certainlengths

Hold Your Applause: How the Academy Rewards Cheap Tricks and Dodges the Issues

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:05:54 -0500

Congratulations, everyone: we now live in a world where North Korea detonates atom bombs underground for the fun of it — if that isn’t apocalyptic as all hell, I don’t know what is. It’s not like we haven’t seen this coming. If you’ve sat down with a bag of Cheetos and a video game controller anytime in these past few years, you were probably fighting ugly Ruskies or angry flavor-of-the-month Asian men off our God-given land, these United States of America. I was trying to get cozy with my girlfriend in a dark theatre when I saw the trailer for Red Dawn, in which some tried-and-true, scalp-shaved and muscled American is the only man who can stop a North Korean invasion. Major vibe kill.

Like you all have probably been doing, we were working our way through the soon-to-be Best Picture nominees and weren’t interested in seeing drivel like Red Dawn. Oscar nominees are on another level — they’re true art that dissects society like no sociologist could. If Battlefield 3 and A Good Day to Die Hard reflect our paranoia that the world at large has a — to put it lightly — uneasy relationship with the States, this year’s Best Pictures ought to tastefully address it. And boy do they: we’ve got Bin Laden, slavery, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, slavery again — no easy load.

Films have done this, consciously or otherwise, basically since their inception. The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers is notorious for its cold war mentality. The bombardment of this modern paranoia feels much the same as Body Snatcher’s ending, with Kevin McCarthy looking directly into the camera to cry out, “They’re already here! You’re next!” Of course, they weren’t here and we weren’t next, but that didn’t stop us from fearing our neighbors for the next 35 years. It’s much the same these days. We still don’t know what to do with those different from ourselves. We’re overreacting to a complex world, and the repercussions are increasingly scary.

Even if the Civil War and Iranian Hostage Crisis aren’t recent events, they’re obvious jumping off points for the discussion at hand (and more tasteful than CG shots of Korean bombers over your suburb). It isn’t Ben Affleck’s rugged chin cleft that the Oscars are celebrating — it’s how daring films like Argo and Lincoln are. These are difficult subjects to tackle, and maybe a good lesson can move us past paranoia and into action.

This year’s best example should be Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty for the way that she takes on torture. You’re no doubt aware of the controversy. Liberals are up in arms over the film’s pro-torture stance — and other liberals are praising the film’s anti-torture stance. What? When it comes to torture, calling Bigelow’s camera objective is an understatement — it’s downright insentient. The film is a rorschach on torture, and you’ll only see in it what you want to.

Argo and Lincoln don’t fair any better. Affleck’s film begins with the CIA overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government and then asks us to sympathize with the CIA. He seems to miss why that’s a problem. In Lincoln, Spielberg jukes the slavery issue with the promise of a story about the titular president, but it’s only an excuse not to delve into the dirty reality of the film’s true subject, the 13th Amendment. In both cases, the films ignore the oppressed other in favor of a focus on the Best Americans, powerful and proud white dudes brimming with patriotic duty.

It all speaks to more of the same. We’ve got a problem with those different from ourselves, and the repercussions are spooking us out. Modern Warfare 2 — a game in which Russia invades your local strip mall — may be more blind to it than the ‘higher art’ of Best Picture nominees, but it addressees it no less, which is to say, not at all in any cognizance.

It’s hard to put a finger on what we’re actually honoring when the foremost nominees are scared to make a statement. But maybe we shouldn’t blame them. I watch @dronestream sound off every few hours but never look up what any of it really means, and on Tuesdays, when the Children International canvassers show up at Union Square, I go a block out of my way to a different subway entrance so that I can avoid Rupert, the canvaser who’s taken up no less than an hour of my time to persuade me to donate a nominal sum to kids in need. He even followed me to SoHo once.

Maybe there’s no inherent responsibility for these directors to speak simply because they have a stage to speak from, but that makes for one heck of a lost opportunity. If, like Picasso said, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth,” our most praised films often fall short of art.

In some small way the Academy acknowledges this. In 2009, the Best Picture category was expanded from five nominees to a possible ten with the explicit purpose of recognizing films that would otherwise slip by. It’s easy enough to guess which films wouldn’t have made this year’s cut: the comedy, the foreign one, and the two films that do provide critique, Django Unchained and Beasts of the Southern Wild. Quentin Tarantino’s film focuses on empathetic brotherhood and human worth, remarking on the horror of slavery along the way, while Beasts comments like buckshot on a variety of topics surrounding America’s handling of post-Katrina Louisiana, all in the background of a father-daughter relationship.

What may be most interesting is our facade of improvement. Complex pieces like Django and Beasts don’t paint easy pictures for the way forward, but by falling in love with Zero Dark Thirty, we can act as if we’ve received confession when we’re really walking right back out the same man. But there’s no absolution in pat simplicity. The biggest and boldest films address massive issues, but they’re only actually acknowledging them. They gather acclaim because it’s much easier to recognize something than it is to actually act on it.

Maybe we can’t change the love of flash and glamour at the Oscars, but there’s no reason that we should be patting ourselves on the back for phoning in a nationwide emotional catharsis. One day, we’ll look back on Red Dawn as we do Body Snatchers, free from our overwrought paranoias and hopefully beyond the problem at hand. For now, there’s a distinction that needs to be made between knowing about a problem and saying something about it, which is something that we’re scared to do. Fair enough. It’s difficult, and maybe dabblings like these are the tangential roads that we need to take to finally get there. But let’s not love cheap tension for the philanthropic thrill it gives us — there are great films in the mix, you just won’t leave them with a saccharine smile.

"It’s starting to seem that in GoDaddy’s world, men are smart, have ideas, and do work, while women..."

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:39:00 -0500

“It’s starting to seem that in GoDaddy’s world, men are smart, have ideas, and do work, while women are either beautiful objects to be ogled or difficult companions to be dealt with. Heck, even the name GoDaddy has some sort of fetishistic attachments — aren’t we meant to imagine Refaeli in that cute pink dress begging us to be *her* GoDaddy?”

- GoDaddy: Smart and Sexist
A Verge forum piece that I wrote earlier this month. Do these ads really sell domains?

"Without realizing it, we’ve allowed ourselves to exist in an Impressionistic world of filmmaking...."

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:32:00 -0500

“Without realizing it, we’ve allowed ourselves to exist in an Impressionistic world of filmmaking. It’s inaccurate, but the emotional quality of the visual makes us believe that it’s real. Accepting what we see as an attempt at truth is the first and absolutely more basic step of watching a film (or for that matter, watching a play, reading a novel, or viewing a painting). We don’t need it to perfectly immerse us, we only need to believe that it accurately represents what we know.”

-
48 FPS: how we accidentally invented Impressionist filmmaking | The Verge Forums

A fascinating read from The Verge’s Jacob Kastrenakes.

(via thisistheverge)

A Verge forum post that I wrote back in December. The proposed change in medium that Peter Jackson asserts in The Hobbit is far more interesting than the film itself, and it could completely change the film’s look and feel from what we’ve known these past 100 years.

Album: About to Die EP - Dirty Projectors

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Dirty Projectors released the follow up to their (debatably) breakout LP, Bitte Orca, in July. Bitte Orca was their seventh album, and naturally, it’s more than meaningful for a band to turn around a name the way that Dirty Projectors did when it hadn’t faired well for years. In spite of their success, Dirty Projectors have always been changing, and July’s release, Swing Lo Magellan was no different. It took a concentration of the tricks they picked up on Bitte Orca and applied them to similarly syncopated but much simpler, sometimes Simon and Garfunkel-esque tracks. About to Die, the band’s new EP, breaks out one of Swing Lo’s bounciest, catchiest tracks and makes it the kicking off point for a few previously unheard and related tracks.

Like the epigraph of a novel, About to Die’s title track, which also comes from the previously released album, doesn’t so much serve as a great track here - we’ve already heard it after all - but rather serves as a lens for us to view the following tracks through. About to Die is as strong as ever, stuttering over itself while Amber and Haley’s voices flow in the background. The following tracks then don’t stray far from Swing Lo’s incarnation of Dirty Projector’s sound. About to Die puts us in a warm place, albeit one tinted by the track’s broader message, spoken to in part by the track’s name itself. While You’re Here is the first track that we’re hearing that’s new here, and this, following About to Die begins to have a much stronger movement in context.

The new pieces on About to Die are strong. While You’re Here is a warm and simple piece that finds Dirty Projector’s women ooo-ing in the back and band leader Dave Longstreth contemplating over a plucky guitar. It’s a description that could fit many a track on Swing Lo, but that’s hardly an issue. We’d have loved to have Swing Lo be an extension of Bitte, but the band gave us something else. Now, to get an extension of Swing Lo is equally pleasing. While You’re Here is about a friend who passed away, and as usual, Longstreth deals with this in a way that both gives access to Longstreth’s emotions while providing meaning to the event itself.

