is much like what is probably Rosenblatt's most famous work, Human Remains, but while the straight ahead narration of that film provided interesting and at times ironic juxtapositions, this narration, over these despairing images, almost feels heavy almost to the point of romanticizing the act of suicide. Had Rosenblatt perhaps transcended his style with more personal interventions it may have avoided this. This film does, however, express the ambiguity surrounding a person completing suicide.

If These Walls Could Talk
Dir. Anna Rodgers
**
Stylistically a triumph, this film really fails thematically. Principally, the film, which aims to tell the stories of former patients committed to Irish mental hospitals, has them in voice over, while the images are only of a dilapidated building out of a horror film. The tone of the film isn't much different, never letting us see these people; a film that does this seems to reinforce stigmas about and the anonymity and isolation of mental illness. That this film was perhaps more interested in using the characters and the place as a stylistic spring board.

This Chair is not Me
Dir. Andy Taylor Smith
**1/2
This is the story of Andy Martin, who has cerebral palsy, attempting to find his place in the world as well as express himself, is moving. The film is told from and shown in his point of view; or mostly. The film doesn't go all the way with it, at times using re-enactments, and a one-song score sort of hurts the feeling of the film.

Listening to the Silences
Dir. Pedro Flores
* * * 1/2
An interesting film about Roy Vincent, a Welsh man who is hears voices, but claims he's maintained a healthy life. For a first film the film handles the ambiguities in the story quite well, not really pointing us in any direction or trying to add any undue conflict or controversy.

Holding Still
Dir. Florian Riegel
* * *
Another semi-pov film about a woman who has been bed-ridden for over 20 years and has become a photographer through security cameras set up around her house. It takes a while for the narrative to get going, and the film has a bit of difficulty dividing up time between biography and the present, the philosophy of which is the most interesting and rewarding part of the film.

Toykyo Story

2010-06-19T23:00:00.010-06:00

Toy Story 3

Dir:Lee Unkrich

* * * * *

I remember seeing Toy Story in 1995 and being mesmerized at the ability of the CGI, and what mesmerized me about this CGI world was how much of it looked "real." And in a strange and brilliant way, these films take what's most superficial about our world, takes away all physical manifestations of the "real," and gives us back types of ourselves; in a way that is what all movies aspire to do; or should. Lots of people use "magical" to describe these films, but what makes them "magical" is that they aren't magic, they are simple landscapes for us to tie in our own imaginations and our own creative energies.

The Toy Story trilogy transcended being only technological achievements through its ability to handle multiple levels of entertainment, but also meaning. The reason we care about these toys is that they face philosophical problems similar to ourselves, but since their outward value is so tied in with a brand identity, those philosophical conundrums are even more desperate. The first film can be seen as the existential birth of Buzz Lightyear; what made this Buzz different from all the other Buzz Lightyears? What was his life now that all he thought was real was an illusion? His attempt at flight was the best moment in that film, and an encapsulation of its main concern. The second film can be seen as a film about value; on a literal level the value of the individual toys themselves, but also the value of relationships and action.

This third film concerns the final part of this existential arc: death. Where the identities and those values are either strengthened or obliterated by the looming presence of eventual negation. This is justly a film that gives the proper weight, darkness, and sadness to themes of loss and obsolescence; but does so without romanticizing or over-adorning it. Woody's pragmatic acceptance of the loss of some toys that didn't make it to the events of this film is an incredible moment that can easily be missed.

The plot of the film is near identical to that of the late Thomas M. Disch's novel The Brave Little Toaster, which was adapted into one of the all-time great "kids" films of the same name in 1987 by Jerry Rees (John Lasseter, who founded Pixar initially was to direct that film, but his attempts to make a CGI version proved too costly). Both films concern the owner of animated inanimate objects who leaves those objects as they grow up; and those objects go on a frightening journey to try and reunite with their beloved owner. Like Toaster, this film may be a bit frightening to younger kids, and both of their most intense scenes take place in junkyards: the valley of the shadow of death for things like toys and toasters. But the conclusions of the two works are both fulfilling, both valid, but very different.

Toy Story 3, from its first frames, shows the power of imagination, both by demonstrating it as a film, but also showing us something we didn't ever see in the first two films: the toys at play in Andy's imagination. The film then jumps over a decade into the future. The toys are now relegated to a box, fearing what happens when Andy leaves for college. After a series of misadventures they end up at a day-care, where they meet Lots-o-Huggin' bear, the seemingly jovial caretaker of lost and discarded toys. But things take a sharp turn for the worse.

A good portion of the second-half of Toy Story 3 is a prison escape film; this sub-genre is important in that some of the greatest (Grand Illusion) and most philosophical of films (A Man Escaped) have been this type of film. The journey to freedom from captivity holds many significant parallels to the existential journey; primarily the use of personal action that holds the chance of greater personal risk (and at times imminent failure as in The Great Escape) in the face of a system or existence which is not conducive to life; or at least life outside of its basic functions of mechanical survival.

For those of you who may not care what the philosophical implications are of where Mr. Potato head's "essence" lies; in his parts or in his base?, this is a wonderfully entertaining film. For those looking for a smart and emotionally weighty film that earns each and every one of its emotional moments this is the best film in a long time I've seen that does that too. And that's why the final scene had me a teary eyed mess. It was a pure moment; even though it was all generated by computers, it was as pure as any moment in cinema in expressing a human emotion that words can't always do. This is not just good for a "kids" movie or an animated film. As far as depth of emotion and philosophical adeptness this can hold its weight with Bresson or Ozu (Tokyo Story with toys? An inverse of Balthassar?). Miyazaki's Totoro makes a cameo in this film, which is fitting, both as an homage, and also as a reminder that films like Toy Story 3, My Neighbor Totoro, and even The Brave Little Toaster, can be as revelatory, as honest, and as great as anything else. Its a reminder of the imagination, care, and aspirations that make great movies; lessons which movies claiming to be about "real life"should take note .

Cross-Reference:
- The Brave Little Toaster
- Tin Toy
- Fetiche the Mascot

Donald Glover 4 Spiderman

2010-06-01T14:13:00.003-06:00

This meme has burned up the internets over the weekend. See, Spiderman is being rebooted (in this case the Hollywood to English translation is "we couldn't get anyone back and need the franchise's money.")

This has caught on in part because Glover is a rising star due to his role on community, as well as a killer stand-up routine, and some major improv cred. Why Spiderman?

Seriously, who wants to see more Spiderman anyway? The twist for this new reboot? It takes place in high school! (yawn). I'm already bored, and the names being tossed around are pretty boring as well. But since Spiderman is the quintessential New York superhero why not make him more like the city he protects? A city in which you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a whole lot of white folks. And hey, Spiderman is the most urban superhero there is: he lives in the city with his Aunt. as opposed to Bruce Wayne (playboy Billionaire) and Superman (guy with a Christ Complex and fortress of Solitude).

So, let's make a deal Hollywood. You get a quasi-exploitative way to draw in an audience, and we get a superhero of color.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes before Hollywood recognizes the changing face of America, and gives us characters who are not upper-middle-class white folks. Hollywood tends to be a decade behind in social issues, so I'll say 2060?

To those who say, "but wait isn't Spiderman white?" I say, that's also in a comic book where he got bit by a special spider and can now have superpowers, and second, that was in the comic book, this is in the movie which is not the same thing. And third, Hollywood has, and this is just in recent history, had Ghandi played by Ben Kingsley, Catherine Zeta Jones play a Mexican, and all sorts of Asian swapping. The best Arab role in recent memory, Sayid on Lost, was given to a British born actor of Indian ancestry.

People like to see themselves on screen. The US has been able to ignore this fact long enough, but as the US becomes more diverse, eventually the money will dictate that Hollywood should probably start doing something.

Yes, I still review music

2010-05-28T11:10:00.004-06:00

High Violet
The National
****
This is a more expansive album than Boxer, at least as far as instrumentation, and the songs have a more "epic" feel to them. That doesn't mean that they're more ambitious than on Boxer. Boxer was an extremely intimate album. And lyrically this album recalls Aligator, in terms of some surreal repetitions. It's a bit more personal, but not nearly as concrete as Boxer was. That said, this is still one of the best albums of the year, and while it is quite front heavy (the last few tracks are anti-climactic), if you want some darkly baroque angsty rock tunes this is the album to pick up.

LCD Soundsystem
This is Happening
***1/2
If you've read me in the past you know my gripe with LCD is that they're such a visceral band live and they don't get that across on their albums. Well, this time they go the other direction with a polished 1980's-esque disco-punk album that starts out promising some amazing things, but ends up being just a solid album and the band working out some of their direction as far as studio work.

