It's finally time to get back in the swing of things. As anyone who follows the blog may have noticed, the past couple of months have been really...weird for me. I didn't have any new reviews or articles in June and my July piece was spawned out of the amalgam of my contempt for the current state of the country, my fear of flying, and further experimentation with philosophical nihilism. There were also several personal reasons that contributed to this, perhaps most glaring of which was my sister's wedding over a week ago. (On a side note, I had never been to a wedding before - are they really supposed to be that short?) There has also been some movement around at work that has affected me, providing me potential avenues of moving up in my current career field, despite my desire to try and move into writing or marketing. I will confess that this caused me to question the fruitfulness and status of the blog for a brief period in time, which, as one can imagine, also contributed to that weird lull over the past couple of months. However, after some reflection, I concluded that the blog is one of my most valuable things, and it allows me to continue to explore that largely uncharted world of Philosophy, despite distancing myself from San Diego State or any philosophical institution. And it is in this vein that I have slightly altered my approach to the blog; I had previously understood it as a tool with which I could publish philosophical essays online without having to go through some kind of academic institution or publisher, but now, I have realized that it is better understood as a kind of journal, I place where I can still pursue the fundamental aims of Philosophy without being confined by the rigors or politics of academic writing. It is both risky and liberating - by acknowledging my own informality in using a blog to pursue the aims of Philosophy, I subsequently concede that my articles here are not spun of the same thread as anything published by a journal or academic institution. At the same time, it's liberating in the sense that I am no longer involved in that parlor game of politics and "who knows who" that academia seems to have become, that "ivory tower" that seems to distance itself from anything of relevance in the lives of most individuals. I pursue Philosophy to genuinely arrive at truths about the world around me, and apply those truths to my day-to-day life, not simply treat it as some discipline that, at the end of the day, gets left in the confines of a classroom.
Now, moving forward, and despite everything that has happened to me over the summer, I have been actually keeping up with my movies. Since Civil War, I have more or less seen every notable movie that has come out, for better or for worse. The Conjuring 2, despite my cynicism of the modern horror movie, was actually quite good, delivering the same kind of dramatic creepiness of the first one with a significantly different plot and setting. WarCraft, on the other hand, wasn't as great, but, in it's defense, wasn't as bad as many critics made it out to be, and is still strides ahead of my current "Worst Movie of 2016" so far, The 5th Wave. However, Independence Day: Resurgence was absolutely horrible, and easily comes in a close 2nd for "Worst Movie of 2016", if not for the fact that Jeff Goldblum managed to salvage a small fragment of the otherwise awful acting. It's a pity because I am actually a fan of the original Independence Day, complete with all of it's 90s quirks and slightly dated cinematography. The over-hyped Ghostbusters reboot, as was somewhat expected, added to the quagmire of bad movies, parading around as a highly immature comedy movie that just happened to have ghosts in it, as opposed to the supernatural action movie that just happened to have Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in it that was the original Ghostbusters (and yes, those are two radically different things). If we are looking to place Ghostbusters on the scale of "Bad Movies of 2016" so far, it probably gets the bronze medal after The 5th Wave and Independence Day: Resurgence. Now, however, we get a nice reprieve from the train of bad movies and I am able to continue my film reviews with an entry on something that was actually good: Star Trek Beyond.
Star Trek Beyond is the third entry in the reboot series initiated by J.J. Abrams in 2009, following 2009's Star Trek and 2013's Star Trek: Into Darkness. The series is notable for cementing Abrams' name as a staple of mainstream science fiction cinema, after an already noteworthy career, having created the television series Lost and produced or directed several more clandestine feature-length entries, such as 2008's Cloverfield and 1998's Armageddon (I call Armageddon "clandestine" insofar as it's that movie that often gets confused with Deep Impact, a movie with virtually the same plot and the same production value from the exact same year, released roughly around the exact same time). The first installment in the series, Star Trek, is often referenced as a formula of how to do a reboot correctly, as well as a standard-bearer of modern sci-fi special effects.
I will admit that I was never very big into world of Star Trek as a child (I was always more of a Star Wars fan). Granted, I wasn't completely in the dark about the series either - I certainly knew who Captain James Kirk and Commander Spock were (i.e. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy), and I was perhaps even more familiar with Captain Jean Luc Picard and Data from The Next Generation. It may be somewhat of a pity because, as I would learn far later on in my college career, Star Trek had historically been motivated by many philosophical conundrums, and often used them as underlying themes in the plot points. My first 'real' immersion into Star Trek wouldn't come until the reboot in 2009. I will even confess that my big motivation for going to see the reboot wasn't so much that I thought it looked good so much as the fact that I had already been very familiar with J.J. Abrams' work, having enjoyed Cloverfield and Armageddon. As such, I was only partially surprised with how much I enjoyed 2009's Star Trek, expecting nothing less of Abrams, despite my unfamiliarity with the series. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Star Trek, in general, is the fact that it is wholly unafraid to explore some of the most bizarre, story-changing tropes of science fiction, such as, say, time travel, something that we don't get from Star Wars. That said, and despite my enjoyment of the 2009 reboot, I never actually saw Into Darkness, but, from what I understand, it was just as much a success as the reboot, and thrust Benedict Cumberbatch into the spotlight as the newest teenage girl heartthrob (much like Tom Hiddleston was after The Avengers). And now we have arrived at Star Trek Beyond, the third installment in the series, where we see Abrams shift to a producer position and Justin Lin take the reigns as director. Despite that directorial shift, I must say that Beyond still hits the mark as a good entry in the science fiction genre, contrary to what some critics have said, though perhaps not as much as its predecessor in 2009.
