Critics Schmitics, what Matters in a movie?

Okay so here is one of two posts today, something I haven't done on here before but have thought about numerous times: a movie review.

I find it funny how fickle critics can be as both movie goers and critics. The line between just sitting with a bag of pop corn and enjoying a film is very fine for them. Because of expertise and for some like myself, partial degrees in cinema study, we are taught to pay attention to how a film is made more than just what it is. While the plot and story are essentials, lighting, cinematography, sound, and overall presentation matter as much. That's why I haven't been surprised at the amount of flack being delivered to the new Transformers film, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. To many critics, Michael Bay is cinematic poison, an incubus of God like proportions sent to screw the art of film making by cramming 360 camera shots, slow motion, and explosions out the ass into 2 hour action fests. Bay is the reason the term summer blockbuster was coined, having pumped out at least one film a summer or so for the past fifteen years. Critics alike hate him for his predictable directing jobs and continuity lacking storylines. But as Michael's bank account has shown, his simple minded film making pays off for the audience who just enjoy watching things go boom which is not a bad thing at all. Coupled with his long standing partnership with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and they rarely go wrong, except for maybe the Island. So with all the flack being put on this sequel what is the final verdict for someone who doesn't always need to stick his nose up at loud bangs and jiggling female body parts?

Despite my worries of the film being something I was going to hate based on feedback from friends who weren't too thrilled, I would be a fool to say I didn't enjoy the movie regardless of it being about an hour too long. Bay and Bruckheimer once again bring to the table what they do best, making the audience glare at the screen with "OOO" and "AHH" reactions and leaving them breathless at what today's technology can do. If these two were screenwriters, they would be great with beats in a script, not the plot.

The plot is relatively simple to figure out. Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBouf) is rushed back into the world of the war between the autobots and decepticons after a chunk of the Allspark cube that he destroyed in the first one summons to life the Fallen, an ancient decepticon who was banished from his race and has been in hiding waiting to bring about the power of ancient weapon buried on Earth. As expected alot of the old baddies are back: Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave and even the absent minded (fictional) United States government, this time the bully being a very unthreatening national security advisor named Galloway, very scary. The plot has alot of the point A to point B structures and the good versus evil arch that the first one had. The storyline has a bit of a better set up with the concepts of Earth's past and its relation with the decepticons being a unique plot point but nothing real spectacular.

Character wise, development is never in favor in the Bay world. Shia LeBouf and Megan Fox, returning to her role of Mikaela, really have no character development. The most progress that Sam gets through while trying to avoid being blown to bits by robots is his struggle to tell Mikaela he loves her. I will give a brief moment to conduct a universal aw and then get back to the heart of the matter.

In a way character development is left suspended in a film like this to focus on the action and visual aids that come with a Transformers movie. Monuments being blown to bits, robot on robot carnage and slow motion captions lifted directly from Bay's previous work. There is even a reference to Bad Boys II if Bay's ego wasn't big enough.

The most noticable flaw and it's an offensive one at best is the racial stereotypes that are expressed in the film. To point to an obvious reference, look no further than the Amos and Andy like autobot team of Skid and Mudflap, ghetto talking bots with gasket gold teeth and the inability to read symbols from their own language. Have both these guys run through a drive through at KFC and I'm pretty sure we would have the first blackface team of robots. The dialogue is also a sticking point with alot of uneccesary cursing that was absent from the first film. Sight gags like Sam's mother accidentally buying a bag of pot brownies on the Princeton University campus. Finally the big offender as if black like robots weren't enough is the wise cracking robot factor. Compared to the first one, there is alot more dialogue between the autbots and decepticons with alot of the main bots getting a personality thrown into them. Starscream is now an Egor like persona, while we are introduced to Wheelie, a autobot who transforms into a tiny toy truck and mimics the likeness of someone like actor Joe Pesci. We also have Jetfire, an elder decepticon who carries around a mechanical cane and weezes and spits and is likely in need of a care center.

