As everyone should know by now, Egypt is burning. Without any useless rhetoric, I'd like to just cut to the chase of what's going on. There are some dynamics here that need underlining. The Egyptian people are attempting to oust President Hosni Mubarak, because he is guilty of not promoting democracy, holding fixed elections, subjugating political opposition, backing police brutality, being responsible for various economic grievances, and corruption. On the face of it, this seems bad. Our moral outrage triggers right away, and we listen with impatience to any reasons (excuses, we'd say would be a better word) someone might have to not be on the protester's/rioter's side.
But as usual, it's probably more complicated than that. We all love democracy. The idea spawned from within a Western context, rife with Western sentiments of equality, fraternity, justice for all, liberty. It was an idea that spawned from a Western cultural context. We are sure that if the process is ran in this context, that - given the right checks and balances - we'd get a leader who would compliment Western sentiments, and who would try to the best of his ability to represent our worries and desires. When things get complicated is when we try to dislocate this idea from its cultural context and relocate it within a cultural context in which it probably won't find a home. By analogy, when monarchy was imposed from without by the English, as yet American sentiments ousted it in the Revolutionary War. American culture differed from English culture and we resisted and gained independence.
If we failed, and the English won, then, because of the cultural divide, there would be political and demographic unrest until the English sentiments prevailed, or until American sentiment won out in the form of a change in English sentiment or another war where America won instead. When I look at Egypt, I see a country whose government shares Western sentiments; but they also see that the governed primarily do not. Seeing this, they reason that if they let the democratic process go, leaders would be elected that would end democracy in the long run. A huge majority of the population are members of The Muslim Brotherhood. Their main goal is to re-institute the caliphate and have that Caliph rule in accordance with Shari'ah law, a form of theocracy, not democracy, a rule that they want to extend from Spain to Indonesia. Usually, the members of The Brotherhood aren't nice Muslims who keep to themselves; they are the aggressive ones, the intolerant ones, the ones who wouldn't be accepting of many religions, free speech, and basically all of the Western privileges we enjoy over here.
A pattern I see is that dictators are tolerated if they are Western allies and because the West sees that if they were to topple, an aggressive anti-Western, pro-Muslim government would certainly arise, extremely intolerant of all the Western sentiments we hold dear, such as free speech, women's rights, etc. So, these governments are tolerated to keep a constant hose on this smoldering danger. But then these subjugated Muslims can USE democratic rhetoric to denounce the behavior of their governments. For example, free speech. Yes, Egyptian government doesn't really have much free speech; but they have more than if Egypt was ruled by a Caliph. That's the best they're going to have because all the Egyptian government has to work with are these anti-Western sentiments of the ruled.
My opinion is that the stability of the middle east depends on tolerating these governments that might not be completely democratic; but they are our allies in combating the sentiments of intolerant and aggressive Islam, who, if given free reign to the democratic process, would elect someone sympathetic to the Caliphate, and would therefore be ruinous to any of the little freedoms they enjoyed lately. This effort to foist uninhibited democracy on the middle east is a sham, a futile operation not sensitive to the reality that, culturally speaking, people are just plain different from the West.
A final note: I've noticed something that might be an inconsistency with the way Obama is handling this. Remember when the Iranian people had a similar uprising, when there was rioting and protesting because of allegations of electoral fraud regarding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Why would Obama back Ahmadinejad (someone not pro-West by any means) against Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh (someone who IS pro-West), and against the protesters (all of whom were pro-West); but in the Egyptian case, Obama is backing the protesters, the majority of whom are The Muslim Brotherhood, even though Hosni Mubarak is pro-West, and pro-Israel?
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Better late then Never-Thoughts about 'Gangs of New York'
I am a little late on this, It's hard for a man such as myself to stay up on all the events of film, television and music. So often times hit songs, summer blockbusters or witty sitcoms go unwatched or unnoticed by me for some time. Case in point; 2002's 'Gangs of New York.' A film almost a decade old now... I know, I must be slipping in my old age, but if anyone out there actually reads my blogs I'm not too terribly fascinated with modern things. I love 'Back to the Future', 1994 and the dixie chicks for God's sake.
I digress.
After hearing basically nothing but rave reviews over 'Gangs of New York' for the past 8 years I decided it was high time I watched and got my mind blown by another Scorsese picture, ole Martin rarely disappoints. So with the aid of my best buy gift card I was finally able to watch this critically acclaimed piece of cinema.
I was unimpressed.
Let me explain a few reasons why.
1. I felt it was way too over the top. The movie as a whole felt much more like a Michael Bay/ Jerry Bruckheimer production then a Martin Scorsese film. Relying too heavily on stylized action sequences, explosions and exaggerated outfits and weapons then story telling. Civil war era meets Tim Burton's 'Batman Returns' was all I could think of.