We open with Captain Kirk at the helm of the USS Enterprise, accompanied by his motley crew of Spock, Dr. Leonard McCoy, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, Pilot Hikaru Sulu, and Ensign Pavel Chekov. After making a name for themselves among Star Fleet after previous missions, the Enterprise now spends most of its time exploring the frontiers of space, often finding little more other than, well, space. Eventually, the ship and crew dock at the Federation colony of Yorktown for some much needed R&R. During their stay at Yorktown, the colony receives a distress signal from a nearby escape pod in space and they find a young alien woman name Kalara. Kalara explains to the higher-ups at Yorktown that her ship has crashed on the planet Altamid, an uncharted planet on the other side of a nearby nebula. Kirk and crew are then tasked with the mission of helping Kalara find her crashed ship and rescue her crew. Once they arrive on the other side of the nebula, however, they are attacked by a swarm of alien ships and their commander, Krall, who is in search of an artifact that happens to be aboard the Enterprise. During the ambush, the Enterprise is catastrophically damaged and crashes on Altamid, with most of the crew escaping, however ending up scattered and mostly captured by Krall and his crew. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, and Chekov all manage to evade capture, however, and assume the task of rescuing the rest of the crew and escaping the planet. Scott befriends an alien scavenger by the name of Jaylah who is then able to help him reunite with Kirk and Chekov. They are eventually able to find Spock and McCoy and learn that the artifact that Krall was after is actually a fragment of an ancient weapon that has the power to disintegrate virtually any kind of biological organism. Now, with that fragment, Krall is able to complete that weapon, and intends to use it to destroy Yorktown.
With help from Jaylah, Kirk et al. manage to find the location of the rest of crew at Krall's hidden base. She also reveals that a former federation ship, the USS Franklin, had previously crashed on the planet as well, and that she had been using it as a home since then. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Jaylah embark on the rescue mission to free the rest of the crew, while Scott stays behind to repair the Franklin and get it ready for their escape. Kirk manages to infiltrate Krall's base and free the rest of the crew, who get beamed aboard the Franklin, but not before he can stop Krall from departing towards Yorktown with the bio-weapon. After a slightly rough takeoff, the Franklin then pursues Krall and his swarm back to Yorktown, where Krall begins to bombard the outer shield. Spock quickly deduces that the swarm ships around Krall exhibit behavior similar to that of bees, and that with an appropriate jamming signal, the swarm will become chaotic and scatter, ultimately destroying it. With the help of a boom box that Jaylah salvaged on Altamid, Kirk then uses the Franklin's transmission systems to blast Rage Against the Machine into space, which halts the assault on Yorktown and, sure enough, causes the swarm to either flee into space or crash into each other and be destroyed (no, seriously...Captain Kirk actually stops an alien death fleet from wiping out mankind not
with laser beams or advanced technology, but with Rage Against the
Machine). However, Krall's ship manages to penetrate into Yorktown, and a hot pursuit unfolds throughout the gravity-warped streets and tunnel-ways of the space station. In the end, Kirk manages to literally cut-off Krall's ship, forcing it to crash into the Franklin. While searching the debris for any bodies, Kirk and crew learn that Krall is actually the physically warped form of former Franklin captain Balthazar Edison, who had become disenchanted with the Federation of Planets and Star Fleet, whom he believed had abandoned him and his crew into the further reaches of space. After landing on Altamid, Edison learned of the ancient technology of the natives to both prolong life and destroy it, motivating his search for this bio-weapon. Edison/Krall manages to sneak past the Yorktown security forces and into the oxygen core for the ventilation system of Yorktown, where he plans to release the bio-weapon and let it spread throughout the city, killing everyone. Kirk quickly catches up to Krall and a fight ensues while Scott manages to override the ventilation control systems, redirecting anything in the core into space, including Kirk and Krall. Sure enough, during the fight, Edison/Krall, Kirk, and the weapon are ejected from the core towards an emergency tunnel that leads directly into space, but Spock and McCoy, having commandeered an alien ship, manage to catch Kirk before being directly sucked out. While Yorktown celebrates, Kirk is offered a position as vice-admiral of Yorktown, which he declines, preferring instead to continue his journey into space with his crew. At a small victory party, Kirk and crew welcome Jaylah into Star Fleet, while they look on as the USS Enterprise-A is constructed.
I previously expressed my overall satisfaction with the new Star Trek series, and Beyond continues that trend. There are several things that the film does right that make a worthy entry in the science fiction genre. Perhaps most important, it pays homage to the original series without completely ripping it off. Kudos are in line for Karl Urban's portrayal of McCoy, a character that, even in the original series, was very reluctant to "get his hands dirty", so to speak, preferring to stay on the sidelines or aboard the ship while the rest of the crew embarked on their missions. As such, McCoy's reactions when he is asked to accompany Spock and commandeer one of the swarm ships, or when he is tasked as serving as a distraction for Krall's goons before Kirk shows up are a complete throwback to the original. Chris Pine also does a great job of portraying the same kind of hot-headed, daredevil Kirk that William Shatner portrayed in the 60s, but even manages to do it with his own kind of flair and mannerisms. Another thing that the film does well is in invoking the same kind of sci-fi themes, or sci-fi questions, that both the original series and The Next Generation were built on. I mentioned that one of the distinctions between Star Trek and Star Wars is that Star Wars is more built on one long story (or space opera, if you are a proponent of that term), chronicling the hero's journey from novice to master, and, as such, doesn't devote as much time to entertaining the big philosophical questions that really drive science fiction. Star Trek, on the other hand, is much more episodic in its approach (which makes sense, given that Star Trek was originally a TV series), allowing it to explore many different ideas and concepts. How would the space-time continuum change if a Romulan warlord traveled back in time and assassinated a younger version of Spock? If I may invoke The Next Generation, did we really leave the Holodeck? Is the Federation of Planets really a good thing? What if Krall is right, and the Federation is just a cold and corrupt government structure? It's questions like these that fall by the wayside in Star Wars; nobody ever asks whether the Resistance are really the good guys, or why they are resisting the First Order to begin with (granted, it becomes a little more obvious when Starkiller Base just happens to blow up several planets, but it was at least questionable up until that point). In previous installments, Yoda explains that the struggle between the light and dark sides of the Force is not a struggle between good and evil, but a struggle for balance. We never really have another character that seems to embrace this; such an understanding of the Force allows for a kind of moral nihilism, a dissolution of good and evil into a simple conflict between two parties whose ends just happen to be at odds, but this is never played out. Star Trek, however, has historically entertained these ideas, and the new film series, fortunately, continues this tradition. And of course, the special effects were what I would expect for such an installment in science fiction. The gravity-warped Yorktown is a great example of this, as well as the design of Krall and his soldiers.