In many ways what we have been delivered is the pop corn action fest that we as movie goers look forward to each summer. Summers are lined up for big budget films, not the academy award winners that get nominated at the Oscars, although the Dark Knight proved otherwise. Final verdict:

4 out of 5 stars

Disecting the Importance of Sweetheart of the Rodeo

I wonder greatly if people ever step back to wonder why albums long since past their charting prime suddenly have a hush hush dialogue amongst the music community as being real gems and masterpieces long overlooked. Albums that Rolling Stone magazine shunned so quickly upon release are now brown nosed back into music greatness because they always knew all along that these things were right. The late sixties no doubt coined a lot of albums like this and it’s amazing to see how the landscape was then and why these albums fell so heavily under the radar by their peers but now have become adored by music lovers who are now grandfathers or fathers themselves. Dylan’s late sixties work was met with many questions and outrages from people who looked to him so heavily to be the spokesman against everything that was wrong in the country at the time. Many blamed the motorcycle accident in 66’ for these resulting albums but how can you explain that to acts like the Byrds who released an album like Sweetheart of the Rodeo with some breeze that it went unnoticed and uncared for upon its release in July of 1968, what of them? I don’t believe the band had suffered simultaneous motor cycle accidents but many would be quick to point the finger to the firing of David Crosby from the band as a source. Regardless this doesn’t answer why suddenly these albums are now looked at as classics.

In many ways both Sweetheart of the Rodeo and Dylan's Nashville Skyline signaled a transgression back to simpler messages in music. For the Byrds, the spread-the-message mentality of their hero Robert Zimmerman was now a pasties of it’s former self as Dylan post motorcycle accident even tried to find his footing back into the society of great folk singers that he had unabashedly alienated a few years before and the Byrds were doing exactly the same. The folk rock explosion the Byrds had ushered in some three years earlier with the electrified Mr. Tambourine Man had lost insurmountable steam after the jettison and firings of three original members and a lack of stellar material spanning over three classic albums. So why is it now that an album like Sweetheart of the Rodeo is viewed as a monumental classic after being revered and bashed by critics and fans alike back in the late sixties?

In retrospect it’s a thing of time for the Byrds. Just as people had wondered why Dylan chose to strip back on albums like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, McGuinn and company were looking to find their footing again. Original members Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, and session drummer Kevin Kelley were looking for the right outfit that didn’t necessarily place them amongst the ranks of the David Crosby’s and Neil Young’s of the world. Enter Gram Parsons and his soulful and painful voice of the country world that ushered in tales of heartache and lost love to the unaware commercial world thanks to the contribution of a 12 string richenbacher from McGuinn when Parsons was brought into the Byrds in the spring of 1968. Strange changes were a foot on both sides of the line for both the direction of the Byrds and the ideals of mixing genres of music so closely mirrored that their followings seemed poised to meet at the battle lines. The first engagement of this union would occur when the Byrds traveled to Nashville to record what would become “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and to become the first “long haired” act to perform at the world renowned Grand Ole Opry.

The band may have been welcomed with a chorus of boos and charlatan chants but it was the country not the people that would fuel the material on the album. To show an obvious reference to their desire to be like Bob and go back a few twenty years they opened the album with a cover of one of his Basement Tape Demos, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” which symbolically was the band putting their foot down on the beliefs that they were done and through with the exit of David Crosby during the sessions for the Notorious Byrd Brothers album. Other tracks played as homage’s to their ancestors that they so trustfully rooted their material when they crossed folk with rock music as seen on tracks like “I Am A Pilgrim” and the Guthrie track “Pretty Boy Floyd.” But what this album was really about was not it being a Byrds album but a showcase to the at this time hidden talent of Parsons who had in his arsenal some of real true grit songs of the prairie fastened to mask as music of the California folk rock scene. As pretentious as it sounds it would be hard fast to argue that Parson’s two penned tracks on the album “Hickory Wind” and “One Hundred Years From Now” ushered in the first wave of country rock that would engulf Southern California in the early seventies thanks to acts like The Eagles, Poco, and the later Parsons-Hillman outfit The Flying Burrito Brothers. Even so minus writing contributions the master recordings of Parson’s vocals on “The Christian Life” were an early showing of the talent Parsons had to offer to a new line of singer songwriters waiting in the wings.