2. The character development of Amsterdam Vallon, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, was severely unbalanced in comparison to Daniel Day Lewis' character, Bill "the Butcher". Basically they show us that Amsterdam's father got killed by Bill the butcher when Amsterdam was a boy and he wants to avenge his fathers death. Thats his goal in life, kinda Like the shark from 'Jaws' Amsterdam only wants blood. And also like the shark from 'Jaws' Amsterdam is equally one dimensional. Meanwhile we see Bill the Butcher go through a range of different emotions, stages and insights into his life and just generally feel a more deep connection with Bill's character. Now I'm sure a good portion of that is due to the fact that Daniel Day Lewis is a much better actor then DiCaprio but that still doesn't excuse it. We're suppose to feel more connected to the protagonist, we want them to succeed, we want to feel for them but when the protagonist is completely void of depth and dimension we feel nothing for them. That is certainly the case with Amsterdam Vallon.
3. I'm an american, I don't like watching 3 hour long movies.
4. Any movie that Bono writes the music for I want nothing to do with.
I digress.
After hearing basically nothing but rave reviews over 'Gangs of New York' for the past 8 years I decided it was high time I watched and got my mind blown by another Scorsese picture, ole Martin rarely disappoints. So with the aid of my best buy gift card I was finally able to watch this critically acclaimed piece of cinema.
I was unimpressed.
Let me explain a few reasons why.
1. I felt it was way too over the top. The movie as a whole felt much more like a Michael Bay/ Jerry Bruckheimer production then a Martin Scorsese film. Relying too heavily on stylized action sequences, explosions and exaggerated outfits and weapons then story telling. Civil war era meets Tim Burton's 'Batman Returns' was all I could think of.
2. The character development of Amsterdam Vallon, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, was severely unbalanced in comparison to Daniel Day Lewis' character, Bill "the Butcher". Basically they show us that Amsterdam's father got killed by Bill the butcher when Amsterdam was a boy and he wants to avenge his fathers death. Thats his goal in life, kinda Like the shark from 'Jaws' Amsterdam only wants blood. And also like the shark from 'Jaws' Amsterdam is equally one dimensional. Meanwhile we see Bill the Butcher go through a range of different emotions, stages and insights into his life and just generally feel a more deep connection with Bill's character. Now I'm sure a good portion of that is due to the fact that Daniel Day Lewis is a much better actor then DiCaprio but that still doesn't excuse it. We're suppose to feel more connected to the protagonist, we want them to succeed, we want to feel for them but when the protagonist is completely void of depth and dimension we feel nothing for them. That is certainly the case with Amsterdam Vallon.
3. I'm an american, I don't like watching 3 hour long movies.
4. Any movie that Bono writes the music for I want nothing to do with.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Map of the Problematique: Fear and Panic
While many types of fear thus represent the perception of a concrete and immediate threat to which a person can react defensively in some way, other forms of fear derive from underlying anxiety which in its original form is a dialectical perception of human freedom- Ulrich H. J. Körtner in "The end of the world: a theological interpretation"
In a book called "Mars: from myth and mystery to recent discoveries" by Markus Hotakainen, I learned that Mars has two moons that whirl around him. Upon their discover over 400 years ago, Galileo dispatched his findings to his associates, saying:
I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form.
The moons had the appellation Deimos and Phobos (where we get 'phobia'), Panic and Fear, christened in this way because Phobos and Deimos were the sons of Ares (Mars), the god of war. In the 15th verse of The Illiad, as Ares braces for his vitriolic reprisal, Homer writes that Ares:
. . . ordered Phobos and Deimos to harness his horses, and himself got into his shining armor.
In the song Map of the Problematique off their 2006 album Black Holes and Revelations, Muse makes explicit mention to these gods, which seems in line with their sustained interest with the theme of Mars for the duration of the album.
Fear
And panic in the air
I want to be free
From desolation and despair
Fear and Panic. As I began to discover, fans and critics are insistent on exhuming the meaning of the song. I beheld that the interpretation hinged on the listener. All concur that the title of the song refers to The Club of Rome, a global think-tank that details a Map of the Problematique which tries to figure out the world's future problems and what may encountering them be like, and what we can do to perhaps prevent them from arising. For my money, I'd say that Muse is referencing a Map of the Problematique not for the world, but for the individual soul. I sense it in the urgent beat and melody of the song. The song speaks of a loneliness, but to me it's more of a cosmic loneliness. Some ancient calamity of separation or divorce is made to seem irrevocable. Just the same, there is a dissent from letting go, a refusal.