All of that said, there are a couple points of criticism that I suppose are due here. First, the character development was lacking in this one, and, at times, appeared to be "forced". Spock's romance with Uhura, for example, was something that was brought up several times throughout the film, but never really played out. The characters just briefly mention that Spock and Uhura had a thing for each other, but neither character every really acted like it - Uhura was locked up for most of the movie, but, even while in captivity, we never see her reminisce on Spock at all, and Spock mentions his feelings for Uhura while stranded on Altamid, but then seems indifferent to her plight when compared to the other captured crew members (and no, this can't simply be chalked up to the cold, calculative nature of Vulcans). Second, and despite my above praise for the film, Beyond seems to be the weaker installment in the series, not achieving the level of depth and immersion as the 2009 reboot. Perhaps this is partially because of my previous criticism. The first installment in the series showed us real character development; we saw a James Kirk trying to live up to the reputation of his father, rebelling against authority as a child who grows up without a family is apt to do, a Spock who witnesses the destruction of his home world, and even a Nero that is passionate about destroying Spock and the Enterprise in order to avenge his own home world (again, are the Romulans really the bad guys?). The plot for Beyond also seems very much like a re-hash of the original plot in a sense: someone is really angry at Star Fleet and wants to destroy it. Granted, Nero was more pointedly upset with Spock in the first installment, but the ultimate destruction of Star Fleet was still his secondary aim. Finally, the last criticism I have of Beyond is more of a warning than a criticism, but is still particularly relevant: care should be given to avoid falling into that viper pit that is empty action sequences without context. Beyond had a notable amount of action in it, from the initial battle sequence between the Enterprise and Krall's swarm to the daring, high-speed motorcycle rescue mission of Kirk on Altamid, to the epic fight scene between Jaylah and Krall's lieutenant, Manas. However, if I may invoke the term "equilibrium", one can slowly see the scales tipping out of balance; notice how, as the complexity of the plot and character development goes down, the amount of action goes up. In the extreme, what we are left with, then, is meaningless action, something akin to the thing that I have been accusing superhero films of for some time. If the ending sequence of either Avengers film teaches us anything, it's that the artistry of character and plot development is secondary to the cash cow that is unabated action sequences. Star Trek should be careful not to fall into that same quagmire, lest it completely abandon the philosophical precepts that motivated its roots.
Still, Star Trek Beyond has easily made my list of "Best Movies of 2016" so far, an honor it shares with the likes of Deadpool and The Conjuring 2. That said, and now that the summer is coming to a wrap, we are starting to get a sense of how, cinematically speaking, this year will end, and, unfortunately, it's looking like it won't be as spectacular as last year. Fury Road, Jurassic World, and The Force Awakens were indeed monumental pieces of science fiction cinema, and it doesn't quite seem as if 2016 has yet produced anything close to that caliber. Granted, Suicide Squad has been boasted as "the most anticipated movie of the year", and has recently been released, but I hear it sucked, and critics didn't take too kindly to it, which is what I expected insofar as it was produced by DC and, as I have previously written, DC is always extremely late to the party. And so with 2016's cinematic prodigal son, Suicide Squad, out of the way, and doing mediocre at best, what does that leave for the rest of the year? Well, after revisiting my list and double checking it online, the remainder of the year looks pretty stark: Doctor Strange doesn't come out until November, and only Assassin's Creed and Rogue One remain after that, none of which I am expecting to live up to the precedent set by last year. This also leaves very little film material to write on between now and January. Perhaps this isn't necessarily a bad thing, though - instead, I can focus more on philosophical and journalism pieces, something that I have been taking a break from this past summer and that I have been meaning to do more of.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Agoraphobia
I have been in the midst of a kind of existential dilemma. As anyone who has visited my blog has noticed, I didn't publish any new articles last month, and I will admit that I wasn't completely satisfied with my last entry, my review of Captain America: Civil War, despite the fact that many people seemed to have enjoyed it. You see, as is typical with me, I have these strange moments where I fall in a downward spiral, questioning everything I am doing with my life and the world around me. Even now, for example, there is a subtle gnawing in the back of my head wondering why I am taking the time to even write this as opposed to doing something else, like, say, learning yet another language or walking through the park. It's maddening, really, and it makes it difficult for me to stay focused on any endeavor for extended periods of time. But, you see, this is only the tip of the iceberg, and my rabbit hole of problems goes much deeper. This gnawing feeling becomes absolutely heavy, haunting even, when I ask myself what many would consider to be much more "important" questions, such as "Why are you writing articles that most people will likely never read when you could be furthering your career by learning to be an accountant or getting another degree in Business?" or something else along those lines.
It's at this point that my dilemma becomes much more rudimentary and philosophical. People occasionally ask me questions like the aforementioned examples, and I don't really fault them because I also occasionally ask them of myself. Fortunately, I have a few rather straightforward answers to such questions. Unfortunately, the answers are just as maddening as the questions themselves. For example, one such answer may be "I am not doing those things because that would make me like other people around me, but I don't want to be like other people around me." Other people around me are boring and anti-fun. Art and culture are things that fall by the wayside in the career field I ended up in, and I have little desire to associate with people who underestimate what is truly enjoyable in life. Related to that, another possible answer is "I do the things I do, such as writing, because it is more fun than those things that other people do." I desire to write because words can carry with them the pleasant sensations of art and beauty. As I have said before, experiencing the language of Poe or Milton is much more pleasant than being an accountant and counting other people's money all day (thankfully, I'm not an accountant). But perhaps the most maddening answer of all is "I don't do those other things because those take time to learn, and I don't have a lot of time, nor does anybody else, not to mention the fact that I appear to be naturally talented at Philosophy (or, at least, I think I am)." As I have previously written, humans are doomed to the same fate as every other creature on the planet, and this ultimate end can arrive at any time, in the form of a plane crash, an armed robbery, a tragic accident, suicide, a bloody mess, a stroke, seizure, hemorrhage, a house fire, or just sheer old age. And, as part of that same article, I also argued that life should be spent maximizing pleasures, which can't be done if you are using the time learning to do things that you don't really want to do, or taking the time to catch up on things you don't already know. And there is a distinction to be made between having fun and learning how to have fun. Since I left the master's program at San Diego State, I have reflected on this distinction quite a bit. I already know so much about Philosophy and have been formally trained in it. I was also fortunate enough to grow up with English as my first language, a versatile language with an extreme degree of expression and a large corpus of some of the most brilliant literature on the planet. At this point in my life, these are the tools I know how to use and am equipped with in order to experience the world with what little time I have left. I don't have time to devote to doing things that aren't fun.