The album was garnered with a universal cry of outrage from Rolling Stones editors and the hippie generation who tugged so hard on the coattails the band had dragged with them when they recorded “Eight Miles High” and who had watched them act as a page to the story book of the Monterey Pop Festival one year earlier. The album was a commercial flop and would only be shadowed by the acts last two studio releases as being their worst selling albums. However that was forty years ago, the album is now a beacon of back to basics songwriting long missed after Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley put their stamp on what would be dubbed rock n’ roll in the fifties. The album may not be the best vehicle to showcase what the late sixties were all about but it undoubtedly was a showcase for artists trying something different from the overexposed norms of the psychedelic music movement that had been wrestling the countryside between 1967 and the end of the decade.

Regardless I still cry false pretenses by the nay sayers over at Rolling Stone who met this album with confusion and disgust when it was released and now retreat back on their words greatly. Just another example of the old codgers making up for lost time while they still can. Times like this I miss Ben Fong Torres' contributions to that fabled magazine, anyone willing to answer my confusion?

Just A Little Lovin' in the Morning

A friend of mine once wrote in her journal that she would love to be awoken by a kiss at 6 AM then an alarm at 7, boy how I feel that belief. Regardless I have been on this rotating spindle of happy feel good music that has really made me want to say fuck it and be spontaneous on trips, decisions, and things like that but I also feel that is completely impossible without screwing something up. Anywho, I do love the idea of just exploring the parts of this country and world that have always fascinated me, anything but New Jersey which I feel like you have seen if you've been to at least one town in north jersey and one in south jersey. I have been thinking alot about southern California and yes the whole fucking state is bankrupt and i have been told it's not as glamorous as it is cracked up to be but whatever I really want see it for myself.

Just a thought there I don't know I'm getting cabin fever being couped up in my apartment studying for exams. I go home Friday so I can't wait for that. Also I started a Twitter account this week. I know I know I hate them and I mock people who start them but there is something enjoyable about watching random people finding interest in random shit that you post in small blurbs. Also its good self promotion if you have shit to share, I'm hypnotizing the masses in a way and all I ask is for just a little lovin' in the morning. EH EH EH HE SAID IT CAUSE THATS THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG EH EH! Off again to the races folks!

Closure

I never thought a television show would actually make me a bit teary eyed but House seemed finally do just that in the weirdest ways. It's weird how without even trying you end up caring for a characters on a television show but somehow this did without me even thinking about it. So as many people know actor Kal Penn announced that he has been offered the position of associate director of the White House public liason. Now whether that will make much of a difference down the road I highly doubt but the position meant that Penn had to give up acting for a bit so they killed off his character of Lawrence Kutner on "House." I must say it shocked the hell out of me because I really liked his character but outside of it being a television show it was an interesting story about dealing with grief when a tragedy happens, something I have had to deal with for the past month and a half. 

I think it's time for me to come clear about how I am in the aftermath of losing my father. Well for one thing I will never be the same, for good or for worse but I have learned to trudge on in life but I have now noticed the discrepancies that have come without his presence. I am very confused in life all options I look forward to but loath because I'm worried about screwing up and the future. This was normally where my dad was good at helping me out but now it just feels all weird. On top of that not being able to do things the same anymore sucks. I have no one to talk to about music and movies with them being able to convey back similar ideas and interest and well it looks like I won't be going to many concerts anymore. Probably a financial miracle in a way, so thanks. 

I had a vision about him today while just sitting in class. It was pretty positive thought about years down the line when we might meet again. I walk into this crowded hallway that leads into a pond like area with a fountain, all stone walls, marble, like walking into the swan and dolphin at disney world. I see all my friends and family members, then my grandparents together again after years, my mom and carmen just smiling and then at the end of the hall way I see my dad and I just run up to him and hug him just hug him for minutes all end with both of us sobbing with happiness. He looks a little older and greyer but its still as I saw him last. I thought I was gonna lose it in class thinking about but it was very theraputic response. I actually for the first time since the service listened to the mix I had made for that day and I was just happy again. I'm still very stressed out with worrying about the rest of the semester and what will come next year but I'm okay for once. 

Everything Has A Time

When we last left our fearless leader he was in the grasp of coping with being an adult. You've seen his adventures before, they are neither new or old but a repeat of past endeavors that were never fully solved because of his incapabilities to mature, grow, or even understand why things happen for a reason. This week our hero finally breaks his silence and the typical mold after cataclismic events in his young and endearing life.