Some think the main message of the song is acceptance in the wake of some personal catastrophe. In spite of that, I don't sense acceptance; I sense a throbbing discomposure, and aching for some vast and unfathomable reunion with an otherworldly something, something not on this side, so to speak. He says:
I want to touch the other side
This is a cavernous song, with many tunnels and passages. It is about the longing for redemption and the titanic struggles we face as we clash with spiritual reality. The feel of the song is filled with a strange, wistful pining, and the piano is a pulsating cadence that seems to represent some cryptic rupture in the recesses of our subconscious. On these accounts, this is one of my dearest Muse songs.
Friday, January 21, 2011
The Dark Knight Rises: or falls?
July 20th, 2012? Is that really how long I'm gonna have to wait? Like the seer Matt Johnson prophesied about: won't the world be gone by then? Why, Christopher Nolan? Why? Though I wasn't quite that punch-drunk after seeing Inception (2010), it still left me bedazzled enough to hail Nolan with another captivating pic. Ever since Momento (2000), Nolan has proven himself an artistic force to be reckoned with. His powers are beginning to brood and welter in stewing turbulence as filming begins for The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Purging general expectations about there being a Riddler and sneering at the 3-D bandwagon begot by the Avatar-deluge, Nolan has divulged the identities of Batman's latest and final foes.
Tom Hardy will play Bane; and Anne Hathaway will play Catwoman. Everyone else will reprise their roles. Reading about this made my skittish hairs stand on end. Bane? Really Nolan? Isn't that the hefty and hushed WWF wrestler that snarled every once in a while, vacant of persona, a shallow and insubstantial squandering unsuited for Nolan's signature flair? I know everyone has seen the deplorable Batman and Robin (1997). From seeing this, I would have thought Bane would be the last character Nolan would choose for Batman's last adversary. But a little research can be a dangerous thing. It turns how that Bane is an extremely riveting character.
His father being a political extremist and revolutionary, Bane was born into a world of adversity. Having shrewdly alluded the court systems of Santa Prisca, Bane's father would leave the judicial body no choice but to afflict Bane with the punishment deserved by the father's crimes. It is in the walls of this prison that Bane begins his overhaul. He has a ravenous appetite for books, and his discernment and IQ are off the charts. He spends untold hours in the gym, amassing strength and burliness. In this odious region of savagery, Bane manages to locate a Jesuit priest from whom he receives a classical education. He soars to the summit of the prison wickedness and is reckoned as KING of Peña Dura prison.
Of course, the prison's powers and authorities take notice. They deem him a worthy guinea pig for a mystifying drug called Venom, which had finished off the previous recipients. But it didn't kill Bane. It made him even more violent and strong. The only side effect was that if he didn't take Venom every 12 hours, he could nearly die. So, a series of tubes are assembled which cascade the drug directly into his brain. This is his back-story. Whether or not Nolan will use this I don't know. But judging from his prior homage to the spirit of the comic book, it's a worthy guess. After reading over the stories of Bane in the comic books, the most probable one I think Nolan will run with is this one.
While in prison, rumors of Batman thronged the slammer. Bane became transfixed by the whole idea of what the Bat-man did. Struck by how alike Gotham and the prison were, he craved to pay a visit, for like his prison, Gotham was a placed ruled by fear: in Gotham's case, fear of the Bat-man. As it turned out, it just so happened that Bane had been tormented since childhood by the night terror of a bat, a bat that Bane clumsily - maybe portentously? - linked with Batman himself. Living up to his name as the most intelligent of Batman's opposition, he figures that to besiege directly would be reckless. Bane sets his cross-hairs on Arkham Asylum, letting loose an avalanche of convicts, hoodlums, scoundrels, psychopaths, and loonies onto the streets of Gotham. It takes 3 months for Batman to disinfect the streets and by this time he is jaded and drained. But unknown to Batman, Bane had been doing his homework. He deduced his identity as Bruce Wayne, the only villain to do so! As Batman returned to Wayne Manor, he had no idea that Bane had during the day been waiting patiently there to pounce on him. After a fierce struggle, Bane gains the upper hand and breaks Batman's back! Batman is trounced! Bane is the only villain to have beaten him.
Nolan's style conjoined with this story could cause a cinematic surge of staggering proportions. This is what I love about Nolan. Everyone had figured that the next Batman would be the advent of The Riddler. Out of nowhere, Nolan picks an enemy that in the popular imagination is trivial, pointless, and has no chance to ever equal The Joker. This betrays the popular imagination's unfamiliarity with the comic books. Naturally, this has been an asymmetrical blog, focusing more on Bane than Catwoman; but don't let that mean I'm any less allured by her. That will have to be another blog.