But alas, even trying to have fun is proving to be a difficult endeavor, for, with each passing day, the mountain of things that can go wrong in life seems to become more and more insurmountable, and it's starting to become difficult to make it through even the most menial of tasks. It may seem petty, but a recent example would be from this past weekend. Despite the fact that I haven't written a review since Civil War, I have been keeping up with my movies, having seen WarCraft and The Conjuring 2 over the past couple of weeks. But the experience each time, however, was maddening, particularly for The Conjuring 2. As I have mentioned in previous articles, one of the most enjoyable parts of a film is the level of immersion that one can experience with it. However, the phantasmagoria of a demon possessing the soul of an old man and haunting a British family's house is severely undermined when the drunken fat man in front feels inclined to provide his own idiotic commentary from time to time, or the couple in front of me will not stop muttering to themselves about something totally unrelated to the film, as if they were forced to be there and the film was an inconvenience. The unfortunate thing is that such a scenario seems to be becoming more and more commonplace, and I am left to wonder whether or not investing the time and money in going to a movie and becoming immersed in it, only to be interrupted by some fool who can't appreciate the value of the experience, is better than not going at all.
Perhaps more depressing is that the above scenario is not strictly limited to movie theaters. I can't seem to escape it - there are distractions everywhere. Within the past several minutes, for example, a man walked in to the coffee shop I am at as I was writing the previous paragraph and proceeded to the counter to place his order, albeit while talking loudly on his cellphone. His voice had this loathsome tone of self-importance, and, when the girl at the counter asked him what he would like, instead of telling her, he raised a finger for her to wait a minute, as if the very coffee shop that he walked into was interrupting his ever-so-important phone call. He just looked like an asshole. Even when I looked away from the scene, I wasn't able to completely escape it, for his smug voice still echoed over me, partially drowning out even the words in my own head. At that point, my only recourse was to plug in my earphones and withdraw to the melodies of "Call the Ships to Port" by Covenant and "Black Star" by David Bowie (fortunately, I am still able to write while listening to music).
But the concerns only start there. Living and working in a major US city has so much more to offer than living in the suburbs like I was back in California, but there is also something unnerving about it. It goes without saying that major cities tend to attract more crime and conflict, and Seattle, in particular, seems to have a fair bit of stock in the drug addiction market than many other cities. And, these days, it seems as if one can't read the news without hearing about the latest mass shooting in the US. Just about a month ago, for example, one of the worst mass shootings in US history took place at a night club in Florida, killing about 50 people [1]. And it goes without saying that such situations are not limited to the US - there was, of course, the bombing at the airport and metro station in Brussels, Belgium a few months ago in April that shocked an otherwise peaceful city [2], or the bombing at one of the largest train stations in Madrid in 2004 [3]. Moving further east, one of the more frustrating things is that the Middle East has become so concentrated with political turmoil, civil war, terrorism, and international conflict that it has become more or less impossible to visit, despite having its share in some of the most majestic wonders of the world, such as the Pyramids of Giza. In fact, to add insult to injury, some of the greatest artifacts of the Ancient world have been demolished as terrorist groups have destroyed the temples at Palmyra [4].
And don't think that all of the worries in the world are terror related. It is apparently possible to be on an otherwise straightforward flight from Kuala Lumpur to China and seemingly vanish into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again, such as Malaysia Airlines flight 370 [5]. Or perhaps you can be seen again...as a smoldering pile of charred "trunks, hands, heads, or parts of legs" if you end up on something like American Airlines flight 191, which crashed into a field after an engine failure and immediately exploded into an inferno, killing all 250+ people on board [6]. Or, instead of being part of a plane crash, you might find the burning body of a homeless person in San Diego, as part of the recent string of mysterious attacks on the homeless population in my hometown [7]. And, of course, you may also find yourself turning a street corner in many of the major cities in South America and stumbling into a maze of alleys and streets that constitute the local shantytown, laced with squalor and disease [8].
Even learning new things about science and the world is becoming more and more difficult and disenchanting. There are two reasons for this. First, strangely, as I have gotten older, I have become increasingly unsettled by imagery and scenes of things like blood and long needles. There's something maddening about imagining a needle being inserted into a vein, stretching up the opposite direction of the blood flow, a small shard of steel sitting in your body. This makes it difficult to read about things like anatomy or medicine, or study things like Biology. When one donates blood, for example, one's veins and arteries empty and their life force drains - one's muscles become weak and feeble, and all color and vivacity seems to fade from one's countenance. Second, to a lesser degree, some aspects of science tend to de-romanticize the world, which is off-putting. Sex, for example, becomes a lot less...interesting...if understood as an activity that mammals do in order to fertilize some eggs and procreate, perpetuating this highly questionable cycle of existence. It becomes more difficult to enjoy a warm meal with a glass of wine by the fireplace when one is analyzing the amount of saturated and monounsaturated fat in each food item, and how each will affect overall cholesterol levels in the bloodstream. A romantic, candlelit dinner for two is suddenly not-so-romantic when you suddenly start wondering whether your date is getting enough sodium for thyroid health. We then come full circle back to my previous point, for, in trying to measure and quantify the overall cholesterol levels in the blood stream, one is forced to image their heart fat-ridden, arteries stiff and clogged, the onset of disease. It's a perpetual cycle. Signs of one's frailty and mortality are ubiquitous, and it truly becomes unnerving. I sometimes find myself curled up on the floor, unable to face it, trying really hard to detach myself from the world. This is why, when studying the sciences, I find myself drawn towards mathematics. Mathematics has the advantage of not directly forcing one to reflect on such unnerving things as the geyser of blood that might erupt from one's neck in the event that one is decapitated, as Biology is apt to do, but yet has the potential to boil the world down to its most rudimentary axioms. Mathematical principles also have the ability to apply to a wider array of scenarios, from explaining the beauty of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, to highlighting the underlying grammatical structure of a foreign language, to helping one establish a connection to a proxy server in order to anonymously surf the Deep Web.