Another trick we found on Swing Lo was Dirty Projector’s newfound ability to switch in and out of fully fleshed but altogether different styles at a moment’s notice. It’s not so extreme here, but on mid-EP track Here Til It Says I’m Not we get a similar style of mimicry of big folk singer tracks as, part way through the song, Longstreth bursts into something large and booming that could stretch across a landscape. The description may sound tacky, and though the sentiment may be, Longstreth’s application is exciting and powerful. Closing track Simple Request doesn’t particularly serve as a means of taking us out but, like the rest of the EP, is yet another small variation on the sounds of Swing Lo. This one works on those same beats and can easily fit on the same playlist as your Mamas and Papas’ songs. Like Swing Lo, this all emphasizes Longstreth as an emotional core of the band, rather than simply a band leader.

What then is the purpose of About to Die as an EP? These are all great tracks - as good as any one on the LP proper. It seems that these are songs that simply didn’t make their way onto the album for a lack of space or a poor flow, not a lacking quality or coherency. Find a track to swap out, and one would hardly notice the difference. About to Die doesn’t stand on its own, however. It’s a brief series of tracks, and while they’re all great, Dirty Projectors don’t exactly make in-your-face hits. The EP is great, and any Dirty Projectors fan - of which there are more than a few - will love it every bit as much as Swing Lo. However, it’s no more than that - a simple of extension of Swing Lo. Tracks like While You’re Here, which originated prior to Swing Lo’s inception, shed an interesting light on the change of sound that occurred in making the LP, and that’s something that fans will love to listen for. For anyone else though: why start here? The album is just as engaging, and it’s four times as long.

Album: 2 - Mac DeMarco

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:00:00 -0500

The album art of Mac DeMarco’s 2 reeks of something a little bit Nascar, maybe a little high and dirty. It’s grungy and unappealing, but of course, the type of music that would normally be aimed at such a demographic would look nothing of the sort. Rather, DeMarco seems to exist among these things, and through 2, effortlessly details them to us. We get the impression that the DeMarco on the cover may well just sit down and sing a song right there while smoking a cigarette, and the sound of this album isn’t far from that.

These are simple, charmed songs often circling around specific people. We hear DeMarco sing about his family time and again. The opening track, Cooking Up Something Good, begins with, “Mom’s in the kitchen… Daddy’s on the sofa… my brother’s in the ballet.” The album even ends with the final track trailing off into a seemingly impromptu moment between DeMarco and his young daughter. Family and friends are all around him. His world is small but no less important for it, and DeMarco makes us feel that.

In many ways these songs speak to the type of updated folk and soul classics that She & Him produce, but where we chide the pairing for simply producing the type of music that they would want to listen to, DeMarco would seem to land beyond it. It’s hard to say what fairness there is in that, but DeMarco’s presentation is distinctly more personal than Deschanel and Ward’s, which, though charming, doesn’t seem to present the real characters and southern spirit like DeMarco manages. This is also helped by variations in the sound. DeMarco’s casual, plucky guitars stretch toward the warm, rolling guitars of Wavves, albeit with significantly less acid in the mix.

DeMarco’s unassuming vocals carry us easily into his world. He pleads and dreams, “Someday I’ll find it,” but acknowledge’s it’s only a fantasy, “Maybe she’s the best in dreams, she’s still the best I’ve seen.” He works these simple notions well. They’re relatable and honest, and he’s singing through acceptance and good nature rather than a pining loss. Even when DeMarco turns to singing, “Sorry Mama. There are times I get carried away,” or about his father making drugs in the basement, they’re all to build these little worlds around himself, largely free from judgement and more a portrait of the scene.

There’s little to excite on 2, but DeMarco’s simple and would-be unremarkable presentation of a small and real world is something to remark on. 2 contains a wholly consistent narrative of DeMarco and his world, and because of this, we can really take to these tracks. It’s a calm, sometimes dirty, but broadly charmed visit to a place we don’t often hear from in a genuine form like this.

Album: Matricidal Sons of Bitches - Matthew Friedberger

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Matthew Friedberger is best known as half of The Fiery Furnaces, a band composed of him and his sister Eleanor. They alternatingly make approachable and fun indie rock with bluesy influences and confoundingly experimental rock that dips in and out of that same sound. The Fiery Furnaces last released an album in 2009, and since then both siblings have released material on their own. Where Eleanor gave us the charming Last Summer, Matthew has only gotten more and more odd. His first solo album came in 2006. It was a massive double album that approached two hours and was poorly received. Last year he released a vinyl only series of eight albums, six of which contained only a single instrument per album. Matricidal Sons of Bitches, if the title wasn’t any hint, isn’t any more approachable or down to earth than his last solo outings.

The music of Matricidal isn’t all that odd. The confusion lies in figuring out what this album is meant to be. Matricidal runs just over an hour, and at forty-five tracks, that means that these pieces are running under a minute and a half on average. More specifically, they tend to run very short, nearer to thirty seconds, and occasionally are dotted with something closer to four minutes. The album, in a broader sense, has four acts that are detailed by the excessively long track names like, “Expectant Fathers – In for a Surprise XII. It’s no Surprise to Me”. In theory then these paint some narrative, but it’s nothing particularly evident or specific. The music is effectively instrumental as well, and so we’re given nothing to follow but these casual movements of tonal narrative.

The music changes within and between these movements. The changes over movements are easier to note: an increasingly ominous tone, something more experimental and mechanical. Largely though, each track is an endearingly pleasant almost-classical song. It could be the score to a French film, a short film, a classic black-and-white film. It’s all distinctly the score to something, except that it’s not: it’s an album, and it’s sixty-two minutes long. The question becomes then: what is Matricidal supposed to be, and how and when are we supposed to listen to it? It appears to be released as an album because there’s no obvious route for this to become anything else. An album is how music is released nowadays, and in some ways, music perhaps must conform to that or else teach us how it’s breaking that mold. Matricidal does neither. Labeling the LP as a soundtrack may be the only way to make sense of it. That the film is nonexistent hardly matters. It allows for this structure to have a sense of legitimacy and purpose.

The deeper problem is that one simply cannot imagine an instance in which listening to this makes sense. Charming, classical sounding tracks might be lovely in the background when you’re baking, but these songs don’t continue to fulfill that in the way a continually listenable track or series of tracks might. Songs cut out suddenly, dropping in the middle of a movement and switching us onto the next track. It’s impressive how smart each song is, but it’s never fully elaborated upon. We get what is clearly only one or two pieces of a song before it’s taken away from us. It’s jarring, though you have a good forty chances to get used to it. One might expect something like this, a sprawling, connected series of songs, to actually connect in some way, and while that happens loosely through tonality, the actual song connections only serve to remove us further from the odd experience that is Matricidal.

It’s unfortunate then that Matricidal became what it is. Matthew clearly had no intention to focus on or embellish these, as we’re well aware of the quality he can bring when he does. This instead leaves us with a jumble of loosely experimental, surprisingly listenable, but off-puttingly aimless tracks. Matricidal’s fatal flaw is its inability to define its own reason for existence. There’s a decent amount to like inside the album, but it refuses to actually be an album. Instead, we’re seemingly listening to a score for a nonexistent film, and it’s hard to imagine why we’d want to sit through abrupt cuts and half-finished songs when we can instead put on a proper album, even one by Friedberger himself.

Album: Ocean Roar - Mount Eerie

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Mount Eerie has set out to release three albums this year, which I guess makes him 2012’s Robyn. His first effort, Clear Moon, was something of a surprise hit. It’s a subdued album released among the fanfare of this forest/log cabin/rustic fad, but Eerie’s take was something much more specific and haunting. I missed his second effort of the year when it debuted in September, but it’s been an obvious hit on my to-listen list. Ocean Roar continues what Clear Moon started with equal strength and confidence. These are albums with a well defined sound, but that live in a place of uncertainty and aimlessness.

Ocean Roar is very much cut from the same cloth as its predecessor. It is neither a sequel nor something separate entirely. Rather, Ocean Roar feels as though it may be a second act in a story that we’ve unwittingly become buried in. Naturally, it’s now time for the rising action and climax, and Ocean Roar spends much of its time setting the scene something moody for Eerie’s vocalist (and only member) Phil Elverum. Tracks like Engel Der Luft (Popol Vuh) and Instrumental are solely a continued grinding guitar reminding us that something ominous is looming. It could reach the pseudo-drama of a prog act, but Eerie’s tones are natural and work to elevate a cleaner central thread.

Where this aggressive guitar shows its intent is on tracks like Waves or the opener, Pale Lights. The latter runs just shy of ten minutes and greets us with the type of dark and forbidding but eminently rocking tones that we might expect from Arcade Fire. Interrupting these tracks, however, is Elverum’s vocals. He dips in at their cores, lowering the madness in favor of a calmer, woodsy grotto in which he can croon. Many of these lyrics are closer to short poems. Naturally, these makes for nontraditional tracks. They aren’t focused around a lead vocal line, and their vocals aren’t even trying to lead us somewhere when they appear.

This can create the unfortunate effect of making the album feel oddly sparse of material, in spite of its near forty minute runtime. These extended rock-outs are moody and excited, but they’re intentionally a step removed from attention grabbing. This means that while they set the mood well, they don’t compel us as effectively as they could. This would-be trilogy as a whole could almost be compared to an extended, more personal version of The Decemberists’s rock opera The Hazards of Love. As a broader piece, these long rocking mood pieces work as stellar background material, but their ability to make a strong and meaningful track is questionable. That isn’t what these pieces are going for, but without bringing this broader meaning to them, they don’t work as well as any piece of an album should.