It was rumored that The Dark Knight Rises would adapt the story arc of the Graphic Novel Prey, but in it I found no mention of Bane, though Catwoman isn't omitted. We'll see. Without a doubt, this Batman trilogy will be groundbreaking, and Nolan's film-making panache won't let this last installment in the trilogy culminate without a kaboom. I'm more feverish than ever and its release is over a year away; add onto that the fact that it might be the end of the world, and my life is nearly in shambles!
Tom Hardy will play Bane; and Anne Hathaway will play Catwoman. Everyone else will reprise their roles. Reading about this made my skittish hairs stand on end. Bane? Really Nolan? Isn't that the hefty and hushed WWF wrestler that snarled every once in a while, vacant of persona, a shallow and insubstantial squandering unsuited for Nolan's signature flair? I know everyone has seen the deplorable Batman and Robin (1997). From seeing this, I would have thought Bane would be the last character Nolan would choose for Batman's last adversary. But a little research can be a dangerous thing. It turns how that Bane is an extremely riveting character.
His father being a political extremist and revolutionary, Bane was born into a world of adversity. Having shrewdly alluded the court systems of Santa Prisca, Bane's father would leave the judicial body no choice but to afflict Bane with the punishment deserved by the father's crimes. It is in the walls of this prison that Bane begins his overhaul. He has a ravenous appetite for books, and his discernment and IQ are off the charts. He spends untold hours in the gym, amassing strength and burliness. In this odious region of savagery, Bane manages to locate a Jesuit priest from whom he receives a classical education. He soars to the summit of the prison wickedness and is reckoned as KING of Peña Dura prison.
Of course, the prison's powers and authorities take notice. They deem him a worthy guinea pig for a mystifying drug called Venom, which had finished off the previous recipients. But it didn't kill Bane. It made him even more violent and strong. The only side effect was that if he didn't take Venom every 12 hours, he could nearly die. So, a series of tubes are assembled which cascade the drug directly into his brain. This is his back-story. Whether or not Nolan will use this I don't know. But judging from his prior homage to the spirit of the comic book, it's a worthy guess. After reading over the stories of Bane in the comic books, the most probable one I think Nolan will run with is this one.
While in prison, rumors of Batman thronged the slammer. Bane became transfixed by the whole idea of what the Bat-man did. Struck by how alike Gotham and the prison were, he craved to pay a visit, for like his prison, Gotham was a placed ruled by fear: in Gotham's case, fear of the Bat-man. As it turned out, it just so happened that Bane had been tormented since childhood by the night terror of a bat, a bat that Bane clumsily - maybe portentously? - linked with Batman himself. Living up to his name as the most intelligent of Batman's opposition, he figures that to besiege directly would be reckless. Bane sets his cross-hairs on Arkham Asylum, letting loose an avalanche of convicts, hoodlums, scoundrels, psychopaths, and loonies onto the streets of Gotham. It takes 3 months for Batman to disinfect the streets and by this time he is jaded and drained. But unknown to Batman, Bane had been doing his homework. He deduced his identity as Bruce Wayne, the only villain to do so! As Batman returned to Wayne Manor, he had no idea that Bane had during the day been waiting patiently there to pounce on him. After a fierce struggle, Bane gains the upper hand and breaks Batman's back! Batman is trounced! Bane is the only villain to have beaten him.
Nolan's style conjoined with this story could cause a cinematic surge of staggering proportions. This is what I love about Nolan. Everyone had figured that the next Batman would be the advent of The Riddler. Out of nowhere, Nolan picks an enemy that in the popular imagination is trivial, pointless, and has no chance to ever equal The Joker. This betrays the popular imagination's unfamiliarity with the comic books. Naturally, this has been an asymmetrical blog, focusing more on Bane than Catwoman; but don't let that mean I'm any less allured by her. That will have to be another blog.
It was rumored that The Dark Knight Rises would adapt the story arc of the Graphic Novel Prey, but in it I found no mention of Bane, though Catwoman isn't omitted. We'll see. Without a doubt, this Batman trilogy will be groundbreaking, and Nolan's film-making panache won't let this last installment in the trilogy culminate without a kaboom. I'm more feverish than ever and its release is over a year away; add onto that the fact that it might be the end of the world, and my life is nearly in shambles!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Seriously, am I the only one?
I don't know what everyone else does with their time, but I have been steady reading and following plenty of news sites, blogs, twitter, and the occasional smoke signal and I am coming to one, unabashed conclusion:
The world is dying.