And, of course, there is that cruel mistress Fate, who, it seems, has been increasingly inclined to demonstrate her dominion over us sad creatures in the world. It's not that difficult to find examples of creatures being victimized by sheer dumb luck - just look to the news. Yesterday, for example, there was a story about two mothers and their children burning alive in a flaming minivan in Los Angeles [9]. There was no scenario that really precluded this; a van breaks down on the side of a freeway, two men get out of the van to examine it, and then a truck accidentally strikes the van and it bursts into flames, roasting two women and their children inside, their curdled cries undoubtedly serving as a painful parting gift to their husbands and fathers. Again, there was no real reason for this; it just happened, a stroke of sheer dumb luck. Of course, many will try to find a place to put the blame. And this is a point I previously tried to make in another article. Humans like to fancy themselves as a kind of creature superior to others, a creature who operates on these arbitrary notions of Justice and Virtue, that reward and punishment should dictate how one progresses through his or her life. This is a foolish assumption, for, try as humans may, Fate cannot be completely escaped, cannot be outmatched, and, often times, has more of a say as to how one's life unfolds than any court or legal system or relationship.
Another example that better illustrates this was an incident about two weeks ago in Florida when a two year-old boy was eaten and drowned by an alligator [10]. The setting couldn't have been more picturesque, like something out of a movie: a family goes on vacation to Disney World, the supposed "happiest place on Earth". While staying at one of the luxury resorts, they go down to a nearby lagoon for the evening. Their two year-old child, not even old enough to understand the concepts of Justice and Merit and Punishment, proceeds to splash around on the edges of the water. Before long, the boy is snatched by an alligator and dragged underwater where he is drowned. For the next two days, a large-scale search and rescue mission is undertaken to try and recover the boy involving various authorities, including federal law enforcement organizations. To what end all of these various groups were involved is still perplexing. The explanation of the incident was clear from the outset - a boy was more or less snatched by an alligator, likely for food, not unlike when an alligator hunts fowl or rabbits that wander too close to the shore. The child's remains were eventually found, but the aftermath was just as perplexing as the search. Law enforcement vowed to find the perpetrator alligator, religious authorities held public vigils, people raised their hands to the sky wondering "Why? Oh, why?", as if there was some kind of methodical explanation for the event. I wonder what people were expecting to happen after the manhunt and the prayers - were the police planning on arresting the perpetrator alligator? Were the well-wishers expecting God to smite the heathen gator with holy light? Was the community expecting all alligators to come to their senses and abandon their ferocious onslaught in the face of solidarity? Throughout all of this, the simplest and most elegant explanation is overlooked: sheer dumb luck (or, in this case, bad luck). Again, humans like to think themselves above Fate; we like to find someone or something to blame for events that are more or less outside of anyone's control. In each of the above cases, these individuals didn't really do anything to merit their fate (it's unlikely the women and children did anything to deserve perishing in flames, nor did our child in Florida do anything to deserve being attacked by an alligator), but the point here is that, to use a common expression, "sometimes shit happens".
Is there a solution to all of this? Are there steps that one can take to avoid being the victim of a terrorist shooting, a flaming airplane crash, avoid being exposed to unsettling imagery, such as needles and decay? How can one avoid dealing with all the assholes that seem to be becoming more and more ubiquitous in the world? Or how can one minimize their chances of randomly being hit by a car or being eaten by an alligator? The most apparent answer seems exceedingly simple and ingenious: don't go outside. There is an odd beauty in the logic here - you can't die in a plane crash if you are not on a plane. You won't get killed by terrorists if you don't go to places with suicide bombers and AK-47s. You can't get eaten by an alligator if there are no gators around. You won't have to deal with assholes as long as you don't go to places where assholes are. Granted, it's possible to die in a plane crash if you are on the ground and get hit by a flaming plane, but I find that scenario a lot more far-fetched than being a victim on the aforementioned plane, however unlikely that may be in and of itself. Likewise, it's certainly possible to die in a terrorist attack while being at home, but I can't recall the last time there was a terrorist shooting occurring in someone's house (at least, occurring in someone's house in the US). And, apparently, one's chances of being attacked by an alligator are minimized insofar as one does not travel to Florida. In short, one can avoid becoming a victim of the outside world to the extent that one does not interact with it. Such a course of action seems to become more and more inviting with each passing day - the world becomes increasingly more heart-wrenching every time I read the news, and such reminders of our mortality, and how feeble this crude flesh and bone really are, are increasingly frustrating.
Sadly, this solution is not foolproof, however. For, try as he may, not even one's house can protect one from Fate. In taking so much care to avoid dying in a plane crash, to avoid aberrant drivers, to avoid the most painful distractions the outside world can present, spending more time in one's house just increases the chances of being destroyed in one's house. A couple years ago, there was a man that was swallowed by the gaping maw of a massive sinkhole that suddenly formed under his bedroom, never to be seen or heard from again (interestingly, this also happened in Florida) [11]. The Chelyabinsk Meteor also had the potential to completely ravage otherwise innocent and peaceful neighborhoods - the shock waves from the passing meteor already shattered windows and injured dozens of people, and, since it was reported that the glow from the meteor was 30 times brighter than the sun, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that one would have quickly gone blind if they looked directly at it [12]. Of course, there are also more sudden things like a brain aneurysm or heart attack that can happen anytime, whether or not one is nestled safely in the privacy of their own home or out and about, exploring the wild dangers of the outside world.