The Problem of the Five Year Plan

2010-05-28T10:49:00.002-06:00

Flash-Forward apparently didn't see it's own future...it got canned, with its season finale now a series finale. Those looking for closure need only find the book it was based. FF was supposed to be the next Lost, one of the half-dozen next Losts that have failed on ABC. But this had former Lost actors, and the creators had a 5 year story arc already on the books to show ABC. They knew where it was going, and all the details.

Now, of course this made me think of another show; a show about a man in black, a battle between destiny and free will, where a bunch of odd characters were thrust together in a strange place with apparitions, visions of the future, to prevent the end of the world. Of course I'm talking about Carnivale (did I get you? Did you think I was talking about Lost?). In fact, Carnivale predated Lost, and stared Clancy Brown (Lost's Kelvin Inman and Spongebob's Mr. Krabs, as the man in black, an evil pastor who was the usher of the apocalypse). Carnivale was an ambitious series, co-produced by Ronald (BSG) Moore. And it had a 6 year story arc planned out in advance. It's also about the only show ever canceled by HBO. After it's second season HBO, known for patience regarding their series, abruptly pulled the plug. Carnivale had some brilliant moments, and a fascinating premise based on magic, Masonic lore, and the great depression.

But it didn't work, in many of the same ways FF didn't work. I can't really put my finger on it, but both shows didn't really feel like they were living, breathing things. Sort of self-sufficient narratives. The problem with Carnivale was that it didn't fully flesh out Brother Justin. In part because, in the long run, while he was the antagonist, he didn't fit into the long term plans as much. Even though he was the most compelling character, he felt rushed and two-dimensional.

Similarly, FF, had this problem doubly compounded because it was about people who were seeing what they would do in the future. Which, is troublesome because people watch shows to see what the characters will do. Now, FF was about how these people reacted, but they all, for the most part, ended up right where we saw them. Now, there's a power in the tragedy, where we know what happens in the end, but its the journey in between, the ways in which these characters existentially approach their fates.

For everyone who was ticked off at the biggest revelation in Lost: that the about the only thing the writers knew for sure at the beginning of the show was that Jack would die saving the Island and the final image would be his eye closing.

Here's the EW article that inspired this one, and from that one here's a quote from Damon Lindelof:

“Speaking from personal experience, the more terrified and assured of cancellation you are, the more likely you are to get through the next episode,” adds Damon Lindelof, the executive producer of Lost. “There’s a certain burden in the first year of a TV show that the audience and network put on you to explain what your plan many months (if not years) down the line is… but the more you think about what you’re going to write in six months, the less you’re thinking about writing the script that’s due tomorrow. The plan comes in time, but in that first season, the plan is completely moot if you don’t take the time to listen to what the show is telling you it wants to be.”

Lost: The End...part 1

2010-05-26T08:46:00.011-06:00

This is my third attempt to write this. I guess it's a bit difficult to boil down 6 years of obsessed TV watching.

Lost ended on Sunday. Well, part of it. In the gutsiest narrative flourish they've done yet, Damon and Carlton, at the risk of alienating the faithful, chose theme over plot.

"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison to one's self," reads a sign in The Prisoner, the island based TV series that along with Twin Peaks, is probably the highest level TV has ever reached. It also describes the realization I had at the end of the final season of Lost.

It turns out the writers didn't know what they were doing the whole time. They did make some of it up as they went. And it turns out the oldest theory was partially true ("they're in purgatory"). But what the writers did know, and the element that will be Lost's legacy is not it's ground-breaking narrative style, but rather it's awareness as a narrative, not in any meta-sense so much, but the understanding that Lost wasn't so much the story itself, but made up of the telling of the story itself. This is something the writers did know and have told us, most recently with the book Desmond had on the plane in the premiere. The references that may be considered meta, really aren't. Hurley's Star Wars inspired "I have a bad feeling about this," Sawyer's nicknames and world according to "Little House," stories were the way these characters, like us, help make sense out of the human experience. This is partially why the finale was titled "The End." It really isn't, or wasn't. However, all stories end with "the end," even if followed by a cheesy question mark. What was the Island? In one way it was a collection of stories: the black rock, the drug plane, the statue, and as we were shown in the credits scene, now the wreckage of 815. This was a story of a survival in several wildernesses: the Island, off the Island, the interior wilderness. It is interesting that in Hebrew, the word for wilderness is midbar which literally translates to "word place." These wildernesses were places of words, and words create stories.

Before the finale I joked that what will happen is that someone new will show up and the episode will be their story and show why they're the key to it all;a reference to how the characters who appeared to be most important, MIB (his name was Samuel in early drafts my sources tell me) and Jacob, showed up essentially in the final season. But it wasn't as Jacob said to Ben "What about you?" or about them I guess.

A good story, even a complex one, can be boiled down to a single, simple explanation. This is also a helpful way to figure out what a story, at its heart, is about. For the first four seasons it was: "It's about these people who crashed on a weird Island and want to get home." The last season and until the finale, it almost appeared to be "about this strange Island that all these people crash on." This shift was a bit of a mistake on behalf of the writers, but was a result of the desire to answer questions: about the Dharma initiative, the others, Jacob. The Island may have needed saving but that was of secondary importance: our characters had to, one way or another, ultimately go "home."

I'll leave Doc Jensen at EW to go on for pages about what the story of Lost may have meant. I'll focus on what it was as a narrative.

It was a hermeneutic tale. Ian Maclean describes a hermaneutic reading of a text, originally the Bible: "the circle is that movement from a guess at the 'whole' meaning of a work to an analysis of its parts in relation to the whole, followed by a return to a modified understand of the 'whole' of the work." In other words, there is a process, a dialectic, in which because of historical distance, narrative distance, the reader attempts to overcome that distance, and in turn creates the meaning of the text itself. This is the gift that the writers of Lost gave us. It is not their story, but every fan of Lost story. It means something different to everybody. They could have attempted to wrap up the narrative plot points, explain things away, but that would turn out like Across the Sea. An episode that left me expecting the worst, and a good deal of the people I talked to either scratching their heads, or ticked off. The Island's mystery is far more powerful than an explanation by magic light (which made me think of the ICP Miracles video). Jacob's line that "It only ends once...everything else is just progress," can also describe the narrative journey of the viewer.

In 1848 Thomas de Quincey wrote an essay called "The Poetry of Pope," in which he described two kinds of literature: the literature of knowledge, which had a purpose to teach, and the literature of power, which had a purpose to move. As he wrote "the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding, the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding." This is also an apt description of the finale. The End didn't answer a single question; it wasn't supposed to explain things, to convey knowledge, but to convey a feeling, something that can't be explained, something spiritual that when it is talked about is told in parables, metaphors and allegory. To tell it explicitly robs it of its power, and counter-intuitively, limits our ability to understand the concept through its definition. What was the flash-sideways? Was it purgatory, in some Christian traditions? Was this some sort of astral plane as in magic traditions? A singularity, a place like the room at the end of 2001? Was it the Jungian result of a dying man trying to make sense of his life? Yes.

Any explanation would have ripped the sail, to use Quincey's term. I'll go a bit further into the the problems of describing the spiritual. In his writings on the second of the ten commandments (the one against idolatry) Rabbi Irwin Kula, invoking the thinking of Maimonides, Ishbitzer Rebbe, and Medl of Rymanoff, writes "the point of the Second Commandment is that any one image is only a partial truth. And a partial truth made absolute puts God in a box of our choosing. Every image of God, even no God, is just a resting place, a moment of truth...when we've lost God, it's time to look deeper. When we've found God, it's time to get lost." Likewise, our self, made in the image of God, is a "projection, just as God is...Our self is really a container for our multiplicity. It is a resting place, a makom; yet another name for God."

There's a lot there, and it seems that I'm contradicting myself by trying to explain a TV show by talking about how it's important to leave the sacred things unsaid and undefined. There have been a lot of comparisons between Lost and Battlestar Galatica, perhaps because it was the most recent sci-fi series to end. But BSG was a Greco-Judeo-Christian mystical foundation myth, with Gods and gods in the making, and the finale of that show, like those ancient founding stories, placed us inside the narrative, as the descendants of those gods. Lost, on the other hand, was about mortals, not about the creation or foundation, but about the messy stuff afterwords. It wasn't about the grand design, but characters grasping for any design.