It is, in spite of this, an equally strong album as Clear Moon, and it’ll be interesting to see if this truly is a trilogy of sorts when Eerie’s third LP of the year drops. When Robyn did this in 2010, her third and final LP was short on new material: it was an expanded amalgamation of the first two’s hits, and it was worse off for it. The charm of the quirks, kinks, and experimentation that an excess of releases allowed her made the first two strong, whereas the third, though good for all its collected hits, stumbled in its personality. One can hope that the follow up to Ocean Roar won’t simply be the finest material of this past year, but a continuation of the journey that we’ve gone through on these first two. There’s little doubt that that would make for a strong LP.

Film: House of Tolerance (2011)

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 10:00:00 -0400

There are striking similarities between House of Tolerance and Sleeping Beauty, both films that debuted at last year’s Cannes. It’s something of an oddity. There aren’t quite clear, modern human interests that may be informing these films’ creations. They take place one hundred years apart: Sleeping Beauty in the present, House of Tolerance in 1900. The similarities, however, are striking. Both follow classy escorts who dress in Victorian wear (or otherwise classy garments) and serve men in fancy mansions. House of Tolerance, naturally, does this organically, where in Sleeping Beauty it is a niche job. More importantly though, both films follow women brought into this position by choice. They spend their time wondering whether the life is right for them. For the most part, the women in House of Tolerance like it.

The titular house is a sort of bizarre social experiment. The women rely on the house. They are forbidden to leave unattended, and so they remain cooped up. This creates a wonderful dynamic. They live as though in a dorm, and they treat each other like siblings. Everyone helps each other out. The job bores them, but they are fed well and drink champagne every night. Broadly, the film paints the brothel as a mostly fine place to live. In another sense, they’re enslaved. Each woman is slowly indebted to the house’s owner, an otherwise agreeable woman. In spite of this, they’re treated well, and they tend toward enjoying their life in the house.

In slow movements we’re shown their displeasure. There is little way to escape their debt. They never leave when they intend to. Some girls come down with disease, others are bruised or sore after their time with clients. Most don’t seem to want to leave though. They don’t know what they’d do outside of the house. Some have even come from other professions simply because they thought that they would enjoy this more. A strong stance is never taken. Yes, it’s sometimes cruel and sick, but the environment is better than a poor woman could expect outside of the house. There’s a back and forth to everything here. The light is primarily a positive one, but what’s tugging at it, however gently, is truly terrible. This creates a great dichotomy in which these women exist.

The film’s final shot attempts to put this all in context. It jumps across one hundred years to the present, showing modern women walking the streets of France looking for clients. It’s an odd juxtaposition, and we’re left wondering what to take of it. In some ways, the juxtaposition seems insensitive. Is the director saying that what we have seen is a lost art? Is the film saying these modern women are being mistreated? Like most of the film, it’s most likely deliberately open ended. The film does not feel slow, but it distinctly has no trajectory. We watch the women work, we watch the house decline. Men come and go, women come and go. It all works to form a collage of insight from which to build our judgement.

Working off of this is the way in which the film is structured. It is largely told chronologically, but on occasion time will loop. We’ll see events and then, unaware that we are not proceeding in time, witness more until a moment that we recognize recurs. It’s delightfully disorienting, and it works to let us see multiple women’s experiences of a single night. Other moments are cut across the length of the film. We never know if we will see something, and we never know exactly when any one thing is happening. It’s all happening, slowly, across the year 1900, and that is all. Sometimes the film will cut into quarters, showing four simultaneous events, often dreary, laborious. It’s stunning visually. The outfits and sets make the period appear to have been gorgeous and romantic. This may well not be the case, but it’s the lens through which we’re made to look. There’s also a sharp score that drops in occasionally and blares gritty soul music at us. This anachronism may not be so daring in a post Marie Antoinette world, but it works to great effect in setting the mood of the house.

House of Tolerance comes away having told us about many aspects about these women but having made no definitive statement about any one thing. It’s a beautiful world and a surprisingly nice one, but there is no strict story about one or many women nor about what their occupation means. They are people, we learn that, though it’s hard to imagine having gone in without this knowledge. The film wants to conclude with commentary, and though we’ll certainly consider this, we aren’t given enough direction to take away a strong meaning here. Instead, what House of Tolerance is is a fine film about these women and this house. It may not have any strong purpose, but it need not pretend to. Even if it doesn’t quite go anywhere, there’s plenty to take in.

Film: Cloud Atlas

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:00:00 -0400

I gave up reading Cloud Atlas after beginning the second section. The novel is written in first person with thick dialect appropriate to the time of the character writing. This makes comprehension difficult. The reader must also slog through this to come to understand the time and world and place of the character, all while the character remains frustratingly obtuse. It’s rather unforgiving, and when the second section began only to drop the first thread entirely and leave the reader in a completely unconnected world, it was too much to take.

The film then has quite a bit to deal with. In the opening sequence we are whisked through half a dozen places and times and introduced to too many characters to remember. Over it all though, we hear one character asking us to bare with him, that if we just wait, we’ll see how this all adds up. Naturally, he’s speaking of his own writing, not the film that we’re watching, but we know how to apply this, and this wonderful meta plea from the directors goes quite a ways. We instantly feel that we’re in hands aware of how daunting this film may be to grapple with.

There are six movies here: a pirate journey, a period love story, a political thriller, a wacky comedy, a science fiction dystopia, and a post-apocalyptic adventure. The film is near to three hours long, and it needs every second of it. We cut between all six threads at varying speeds, sometimes quickly to orient us or draw comparisons between events, elsewhere we linger, spending significant time to establish the world and plot. It’s remarkable how the film retains our interest. Even when we’re away from threads for a time, we never lose our place. The film never spends too much time in one thread or forgets another thread for too long. The bouncing across time is never problematic. Even if there is no conclusiveness from where we were, it always feels correct. The film justifies every cut through juxtaposed imagery or ideas. It cuts from one character’s shuffling feet across one thousand years to another’s. It cuts from a character musing on an opening door to a physical door opening. Even if these connections seem simplistic, they go a long way in elaborating upon the connecting themes of each story.

It is, certainly, a film one must be patient with, though one never feels this need for patience. For all its ambition and niche appeal, the film comes off with mainstream sensibilities. This likely works to its strengths. This isn’t to say it is cheesy or broad, but rather, everything is clearly shown. There are subtleties, but largely these lie in the connections between the threads rather than careful moments within any one. This makes each thread deeply engaging. They’re all big and exciting, and they simultaneously speak to something more important. The film does, however, rely on our intense interest in each of these threads to keep things moving. For a good portion of the film, though we have a solid situation within each of these worlds, we can’t quite see its broader purpose or plot. It never becomes an issue, but later in the film when one still can’t see this, it can begin to nag.

This is resolved through an eventual realization: there is no grand meeting of these threads or grand purpose within these threads. These are each simple enough stories. They need to go from one place to the next. Someone comes, someone leaves, someone discovers something. Each is as good as a film devoted solely to that. There is perhaps an inherent hint of some greater crossing that films like Cloud Atlas or Magnolia cannot escape and cannot fulfill. Magnolia does not try to and neither does Cloud Atlas. When we realize this, the film’s projection becomes clear. It may not resolve in some Earth-shattering revelation, but rather, it intends to resolve in a myriad of personal connections and parallels.

Helping us draw these parallels is the continual reuse of actors. Sometimes we can recognize them, other times we can only question the similarity. It works to great effect. Big actors like Tom Hanks and Halle Berry are an intentional choice. We can always pick them out in each world. It isn’t distracting, rather, it’s enlightening. The directors make incredible visual choices. The depiction of Neo Seoul tells an entire story. We see Old Seoul, we see why this bizarre world of shanties has been constructed over water and around the remnants of buildings. It’s an entire culture and history explained through visuals. Otherwise, the film’s visuals succeed on minor flourishes. Smooth shots of a car from above, a shadow falling in the background.

It’s interesting to compare the science fiction here to that of The Matrix, another film made by The Wachowskis, two-thirds of Cloud Atlas’s directorial team (the final member being Tom Tykwer, known best for Run Lola Run). We see shots of machines descending on humans in a way reminiscent of Neo’s first awakening. There are conversations where “the one” bashfully and humbly declines their destiny. We see endless fields of machines manhandling humans. We even get the kind of swift and skillful fight sequences one would expect from The Wachowskis, a great surprise after Speed Racer and those other two Matrix films.

The film’s conclusion may not be fulfilling in a specific way, because simply, it cannot manage this. There is no one answer to these six stories. Each is individually smart, however, and their collective ideas form something ambitious and hopefully meaningful. The film is almost impossibly big, and it perhaps has no one specific message to deliver. This may hurt its impact. It cannot be sharp and precise. Instead, it leaves you with a broad fabric of ideas and emotions, though one that is truly taught. You won’t be walking out in tears, but as the film settles in, there’s a whole spectrum of emotions and ideas to consider. Cloud Atlas is a stunning piece of cinema.