Not a slow death that all of our 4th grade social studies teachers told us about, but a surprising, quick, drunk driver kind of death. (I noticed this a few weeks ago and wrote a personal reflection.) You don't believe me? Let me provide you with a little web based list:
Hey Girl, what's your sign?
Seriously, something is wrong.
I'll be the first one to admit that conspiracy theories are crazy. No, the Bible didn't predict Kennedy's Assassination and the government probably did not plan 9/11. (However, I'm not convinced that there is not a vast right wing conspiracy)
Anyway, call me Mattstrodamus (I do have a gypsy heritage), but maybe there is some validity to all this mayan calendar stuff. Here is my prediction; something, somewhere is going to happen in the near or distant future that will be a big deal from that point forth.
You heard it hear first ladies and gentlemen, The Heretical Review called it.
Am I the only one? This is weird right?
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Tree of Life
I totally bumped into this movie trailer by accident. This movie looks absolutely spellbinding. Some of the scenes in the trailer completely embodied my own imaginative experiences when I think about the significance of every single life and its relationship to spiritual realities on a cosmic scale. Our lives are huge bean stalks and the slightest reverberation on the bottom shivers the trunk at the top, out of sight. One day everything will make sense. All the confusions and anxieties of life will be made clear. The existential struggle we’ve fought against will have closure, meaning.
From what I can gather, the movie is called The Tree of Life, and the poster advertising the movie shows the curious photo of an adult hand cradling the foot of an infant. Now when we’re not being scientists chronicling the rise and fall of every human with biological odes to our mortality, our imaginations are bewitched by the mystique attached to all of this. That is, here I am. A life. I am now alive, blessed with consciousness. I can foresee my own extinction which sometimes produces a present dread. As I make my way through the only life I have intimate, detailed contact with, puzzles arise. A relationship will suffer in some certain way. I’ll discover a peculiarity in my temperament which might alienate me from the balm and pleasure of social interaction.
All of these details can’t be underestimated and they’re one of the major components of our existential situation. To solve these incubi: that is the aim of life. No matter how labyrinthine events in our lives become, no matter how life’s complications fall on you like waves beating against the rock, this movie’s message seems to be something like this: that it will all make sense one day, that your life isn’t ordinary, that every event in your life means something cosmic, that one day we will understand. The verse that again and again popped into my head was the one that says every tear will be wiped away. Someone who just lost a loved one will read those words with impatience. But this movie looks like it could breath life into what this verse perhaps has always meant.
Set in the 50’s, it tells the tale of a man’s journey from childhood to adulthood, his beginning innocence and wonder, how the world disillusions and contaminates that, and the subsequent attempt of the adult to find meaning. It is a microcosm of every life’s journey, to find again the meaning we lost in our days of youth, to find lost in the tract-less forest of this life the Tree of Life that might once again be our salvation.
The feel of the film is almost reminiscent of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, because it basically is a voyage through the oceans of an individual’s consciousness. We begin seeing the world through the eyes of an eleven year old boy. The world begins simple, huge with wonder, with each parent presenting to the boy different ways of approaching life. The mother teaches the boy grace; the father, nature. By nature we compete, so put yourself first, claw to the top and make something of yourself. But grace is antithetical to this. Echoing the Buddha, the boy’s simple consciousness is wantonly provoked out of innocence by life’s suffering and death. The child is maturing and tasting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The world loses the simple nature the child once saw in it and the black and white world he grew accustomed to branched out into a House of Leaves.
Heraclitus said:
This is basically the mindset foisted upon the protagonist to confuse his efforts at finding the eternal scheme of things amidst the ever sifting and restless ocean of time. He not just yearns to find an eternal scheme, but upon finding it he - at the same time - notices it is a scheme in which we are all an indispensable part. He begins to regress back to reclaim wonder, where nothing is ordinary and everything is a miracle, a spiritual odyssey that gives him the power to forgive the harshness of his father, a symbol for the kind of cathartic experience we all long for in the travails of our lives. And in an operatic way, the main message of the movie is that love is the greatest thing there is.
When it comes out, be sure not to miss it!!!!!!
From what I can gather, the movie is called The Tree of Life, and the poster advertising the movie shows the curious photo of an adult hand cradling the foot of an infant. Now when we’re not being scientists chronicling the rise and fall of every human with biological odes to our mortality, our imaginations are bewitched by the mystique attached to all of this. That is, here I am. A life. I am now alive, blessed with consciousness. I can foresee my own extinction which sometimes produces a present dread. As I make my way through the only life I have intimate, detailed contact with, puzzles arise. A relationship will suffer in some certain way. I’ll discover a peculiarity in my temperament which might alienate me from the balm and pleasure of social interaction.