As far as a narrative, the plot was important. What happened happened. But it wasn't all that happened. We don't know how many centuries Hugo and Ben were the new Jacob and Richard. We don't know how any of the 6 815ers who escaped lived out the rest of their lives. We can all imagine, some will no doubt write fan-fiction, there may be comics made, etc. This allows the Island and Lost to continue even though it won't be on TV. The story lives on while the show has ended. Lost lived or died by its characters and it did them right in the end. And by extension it did right to those of us who loved those characters. By giving us an imaginative world with an excess of mysteries, and vivid characters who we have gone on this journey with to populate that world, the creator's of Lost, in their biggest twist, essentially made us, the individual viewer, the new Jacob. To weave our own narrative, to make our own connections of the various loose threads. That was what the fun of Lost was all about. I could say that Lost was important even more for its non-textual elements. It's groundbreaking Alternate reality games and the many many message boards, podcasts, and forums. The debates will live on. And because of that, so will the show.

In Part 2...I explain what I think happened.

Lost Questions Revisited

2010-05-19T14:38:00.003-06:00

So, seeing that we have about 100 minutes of actual Lost left (minus the commercials). Here's what questions they've left unanswered...

Key:
Black=Answered
Red=Unanswered
Blue=Sort of answered
Purple= can be inferred

Who are Jacob and the MIB? Two brothers
Where did they (above) come from? Across the sea when there mother's ship wrecked
Why can't women on the Island have babies, and who was Karl's mother? Most probably as a result of the Incident.
What really happened when Desmond turned the fail-safe key? He was swallowed into the light of the Island. Where did he go?
How did he, Charlie, Eko, and John survive the blast?
Where is Christian Shepard's body in both timelines?
What are "the rules?" Set up by either Mother or Jacob.
Who are the Others? The people Jacob brought to the Island.
How did the others get established and by whom? Richard.
What are the two time-lines? Two divergent universes from the Incident.
How did the Numbers end up on the blast door and on the broadcast?
Why was Claire the only person who was supposed to raise Aaron?
Why is Tunisia the exit point of the Island?
Why did Sun not time-travel with the others?
How did those on the plane travel in time?
Why did they need to re-create the original flight as much as possible?
Why did Juliet time-travel with the 815ers, while the others didn't?
How can some others, like Harper, disappear and reappear?
Who did the time traveling 815ers shoot in the canoe? (cf. The Little Prince)
What are the Whispers? The restless souls of those who died on the Island and can't move on.
What was the deal with Mikhail? The Island needed him?
Why does Brother Campbell have a picture with Eloise Hawking?
How did the Food drops work?
What happened to Annie?
Why does Hugo go by Hurley?
Who are "Adam and Eve?" Brother and Mother
Did Desmond lie to Charlie about seeing Claire leave the Island?
Why did Locke lose his ability to walk by the drug plane?
Who was Abaddon, and how'd he know to get Locke to Australia? Widmore's most trusted associate. Jacob seems to have kept in communication with Widmore.
Who was Libby's husband?
Why do so many of the characters have psychic-like powers (Walt, Hurley, Miles)?
Who can the MIB kill and not kill?
What makes one no longer a candidate? Death, reasons to be off the Island.
Why does Jacob need a replacement? He knew the MIB would eventually kill him. He also never had a choice.
How did Radzinsky survive the Incident and the purge? The Others let him survive in order to keep the electromagnetic energy under control.
How did Inman get to the Island and end up in the Swan? The Others probably posed as Dharma to bring him there.
Why does ash repel the smoke monster?
Why did Faraday need a nurse and lose his short term memory?
Why does he have a different last name than his parents and no English accent?
What was the Frozen Donkey Wheel? and who put it there? Made by the MIB to leave the Island. Most likely repaired and placed by Jacob.
Why did Ben get a tumor? Since he was taking his orders from the MIB he wasn't protected by the Island?
How do some characters seem to be able to get on/off the Island even when the sub was down?

I know for a fact that three of these will defiantly not be answered. One of which makes me pretty ticked off.

Reaction to Cinematical's Genre Wars...or What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'

2010-05-17T12:18:00.018-06:00

So, according to Cinematical, the war is over, and Sci-fi has won. At least it has bested horror as the genre of choice for audiences.

This is not a defense of a genre. Because horror is not just a genre.

Every film ever made is both a horror film and a documentary.

Everything else, the "plastics," the genre establishments, the stylistics of the art film and its American cousin the prestige picture...all of the tropes of cinema are merely different ways of trying to obscure that fact.

How is this possible? A film is always a document of a time, a place, of people, and of an acting out of certain events. Staged or not (then again all documentaries are staged; even a film like Warhol's Empire, a static frame for 24 hours, didn't show what was to the left, to the right, or behind the frame it is filming), they are lived events which are documented and preserved for examination. This is an argument that has been made somewhat frequently elsewhere, so I'll skip to the other half of it.

But how is every film ever made also a horror film?

Films are ghost stories. They are documents of the dead, of the decay of the human body, of the disembodied.

These are not just ephemeral connections. Film is a medium, and was devised as such. As Casper Tybjerg points out "the fantastic and film art were synonymous in early cinema." Given the connection of Edison to other works, such as trying to find a way to communicate with departed spirits, and the sudden influx of these new technologies at a time of neo-romanticism, in the early days, film was just another technology that could be a medium and a Medium.

And think of the title itself: all other genre names are based on either narrative structures (Comedy, mystery, romance), on collective settings, characters, conflicts, etc. (the war film, science-fiction, the western), or on the unique nature of the stylistic semantics (the musical).

The Horror film is the only genre based not on any sort of content or structure but rather on a feeling. Sure, there is the suspense film, but that is a "secularized" term that grew out of a type of horror film.

What is this feeling of horror? It cannot be terror or dread. In fact, it cannot be any subjective feelings, because not all horror films will or can instill these feelings on all of their viewers. Rather, a better definition is given by philosopher Robert C. Solomon who wrote that:
"Horror consists of a...recognition that things are not as they ought to be, which in turn requires an implicit comparison...horror is detached action which distinguishes it from fear."

This definition facilitates the notion that the movie-going experience is, in itself, a horrific one. Watching absent-present bodies on a larger than life screen, where sound comes from around you and not voices, instills an implicit feeling in the spectator that something isn't as it "ought to be." It is interesting to note that attempts to make a more horrific film experience were facilitated not by changing the content of the film, but rather to extend the screen to the audience, or the sensory experience of the film: be it the early uses of sound, the classic shot introducing the monster which implicitly broke the fourth wall (Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein), or the ballyhoo of William Castle. Each time 3-D has attempted to re-establish itself, the 50's, 80's, and currently, horror films have been some of the first to (re)adopt the technology.

This fascination on the sensory experience on the audience via an experience at the movies, and not in the content of the films, is central to the view that horror films are not quite genres, in that tropes and motifs can be made more explicit and extreme in order to enhance or challenge the audience. Whats more is that all of these sensory experiments are done outside of the frame of the film proper, making the film secondary to the experience, and doubly artificial. These re-assert the detachment of the audience, and remind them of their inability to experience the narrative inside of the film in an objective space. This is not a weakness, but rather an acknowledgment; a conceit that horror films are trying less to pretend they are not films. It doesn't matter if you do repeat to yourself that Last House... is "only a movie," because there is so much that is "not as it ought to be" in that film, that you're still going to be horrified;most notably Craven's contrapuntal soundtrack which I've written about elsewhere. That film also provides another example of artificiality working to achieve horror in it's final shot, one of the most horrific in cinema that is a freeze frame, a very physical interruption of space/time in the world of the film.

Solomon's definition of horror is far more congruent with the classical version of the horror story, from the fantastic of the fairy tale or folk tale, to the Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, to Poe, to Kafka, to the modernist expansions of the foundations which they formulated, by writers as diverse as Lovecraft, Borges, and Beckett.

In his criticism of the contemporary "Weird Tale," as he prefers to call them after the seminal pulp magazine stories in the early quarter of the last century, ST Joshi criticizes modern horror writers, most notably King, for substituting actual horror for grotesque soap operas. The difficulty is that writers like King, Straub, and Rice, and while lesser in the literary sense but more acutely in the film world Blatty, have influenced the modern idea of the horror film. These stories, nearly all middle-class, white, and puritanical (Blatty's presence complicates this, however, his horror finds itself more puritanical, while other Catholic filmmakers have created a more decidedly "Catholic" type of horror cf. Ferrara, Kawalerowicz, Del Torro, etc.), beg readings like Wood's, where horror is suddenly interpreted as bodily, difference, and above all sexual.