Novel: Telegraph Avenue - Michael Chabon

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 10:00:07 -0400

The other huge release on September 11 this year was Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue, clocking in around two hundred pages longer than Junot Díaz’s collection of stories, This is How You Lose Her. It’s pretty special to get a release from either of these smart, Pulitzer winning authors. For them to come on the same day is more than one reader can handle, not to mention the likely result of some odd marketing fight between publishers. I took on Díaz’s first. He is, currently, the more exciting author, and though Chabon’s first three novels range from charming to brilliant, his fourth I left sitting halfway through. He’s been dabbling (to much success) in genre elements since 2000, but Telegraph marks Chabon’s return to straight literary fiction. This is reason enough to be excited about the novel.

Of course, no genre elements doesn’t mean the novel is altogether absent of would-be genre elements. The novel primarily follows two couples and two kids, and it just so happens that one man’s father was a star in old blaxploitation flicks, a real kung-fu master, if he weren’t so washed up these days. Blending the fiction of Luther Stallings, the man, and Strutter, the action star, effectively infuses the novel with the type of excitement that genre elements brings, while keeping the novel within the literary realm. This works well. Chabon manages to sell both Luther’s power and Luther’s faded power simultaneously.

This speaks to the novel’s sensibilities. While it’s grounded in realism - Luther is washed up, drugged out, and an awful father - the sensation of having a blaxploitation star around - that is, effortlessly cool and edgy - is attempted but never quite realized. The two kids go so far as attending a course on Tarantino, with a focus on the uber influence mashup Kill Bill in particular. Chabon wants us to see what he’s doing here, either out of debt and gratitude or simply to further the routine, but all we can see is how this pales in comparison. Fortunately, this isn’t a case of mimicking Tarantino when one should be mimicking the bizarre and wide ranging influences of Tarantino - Telegraph isn’t that deep into this lore - but we can see the areas that Chabon is trying for a slick wittiness and can’t quite pull through.

This isn’t to say that he fails, however. Telegraph’s primary plot lines follow the male half of the two couples, who together run a used record store, and the female half of the two couples, who work together as midwives. Largely, we’re watching both sets chatting about work and about their partner, and Chabon has them doing this in what would be a snappy and constantly humorous way. The dialogue works beyond that (as actual dialogue), which means that the novel itself doesn’t fall flat for its failure not to stay as cool is it hopes, but at the times that this all works, it only makes it all the more clear that Chabon wanted it to work everywhere else. One trick Chabon recycles a few times across the novel is George Saunders styled dialogue in which one character speaks ad nauseum in an infinitely roundabout way. For instance:

“Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we could make something like that happen here in Oakland. And hey, he’s a hometown boy, right? A homeboy. Wouldn’t something like that be awesome? A shot in the arm. Well, yes, maybe it would be awesome. It sounds awesome. It looks awesome on paper. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, and hey, I’m a homeboy, too? Born in East Oakland, right at Highland Hospital?”

It works for Saunders to a point, and Chabon’s tasteful use of the style in small bites works fairly well, albeit to a inherently fatiguing effect.

Over the last decade Chabon has done a bit of work in screenwriting, most notably writing a draft of Spider-Man 2 and most recently making edits to John Carter. This perhaps speaks to the structure of Telegraph. The novel is heavy on dialogue, but more notably, the dialogue is the primary means of storytelling here. Just about every conflict occurs through conversation, just as just about every piece of information comes through conversation. This isn’t explicitly problematic - it’s never obvious exposition - but it isn’t careful, subtle storytelling either. Emotions aren’t quietly conveyed through movements. Rather, they’re just things that happen in the course of conversation. It all works. This story is told, and it’s often quite interesting. It is, however, not as fulfilling as we’d like it to be, or even as fulfilling as Chabon’s earlier novels.

To further craft the narrative of Chabon’s changing influences on his writing, it’s hard to overlook his treatment of the two kids. Chabon is now raising children himself, most around their teenage years. Though Chabon’s depictions are accurate, very occasionally he’ll include a moment that feels precious and inappropriate, something that might seem a lot more charming to Chabon the father than Chabon the writer. The phrase “awkward turtle” should have no place in this novel. It’s uncomfortable and odd to begin with, and though a teenage boy might say it, it doesn’t express anything beyond him being a mildly inane teenager.

It’s interesting to note the span of time in Telegraph. It’s at a moment in which, suddenly, many big things seem to come crashing in, or so it seems. In reality, these events aren’t all necessary to deal with immediately, but for legitimate enough reasons the characters decide to. It does make it something of a jumble of events to parade through, however. Chabon’s second novel, Wonder Boys, took place over the span of three days. Telegraph doesn’t take that structuring, but it does spend long periods of time across each day, detailing what each person did during just about every moment. The novel covers (I believe) five days total, not counting a brief change for the final sequences. This type of compression works well in stories and novels. Everything becomes urgent, everything becomes more straightforward to the reader. It may not be necessary here, but it’s an interesting choice.

In many ways, Telegraph seems as though it may have been best suited as a television series. There is a massive cast of characters here, and Chabon evidently found it important to detail each and every one of them to us extensively. So we have a large cast, big characters, and looming but longterm issues. There’s a whole lot here, and it could easily have come in a more paced manner with a clearer development in a lot of ways. Instead, we have Chabon seemingly out to confuse us, or else a little trigger happy at the novel’s open. To situate us in the novel, Chabon finds it appropriate to switch the perspective every other page with no hint that we’re changing location or character, and he also finds it necessary to explain to us that each character has like five different, convoluted, and uncharacteristic nicknames, and then proceed to call that character by the one you are least likely to have remembered two pages later, forcing you to turn back or else be endlessly confused. In fact, one of these many characters, who Chabon has us spend several pages with, returns for all of one pseudo-important sentence after this passage. Additionally, one of the novel’s plot lines revolves around an event from the past that we’re shown early on in a flashback. It feel appropriate then, but in the broader scope of the novel it’s out of place. We’re given no other flashbacks to flesh out the moment or the characters. Instead, this retroactively comes off as an easy way of explaining something to the reader, and really, the uncertainty without it may well have been more interesting.

For all these criticisms, there are moments where Chabon’s mastery shows through. Certain movements, once they occur, feel utterly inevitable. In one instance, again and again we see a physical representation of one character’s looming concern. When that character is finally forced to interact with that physical version, it feels so perfect and obvious that you might feel dumb for not having predicted it. Later, another character must have his own interaction with the object. His interaction is unpredictable but, we realize, the only possible thing that he could have done, however extreme it may seem. Afterward, that character has yet another moment of enlightenment that is both awful and remarkably accurate when he decides to help a friend.

Telegraph takes a short while to ease up to the reader. In the end it feels like a complete novel but not necessarily the right novel. It all happens, and we’re privy to it, and that’s about it. Moments don’t feel special, emotions don’t feel deep, and there are so many characters that, even with this novel’s length, we don’t get to deeply know any of them, save perhaps our main(est) character. It’s consistently enjoyable, but it infrequently maintains the type of laid-back humor that it wants to be hitting. It doesn’t need it, but man, it’d feel a whole lot more purposeful with it.

Album: Banks - Paul Banks

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:00:32 -0400

As Interpol’s lead singer, Paul Banks was known for casually cryptic lyrics, “We can cap the old times make playing only logical harm. We can top the old lines clay-making that nothing else will change.” Within them though were physical sentiments that managed to speak directly to us in spite of the would-be confusion. This sentiment has created some veil over Banks himself, and his ever-changing moniker reflects that. As Interpol died down, Banks released his first solo LP under the name Julian Plenti. This summer, nearly three years later, Banks dropped the aptly titled Julian Plenti Lives… EP but this time credited to his own name. The EP was an odd release, and it was meant as a lead up to Banks, the heavily eponymous re-debut of a solo LP. Odder yet, it hardly speaks at all to the album.

It’s surprisingly easy to see what all of this switching around and personas means in the context of Banks (the LP, that is). This may be the first time that we’re seeing something different out of him. Interpol is known for its darkened rock revival sounds, and Banks’s first Julian Plenti release did little to differentiate itself. It may have been a bit more loose, a bit more in the brightness of the streetlights that dotted Turn on the Bright Lights’s cityscapes, but altogether it was a release that was as much a part of Interpol as it was apart of Interpol. That sound is almost altogether absent from Banks.

Even as someone hoping for more classic Interpol sound, it’s almost immediately obvious that this is a strength of the album. When we hear the would-be Interpol of Julian Plenti or even Interpol’s fourth album, we’re hardly fooled. We realize (yet again) that that spark may never be relit. So to hear something so separate as what Banks delivers on Banks is refreshing, even if not satisfying. What carries through is that signature thumping bass line of Interpol’s that keeps it alive and dark. Around that however are new worlds, classic guitars, shimmering cymbals. Banks vocals have, by choice or not, seemingly changed with age. He’s trying more, and that removes that edge we love. On the other hand, this new style has been present for a while now, and Banks has finally learned how to tap into it to best harmonize with his music.

Banks, for all its differences, is still easy enough to see as an evolution for anyone following along Banks’s career. His interests are present. There are guitar lines with a heavy focus, sudden breaks and rises, ways that he moves his voice. The oddities of Julian Plenti Lives… seem to reveal themselves here as tamer interests of Banks. It’s never so obvious, but Banks seems to be taking beats and themes from hip-hop or westerns and co-opting them into his own repertoire of sounds. Where on the EP it was overbearing and tired, here they’re clever movements that fit neatly inside of each track. There’s a certain sense of creation here, as though Banks had a purpose for each track. Lisbon is absent of vocals and could easily be scoring something. At times on Banks we have sampled vocals, though not quite as the flashy centerpiece that you’d find on a Kanye track. Rather, on tracks like Another Chance, the sample (at least seemingly so) is transformed into the track’s lead vocals.