They life is all a stage, or something like that. Well I sometimes wonder act my life is in as far as the clear sequence of events that unfold and this past month has never been a more prominent example of that. I won't go into details or the full blown experience but suffice to say the phrase "losing a best friend," is an understatement. When life couldn't get more confusing I lose my source of sanity to an extent. It's been very hard to process everything I have been feeling but needless to say I have an empty void that is never going to be filled and I have basically stayed quiet about what I normally talk about because well I don't have my listener in the room anymore. I'm not a different person in that I'm still happy go lucky me but I am missing the outer shell I had for the first 21 years of my life and it's hard to glue everything back together.

Right now I'm just trying to get back on track, finishing this semester up right and doing well in my classes and then moving onto my senior year. When I have the time I will update on other things but for now I wanted to let everyone know that it's okay not to be fine but I'm fine for the most part.

Carolina Hardcore Ecstacy in Jersey

Wow! six! six blog entries! I don't think I have ever achieved doing that many without getting completely bored with writing in one of these. However it's also been about five weeks since the last entry so I will give an update on things.

School has been ridiculous to say the least. Classes have been good, had a housing situation that just was too confusing to say the least, and well life is just normal and dull as it tends to be. Friends have become open and shut cases because they have been stressed by school work but for some reason I'm perfectly fine right now. Eventhough it doesn't greatly effect, the economic crunch is finally getting the best of me. I need to think ahead and save up for things in the coming months namely books for my potential summer classes as well as numerous other expenses. I'm looking at getting a second job on campus if I can and pick up some hours during the week and weekends. That would give me a good reason to not go home weeks since I am always striving to do so this semester.

My 21st is next week and it already feels awkward. I don't know why but eventhough I am looking forward to my birthday weekend, I know that 21 isn't as exciting as the prospects seem and since I am starting to feel old it doesn't help either but I will make the best of it when it arrives.

Well I will report back soon with a good entry on my comic con experience this past Saturday so stay tuned.

I don't want to go off on a rant here but...

Today was the first day of classes, so far so good, and tomorrow I don't have class till 250 so I am going to get some much needed work done on my articles. I already have three articles to do this week, one due on thursday so I gotta work on that. I know its only one day in but so far things are looking a bit brighter, I have been hanging out with Ruby alot at her apartment, or at least two days so far I have been hanging there but its alot of fun lol. I want that apartment so bad, its on easton ave. and its so damn awesome.

A follow up to my last posting, which some people said I probably should've taken down but I think I have let the feelings in that post go and probably for the best and I will leave it at that.

So today was Barack Obama's inauguration and I missed it. I know most people would be shocked that I didn't watch it but something inside me just didn't have my heart in it to watch the first black president get inaugurated. It wasn't like I didn't care because today was an incredibly important day in history but my world wasn't going to stop or change because Obama is our President. I think in that lies the downfall of our society, that these huge expectations are really what shape us as people. Only we really can shape ourselves. Look I'm not by any means conservative nor am I liberal, hence being independent, but Barack Obama is not going to shape the lives of the 300 million legal citizens in this country and the fact is people have to stop expecting others to do there work for them and help them continue on in life. I am not knocking our newest President, I hope he does a great job and proves everyone wrong on what might happen while he is in office but people gotta start taking control of their own destiny not leaving up to others and their government to dig them out of holes or wedge them out of tight spots. But what do I know, I'm still in college.

Off to bed, PS. a good mix of music for some odd reason- Girl Talks- Feed the Animals album and Black Sabbath- Supernaut, ballin!

Mistakes We Knew We Were Making

So I go back to school on Monday, I know I made that abundantly clear in my last entry but now its really setting in and it sucks. Maybe I'm over exaggerating a bit because I have alot to look forward to this semester and some new opportunities I hopefully will take. But some things seem to be left undone or maybe just left complicated.

I have stressed my desire to some people to just date again which I have in the most part been actively pursuing for like four years now lol. Needless to say it has not been successful, I think mostly on my own misguided thought processes and my emotions getting the better of me. But I am currently trying to pursue possibly dating a girl at school if things go according to plan and I just mmmm I don't know, ask the girl out. But something recently has cropped up that is really irking me and not in a dismal way but a confusing way.