Viewing horror as a genre for a moment, if viewed as such, its down turn was in the 1990's. Make-up effects had allowed new levels of explicit gore, but audiences seemed disinterested. The films which re-ignited the horror genre were the Blair Witch Project, a film in which nothing is seen and its impossible for the audience to have a privileged sight, and the Scream series which recognized the artificial nature of the horror film, while re-invigorating it.

One of the problems is that there are horror films and Horror films. Those that go by the description of their generic elements, the Stephen King type films, and those that are actually horror films in which they cause the sensation of horror facilitated by the film, not by a self-sustaining, isolated film dictating the experience. In this sense, once again, the viewer is privy to the creation of the film as the deception of the representational models of film presentation and reception are bypassed or subverted.

In other words, there are two types of films going by the name horror. Those generically qualified, and those which are horrific film experiences. These were one in the same at the beginning of film, but have since become disconnected. Perhaps the closest the two have come since, as far as connecting, were in the late 70's with the films of Argento, and his artificial sound and space, and Lynch, who's inspiration of Deren and Anger (also makers of horror films) brought the American Avant-Garde to a more structured textual body. Even more interesting is the fact that nearly the entire corpus of Art-cinema is made up of horror films: essentially all of Bergman's oeuvre, Bunuel's works, films of Tarkovsky, Fellini, Resnais, Kurbrick, Godard, Coppola, Polanski, the Czech new wave, the Coen brothers, etc.

When internet Meme's become essay: Herzog reads Where's Waldo

2010-04-23T11:31:00.003-06:00

This video is the latest in a series of internet videos in which someone with a German accent parodies Werner Herzog's voice-over style reads childrens books. While a few have been funny, I found this one rather brilliant. In that the themes of this parodic meme provide something of a Magus for Herzog's entire filmography.

Most directly, while watching this, I was thinking "wow, Where's Waldo is almost a companion work to Stroszek. The film many consider his best, is about, if one can say that about the film, a man leaving home searching for the physical embodiment of the American dream in a Wisconsin town, with strange and surreal results.

But Waldo works to elucidate other films in Herzog's canon. Two things come to mind: first, the use of the natural chaos of natural world to work as an expressionistic description of the existential anxiety in his characters. In films like Even Dwarfs Started Small and Nosferatu, Herzog's films have featured characters with physical traits that highlight the inner state of the protagonist, and perhaps, in his most common theme, having nature itself enter into dialogue with and often intervene against the mental state of the protagonist: Aguirre, Grizzly Man, Fitzcaraldo. The second thematic is the fruitlessness of the search, of the journey, found in films in which a character naively leaves one place to observe another they know little about, only to find they can't escape their problems (via spaceship in The Wild Blue Yonder, or drugs in Port of Call). This can also be found in its inverse, in films about civilising projects gone wrong: Aguirre, Fitzcaraldo, Kaspar Hauser, etc. The fruitless attempt to try and contain the external nature when the internal nature is so corrupted.

In many of the same ways, Waldo has a useless journey, where he's lost, finds continual chaos, and all attempts to make sense of the scenes make him further lost; less himself, and more part of that continual chaos, no matter how much he pretends to be an observer in it all. The man following him? Is most likely himself.

Is this the end of the fan-boy cycle of the comic book film?

2010-04-16T02:00:00.008-06:00

It's been a nice run. But I think we're seeing the end of the fan-boy comic book (ok, yes, I know they're "Graphic Novels") films as we have known it; I'll say that the genesis for this cycle lies with Brian Singer's X-Men. 10 years is pretty good for a genre cycle. But there are several signs that this is it. First, the harbinger of the apocalypse for this genre cycle:

Kick Ass has proven divisive to critics, and most likely will do the same with audience reception. The film is a fan boy wet dream, though the general public a little troubled by a whole-sale celebration of troubling themes in less than nuanced ways.

And that's what Kick Ass is. The film has taken what comic books are, essentialized it, taken it to an extreme, and now we have a film of it, that can't quite go to those extremes (because Hollywood wouldn't release it), so instead even more typifies Hollywood's recent obsession with comic books. With its hyper-stylized violence, sexual frustration and accompanying Freudian death instinct, this film may prove to be the tipping point where the meeting of the comiccon fan boys and mainstream hollywood ends. Fan boys have been given the film they've always wanted; everyone else is left scratching their heads.

It's not that wholesale violence, and even violence involving teens and kids is a problem for audiences. I think that we're getting tired of the whole "costumed hero" thing. Watchmen, Batman, and now Kick Ass tread similar territory in very different ways. But eventually, when it comes down to it, what's with the tights? For every genre there is a peak and a point of no return. For this, it's Kick Ass.

Which brings me to #2: Sony giving up on The Green Hornet. Or at least calling it a failure. Why? Because it's too campy. See, fanboy's like their adaptations dark, even their comedy... especially their comedy. So, a campy film is out of the question. The central tenant of this cycle of the comic book film has been realism. The problem is that realism, or a serious approach, is a key element to Camp (per Sontag). It has to be done seriously, which means that you can make a Batman film with Killer Croc and make it realistic, but the end result will be, counter-intuitively, hideously silly. And does every adaptation have to be serious? Most genre cycles end because of parody; and parody is often applied to something that takes itself too seriously. These films have taken themselves seriously to the point that they are parodies of themselves, or that a film like Kick Ass can parody not by turning the genre tropes on their head, but by fully embracing them to absurd ends. That's not to say we have to return to the previous cycle, the post-modern camp cycle. Like all genre's, it's shifted one way, then another, and will change and adapt. What we may see, and I think it could be interesting, is the cycle of textual permeability, where characters appear in multiple films, not in self-contained films, like the Justice League, Avengers, etc.

Third, the studios have bought up the dregs of the comic book characters. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, Iron Man: these are the marquee draws for non-fan boy audiences. Good luck selling everyone else.

Fourth, I think we've come to a realization about medium specificity. Just because a graphic novel looks like the most awesome storyboard ever, just because its a graphic medium, doesn't mean it should be adapted to a film (cf. The Spirit). This was the limitation that Watchmen found, and even the ultimate director's cut or whatever he called it, doesn't work because film, unlike graphic novels, can't have things like appendices or footnotes. At least not a mainstream film. Connected to this is that Avatar, while it wasn't very original, was not an adaptation. It success was tied to its ability to be specifically conceived and utilize the specific elements of a very specific type of cinema.

I'm not saying that the comic book film is dead. It's just I think we're seeing the end of this particular cycle of them.

Lost mid-season eval and the 42 Unanswered Burning Lost Questions

2010-03-23T21:30:00.012-06:00

First, I want to mention that Lost has done a nice job reconciling its biggest problem and what could have been its biggest mistake. And no, that's not Nikki and Paulo and stop whining that episode gave the Lost universe Billy Dee Williams. The mistake was not introducing your two most important characters until the final season.

Now, I'm of the opinion that the Lost writers didn't have Jacob and the MIB in mind when they started. I'm pretty sure the pitch was 1)the Island and what it is and 2) the survivors and their obstacles/problems. The MIB and Jacob are embodiments of the main philosophical ideas on the show, and seeing that Jacob wasn't mentioned until Season 3 probably means that's about when they decided to include him. But introducing a character who supposedly orchestrated everything this late could have been disastrous. And I'm talking not so much about Jacob, but the MIB who essentially has been spinning his plan since season 3 when he showed up in that Cabin (meaning that most of seasons 4 and 5 were essentially setting up Ben to stab Jacob via Locke; that's one long con in TV time). It hasn't been a disaster, in large part because of Terry O'Quinn as the MIB, grounding the new character in someone we know and care about already, albeit also quite not himself.

The weakness thus far has been the corralling of all the characters. Sun has turned into Season 2 Michael (Waaalt!- I mean Jiiiiiin!!!!), Frank and Miles seem to be there just to throw out a one liner so we know they didn't get forgotten, and crazy Claire is awesome but satanic Sayid is a bit too over the top for my taste. I've also realized that for some time now, as the focus shifts back to them, our two main characters, Jack and Kate, have become quite secondary. Especially Jack. The most interesting characters on the show are Locke, Sawyer, and Ben, in that order and even though the first is technically dead. And everyone's favorite character is Hurley. I'm not sure what happened, maybe it was Foxy phoning in his performance last season (then again they didn't give him anything to do until the finale), or Kate just getting annoying...anyone else think she's going to be the first of the main 6 to go?

I don't mind the flash-sideways, in fact I like them a lot, though sometimes they're a bit too Wizard of Oz-ish (Charlotte, Dogen, you were there, and Frogurt, and...). But more than not they are quite nice ways to end things: seriously the airport scene with Locke and Jack may have been the best scene in the series thus far, that scene with Boone and Locke was really moving, and Ben refilling his father's Oxygen tank...brilliant!