It works well, better than we should expect here. The album doesn’t stay beyond its welcome, and each track is modestly different in a way that keeps us interested in a legitimate way. On the other hand, no track can really stand on its own in a major way, nor can they be said to form something grander as a whole. Banks seems to attempt to recreate the magic of his former lyrics, but it doesn’t quite come together. Instead we get similes like, “You only hold me as the canyon holds the stream,” repeated several times over when it’s hardly a strong enough idea to be played through once. This speaks to the broader success of the emotional content here: ideas are present, but there’s no insight to be found.

For an old fan, Banks is a surprisingly enjoyable listen for what is otherwise an unexciting release. While other middle of the road albums tend to have their highs and lows, Banks instead presents a constant quality, which works in the album’s favor. We’re never bored, just never enthralled either. Moreover, it shows that Banks still has something to show us, and he hasn’t yet lost what it takes to make a smart song. Whether it’ll come back again into something that can stand close to Bright Lights is hard to say. It doesn’t exactly seem likely - Bright Lights was an album of a time, a place, and an atmosphere - but Banks, the LP, puts forth the notion that Banks, the artist, may still surprise us.

Album: The Haunted Man - Bat for Lashes

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:56:52 -0400

Natasha Kahn makes sparse baroque pop under the moniker Bat For Lashes, though that shouldn’t be news to most. Kahn’s pieces alternatingly hit either side of the line between singer-songwriter and dreamy pop. Though she may be most famous for that one music video from her last LP, the mix of the near-spooky atmosphere of Kahn’s tracks and her traditionally strong vocals make some strong tracks, and her sophomore LP did quite a bit to break her act. The Haunted Man may imply a similar tone of spookiness, but it’s not quite so straightforward. These tracks instead are haunted by loneliness and troubled friendships, and we’re in good hands listening to Kahn present us these stories.

Kahn’s singing is never something compelled. It’s clear to us that she has sat down and composed these pieces, carefully plucking a string here, making her voice echo over there. It isn’t simply her voice that’s traditionally strong. These pieces have a classical sensibility to them from humming woodwinds to choruses like, “the lilies on the hill,” that could be the title of a painting. When something is dark, it’s painted as dark, when something is heavenly, there are clouds and sunbeams and appropriately accompanying lyrics. It’s never so heavy handed as this, but Kahn works in this traditional sense. She spells things out, but only so much as an orchestra might.

The vocals are a major focus of each song, and because of Kahn’s strength of singing, strong lyrics are therefore a necessary piece in building a strong track. Kahn isn’t quite Fiona Apple when it comes to doing this however. This is where the crafting comes across, and though that gives it some wiggle room in stepping away from something more natural, it’s hit and miss depending on how close we’re paying attention. Horses of the Sun, a fairly grandly titled track, has Kahn singing, “I saw the stars spelled out ‘Saved’,” and for the chorus, “We’re more than on the run, busting at the heavens like the horses of the sun.” This grandiose example may be an extreme within Kahn’s spectrum, but it’s lyrics like these that create a push and pull for the listener. The music itself, a big thumping kick drum and tiny flutters of strings, is beautifully embellished by her voice. It turns into something escapist and dreamy, and while that’s charming pop, there’s that ridiculous notion of “horses of the sun” that you wouldn’t normally find outside of a fantasy novel.

Largely though, Kahn’s vocals are near enough to something physical and relatable that this all works. We’re being told stories, and we’re lucky enough to get tracks like Laura out of this composition. Without a doubt, Laura is this album’s centerpiece. Kahn sings above crisp piano keys and tentative woodwinds speaking directly to someone named Laura who we cannot help but assume she is dearly close to. “Your heart broke when the party died,” Kahn builds Laura into a modern day tragic figure. She’s a real woman with real flaws, and Kahn creates this with careful details, “You’ll be famous for longer than them. Your name is tattooed on every boy’s skin.” It’s eerie and heartbreaking, and without doubt it will echo with the listener after it’s through. It’s the perfect amalgam of Kahn’s sparse, calculated arrangements and her careful and crooning voice.

The overarching tone is one of wintry twinkling, and a vaguely African, arrhythmic, almost jazzy vocal performance in defiance of the melody. The title track breaks down into vocal chanting that continues ignorant of the counting snare drum beneath it. All Your Gold takes plucky conga drums, whirring strings, and ticking cymbals, and has Kahn weaving through the beats. A lot of what Kahn does carries a high pitched sentimental curve, but of course, it has to for this all to work. Without a doubt, Kahn carries us along with her in a strong way, and we’re happy to hear the pieces that she has crafted for us. At some point though, it becomes easy to grow less impressed and fatigued by the time we reach tracks like Winter Fields, a name which is on-the-nose in regard to the song’s tonality.

The Haunted Man reaches seriously strong points. Laura is so stark and chilling that one may well play the song twice through before moving on in the album. This crafted act though is one that is hard to elaborate on throughout. Mixed across the album are pieces that don’t quite seem to have Kahn’s full belief in them. If she doesn’t truly have something to tell us, then these pieces can’t work. For the most part, they’re pulled off better than we should expect. Even when singing about “horses of the sun”, we’re happy to buy into it. It’s when things get more somber and we’re unable to grasp why that we have trouble staying with her. Fortunately, tracks like Laura are enough to set The Haunted Man apart.

Album: Local Business - Titus Andronicus

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:34:20 -0400

Over the past several months, I’ve run into more than a handful of bands whose sounds failed to match my impression of them. For some it was a matter of the style that surrounded them, but for others, it was the result of a mistaken first impression. If I’ve learned one thing here, it’s that I need to distinguish when that impression was made. For a select few, that impression hasn’t been refreshed since I was in high school, which leads to some obvious issues. Of course, it’s a welcome surprise when starting into something like Titus Andronicus and hearing rollicking guitars and thick vocals.

There’s no mistaking this for anything but the kind of fun, as-near-to-produced punk as a punk band would let themselves be produced. This is to say, it has an edge of polish. It’s tastefully rough and deliberately catchy, and they actually work within the confines of a standard song’s length. There’s an unmistakable debt to and sonic hint of 90s acts like Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphys, that fun-for-everyone danceable punk with a Celtic tint. Those bands were colored more strongly by that latter tone than what we see on Local Business, but there’s certainly an edge of it. More important though are the big and clear riffs and the meaty vocals that Patrick Stickles spits out at us.

Andronicus sound confident, and we get the feeling that we’re in good hands. The album’s opening line off of Ecce Homo has Stickles shouting, “OK, I think by now we’ve established everything is inherently worthless.” It’s a refreshing and important line to come at us face first at the album’s front. It’s easy to discount one line’s importance, after all, so many songs pass by in which we can’t register a thing, but there’s a certain force with which this is delivered that makes it as much of a greeting as any opening riff. With it, Andronicus gives us the impression that we’re coming into the third act of something universally important. We’re thrilled to jump on board. It’s a cocky start, but the level of certainty is welcoming.

If you’re anything like me, this past week has been a battle between productivity and playing the rerelease of Crazy Taxi for iOS. The game’s gameplay is as much the star as its soundtrack, which features The Offspring and Bad Religion exclusively. Local Business speaks equally well to these fist-in-the-air, context specific tracks. It’s raucous, the type of thing that you’d guiltily blast in the car but know that for the sake of safety you shouldn’t. We get long, rolling lyrics that pair perfectly with the spiraling snare beats. “Now these miles of angry motorists stretch as far as eyes can see. There are a billion breathing beings, each with schedules to keep.” It’s all a little offbeat and too on-the-nose to suffer from pseudo-meaning, and that’s good and bad. It doesn’t really matter what Stickles is singing for the most part. This type of long lyric is meant to tie these tracks into full and polished packages, and it runs along them like a thread.

The band calms down very occasionally. In a Big City turns the band’s sound into something more grand and arena style but with a slow and sparkling pace. It’s a nice turn that perhaps speaks to the band’s past or future sound, but it isn’t necessarily needed. It’s all coherent enough, but when we get a twangy, rambling track like (I am the) Electric Man, it isn’t important enough to be worth detracting from the otherwise strong, excited pacing and attitude. To keep it up so long only to put on a different mask a few times late into the album doesn’t help to keep our attention, and rather, is more liable to lose it.

Local Business isn’t necessarily the kind of fun that you want to have, but it is undeniably fun. For those still in love with the common-man’s punk of those 90s acts, Titus Andronicus is a must listen. Outside of this scope, though it’s rocking and enjoyable, it’s probably best heard in pieces: a track at a bar or a party. These are meant to make a crowd get together, and it does that well. Of course, it’s their broader simplicity that accomplishes this. That makes for a good piece at a show, but it can’t quite make a solid listen over headphones.