Such is the dilemma that we are faced with each day, but most people don't realize it. I've realized this for some time and it is, to say the least, maddening. How on earth did our species survive for as long as it has? Again, humans like to elevate themselves above the so-called "lesser" beings, and think themselves capable of outsmarting Fate. Of course, it's at that point that Fate reminds us of the pathetic frailty of this hollow shell and destroys us with anything from a fucking hole in the ground, to being torn apart by an alligator, to burning alive, to cursing us with a galactic event, such as a meteor strike, to suddenly having us drop dead from a stroke. I suppose the real test of human ingenuity would be to escape all of these dangers, all of these worries. But until that happens, all I can do is be reminded of it everyday when I read the news, walk outside, or witness it happen to others. The clock is ticking and, sometimes, the ticking is the only thing that I hear.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869985
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457031/html/
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/world/middleeast/palmyra-syria-isis.html?_r=0
[5] http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-disappearance/
[6] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-american-airlines-ohare-crash-flight-191-hospital-perspec-0525-jm-20150522-story.html
[7] http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/suspect-arrested-in-attacks-on-san-diego-homeless-population/ar-BBu0PUf
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/11/latin-america-urbanisation-city-growth
[9] http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-gorman-car-fire-bay-area-family-deaths-20160629-snap-story.html
[10] http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/15/us/alligator-attacks-child-disney-florida/
[11] http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/20/us/florida-sinkhole-seffner/
[12] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/06/chelyabinsk-meteor-russia
It's at this point that my dilemma becomes much more rudimentary and philosophical. People occasionally ask me questions like the aforementioned examples, and I don't really fault them because I also occasionally ask them of myself. Fortunately, I have a few rather straightforward answers to such questions. Unfortunately, the answers are just as maddening as the questions themselves. For example, one such answer may be "I am not doing those things because that would make me like other people around me, but I don't want to be like other people around me." Other people around me are boring and anti-fun. Art and culture are things that fall by the wayside in the career field I ended up in, and I have little desire to associate with people who underestimate what is truly enjoyable in life. Related to that, another possible answer is "I do the things I do, such as writing, because it is more fun than those things that other people do." I desire to write because words can carry with them the pleasant sensations of art and beauty. As I have said before, experiencing the language of Poe or Milton is much more pleasant than being an accountant and counting other people's money all day (thankfully, I'm not an accountant). But perhaps the most maddening answer of all is "I don't do those other things because those take time to learn, and I don't have a lot of time, nor does anybody else, not to mention the fact that I appear to be naturally talented at Philosophy (or, at least, I think I am)." As I have previously written, humans are doomed to the same fate as every other creature on the planet, and this ultimate end can arrive at any time, in the form of a plane crash, an armed robbery, a tragic accident, suicide, a bloody mess, a stroke, seizure, hemorrhage, a house fire, or just sheer old age. And, as part of that same article, I also argued that life should be spent maximizing pleasures, which can't be done if you are using the time learning to do things that you don't really want to do, or taking the time to catch up on things you don't already know. And there is a distinction to be made between having fun and learning how to have fun. Since I left the master's program at San Diego State, I have reflected on this distinction quite a bit. I already know so much about Philosophy and have been formally trained in it. I was also fortunate enough to grow up with English as my first language, a versatile language with an extreme degree of expression and a large corpus of some of the most brilliant literature on the planet. At this point in my life, these are the tools I know how to use and am equipped with in order to experience the world with what little time I have left. I don't have time to devote to doing things that aren't fun.
But alas, even trying to have fun is proving to be a difficult endeavor, for, with each passing day, the mountain of things that can go wrong in life seems to become more and more insurmountable, and it's starting to become difficult to make it through even the most menial of tasks. It may seem petty, but a recent example would be from this past weekend. Despite the fact that I haven't written a review since Civil War, I have been keeping up with my movies, having seen WarCraft and The Conjuring 2 over the past couple of weeks. But the experience each time, however, was maddening, particularly for The Conjuring 2. As I have mentioned in previous articles, one of the most enjoyable parts of a film is the level of immersion that one can experience with it. However, the phantasmagoria of a demon possessing the soul of an old man and haunting a British family's house is severely undermined when the drunken fat man in front feels inclined to provide his own idiotic commentary from time to time, or the couple in front of me will not stop muttering to themselves about something totally unrelated to the film, as if they were forced to be there and the film was an inconvenience. The unfortunate thing is that such a scenario seems to be becoming more and more commonplace, and I am left to wonder whether or not investing the time and money in going to a movie and becoming immersed in it, only to be interrupted by some fool who can't appreciate the value of the experience, is better than not going at all.
Perhaps more depressing is that the above scenario is not strictly limited to movie theaters. I can't seem to escape it - there are distractions everywhere. Within the past several minutes, for example, a man walked in to the coffee shop I am at as I was writing the previous paragraph and proceeded to the counter to place his order, albeit while talking loudly on his cellphone. His voice had this loathsome tone of self-importance, and, when the girl at the counter asked him what he would like, instead of telling her, he raised a finger for her to wait a minute, as if the very coffee shop that he walked into was interrupting his ever-so-important phone call. He just looked like an asshole. Even when I looked away from the scene, I wasn't able to completely escape it, for his smug voice still echoed over me, partially drowning out even the words in my own head. At that point, my only recourse was to plug in my earphones and withdraw to the melodies of "Call the Ships to Port" by Covenant and "Black Star" by David Bowie (fortunately, I am still able to write while listening to music).