I got to see one of my good friends over break, someone who I think the most of and probably would be lost if I didn't have her to listen to me from time to time. With us both being in college we only talk on occasion but when we do get to talk or meet up again everything just picks up like old times. After saying we would hang out over our winter break we finally got to do so at the tail end and it was great, we spent the whole day just hanging out talking our heads off and just enjoying eachothers company. The thing is it became clear to me that I started to muster up old feelings that I had for her dating back to freshman year of high school. Now I had gotten over those feelings and had just been best friends with her from sophomore year on but listening to both our problems, talking about our interests and just how much we both enjoy our company really got me thinking that I could possibly get myself together and maybe ask her out one day. I wouldn't be expecting results in all honesty, it would just be a test to see if something like this could work. If at the end of the day we did go out even if it was just once and it didn't work, I could easily move on in the comfort of knowing that she is still my best friend.

Even some of my friends who know my long standing history with this girl know that I never deep down let my feelings for her go away and they even welcomed the idea (or at least they said it, doesn't mean they meant it) that maybe we should date one day. It's kind of left me completely confused. I would rather not talk to her about this situation only because I wouldn't want to strain our already solid friendship as being just best mates (how English of me). I think realistically I need to just re-examine the situation. I plan to continue to try and meet girls at school and I can't let something like this necessarily get in the way. I am not going to let opportunities fly past me based on a what if scenario that could possibly not happen, even though I would welcome the opportunity with open arms. But, as I so frequently say anymore, I digress.

I've been writing more and more now and I think I got some good solid editorials waiting in the wings for the targum this semester. I'm gonna try and make this blog more frequent and maybe jazz it up a bit with some pictures and bumper stickers and shit. Anywho I close with giving a list of the top ten most played songs on my Ipod this week:

1) Mott the Hoople- Walking With A Mountain
2) Spoon- Don't Make Me A Target
3) MGMT- Time to Pretend
4) MIA- Bird Flu
5) The Zombies- This Will Be Our Year
6) Paul McCartney- All Things Must Pass (George Harrison cover)
7) ELO- Showdown
8) The Move- Fire Brigade
9) Rilo Kiley- Portions for Foxes
10) Oasis- Don't Look Back in Anger

A Bit of Narcassism

Okay so I am not finishing my top ten albums of 2008 because I have just run out of steam talking about the music i have been yapping about for the past year. Let's talk about me, about life, and basically do what the blog of 20 year old journalism major at Rutgers should be for.

Damn winter break was fast! Not to say it wasn't enjoyable but damn just like every new year that comes, time just speeds the hell and doesn't slow down. I go back to school next Monday and I am looking forward to it but at the same time dreading it just simply because it is school. I have also learned based on that notion that I am not the rah rah Rutgers student that everyone else at school is. I love my school and everything it offers me but to say that I eat sleep and breathe the school is far from the truth. I'm not gonna be one of those guys who twenty five years from now long after I have graduated that is going to donate a shitload of money each year to the school. We already have enough money and see where that has gotten us, a fucking' expansion on our football stadium for our mediocre team. Sure we made it to a bowl game this winter but so did every other NCAA football team for god sakes! But i digress, back to the basics of the day.

The weekend was pretty fast, spent watching allot of football and getting a bit woozy with my friends. Spent time with my mother who haven't really hung out with alot since we got back from our vacation which is sad since I saw her everyday on vacation and our relationship grew so much better then it had been. Never the less she still has a full week to see me before I head back and i will most likely be home on numerous weekends again.

I saw Frost/Nixon today, single handidly one of the best movies I have ever seen and I think I am going to write a full review about it this week as well as talk about some of my life realizations that I have discovered over this break about love, friendship, and advancing myself as a good human being. I am also writing some articles already for the first issue of the inside beat for the semester. They actually gave me a bi weekly review column in which I profile a classic album that I know probably a lot of people have not paid attention to minus die hard music lovers and critics. I'm also going to the New York city comic con in three weeks and I can't fucking wait! I'm hoping the beat will let me cover it as a front page story, that would be sweet! Off to bed, ciao.