Film: 2 Days in Paris (2007)

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 09:05:00 -0400

By all means, 2 Days in Paris is a film that appeals to me. A condensed frame of time, two lovers, relationships, Paris, Julie Delpy. It’s been streaming on Netflix pretty much forever, but what had always held me back was the awful, awful cover art that made it appear to have the sensibilities of a cheesy and lame romantic comedy. Finally, after hearing from others what I had always hoped to hear, that the film was, in fact, not anything like that, it quickly rose on my to-watch list. Julie Delpy. Paris. How could this not be good?

That’s basically how this film operates. Much like Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in which Delpy is effectively half of the cast, 2 Days in Paris is filled with playful, casual banter primarily between two people. The dialogue is often topical and unimportant. The film opens on Delpy (who writes, directs, and quite literally takes almost every credit for this film) and Adam Goldberg, who play Marion and her boyfriend Jack, as they insult American tourists who love Bush and The Da Vinci Code. Naturally, if you’re immediately offended, this film probably isn’t for you. It’s by no means meant to make a political statement, nor does it stay so potentially off-putting, but this style of playful, natural, and common conversation exemplifies this film’s sensibilities.

This means that there isn’t a particularly clear plot structure, nor does there need to be. There is no exposition, no particular building and climax as they attempt to achieve something. It’s simply one couple in love and arguing and discovering one another as forced by Marion’s family and past in Paris. The arc that is present comes within this couple’s relationship. They slowly grow apart and grow clearer to one another. We see this happening not through particular events, but through the topics of conversation, through how interested they are in each other’s otherwise banal interests, how quickly they snap, how they work their way out of spending time together.

The development is good and smart enough, though it isn’t particularly stunning. Fortunately, the film is not the type that must have a happy ending. It’s a truthful exploration, and if things don’t work out for our characters, then that’s simply the way it happened. These people aren’t perfect together, that’s clear pretty quickly, and the film doesn’t try to cheat us by making it true. It owns up to their faults. They’re both getting old, they’ve both been with a lot of people before and may even want to be with other people now. Things are rarely so simple. We also get a sense of Paris. Marion’s parents are eccentric, to say the least, and it’s meant to speak to the general sensibilities of French citizens. There are several wonderful encounters inside of taxis in which Jack is unable to communicate with the driver, and we watch Marion have odd or personal conversations with the driver right in front of him. It creates a wonderful dynamic wherein we watch Jack attempt to decipher similar words and tonalities.

Delpy, both in delivery and writing, is masterful at rattling off naturalistic dialogue. Dialogue in novels or films never seems unrealistic, but there is a certain stylization necessary for clarity and comfort. A change must be applied to make it seem real. Delpy, however, has a strong ability to create truly realistic dialogue. It may not function well to advance plot, but rather, it creates almost a voyeuristic aspect to films such as this. It’s as though we’re watching a couple be intimate or joke around, as though we get to sit in on private moments. Even the casual conversations over meals or observing a new room are beautiful displays of interaction. They’re accurate and they’re simply fun to be privileged enough to overhear.

Delpy also gives us the occasional voiceover. She speaks in a careful and paced voice, and it shows further how well she knows this type of material. She could easily drift into a pseudo-emotional overkill, but always manages to stay pensive and romantic in her notions without reaching saccharine. These moments are often punctuated by still frames, photographs taken by her character or Jack, and it works to great effect. There isn’t all that much for the camera to do, the film is a plethora of conversations, but it never becomes boring. We love watching these characters walk and discover their surroundings.

2 Days in Paris sits between the sensibilities of Linklater’s films or a (good) mumblecore piece, albeit, with significantly more polish. It does a fantastic job of crafting conversations and moments for us to sit in on. We do little more than spend time with this couple. Though the film reaches a fine and smart point emotionally, it isn’t as revealing as, for instance, Linklater’s films of this style. It does a good job of pulling itself together, it’s all more than function, and it certainly presents a much more complicated view of love and relationships than many other films. It does, however, feel fairly small and simple comparatively. That isn’t a bad thing. This film, after all, presents a small, microscopic view, but that does not mean that it can’t speak louder than it looks. Largely, 2 Days in Paris stands on how much we enjoy spending time with Marion and Jack. This is where Delpy shines. They’re more than enjoyable enough to hang out with for a time.

Film: Argo

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:07:12 -0400

I suspect that I wasn’t the only person surprised to hear that Ben Affleck has not only moved into directing but is actually reported to be quite good. This is not to say anything negative of his prior performances, but rather that nothing about the films that he starred in suggested an interest in the type of smart dramas and thrillers that he’s been making. It’s all made me curious about his films, and though I’d missed his first two, Argo appeared to be worth checking out. The trailer presented it as sharp and fun, and the buzz going into its opening weekend painted it as a smart thriller.

Argo has none of the Ocean’s Eleven charisma and glam that it presents in the trailer, though of course, the film cannot be faulted for this. Argo instead is a slow and fairly serious thriller taking place perpendicular to the Iranian hostage crisis. Six would-be hostages have escaped into Canadian custody. Ben Affleck’s character, Tony Mendez, has to get them out. The plan is to fake the production of a film. This is almost inherently a spectacle, as anything Hollywood is of legend to be. They deal with directors, producers, actors, and are then tasked with bringing the excitement to Iran. Even in the midst of a hostage situation, there’s something seriously cool that it can’t shake. This excitement doesn’t come across however outside of its connotations. The film itself is slowly paced, but not so in a careful and deliberate way. Rather, the film simply takes a long time in some places and a swift time in others. The setup is rushed where other sequences, though never at the point of dragging on, take an oddly long time to be accomplished. This isn’t something that adds to the tension, it’s simply poor pacing.

The film doesn’t present much in the way of character development. Outside of Mendez, we have the six hostages and a few bureaucrats who alternatingly stand in his way and help him. The hostages are all kind of scared and pissed off but are also drinking a lot of wine and having a good time. Mendez is temporarily estranged from his wife and son for reasons unknown. The film also hints at a drinking problem for all of two shots, but even the film can’t seem to tell if it wants to go through with this or not. He drinks wine quickly but only one glass. He stashes away a bottle of liquor but only takes one drink. Mendez’s character never becomes anything. He’s clever and dedicated, but that’s about it. What ‘development’ is included in the film never feels forced, but it does come off as obliging some undesirable need. At one point Mendez sits down with another character and asks him if he has a son so that he can talk about his own. Like all of the character development, it comes out of nowhere and no one is really interested in having the conversation.

Fortunately, the story itself is interesting enough to hold the piece up. The hostage crisis isn’t only a backdrop, it’s the war zone through which they must travel unnoticed. This creates an inherent tension and desire for success. Of course we want them out, and of course we want this cool plan to succeed. The tension works on this basic level, but it never really develops further than this. Most of the added tension relies on minor inconveniences. Someone is thirty seconds away from their telephone. Someone refreshed a database five seconds too soon. These are all issues artificially created and quickly resolved. For one, we have to believe that they just happen to be occurring simultaneously. Even then, these situations are as tense as waiting for customer support on the phone when you have a bill due in an hour or waiting for an elevator to come when you really want to get upstairs. The tension isn’t based on any fault of the characters or the mission, it’s just an irritation that holds things up momentarily.

We’re also frequently given brief shots from the Iranian’s point of view. This too is a cheap effect. Yes, tension and suspense can be based on knowledge the viewer has that the characters do not, but if this never has any effect on the characters, it’s all pointless or the movie Serendipity with John Cusack. Why not show us that if the characters were to open a door on either side of a room they could walk into either a pile of money or an axe murderer? If they don’t choose either door, it doesn’t really matter what’s behind them. At one point in the film we see guards scrambling to chase Mendez and his crew, but our main characters never actually discover this threat. And in fact, the only thing that holds the guards back from catching them are — surprise — minor inconveniences like a locked door. Every hint of tension in this film comes from close timing and bad luck, and none of it creates any legitimate problems.

Argo, like every other film that takes place in Iran, displays the country as convoluted and messy. It does a fine job at this and at presenting the style of the 70s. It all looks good and comes across as accurate without getting in the way. Otherwise, the visual choices don’t present much thoughtfulness. The film opens with bureaucrats walking through halls and talking. It could be cut from any episode of The West Wing. Quick turns, short halls, snappy conversations. It’s oddly familiar and unnecessary, and it doesn’t match anything else in the film. The only non-standard visual movements aren’t bad, but they’re tired and unhelpful. One sequence puts Mendez wandering about his hotel room, fading from one spot to another to signifying passing time. It’s nothing that couldn’t be better delivered in one intimate moment.

This is all very critical of Argo, though it isn’t actually a bad film. It’s successful enough in its ventures, and it’s base tension is enough to bring an enjoyment out of it. The buzz around the film, however, is distinctly odd. There’s nothing particularly interesting here in terms of plot or tension, and there’s quite literally nothing here in terms of character development. The characters never come off as flat or false, and that’s certainly a success, but it simply can’t be elevated due to these shortcomings. Argo works to a point, but it’s easy to see that it could have been reworked into something smarter and stronger.

Film: Indie Game: The Movie

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:54:00 -0400

An incredible shift is happening in video game production. Like with film after the advent of cheap video cameras, production of the medium is now accessible to outsiders. No longer does one need the increasingly larger crews of coders and artists. Now, a handful of skilled (or even not so skilled) programmers can create something that’s equally or more compelling than a title from a traditional game studio. In fact, these games are often more exciting. Rather than first person shooters that only iterate in graphical quality and the addition of zombies and/or Nazis, these are games that can stretch their limbs, break the box, or hearken back to ideas that are older and less flashy but fresh from dormancy and filled with potential.