What did I think of last night's episode, which may be the most anticipated episode aside from the finale? It was good, not great. It seemed to be a bit redundant, I think we could have filled in a lot of the stuff on the Black Rock without seeing it. Or maybe it was just that this was essentially the first Lost episode without any flashes that interrupted the main story. That said, I liked the explanation of the Island. It was vague, simple, yet specific enough to work. I also enjoy the way they're making the MIB and Jacob ambiguous. While the MIB is appearing more evil with each appearance, this episode made Jacob look pretty awful too. And Nestor was able to show off his acting chops. Alpert's been a favorite of mine since we first met him "Not in Portland" and while he became a bit one sided last season, since Jacob's died he's been nothing short of explosive (pun intended).

Now, onto the 42Q's:
Dark UFO lists 598 total mysteries with 293 answered, 89 of which are considered major. They haven't updated that count since late February, so I think it's more like 620 mysteries and 315 of them have been answered. Considering Lost has about 8 1/2 hours left, I guess we know that most of them won't be answered, seeing that if they answered 300 of them they'd have to answer one every 1.7 seconds (for them to answer my 42 they would have to answer roughly one every 12 minutes).

One mystery that some people want resolved, that I think shouldn't be was the fate of Rose, Bernard, and Vincent. I don't mind if I don't see them again; leaving them content at a beach front cabin together is better than bringing them back into this mess on the Island right now, in my opinion, and the perfect ending they always wanted but couldn't have off the Island.

That said, here are the 42 Burning Questions I want answered (sadly, I already know for sure they won't answer a couple of these, but they're on here anyway, but then again I left off ones I know they have to answer, like "what's in the box!"):

Who are Jacob and the MIB?
Where did they (above) come from?
Why can't women on the Island have babies, and who was Karl's mother?
What really happened when Desmond turned the fail-safe key?
How did he, Charlie, Eko, and John survive the blast?
Where is Christian Shepard's body in both timelines?
What are "the rules?"
Who are the Others?
How did the others get established and by whom?
What are the two time-lines?
How did the Numbers end up on the blast door and on the broadcast?
Why was Claire the only person who was supposed to raise Aaron?
Why is Tunisia the exit point of the Island?
Why did Sun not time-travel with the others?
How did those on the plane travel in time?
Why did they need to re-create the original flight as much as possible?
Why did Juliet time-travel with the 815ers, while the others didn't?
How can some others, like Harper, disappear and reappear?
Who did the time traveling 815ers shoot in the canoe? (cf. The Little Prince)
What are the Whispers?
What was the deal with Mikhail?
Why does Brother Campbell have a picture with Eloise Hawking?
How did the Food drops work?
What happened to Annie?
Why does Hugo go by Hurley?
Who are "Adam and Eve?"
Did Desmond lie to Charlie about seeing Claire leave the Island?
Why did Locke lose his ability to walk by the drug plane?
Who was Abaddon, and how'd he know to get Locke to Australia?
Who was Libby's husband?
Why do so many of the characters have psychic-like powers (Walt, Hurley, Miles)?
Who can the MIB kill and not kill?
What makes one no longer a candidate?
Why does Jacob need a replacement?
How did Radzinsky survive the Incident and the purge?
How did Inman get to the Island and end up in the Swan?
Why does ash repel the smoke monster?
Why did Faraday need a nurse and lose his short term memory?
Why does he have a different last name than his parents and no English accent?
What was the Frozen Donkey Wheel and who put it there?
Why did Ben get a tumor?
How do some characters seem to be able to get on/off the Island even when the sub was down?

Alex Chilton: 1950-2010

2010-03-17T20:56:00.005-06:00

Alex Chilton
1950-2010

I count it a rare blessing that I was able to see Mr. Chilton, the lead singer and songwriter of Big Star, once before he died. To me, and thousands of others, his music means more than he ever knew, or wanted to know. He seemed at times to resent his becoming a cult icon. Then again who wouldn't. He was a musician who became canonized for his toiling in obscurity, in difficult and impossible conditions, that somehow managed, in those circumstances to write some of the greatest songs of all-time. I don't blame him for resenting being celebrated for what is probably his crowning achievement, an album chronicling the break up of nearly everything: a record label, a band, himself.

To the American Underground of the early 80's he was god. He was the key, the link to the honest, authentic, American rock music of the 50's and 60's, and to their own attempt to save rock music from synthesizers, disco beats, hair metal, and the aftermath of punk.
In his own time, he was one of the first frontmen whose voice exhibited vulnerability and displayed an almost innocent worldview at a time when verbose and pompous rock was the order of the day. Without his contributions, as a musician as an icon, it would be difficult to have ever have seen a Michael Stipe(REM), an Elliot Smith, a Paul Westerberg (The Replacements). I wonder how many people have heard the Replacement's song about him than have heard his own music? He would produce albums by The Cramps, and his influence was also felt on the goth movement, his songs heavily covered by influential bands like This Mortal Coil. When Big Star's CD's made their recordings more available in the 90's it fed into a resurgent power-pop movement with bands like Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, and what would become Wilco.

He was criticized as being lazy; by spending most of the 70's and 80's releasing cover records which often bordered on the bizarre and drinking. But he did what he always did; his own thing, whether it was popular or not. That's what made him great, that was one of his flaws, and that's what made him so human. And while it wasn't what people expected, his covers demonstrated his deep love for early rock music, and the early musicians who never got what he had, and maybe never wanted: attention.

We almost lost him when Katrina hit; he was missing for days afterword. But he survived. In an irony that he would have found annoying, today his heart gave out on him. The world has lost one of its great musical treasures. But we'll always have what he would want to be remembered most; his music.

500th Post!

2010-03-17T07:54:00.004-06:00

A big thank you to my readers (both of them!), followers, linkers, visitors, and especially those that contributed via comments, polls, emails, pigeons, etc.

I hope to get some more thoughtful stuff out once I'm "done" with this film of mine.

Be seeing you,

-Jacob

The Best Albums of the 00's

2010-03-16T17:33:00.000-06:00

1. Funeral, Arcade Fire 04

“If the children don’t grow up, our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up, we’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust.”-Wake Up

Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
by teharcadefire

I went into Funeral cold, receiving it for Christmas in 04, having asked for it without hearing a bit of it. I don’t remember why I wanted it; I probably just wanted to hear something new and I liked what I’d read or the cover, the name of the band; I’m not sure but I was drawn to it. And I’m not sure when I felt it, but I know it wasn’t the first listen. It was probably the third or fourth time I spun the CD or when I started to hear the lyrics. This album was and remains the most magical rock music I’ve ever heard; deeply layered and drawn from personal experience but deconstructed, abstracted, universalized. There was something in this album that moved me, and continues to move me. I’ve listened to it more than any other album ever, probably nearing 100 listens, and if I had to only listen to one album for the rest of my life it would be this one. From its opening track, a post-modern re-telling of a post-lapsarian Adam & Eve to the haunting finale which finds regeneration through death, it’s an album full of child-like energy, imagination, and frustration. The layering of the instruments, the use of its rhythm section, the references to wall of sound girl groups, the wasteland landscapes of post-punk, and the cinematic romanticism of French pop music; the form of the album meets the content of the lyrics, which recall Strindbergian dream play, youthful literal interpretation of the abstract and frightening, the exilic poetry of Diaspora (Haiti), and the lamentations of the poetic books of the Bible.

2. Elephant, The White Stripes 03

“Now where a family!”-The Hardest Button to Button

The White Stripes could very well have folded under the same pressure hype as The Strokes for their follow-up to their 2001 breakthrough album. Throw in a major label debut in the mix, and it had the entire recipe for disappointment. Instead The Stripes found their sound, making their most complex and confident music of their career. Opening it up with one of the greatest songs of all-time doesn’t hurt either.

3. Is this it? The Strokes 01

“And spaceships they ain’t never gonna understand.”-Last Nite

The most important album of the decade hasn’t really aged as well as I thought it would when I posted the album cover on my wall or bought my Strokes shirt. Made by a group of young privileged New Yorkers who came out of nowhere and decided to be the best group ever, and for a short while were, Is This it? Is a definitive New York record, drawing upon Television’s live work and post VU Lou Reed. But the Strokes weren’t a band that payed homage. They were the first band of my young adult life that sounded like they could have opened for T. Rex or toured with The New York Dolls. The first legitimate rock band to get major MTV airplay in nearly a decade, The Strokes were not the first rock revivalists, but were the group that carried the vanguard of a return to raw rock music into the decade with a swagger that rivaled the hip-hop artists which dominated the airwaves. Someone wrote in 01 that The Strokes were our Beatles and the White Stripes our Stones. The White Stripes have turned out to be far more complex than that suggests, and The Strokes turned out to be our Stone Roses. A band that released one perfect album at the right time, and could never live up to it.