But the concerns only start there. Living and working in a major US city has so much more to offer than living in the suburbs like I was back in California, but there is also something unnerving about it. It goes without saying that major cities tend to attract more crime and conflict, and Seattle, in particular, seems to have a fair bit of stock in the drug addiction market than many other cities. And, these days, it seems as if one can't read the news without hearing about the latest mass shooting in the US. Just about a month ago, for example, one of the worst mass shootings in US history took place at a night club in Florida, killing about 50 people [1]. And it goes without saying that such situations are not limited to the US - there was, of course, the bombing at the airport and metro station in Brussels, Belgium a few months ago in April that shocked an otherwise peaceful city [2], or the bombing at one of the largest train stations in Madrid in 2004 [3]. Moving further east, one of the more frustrating things is that the Middle East has become so concentrated with political turmoil, civil war, terrorism, and international conflict that it has become more or less impossible to visit, despite having its share in some of the most majestic wonders of the world, such as the Pyramids of Giza. In fact, to add insult to injury, some of the greatest artifacts of the Ancient world have been demolished as terrorist groups have destroyed the temples at Palmyra [4].
And don't think that all of the worries in the world are terror related. It is apparently possible to be on an otherwise straightforward flight from Kuala Lumpur to China and seemingly vanish into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again, such as Malaysia Airlines flight 370 [5]. Or perhaps you can be seen again...as a smoldering pile of charred "trunks, hands, heads, or parts of legs" if you end up on something like American Airlines flight 191, which crashed into a field after an engine failure and immediately exploded into an inferno, killing all 250+ people on board [6]. Or, instead of being part of a plane crash, you might find the burning body of a homeless person in San Diego, as part of the recent string of mysterious attacks on the homeless population in my hometown [7]. And, of course, you may also find yourself turning a street corner in many of the major cities in South America and stumbling into a maze of alleys and streets that constitute the local shantytown, laced with squalor and disease [8].
Even learning new things about science and the world is becoming more and more difficult and disenchanting. There are two reasons for this. First, strangely, as I have gotten older, I have become increasingly unsettled by imagery and scenes of things like blood and long needles. There's something maddening about imagining a needle being inserted into a vein, stretching up the opposite direction of the blood flow, a small shard of steel sitting in your body. This makes it difficult to read about things like anatomy or medicine, or study things like Biology. When one donates blood, for example, one's veins and arteries empty and their life force drains - one's muscles become weak and feeble, and all color and vivacity seems to fade from one's countenance. Second, to a lesser degree, some aspects of science tend to de-romanticize the world, which is off-putting. Sex, for example, becomes a lot less...interesting...if understood as an activity that mammals do in order to fertilize some eggs and procreate, perpetuating this highly questionable cycle of existence. It becomes more difficult to enjoy a warm meal with a glass of wine by the fireplace when one is analyzing the amount of saturated and monounsaturated fat in each food item, and how each will affect overall cholesterol levels in the bloodstream. A romantic, candlelit dinner for two is suddenly not-so-romantic when you suddenly start wondering whether your date is getting enough sodium for thyroid health. We then come full circle back to my previous point, for, in trying to measure and quantify the overall cholesterol levels in the blood stream, one is forced to image their heart fat-ridden, arteries stiff and clogged, the onset of disease. It's a perpetual cycle. Signs of one's frailty and mortality are ubiquitous, and it truly becomes unnerving. I sometimes find myself curled up on the floor, unable to face it, trying really hard to detach myself from the world. This is why, when studying the sciences, I find myself drawn towards mathematics. Mathematics has the advantage of not directly forcing one to reflect on such unnerving things as the geyser of blood that might erupt from one's neck in the event that one is decapitated, as Biology is apt to do, but yet has the potential to boil the world down to its most rudimentary axioms. Mathematical principles also have the ability to apply to a wider array of scenarios, from explaining the beauty of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, to highlighting the underlying grammatical structure of a foreign language, to helping one establish a connection to a proxy server in order to anonymously surf the Deep Web.
And, of course, there is that cruel mistress Fate, who, it seems, has been increasingly inclined to demonstrate her dominion over us sad creatures in the world. It's not that difficult to find examples of creatures being victimized by sheer dumb luck - just look to the news. Yesterday, for example, there was a story about two mothers and their children burning alive in a flaming minivan in Los Angeles [9]. There was no scenario that really precluded this; a van breaks down on the side of a freeway, two men get out of the van to examine it, and then a truck accidentally strikes the van and it bursts into flames, roasting two women and their children inside, their curdled cries undoubtedly serving as a painful parting gift to their husbands and fathers. Again, there was no real reason for this; it just happened, a stroke of sheer dumb luck. Of course, many will try to find a place to put the blame. And this is a point I previously tried to make in another article. Humans like to fancy themselves as a kind of creature superior to others, a creature who operates on these arbitrary notions of Justice and Virtue, that reward and punishment should dictate how one progresses through his or her life. This is a foolish assumption, for, try as humans may, Fate cannot be completely escaped, cannot be outmatched, and, often times, has more of a say as to how one's life unfolds than any court or legal system or relationship.
Another example that better illustrates this was an incident about two weeks ago in Florida when a two year-old boy was eaten and drowned by an alligator [10]. The setting couldn't have been more picturesque, like something out of a movie: a family goes on vacation to Disney World, the supposed "happiest place on Earth". While staying at one of the luxury resorts, they go down to a nearby lagoon for the evening. Their two year-old child, not even old enough to understand the concepts of Justice and Merit and Punishment, proceeds to splash around on the edges of the water. Before long, the boy is snatched by an alligator and dragged underwater where he is drowned. For the next two days, a large-scale search and rescue mission is undertaken to try and recover the boy involving various authorities, including federal law enforcement organizations. To what end all of these various groups were involved is still perplexing. The explanation of the incident was clear from the outset - a boy was more or less snatched by an alligator, likely for food, not unlike when an alligator hunts fowl or rabbits that wander too close to the shore. The child's remains were eventually found, but the aftermath was just as perplexing as the search. Law enforcement vowed to find the perpetrator alligator, religious authorities held public vigils, people raised their hands to the sky wondering "Why? Oh, why?", as if there was some kind of methodical explanation for the event. I wonder what people were expecting to happen after the manhunt and the prayers - were the police planning on arresting the perpetrator alligator? Were the well-wishers expecting God to smite the heathen gator with holy light? Was the community expecting all alligators to come to their senses and abandon their ferocious onslaught in the face of solidarity? Throughout all of this, the simplest and most elegant explanation is overlooked: sheer dumb luck (or, in this case, bad luck). Again, humans like to think themselves above Fate; we like to find someone or something to blame for events that are more or less outside of anyone's control. In each of the above cases, these individuals didn't really do anything to merit their fate (it's unlikely the women and children did anything to deserve perishing in flames, nor did our child in Florida do anything to deserve being attacked by an alligator), but the point here is that, to use a common expression, "sometimes shit happens".