The functionally titled Indie Game: The Movie is a documentary embedded inside of this movement. Though it begins on and touches aspects of this growing and important shift, Indie Game eventually finds itself in working to show that game development is as legitimate as any other form of art, though not in so many words. Rather, the film allows the developers that it follows to speak to the amount of emotion and self that they have poured into their work. It’s incredible how similar their speech is to that of a filmmaker or writer. They experience the same hang ups, the same fears. They see pieces of themselves inside their work.

More than anything, these notions work to build the film’s core message. It’s narrative however lies in the personal struggles that accompany bringing this personal expression to the public. We learn about four developers and hear about the path they’ve taken in bringing their game to the market. When asked about his troubles, one rattles off a list of personal problems that have cropped up in the past year, not one of them a strict development issue. Another developer dreams of paying off the remaining portion of his parents’ mortgage. It’s a sweet and surprising notion after the frustration that we’ve watched him present up to that point.

The biggest issue the documentary hits is in its narrative. One can’t help but get the impression that the footage was all taken in a short span of time and is trying to provide the illusion that they’ve been following along. The film doesn’t quite know what it wants to be because of this. It doesn’t have enough to really explore anything broader. There’s much to speak to regarding this movement’s broader implications, that half a dozen people are disrupting major studios in major ways. Instead, our main narrative is that of the developers bringing their games to market, but unfortunately, they haven’t been with these developers long enough to really show us that.

The film does however show us some of simply the biggest names in indie games, and that’s certainly something cool to learn about. As it is though, the film struggles in its presentation of the characters. It makes a bizarre choice of opening on a moment that chronologically should (and does) appear at the film’s end and only serves to paint one developer as spoiled and unlikeable (not to mention disorienting the viewer while they’re at it). These are all weird characters, and though the film chooses to balance their eccentric moments with some really nice heartfelt ones, a slight rounding of rough edges may have been to their advantage. Without these outbursts and oddities, we could still get an accurate sense for who these people are. These moments don’t enhance that, they simply hinder our ability to care about them. Instead, we spend half of the film viewing one developer as a jerk until we realize that, though he’s certainly odd and stressed, he’s a nice guy when it comes down to it.

We learn little of what it takes to develop a game. Really, this film is about tantrums and waiting and deadlines, albeit a bit toned down from how that sounds. There is a really interesting story here, and while the film manages to hit on that every so often, it’s mixed up within the five other stories that it’s uncertain if it should be focusing on. The developers’ emotions is a pretty good spot to stick with, but unfortunately, without interesting context, it’s hard to be particularly compelled. Of course, the context is interesting, it just isn’t in here. One of the three games it follows was released only months after this film debuted (earlier this year), but the film chooses to leave us hanging. I’ll admit production scheduling is a bit more complicated than I can speak to, but it comes across odd and unsatisfying ending the film so near to the game’s release without a word to it.

Indie Game shows us two developers in a personal and representative environment. It’s a little off-putting, but it helps to embellish their character and build this narrative. Otherwise, though we do get the other two developers at their offices and at a game convention, we’re only treated to general interview footage and b-roll, lots and lots of it. There’s b-roll of the ocean. B-roll of the apartment complex. B-roll of the pier, of the sand, of a yard, of a street, another street with some palm trees. Oddly enough, it decides to go creative for just one shot that visually relates a developer with his character, though in a heavily staged way. It is, at least, shot effectively, though fairly out of place.

Another recent documentary, Side by Side, got into the fine, geeky details of a medium, in its case, cinema. It compiled a history of footage and presented dozens of well informed speakers. Indie Game: The Movie, though produced through the same audacity and limited funding as the projects it covers, shows us a narrow scope, and though it does manage to pull together a narrative that works, the broader sensibilities never quite come into focus. We have one developer shown sparsely and dropped halfway along. Another gets weirder while the other two get more normal. This speaks to narrative, but it doesn’t speak to their development process or the massive impact that its having. Indie Game has interviewed David after taking down Goliath, but all it comes away with is David talking about how stressful the encounter was.

Film: Samsara

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 09:50:29 -0400

Samsara is the latest of a series of nonfiction collages of the world: pseudo-sequel to Baraka, tangential to Chronos and Koyaanisqatsi. It doesn’t differ all that much from the type, though that says nothing negative of it. Samsara’s primary creators, Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson, served the same roles on Baraka, the film best known of the type and nearest in style to Samsara. These films cannot be said to have broad appeal. They’re each an hour and a half of loosely connected and stunning imagery from across the planet. Miniature narrative threads and themes carry throughout, but any overarching thread can only be given meaning by the viewer. This may be frustrating to some, but largely, it’s hard to even think of such things when we’re constantly being reminded how stunning the world around us is.

The film takes no explicit viewpoints, though it may seem to suggest certain notions from the way that the film is edited. There is no narration, no interviews. The images are presented only with music that helps embellish the collage’s pacing. It’s immediately apparent, however, how this can all work. The film can cut between connected pieces of the same location or between two comparable locations, or it can cut between two locations it wants to draw parallels to. Sparse terrain dotted by elaborate temples might cut to urban sprawl. Mechanical repetition might cut to a human run production line.

In this sense, there are perhaps two distinct phases that this film alternatingly engages: gorgeous images of gorgeous locations and gorgeous images of weird human processes. The former are often the most stunning. The film opens on volcanic smoke, glowing lava. It makes the Earth seem like something out of fantasy. Samsara’s strength is in its power to accomplish this, a feat that makes it hard not to stun its viewer. We see bright yellow stones, mountains, waterfalls. We see incredible architecture carved into the sides of massive boulders or temples constructed on their own. Even when the film shows us more familiar locations, cityscapes, indoor snowboarding arenas, it’s all shot as if even the camera’s eye were in awe.

The phases focusing on human processes evoke a significantly stronger narrative. While these may be less immediately striking, it’s perhaps a necessity to keep one’s focus throughout this experience. One can only associate images and live in awe for so long. One arc shows the construction of consumer appliances followed by a room full of old computers. It brings us to a recycling factory where they are torn apart and finally to a junkyard where they are salvaged by citizens of a third world country. There’s an obvious cycle. Birth, use, destruction, repurpose. This exemplifies what the film speaks most strongly to. When it cuts from temples among open fields of grass to flat homes and roads, it’s easy to see what they’re pointing out. It’s important to have this all on film, because it may not be around that much longer.

Samsara was shot on 65mm film, an infrequently used format, but one with significant advantages. It is larger than traditional 35mm, and this results in a stunning increase in image quality. However, Samsara was converted to digital for post, and in spite of its stunning look, it has a decidedly digital tone. This is perhaps a result of the constant over saturation of the shot’s dominant colors. This makes each image hugely impressive and likely helps to evoke the sense of awe and fantasy. There is an aspect to this, however, that feels mildly untruthful. The world simply isn’t this bright and thick with color. Samsara can be said to have trained its eye as to enlighten us to these points, and so this hint of falsity can be forgiven. It’s more than likely that most viewers will not take notice to this. However, it is an odd insincerity for a film that seems to promise to show us the true world.

The physical layout of our visuals is often based on symmetry or repetition. This is more than common, though it never becomes tiring. Repetition in particular is useful for its ability to construct a miniature narrative within one shot while also giving a sense of movement for our eyes to follow. In one shot, we see rifles layered endlessly, and we can follow along down their trigger guard. Simultaneously, this speaks to gun production in developed worlds. The symmetry is used to particular effect in the developed world. It points out mechanical beauty that we would otherwise overlook. The camera can stand back and observe where we would only see the practicality.

The film manages to teach us about processes of the world. It shows us how stunning the things around us are that we fail to notice. It’s hard not to take something out of the experience that is Samsara, but whether you take something more specific isn’t assured. The film requires engagement by the viewer, and though it tries its best to keep us moving forward, one may falter some by the end. Still, it’s an engaging and stunning experience as good as any traditional nature documentary. Samsara exceeds such things, however. Through its silence, it allows the viewer a sense of freedom. Samsara may have judgements, but it still lets us come to our own.

Album: Lonerism - Tame Impala

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 09:51:22 -0400

Tame Impala’s debut may have presented something with a grungy, garage rock edge, but here in their sophomore release, Lonerism, the band has gone deeper into the psych sounds that were present, even if not the focus, of that first LP. Their debut was well received, and now an appropriate just over two years later, they’re back. Unlike many other bands with successful debuts, however, Tame Impala’s sophomore doesn’t simply reiterate their debut. We instead find the band interested in different aspects of their sound. Lonerism simultaneously recalls The White Stripes and The Beatles, or perhaps something more in between, like The Olivia Tremor Control. It’s a warm, sun drenched dose of psychedelic rock, and Tame Impala manage to own the sound and present it like it’s something new.

The similarity to The Beatles may not be immediately obvious. The album opens on Be Above It, which starts off with something far more modern. “Gotta be above it,” is repeated in a husky whisper while crackling drums smack behind the vocals. However, once Kevin Parker’s lead vocals kick it, this comparison is glaringly obvious. “And I know that I gotta be above it now,” he sings, and it sounds like it could be a sample of John Lennon. This similarity doesn’t remain so bluntly strong throughout (it’s more Incense and Peppermints at points), but in a music scene of electronic sampling and supersaturated synthesizers, just the notion that we might get some smart rock and roll is welcome.