4. Things We Lost in the Fire, Low 01

“How can I blame You for all of the screaming that I’ve had to turn to just in time to blow off in my hand.”-Like a Forest

A candidate for the most gorgeous record ever, this is a slow, patient, yet impassioned, fragile to the point being holy, work. Love, prayer, death, rebirth, wash over you in waves of both challenging and sublime harmonies.

5. Smile, Brian Wilson 04

“I love the colorful clothes you wear…”-Good Vibrations

It’s fitting that the most influential figure on music in the 00’s finally released his magnum opus, a long awaited 40 year project that not only sounded just as relevant as any contemporary music, but also was up there with anything he’s ever recorded.

6. Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio 05

“Open my heart and let it bleed on yours.”-Wolf Like Me

This album made the biggest leap in the later revisions of this list, all the way to the top five. This demonstrates both its importance, but mostly it’s challenging nature. The most successful post-rock record to date, a synthesis of glitch, hip-hop, Berlin-era Bowie, and post-punk angst.

7. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco 02

“I want to hold you in the Bible-black pre-dawn, you’re quite a quiet domino, marry me now.” -I am trying to break your heart

A pop record that seems to be falling apart as you listen to it, picking up where Being There left off in its use of dissonance and noise; yet it comes together in moments of harmonic rapture. The lyrics, Tweedy at his semi-surreal best, cryptic yet down to earth, struck a chord in the immediate post 9/11 America, where songs like Jesus Etc and Ashes of American Flags took on new meanings. Though, I still contend that Summerteeth is Wilco’s masterpiece.

8. Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol 02

“He carries them all over the town at least he tries- oh look it stopped snowing.”-Roland

I think that of all the first wave of various rock-revival albums of 01-02 this one holds up the best today. No doubt, that is in part to the level of depth and darkness, the anxiety and frustration that never fully gets resolved. Dark, gorgeous, detached in a startling way.

9. Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 04

"Everything is collapsing, dear All moral sense has gone It's just history repeating itself And babe, you turn me on Like an idea Like an Atom bomb"-Babe, You Turn me on

Usually when musicians find God their music tends to suffer. But for Nick Cave, finding God resulted in an explosion of musical expression, culminating with this double-album. Like Leonard Cohen before him, Cave mixes the naturalistic and the carnal with the religious. This first half is a gnarling gospel album turned to 11. The second is more subdued, until the final tracks.

10. Yoshimi Versus The Pink Robot, The Flaming Lips 02

“I don’t know how a man decides what’s right for his own life, it’s all a mystery.”-Fight Test

Until the Soft Bulletin I think most people found that the Lips were still around was an achievement. But how do you follow-up one of the greatest albums of the last decade? Make one of the first great ones of the next. Yoshimi didn’t depart too much from Bulletin, but it is probably the album that features the Lips’ best songs, including their Grammy-winning instrumental ones. A loose concept album, if Philip K Dick made a romance album it may have come out like this, about colorful sentient robots, vitamins, Japan, free will, and existential decisions in the face of death and violence, culminating in Do You Realize, an ecstatic hymn to seizing each moment as your last.

11. Stankonia, OutKast 00

“Forever ever? Forever ever?” –Ms. Jackson

As imaginative an album ever produced, its mood is all over the place from a celebration of being “so fresh and so clean” to a heartbreaking story about a mother dealing with a child’s suicide to political pieces like Gasoline Dreams, this album changed everything, and influenced music of all genres in the decade.

12. Xtrmntr, Primal Scream 00

“You’re paralytic you’re syphilitic, you’ve got swastika eyes.”-Swastika Eyes

The band finally sounded like its name on this electronic/punk/dance/jazz album. The most aggressively radical album since Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, it was an album lost equally in the demise of electronic music and the reactionary aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Prophetically, the final track is called “I’m Five Years Ahead of my time,” and had the album been released in 2005 it would have found greater resonance. With an all-star lineup of guest collaborators the band takes on American imperialism and militarism, and gives a dark forecast of a world where capitalism has run amok.

13. Kid A, Radiohead 00

When I first heard it I thought to myself: “This is what I expected music to sound like in the future.”

14. I am a Bird Now, Antony and the Johnsons 05

15. Twin Cinema, The New Pornographers 05

16. Trust, Low 02

“I have learned all your secrets so familiar. I know where you lay your head. Fear of God and disappointing Father, holds the hand around your neck.”-La La Song

The most explosive bit of Religious devotional in rock music this decade, Trust was the Low album nobody knew what to do with. It was more polished than anything they’d done before, with more instruments, and more departures from their near acesetic minimalism. “That’s How You Sing Amazing Grace” quickly sets up the album’s thematic, a haunting subversion of the eponymous hymn, and taken to the album’s pinnacle, the 7-minute, Native American influenced and dissonantly punctuated (a lightbulb is smashed) imagined sonic version of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith’s final conversation, titled The Lamb; to Argument with Myself, this is a musical parallel to Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, where sacrifice, suffering, and ambiguity confront honest devotion and faith…or perhaps trust.

17. Sea Change, Beck 03

“It’s lies that I’m living, it’s only tears that I’m crying. It’s only you that I’m losing. I guess I’m doing fine.”- Guess I’m Doing Fine

Nearly a decade earlier Beck had been tapped the voice of his generation, their Bob Dylan. While he spent the last part of the 90’s in relative obscurity experimenting on a subdued sound influenced by everything from Tropicalia to glitch music, it was this unprecedented album which brought him back to everyone’s attention. One of the most intimate albums, it sounds like Beck is playing his pains for you. One of the saddest, most personal albums ever made; his Blood on the Tracks.

18. Gimme Fiction, Spoon 05

19. Boxer, The National 07

20. Neon Bible, Arcade Fire 06

“I don’t want to live with my father’s debt, you can’t forgive what you can’t forget, I don’t want to live in my father’s house no more. I don’t want to fight in a holy war I don’t want the salesman knocking at my door, I don’t want to live in America no more.” -Windowstill

While it may not be the best album of the decade, no album embodied thematically the decade as much as Neon Bible. Each song an expressionistic work of anxiety: Iraq plays a prominent role (Intervention), as does fundamental Christianity, and confronting what Baudrillard called the “transparency of Evil,” the ambiguous cycle of emptiness following a world “post-“ of all “posts-,” where love has been lost to bodily function and the body to increasing prosthesis. Funeral finds hope in the near suffocating presence of death while this album, a realistic yet dystopian view of the suffocating power of complacency, and the status quo, and where Springsteen-esque freedom through motion is all one can hope. The line: “Every spark of Friendship of Love will die without a home,” is as memorable and disquieting as anything.

21. Third, Portishead 08

22. White Blood Cells, The White Stripes 01

23. The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse, Besnard Lakes 07

More than a masterful indie rock effort, those who listened carefully to this album discovered that there was a lot more going on here; a sort of pseudo-mystical dialectic in the guise of a spy film. An album sure to rise in esteem as time goes on. Do yourself a favor, if you like music, go buy this album.

24. The Great Eastern, The Delgados 00

A “lost” album that will eventually find its appreciation and its audience, this was the first pop masterpiece of the new century.When I first heard "No Danger" on the radio (cf. KRCL.org) I raced home to call the radio station to find out who it was (this was back in the day before I had a cell phone and before all the helpful site on the net for finding songs. Or Shazam...and when there was still radio...)

25. From the Basement on a hill, Elliot Smith 04

26. The Last Broadcast, The Doves 02

27. Let it Come Down, Spiritualized 01

28. Let’s Get Free, Dead Prez 00

Revolutionary, angry, confrontational, uplifting, intellectual: this is an essay that’s also a tremendously produced album, and an example of the possibilities of Hip-Hop.

29. Our Endless Numbered Days, Iron & Wine 04

30. Illinois, Sufjan Stevens 05

31. The Crane Wife, The Decemberists 06

Their most divisive work, The Decemberists make a prog-rock inspired album of songs that seem plucked from some sort of antebellum concept album. Lyrically, musically, they’ve never been stronger or more adventurous.

32. Amore Del Troppo, The Black Heart Procession 02

33. Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand 04

34. Internal Wrangler, Clinic 00

35. Game Theory, The Roots 07

36. American IV: The Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash 02

The greatness of this album is not in its song craft, its musical composition, or its ingenuity. Rather it lies in one man’s voice, carrying in it the years and experience of his entire life.