All of these details can’t be underestimated and they’re one of the major components of our existential situation. To solve these incubi: that is the aim of life. No matter how labyrinthine events in our lives become, no matter how life’s complications fall on you like waves beating against the rock, this movie’s message seems to be something like this: that it will all make sense one day, that your life isn’t ordinary, that every event in your life means something cosmic, that one day we will understand. The verse that again and again popped into my head was the one that says every tear will be wiped away. Someone who just lost a loved one will read those words with impatience. But this movie looks like it could breath life into what this verse perhaps has always meant.
Set in the 50’s, it tells the tale of a man’s journey from childhood to adulthood, his beginning innocence and wonder, how the world disillusions and contaminates that, and the subsequent attempt of the adult to find meaning. It is a microcosm of every life’s journey, to find again the meaning we lost in our days of youth, to find lost in the tract-less forest of this life the Tree of Life that might once again be our salvation.
The feel of the film is almost reminiscent of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, because it basically is a voyage through the oceans of an individual’s consciousness. We begin seeing the world through the eyes of an eleven year old boy. The world begins simple, huge with wonder, with each parent presenting to the boy different ways of approaching life. The mother teaches the boy grace; the father, nature. By nature we compete, so put yourself first, claw to the top and make something of yourself. But grace is antithetical to this. Echoing the Buddha, the boy’s simple consciousness is wantonly provoked out of innocence by life’s suffering and death. The child is maturing and tasting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The world loses the simple nature the child once saw in it and the black and white world he grew accustomed to branched out into a House of Leaves.
Heraclitus said:
"Everything changes and nothing remains still .... and ... you cannot step twice into the same stream."
This is basically the mindset foisted upon the protagonist to confuse his efforts at finding the eternal scheme of things amidst the ever sifting and restless ocean of time. He not just yearns to find an eternal scheme, but upon finding it he - at the same time - notices it is a scheme in which we are all an indispensable part. He begins to regress back to reclaim wonder, where nothing is ordinary and everything is a miracle, a spiritual odyssey that gives him the power to forgive the harshness of his father, a symbol for the kind of cathartic experience we all long for in the travails of our lives. And in an operatic way, the main message of the movie is that love is the greatest thing there is.
When it comes out, be sure not to miss it!!!!!!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
An American Idol goes to 'American Idol': the strange case of Steven Tyler
One of the big stories in the news right now is how Steve Tyler has supposedly 'sold out' and joined the panel of judges on the hit TV show American Idol. Kid Rock has said that it's a shame that an institution of Rock n' Roll has signed on to do something that is completely contrary to the spirit of what real Rock n' Roll is meant to be. And what is the spirit of Rock n' Roll supposed to be? First and foremost, for goodness sake, don't write songs purely for the sake of getting a record contract. It's got to be about the music first. You jam and the perks just come along. Have you ever wondered why many bands that put out sophomore albums sound uninspired, manufactured, tailored to suit a demographic, insincere, overly conscious, as if the blessed muse bade farewell? Well, that reality presupposes my point about this spirit of Rock n' Roll. The freshman album is a boiling, simmering cauldron of passions and emotions, surging out as relentless as Niagara. Song after song bursts out until they can say with Nietzsche: I am not a man; I am dynamite.
They don't care two twits about any record label or contract; all they want to do is rock! And it goes without saying that when this happens, the music touches something real and meaningful. Remember when you first heard 'Dream On'? It sounds like it came from the cauldron, right? Rumor has it the lyrics and notes were written in a matter of minutes. It's the same with Sweet Child O' Mine. Every once in a while the muse will return, but chances are it won't predominate over the whole album. When it does you know your ears have been graced by a great band.
But back to Tyler. Does he have the right to be a judge on American Idol and still get a free pass for retaining all his rock authenticity? The band doesn't think so. The history of Aerosmith has all the trappings of a rocky marriage. They've cheated on each other, forgiven one another, gotten remarried, separated, taken breaks, and tussled countless times. But for 40 years they've gone on strong. This time, though, the band is drawing a pretty clear line: doing this means shedding away the 40 year old monument that's been erected in the name of that spirit of Rock n' Roll. Take a look at what American Idol promotes. Millions of musically illiterate voters choose their favorite singer, not because of any inherent musical capability, but how well their image performs as a glorified karaoke king or queen. The only accidental plus is a gifted voice that can stay on a note because of their ear for a tune. But give me the most spectacular voice you can imagine singing a song that isn't there's, and I take Mick Jagger's voice in Beast of Burden any day of the week. What is promoted isn't craftsmanship; it specializes in appealing to formula. Brainstorming, the establishment reasons: if we take this image, write these kinds of songs, and mix it in with this voice, we can appeal to this fan base. It's like they construct some sort of parabola that is an equation for maximizing industry profits.