Above bouncing guitars are occasional psych breaks, warping us from one location musically to another. It can be as simple as the break that comes part way through Apocalypse Dreams. The track drops much of the melody in favor of one whining guitar and some fuzzed and blinking keys. It’s simple and transformative, and it recalls that wonderful tonality. It creates a broader sense of haze, though to avoid the connotations of this all, it should really be said that this is never drugged out. Rather, Tame Impala lead us through something that is often times quick and snappy and sometimes, like on mid-album track Feels Like We Only Go Backwards, able to slow down and sit in the moment, and more importantly, the band utilize the psych notions only to bring us closer to their discussed emotional state, one of isolation and perplexity of the seemingly simple but increasingly more obviously difficult situations around them.

The album’s title suggests a sort of affliction. Naturally, this loneliness, misunderstanding, and listlessness is the sort of topic on which rock bands thrive, and there’s no exception here. This is not to say that this notion comes off clichéd, nor even overbearing. While Parker’s lyrics are intermittently clear and concise, they’re never a point of focus, which means we don’t come away with specific imagery or ideas, but rather, the broader emotion that he’s trying to convey. This works as a strength. Though lines like, “I don’t need them and they don’t need me. I guess I’ll go home, try to be sane,” work to embellish this point, they aren’t ever enlightening enough to serve this purpose. Moreover, Parker’s lackadaisical wash of vocals stresses the emotion better than many lyrics could.

Lonerism does a fine job of switching between quicker, snappier tracks and things a bit more airy. The album holds the listener’s interest, and it remains smart throughout. Emotion isn’t the album’s strength. Though it comes across, we never do access Parker. We simply get notions of ideas that he’s working with. Of course, the way that we get theme is smart and unlike much else happening right now. For all the necessary references to psych tones, this is really just smart, playful rock with pop elements. Tame Impala have made a strong album, one not baked in any moment, and they manage to take a fun but dormant sound and turn it into something fresh.

Album: Shut Down the Streets - A.C. Newman

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:58:23 -0400

How many fantasy authors must have individual novels that spin off characters from their more famous parent property? I can only imagine (I mean, I’m not going to go about reading that) that it’s a common enough practice. One epic property and a dozen smaller pieces of canon to build it all up. In some ways, this is how A.C. Newman, the white knight of a leading man, relates to The New Pornographers, the larger gang who take off on serialized epic journeys. It’s continually less clear whether The New Pornographers started as a supergroup (at least, of Indie Rock proportions) or became one. Newman already has two solo LPs to his own canon. While we always want to see the gang together, this is a group of strong personalities, and Newman, predictably, can more than support his own outing.

Newman has always been The New Pornographers’ primary writer, with Dan Bejar filling in for a few tracks each LP. Bejar’s pieces are interspersed there, and for their differences, they fit in remarkably well. Both artists know how to write tracks of a massive pop-rock scale. To beat this metaphor further, though Bejar may be the Han Solo to Newman’s Skywalker, we can’t deny that Bejar has more flavor. His project Destroyer is approaching a dozen albums, and among them are pieces that can stand apart: smart, strong releases. Both artists work in a singer and guitar focused world with clever flourishes and seriously chugging backing bands. Where Bejar succeeds off of handsome style and charisma, Newman plays more of the nice guy. He’s polite and charming, and though his quieter pieces may never be as gripping or demanding, his writing isn’t exactly simple. Though The New Pornographers succeed off of the collected talent, they write choruses for verses and even bigger choruses for choruses. They’re each more than talented enough on their own.

Naturally, Newman’s simpler tracks are best served for his solo work. Though they make for a fine way of fleshing out the courses of a New Pornographers’ album, it simply doesn’t allow for the kind of extended dive that Newman ought to be able to take advantage of. Newman’s lyrics have become increasingly abstract inside of his main project, but here we find him once again back to more personal and straightforward subjects. “I like the way things are. I say abandon the search.” Newman isn’t deeply personal, but he comes across as earnest. He’s too much of a nice guy for us not to believe him.

That all said, Newman has brought along perhaps the most distinct sound of The New Pornographers: Neko Case’s sharp, brassy voice. It’s an instrument that Newman knows how to write for perhaps better than Case herself, and though she’s used for sparing flourishes here, when Case gets going on tracks like Encyclopedia of Classic Takedowns (a name that even sounds like the type of lighthearted and clever tone that Newman would take to The New Pornographers), it gets to the point where it would be hard to tell what project this is from out of context. Newman even adopts his quicker, more assured tone, the type that can lead an army of musicians into such a lofty chorus.

In the end, this album comes across as Newman trying out new flares, different singing quirks, different catchy tones. Opening track I’m Not Talking starts out with an airy electronic blooping, and though it doesn’t speak to the song’s eventual tonality, it is carried on throughout the piece. The track also finds Newman dragging out his words in a way that almost starts to open him up a bit more. Newman has always sounds prepared on his more personal tracks, but here he might actually start to get caught up in his singing. This isn’t necessarily great, however. As much as a raw and open Newman might make for a great listen, this in between stage simply shorts us the rollicking and charming pieces we’d otherwise get.

It’s hard not to want the massive tracks that make The New Pornographers so great and that Newman is so skilled at writing and singing. He’s always been fine at taking to these more toned down pieces, but unlike Bejar, he isn’t quite able to extrapolate what sets him apart into something more specific and different. What we get is a fine album with some serious hits, but this isn’t going to separately establish Newman in a specific way. It’s nothing to complain about, and Shut Down the Streets is more than a fine visit to a talented artist. There’s cause to listen again, but this type of LP could never get the type of spins that a record from The New Pornographers could. As long as he’s so nearly competing with himself, the comparison will always be there.

Album: End of Daze - Dum Dum Girls

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:53:23 -0400

Remember the Beach House performance that I described while discussing Bloom? No? That’s fine, I’ve seen the Google Analytics numbers. That night, Beach House was the opening act. They were riding off of the success of Teenage Dream, but of course, it’s hard to stand beside the massive success of Vampire Weekend, who headlined the night. The show was at Radio City Music Hall. The seats were filled by the time Vampire Weekend took the stage, and the turnout for Beach House was a massive, nearly full theatre. But there was another opener that night who played before Beach House. The audience was paltry and thin, and on the stage in the dark were Dum Dum Girls playing the little material that they had out of their debut LP.

It was a weary, sad performance. To be fair, this seemed more the fault of the venue than the band. They were kept in the dark. There was hardly an audience to play to. But more than this was simply that Dum Dum Girls music was never meant to fill a venue so large. It’s the kind of music that you can image perfectly tuned to the inside of a bar or a small club, but Radio City’s stage was simply too big for the band. They have two LPs to their name, and while there is an undeniable charm to their quiet, fuzzed, and melancholy lo-fi, outside of the snappier hits like Jail La La, their was never enough put forward for a listener to actively grip into.

This all is to say that Dum Dum Girls, like the lollipops (of which they aren’t named after), have always been best in small, sweet doses. More importantly, if in most cases EPs, in this day and age, are simply ways to deal with excess material, Dum Dum Girls are the right ones to change this. Like a punk album, Dum Dum Girls’ material feels best when it doesn’t outstay its welcome. It’s all a bit fleeting and precious, and held on a moment longer, we’d quickly start to tire. This time around, the band is treating the EP as simply a short form of expression - not the messy mix of songs that we’re so used to. As it turns out, this makes End of Daze easily the strongest piece of the band’s discography yet.

End of Daze opens with a late night, magical churning of drum and springy guitar. You could easily imagine opener Mine Tonight at the climax of a high school rom-com somewhere in the middle of prom. This, however, seems to speak poorly of the track. Though it echoes these notions, the band pulls the piece off without indulging that inherent triviality. We have a bouncing, scraping metal guitar string and dark booming drum beats. If it all wants to explode into mechanical fireworks, it’s earned it. These tracks all manage to create catchy choruses amid slick and simple verses. “I got nothing left to say from this day on,” Dee Dee sings above cracking snaps of a drum.

This sentiment speaks to the broader notion of End of Daze, something readily apparent through its consistent tones. The tracks are simple: warm in their hopeful rollicking but dark in their present. You get the impression of someone a little wide-eyed and cautiously optimistic in the middle of what they are aware isn’t some great darkness, but is certainly the real world’s twists and turns. Dee Dee turns melancholy on Lord Knows, singing through the chorus, “Oh boy, I can’t hurt you anymore.” It’s the kind of suddenly apparent knowledge that’s heartbreaking but speaks to a more important personal growth.

The EP clocks in under twenty minutes, with only one track, it’s centerpiece, being something slower. Coming off of such a rhythm, it’s a welcome piece that the album can sell. More importantly, moving on, the album closes just as strong as it opens, snappy, sharp, a little dark and washed with hope. This is how Dum Dum Girls always should have been presented. They’re in full control here, and it makes End of Daze a tight listen. There have been signs of this mixture of moody and rocking songwriting since their first LP. I didn’t think anything would come of it, and I’m glad to be proven wrong.