37. No More Shall We Part, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 01

38. Dear Science, TV on the Radio 08

39. Kill the Moonlight, Spoon 03

40. The Man Who, Travis 00

41. In Rainbows, Radiohead

42. Pneumonia, Whiskeytown 01

43. The Boxing Mirror, Alejandro Escovado 05

44. Oh, Inverted World, The Shins 02

Inflecting British invasion bands with a laid-back style, and filling them with some of the cleverest lyrics you’ll hear.

45. A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay

46. The Magic Numbers, The Magic Numbers

47. Don’t Give Up on Me, Solomon Burke 02

A minimally produced, old school soul record; listen to the title track and if you’re not sold, check your pulse. One of the great tour-de-force vocal performances of the decade.You know what, just listen to this live performance in the video above, it says it all, and you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

48. For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver, 08

49. Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem

50. The Blueprint, Jay Z 01

51. The Swell Season/ Once Soundtrack, Glenn Hansard and Marketa Irglova

52. Hot Fuss, The Killers

53. Be, Common

54. At the Cut, Vic Chesnutt

55. Van Lear Rose, Loretta Lynn

56. Rook, Shearwater 08

57. Picaresque, The Decemberists

58. Embryonic, The Flaming Lips

59. Speakerbox/The Love Below, OutKast

60. Blinking Light and Other Revelations Eels 05

61. The Trials of Van Occupanther, Midlake

62. The Meadowlands, The Wrens 03

63. Scale, Herbert

64. De Stijl, The White Stripes 00

65. Nashville, Josh Rouse 05

66. Good News For People Who Like Bad News, Modest Mouse

67. Glasvegas, Glasvegas

68. Set Yourself on Fire, Stars

69. World Won’t End, Pernice Brothers 01

70. Drums and Guns, Low 07

71. Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon

72. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 08

73. Haunted, Poe 01

A sign of the multi-platform nature of the new century this album was influenced by her brother’s book, House of Leaves. Though one doesn’t have to know anything about the book; this is a great album on its own. I'm not sure where Poe went, maybe she's still navigating those hallways...

74. Didn’t it Rain? Songs Ohia

75. The Libertines, The Libertines

76. If We’re Really Here, The Happies

77. Girls Can Tell, Spoon 01

78. 0, Damien Rice

79. Modern Times, Bob Dylan

80. Songs in A & E, Spiritualized

81. Seven Swans, Sufjan Stevens 02

82. You Forgot it in People, Broken Social Scene 02

83. Strange Weirdos, Loudon Wainright III

84. And then Nothing Turned itself inside out, You La Tengo 00

85. Hail to the Thief, Radiohead 04

86. New Moon, Elliot Smith

87. Middle Cyclone, Neko Case

88. Chutes Too Narrow, The Shins

89. The Mysterious Production of Eggs, Andrew Bird

90. The Great Destroyer, Low 05

91. It’s a Wonderful Life, Sparklehorse 00

92. Discover a Lovelier You, Pernice Brothers

93. I, The Magnetic Fields

One of the most underrated albums ever. It was impossible to follow-up 69 Love Songs, but the amount of negativity directed at this album was surprising and undeserved. In many ways these are The Magnetic Field’s most polished and self-contained songs.

94. Keep it Together, Guster

95. Weezer, Weezer 01

96. About a Boy, Badly Drawn Boy 02

97. Takk, Sigur Ros 05

98. When the Devil’s Loose, AA Bondy 09

99. Real Animal, Alejandro Escovado

100. Louden Up Now, !!! 04

A profanity-laden dance/punk/protest record that may eventually be remembered as the political album of the Bush era; assaultive, emotional, and impassioned, that's catchy and danceable.

101. Innocence and Despair, Langely School Music Project 01

102. The Drift, Scott Walker 06

103. Blazing Arrow, Blackalicious

104. Guero, Beck 05

105. The Stage Names, Okkervil River

106. Stay Human, Michael Franti and Spearhead

107. Get Ready, New Order

108. Soul Mosaic, Greyboy

109. Silver Lake, Vic Chesnutt 07

110. Alligator, The National

111. Living With War, Neil Young

112. Rainy Day Music, Jayhawks

113. Shake off the Dust…Arise, Matisyahu

114. The Sights, The Sights

115. Year in the Kingdom, J. Tillman 09

116. Poses, Rufus Wainwright 01

117. The Revolution Starts Now, Steve Earle 04

118. Bleed American, Jimmy Eat World

119. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, Grouper

120. Let Go, Nada Surf

The 15th Annual Fortnightly Film Awards Winners

2010-03-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

Best Film

The White Ribbon

Runner up: In the Loop

Documentary/Non-Fiction Feature

The Cove, Louis Psihoyos

Documentary Short

Muhammad and Larry, Bradley Kaplan and Albert Maysles

Animated Film/Puppet/Stop Motion Feature

Up, Pete Docter and Bob Peterson

Best Direction

Katheryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Best Actor (Female)

Melanie Laurent, Inglorious Basterds

Best Actor (Male)

Viggo Mortenson, The Road

Best Supporting Actor (Female)

Mo’nique, Precious

Best Supporting Actor (Male)

Peter Capaldi, In the Loop

Best Ensemble Cast

The Hurt Locker, Director: K. Bigelow Casting by: Mark Bennett

Editing

Moon, Nicholas Gaster

Documentary/Non-Fiction Editing

Anvil, Andrew Dickler and Jeff Renfroe

Adapted Screenplay

In the Loop: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Ian Martin, and Tony Roche

Original Screenplay

A Serious Man: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Cinematography

The White Ribbon: Christian Berger

Art Direction (Contemporary)

The Hurt Locker: David Bryan

Art Direction (Fantasy)

Watchmen: Fancois Audouy, Helen Jarvis, and James Steuart

Art Direction [Historical]

A Serious Man: Deb Jensen

Costume (Contemporary)

Precious: Marina Draghici

Costume (Historical/Fantasy)

Where the Wild Things Are: Casey Storm

Sound Design

Avatar

Sound Editing

Watchmen

Original Score

Adapted Score

A Serious Man

Visual Fx

Avatar

On Set Special FX

Terminator Salvation

Supporting/Secondary FX

The Road

Stuntwork/Choreography

Where The Wild Things Are

Makeup

The Road

Voice-over/voice performance

James Gandolfini, Where The Wild Things Are

Title/Graphic Design Sequence

Watchmen

Original Song

“Stu’s Song,” The Hangover

Trailer

Where the Wild Things Are

One Sheet Poster Art

Teaser/Wildpost/ misc. Poster

District 9

CGI/Motion Capture/Puppetry Performance

Avatar

Performance by a Young actor:

· Kodi Smit-McPheeThe Road

Sam Fuller Award (for a film that defied or subverted the genre in which it was made): Pontypool

Robert Flaherty Award (a film which arouses Cultural/Global Awareness):

The Hurt Locker

Lewis Milestone Humanitarian Award (for a more peaceful world):

The Road

Ingmar Bergman Prize (For substantial Philosophical and Moral contemplation):

The White Ribbon

George A. Romero Award (Best Horror Film):

Pontypool

Rod Serling Award (Best Achievement in cinematic television ):

“Daybreak” Battlestar Galactica

Best Sci-fi Film:

Moon

Buster Keaton Award (Achievement in Comedy):

In the Loop

Peter Watkins Award (Social Activism):

The Yes Men Fix the World

Jim Henson Award (Enriching Family/Children’s Film):

Up

James Whale Award of Merit (For a de-stigmatizing portrayal of mental health issues):

The Informant!

Rainer Werner Fassbinder Memorial Citation (for an honest portrayal of substance abuse or addiction):

The Hurt Locker

The Ecumenical Prize (Spiritual/Religious):

A Serious Man

First Feature:

District 9

Breakthrough Performer:

Zach Galifinakis (The Hangover, Up in the Air)

Lifetime Achievement Award:

Michael Snow

Oscar Predix...

2010-03-06T09:42:00.004-07:00

Best Picture
Avatar

The voters don't exactly think the film was perfect, or even as good as the Hurt Locker, but I think they'll vote for what this film stands for. This was the type of film the "new" oscars was made for.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

This is the one major category where an upset is possible. Jeremy Renner or George Clooney could slip by. But that said, it's only a tiny, tiny chance. Bridges has this 85% locked up, as opposed to the other categories where Bullock has it 90%, Monique 95% and Waltz 99%.