What was going through Robert Plant's head when he first pranced himself on stage and belted out those thunderous tunes? Was it the bottom line? Or was it because of his unflinching love for the blues? It seems to me that Tyler is joining an organization that cheapens the very spirit he had a hand in coaxing. It would be like Hitler holding a beauty pageant for Jewish bombshells and all proceeds go toward the gradual dismantling of a regime of which he was the brainchild. A part of me wants to come to his defense by saying he has a right to do what he wants. He brings to the table a wealth of wisdom to help kick start the careers of aspiring artists. But that's just it. American Idol doesn't promote the creation of artists; it promotes the creation of good singers who sing songs they never wrote for sponsors who care about little else than the dollar, and for audiences who are obliviously being manipulated to buy a CD that is sounding the death knell for the spirit of good music.
Maybe I'm making too big of a deal about this. Maybe it's supposed to be just a show we're supposed to just sit down and be entertained by the first half of psycho singers, and the last half of people who have good voices who sing songs that aren't there's. But the annoying thing about all of this is that the winner, and even the runner-ups, make a record that soars to the tops of the charts. It goes multiplatinum. Bad music gets a pedestal like some odd episode of the Twilight Zone that everyone thinks is normal. And yet: Steven Tyler chose to be a judge on the show. Why, one wonders?
They don't care two twits about any record label or contract; all they want to do is rock! And it goes without saying that when this happens, the music touches something real and meaningful. Remember when you first heard 'Dream On'? It sounds like it came from the cauldron, right? Rumor has it the lyrics and notes were written in a matter of minutes. It's the same with Sweet Child O' Mine. Every once in a while the muse will return, but chances are it won't predominate over the whole album. When it does you know your ears have been graced by a great band.
But back to Tyler. Does he have the right to be a judge on American Idol and still get a free pass for retaining all his rock authenticity? The band doesn't think so. The history of Aerosmith has all the trappings of a rocky marriage. They've cheated on each other, forgiven one another, gotten remarried, separated, taken breaks, and tussled countless times. But for 40 years they've gone on strong. This time, though, the band is drawing a pretty clear line: doing this means shedding away the 40 year old monument that's been erected in the name of that spirit of Rock n' Roll. Take a look at what American Idol promotes. Millions of musically illiterate voters choose their favorite singer, not because of any inherent musical capability, but how well their image performs as a glorified karaoke king or queen. The only accidental plus is a gifted voice that can stay on a note because of their ear for a tune. But give me the most spectacular voice you can imagine singing a song that isn't there's, and I take Mick Jagger's voice in Beast of Burden any day of the week. What is promoted isn't craftsmanship; it specializes in appealing to formula. Brainstorming, the establishment reasons: if we take this image, write these kinds of songs, and mix it in with this voice, we can appeal to this fan base. It's like they construct some sort of parabola that is an equation for maximizing industry profits.
What was going through Robert Plant's head when he first pranced himself on stage and belted out those thunderous tunes? Was it the bottom line? Or was it because of his unflinching love for the blues? It seems to me that Tyler is joining an organization that cheapens the very spirit he had a hand in coaxing. It would be like Hitler holding a beauty pageant for Jewish bombshells and all proceeds go toward the gradual dismantling of a regime of which he was the brainchild. A part of me wants to come to his defense by saying he has a right to do what he wants. He brings to the table a wealth of wisdom to help kick start the careers of aspiring artists. But that's just it. American Idol doesn't promote the creation of artists; it promotes the creation of good singers who sing songs they never wrote for sponsors who care about little else than the dollar, and for audiences who are obliviously being manipulated to buy a CD that is sounding the death knell for the spirit of good music.
Maybe I'm making too big of a deal about this. Maybe it's supposed to be just a show we're supposed to just sit down and be entertained by the first half of psycho singers, and the last half of people who have good voices who sing songs that aren't there's. But the annoying thing about all of this is that the winner, and even the runner-ups, make a record that soars to the tops of the charts. It goes multiplatinum. Bad music gets a pedestal like some odd episode of the Twilight Zone that everyone thinks is normal. And yet: Steven Tyler chose to be a judge on the show. Why, one wonders?
John Wyane would be proud: True Grit - some thoughts
If you’ve seen the new movie True Grit by the Cohen Brothers, you have to start wondering whether they have any flaws. Maybe it’s the philosophy degree. What seems like a lifetime ago, John Wayne played the part of Rooster, winning himself the academy award. Now, Jeff Bridges takes the reigns with a charismatic youngster and one Matt Damon hitching along. What distinguishes this movie from its grandfather is its loyalty to the book. The events unfurl about as naturally as The Watchmen did with its graphic novel. Where the first movie was a vehicle for a living legend to spew his brilliance, the second is a vehicle for a story to spew the brilliance of the characters. You can’t fault the movie for being anti-climactic, or for the characters not doing what you’d expect them to do. You can’t fault someone for something they did on purpose. And what was that purpose? Realism? Loyalty to the book?
An unmistakable signature for any Cohen Brothers movie is the dialogue which is as crisp and witty as any they’ve churned out over the years. I found myself enjoying the half-gibberish of Rooster and laughing out loud at the parts I caught. The little girl is a feisty sensation. She haggles with a professional horse salesman with scalding rhetoric and handles herself around adults with a flare and confidence the belies her hard life. Damon’s character is a little more complex. I feel he is on the verge of an identity crisis. He is duty-bound to catch the murderer of the little girl’s father, but not because he murdered her father; he also murdered someone in the government whence Damon came. He can’t get it into his head that this little girl could actually be swaying the turn of events in any way. Torn between an adult tongue and her status as a child, he doesn’t know whether to argue with her as an equal or spank her as a brat. Bridges is terrific as Rooster, an endless of well of liquor, tobacco, and a wisdom disguised as the banter of a pitiful vagabond/hit-man.
To watch the relationship between the girl, Damon, and Bridges mature is a delight and an education. It makes you wonder about how tough it was for orphaned kids at the time, or how children on the cusp of adolescence are called upon, because of the unpredictable wiles of fortune, to step up and do what it takes to fend for family and self. True to the title, True Grit is a gritty film set in a barren land, dotted here and there with that rest stop for traveling cowboys, or that sudden and rude greeting by a crag after miles of pasture. Oddly shaped landscapes are the background for this western odyssey.
It’s a sign of virtue for a movie if we can, without even thinking about it, sign off on the dialogue for a second and gaze into the background at some majestic mountain or the expanse of a grassland. I love how the Cohens let the scene do the talking for us. When the little girl and Rooster come up on the site of a hanging, there is a long shot of them looking up at the corpse swinging from on high atop the branch of a beautiful tree. No music enhances the scene. All you hear is the creaking of the rope around the branch and breeze sifting through the leaves. Realism. I appreciated that.
I can’t remember a time when a character was so enjoyable to me. Rooster is so self-deprecating in his appearance, but he comes to his own defense by justifying his way of life as noble or his aim with a pistol as admirable. He is a paradox.
An unmistakable signature for any Cohen Brothers movie is the dialogue which is as crisp and witty as any they’ve churned out over the years. I found myself enjoying the half-gibberish of Rooster and laughing out loud at the parts I caught. The little girl is a feisty sensation. She haggles with a professional horse salesman with scalding rhetoric and handles herself around adults with a flare and confidence the belies her hard life. Damon’s character is a little more complex. I feel he is on the verge of an identity crisis. He is duty-bound to catch the murderer of the little girl’s father, but not because he murdered her father; he also murdered someone in the government whence Damon came. He can’t get it into his head that this little girl could actually be swaying the turn of events in any way. Torn between an adult tongue and her status as a child, he doesn’t know whether to argue with her as an equal or spank her as a brat. Bridges is terrific as Rooster, an endless of well of liquor, tobacco, and a wisdom disguised as the banter of a pitiful vagabond/hit-man.
To watch the relationship between the girl, Damon, and Bridges mature is a delight and an education. It makes you wonder about how tough it was for orphaned kids at the time, or how children on the cusp of adolescence are called upon, because of the unpredictable wiles of fortune, to step up and do what it takes to fend for family and self. True to the title, True Grit is a gritty film set in a barren land, dotted here and there with that rest stop for traveling cowboys, or that sudden and rude greeting by a crag after miles of pasture. Oddly shaped landscapes are the background for this western odyssey.
It’s a sign of virtue for a movie if we can, without even thinking about it, sign off on the dialogue for a second and gaze into the background at some majestic mountain or the expanse of a grassland. I love how the Cohens let the scene do the talking for us. When the little girl and Rooster come up on the site of a hanging, there is a long shot of them looking up at the corpse swinging from on high atop the branch of a beautiful tree. No music enhances the scene. All you hear is the creaking of the rope around the branch and breeze sifting through the leaves. Realism. I appreciated that.
I can’t remember a time when a character was so enjoyable to me. Rooster is so self-deprecating in his appearance, but he comes to his own defense by justifying his way of life as noble or his aim with a pistol as admirable. He is a paradox.
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