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress
Mo'Nique, Precious

There's usually an upset in one of the supporting categories. That said, these are the two locks of the evening. The only minuscule chance is Christopher Plummer. Had it been a movie more people would have seen I would have given him a bigger chance.

Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Bigelow deserves it, even getting the film made, directing a technically perfect film with great performances. I get the feeling the Academy feels its time for a woman to win, and Bigelow is more than deserving. Also, Cameron is notoriously difficult to work for/with, and while the execs like his revenue, they make up a smaller part of the voting block. His speech last time didn't help either. Plus, this will be a big consolation prize to the film that should have won.

Best Original Screenplay
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

He's really respected as a writer in Hwood and this is the consolation prize category, and a category that likes dialogue more than anything else (see Juno) and nobody writes dialogue like QT.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Should go to Hornby or In the Loop, and Precious could surprise, but once again this was a film lots of people seemed to like and they'd want to give it something. Also, films with VO's tend to do well here.

Best Editing
Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua, James Cameron, Avatar

The most tied to the winner of Best Picture of all the categories. The Hurt Locker's editing was more noticeably great, but Avatar's whole visual extravaganza will probably be enough.

Best Cinematography
Mauro Fiore, Avatar

I think this will come down to the fact that this film was so overwhelmingly visual they won't know where one discipline ends and another begins.

Best Art Direction
Avatar

See above.

Best Sound Mixing
The Hurt Locker

Best Sound Editing
Avatar

Best Costume Design
Catherine Leterrier,Coco Avant Chanel

Best Original Score

Michael Giacchino, Up

Best Foreign Language Film
The White Ribbon, Germany

You never know what to expect in this category; it has a history of unpleasant surprises and forgettable films. Seriously, look over the list, its a head-scratcher, and a great deal of these films aren't even on DVD if you wanted to double check (conspiracy?). Germany has one of the worst nomination to win ratio's, while France is always a favorite. The wild card here is The Milk of Sorrow. I want to say that Haneke's relative star power will put him over the top, but Oscar loves gangster films and prison films and A Prophet was both of those.

Best Documentary Feature
The Cove
The category that the Academy never gets right, in fact the best doc never even gets nominated, which seems to be a prize in itself (congrats, Anvil). That said, this is a viewer friendly doc, social, and more hopeful than scary. The Most Dangerous man in America could surprise here.

Best Animated Feature
Up

Best Visual Effects
Avatar

Best Song
The Weary Kind – T Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham, Crazy Heart
I'm breaking two of my rules here: Rule 2: never go against Disney, and rule 44: never go against Randy Newman. That said, T. Bone is a very prolific and respected producer, and its the kind of song the Academy likes. That and Princess/Frog has two songs, which can split the vote.

Best Live Action Short
Kavi

Best Animated Short
A Matter of Loaf and Death
Rule No. 14: Never go against Aardman.

Best Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

The Decade in Review: Part 3

2010-02-14T19:59:00.001-07:00

The 10 Best Vid-ja Games (as Hank Hill would say) of the 00's

10 Wii Sports
Nobody really thought much of the Wii. And looking at this it looked like an N64 game with weird heads. But after a few minutes playing tennis or golf with this game you just absolutely had to have one. The game and the system that brought casual gamers and families back to video games, it also resulted in the unheard of: gamers working up a sweat.

9 Mass Effect
Improving on Star Wars:Knights of the Old Republic, this epic sci-fi RPG set new standards for the cinematic influence on video games, as well as the amount of variability involved in RPG's. Solid voice acting, and a great story (Star Wars via the new BSG) make up for some lack of variety in the side missions.

8 Wii Fit
A video game which may begin to make up for all the ills created by video games on the past few generations, this is a fun and easy way to get into shape or at least off the couch. Wii fit 2's even better but this set the standard.

7 Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil finally got a control set that didn't result in you throwing the controller at the TV, and made this one fun FPS that was scary, intense, and cinematic, though at times a bit silly. The masterpiece of the short-lived Gamecube.

6 Civilization IV
It wasn't flashy, but it's probably the best sim game of its kind. Straightforward enough for casual player, but deep enough for the hardened sim vet.

5 GTA: San Andreas
The best of the GTA's this was the first of the more serious entries in the series (though you could still wield a chain-saw) creating a massive playable world and putting your character in a morally difficult position trying to save his family while fighting gang war-fare and police corruption.

4 Fallout 3
Probably the best looking, most immersive and massive video game world ever created, and it may also be the most addictive game ever made. Centering around a family mystery in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., but giving the player free reign over everything this combined the first person shooter (though you could chose to be in third) and RPG like nothing had before. A 1st person RPG is one of those ideas that you think would have caught on before this, adding more immersion in the RP part. Luckily, after this, there are several first person RPG's in the pipeline.

3 Rock Band 2
Sure, Guitar Hero resulted in the first video-game related-sports injury (a pitcher missing a start due to Guitar elbow) but it was Rock Band 2, with its improved vocal and drum peripherals and display that allowed anyone to realize their dream of rocking out to classic songs in full power in front of a crazy crowd. As close as most of us will ever get to rock-stardom, then again we also don't have to worry about a string of re-hab stints...

2 Half-life 2
How do you follow up the greatest game of all-time? Well, sadly it was wait almost a decade. Sure, it was gorgeous, had insanely groundbreaking physics, and gave a half-life fan everything they could possibly want; except for closure...so maybe we'll get the story resolved around 2025? The Steam experiment seems to have worked for Valve, and the mod friendly platform allowed for some of the best mods and standalone indie games around.

1 Bioshock
This is the first video game I ever played that I kept playing for the story. Sure it had an awesome art-deco gone to hell design, had some freaky drug-addled baddies in rabbit masks, and was one terrific FPS that gave us some terribly creative powers to play with and threw in some RPG elements as well, but this was the first game where I was fully immersed in the story. From the opening plane crash to its paradigm smashing twist, this is a brilliant story, a moving meta-narrative that stands as a rebuttal against Ryand-ian objectivism, and at the same time is personal story that asks us to consider what it means to be human; the player is asked to make very distinctive moral decisions. What may be the first great masterpiece of interactive media.

The Fortnightly

Priorities

New Site

The 31 Best Horror Films of The Decade (2000-10)

Paranormal Activity 2

He that Endureth

31 Films for Halloween #5

31 films for Halloween #4

31 films for Halloween #3

Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980)

31 Films for Halloween #2

31 Films for Halloween #1

Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for me and my monkey...oh wait I shouldn't have mentioned my monkey. Looks like its time to hide Mr. Beppo.

Frights, Faith, and Fundamentalism

The 20 Best Beatles Songs Covers and 10 that are probably better than the original

Sigh no More

Like a Modern Man

True Love Cast Out All Evil

Dream Logic

To Catch a Predator

The Emmy's: Who got Snubbed

What's the most Patriotic movies of all time?

Restrepo

Silver Docs '10: Goodbye How Are you?

The Woman with the 5 Elephants

Silver Docs '10: The Invention of Dr. Nakamats

Silver Docs '10: Shorts Program 2

Toykyo Story

Donald Glover 4 Spiderman

Yes, I still review music

The Problem of the Five Year Plan

Lost: The End...part 1

Lost Questions Revisited

Reaction to Cinematical's Genre Wars...or What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'

When internet Meme's become essay: Herzog reads Where's Waldo

Is this the end of the fan-boy cycle of the comic book film?

Lost mid-season eval and the 42 Unanswered Burning Lost Questions

Alex Chilton: 1950-2010

500th Post!

The Best Albums of the 00's

The 15th Annual Fortnightly Film Awards Winners

Best Film

Runner up: In the Loop

Documentary/Non-Fiction Feature

Documentary Short

Animated Film/Puppet/Stop Motion Feature

Best Direction

Best Actor (Female)

Best Actor (Male)

Best Supporting Actor (Female)

Best Supporting Actor (Male)

Best Ensemble Cast

Editing

Documentary/Non-Fiction Editing

Adapted Screenplay

Original Screenplay

Cinematography

Art Direction (Contemporary)

Art Direction (Fantasy)

Art Direction [Historical]

Costume (Contemporary)

Costume (Historical/Fantasy)

Sound Design

Sound Editing

Original Score

Adapted Score

Visual Fx

On Set Special FX

Supporting/Secondary FX

Stuntwork/Choreography

Makeup

Voice-over/voice performance

Title/Graphic Design Sequence

Original Song

Trailer

One Sheet Poster Art

Teaser/Wildpost/ misc. Poster

CGI/Motion Capture/Puppetry Performance

Performance by a Young actor:

Sam Fuller Award (for a film that defied or subverted the genre in which it was made): Pontypool