Is there a solution to all of this? Are there steps that one can take to avoid being the victim of a terrorist shooting, a flaming airplane crash, avoid being exposed to unsettling imagery, such as needles and decay? How can one avoid dealing with all the assholes that seem to be becoming more and more ubiquitous in the world? Or how can one minimize their chances of randomly being hit by a car or being eaten by an alligator? The most apparent answer seems exceedingly simple and ingenious: don't go outside. There is an odd beauty in the logic here - you can't die in a plane crash if you are not on a plane. You won't get killed by terrorists if you don't go to places with suicide bombers and AK-47s. You can't get eaten by an alligator if there are no gators around. You won't have to deal with assholes as long as you don't go to places where assholes are. Granted, it's possible to die in a plane crash if you are on the ground and get hit by a flaming plane, but I find that scenario a lot more far-fetched than being a victim on the aforementioned plane, however unlikely that may be in and of itself. Likewise, it's certainly possible to die in a terrorist attack while being at home, but I can't recall the last time there was a terrorist shooting occurring in someone's house (at least, occurring in someone's house in the US). And, apparently, one's chances of being attacked by an alligator are minimized insofar as one does not travel to Florida. In short, one can avoid becoming a victim of the outside world to the extent that one does not interact with it. Such a course of action seems to become more and more inviting with each passing day - the world becomes increasingly more heart-wrenching every time I read the news, and such reminders of our mortality, and how feeble this crude flesh and bone really are, are increasingly frustrating.
Sadly, this solution is not foolproof, however. For, try as he may, not even one's house can protect one from Fate. In taking so much care to avoid dying in a plane crash, to avoid aberrant drivers, to avoid the most painful distractions the outside world can present, spending more time in one's house just increases the chances of being destroyed in one's house. A couple years ago, there was a man that was swallowed by the gaping maw of a massive sinkhole that suddenly formed under his bedroom, never to be seen or heard from again (interestingly, this also happened in Florida) [11]. The Chelyabinsk Meteor also had the potential to completely ravage otherwise innocent and peaceful neighborhoods - the shock waves from the passing meteor already shattered windows and injured dozens of people, and, since it was reported that the glow from the meteor was 30 times brighter than the sun, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that one would have quickly gone blind if they looked directly at it [12]. Of course, there are also more sudden things like a brain aneurysm or heart attack that can happen anytime, whether or not one is nestled safely in the privacy of their own home or out and about, exploring the wild dangers of the outside world.
Such is the dilemma that we are faced with each day, but most people don't realize it. I've realized this for some time and it is, to say the least, maddening. How on earth did our species survive for as long as it has? Again, humans like to elevate themselves above the so-called "lesser" beings, and think themselves capable of outsmarting Fate. Of course, it's at that point that Fate reminds us of the pathetic frailty of this hollow shell and destroys us with anything from a fucking hole in the ground, to being torn apart by an alligator, to burning alive, to cursing us with a galactic event, such as a meteor strike, to suddenly having us drop dead from a stroke. I suppose the real test of human ingenuity would be to escape all of these dangers, all of these worries. But until that happens, all I can do is be reminded of it everyday when I read the news, walk outside, or witness it happen to others. The clock is ticking and, sometimes, the ticking is the only thing that I hear.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869985
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457031/html/
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/world/middleeast/palmyra-syria-isis.html?_r=0
[5] http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-disappearance/
[6] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-american-airlines-ohare-crash-flight-191-hospital-perspec-0525-jm-20150522-story.html
[7] http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/suspect-arrested-in-attacks-on-san-diego-homeless-population/ar-BBu0PUf
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/11/latin-america-urbanisation-city-growth
[9] http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-gorman-car-fire-bay-area-family-deaths-20160629-snap-story.html
[10] http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/15/us/alligator-attacks-child-disney-florida/
[11] http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/20/us/florida-sinkhole-seffner/
[12] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/06/chelyabinsk-meteor-russia
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Review - Captain America: Civil War
If anyone wanted to make the claim that this review is a little late, then I will concede the point, but not without good reason. The past month has been extremely chaotic for me. There has been a lot of shifting in the hierarchy at my day job (remember, I work as a data analyst for a rather well-known coffee company), some of which has affected me, and I had a kind of "falling out" with a certain career prospect about three weeks ago. Perhaps the most glaring hurdle, however, has been my lack of adequate transportation for the past four weeks. The Cliff Notes version of the story is that some out-of-towner in a lifted pickup truck pretty much monster-trucked (yes, that's now a verb) over the front of my car while it was parked out in front of my apartment building. Extensive reparations had to be done, which meant that my car had to be in the auto shop for almost four weeks. Then, as a result of my car being in the shop for almost four weeks, I was more or less stuck in the Eastlake area of Seattle, relying on the bus to get to and from work. The unfortunate thing about the Eastlake area is that, while there are a number of good restaurants, the rest of the neighborhood consists of mostly apartment buildings, with very few actual attractions. So, continuing on in the chain of cause and effect, as a result of me being stuck in the Eastlake area, I wasn't really able to get to a movie theater to see Captain America: Civil War, which was released during the first week of my car being in the auto shop. Fear not, however, for my car has since returned to me and I have been prompted to spring into action yet again, having finally had the chance to make it to the theater to see Civil War.
My overall impression of Civil War can best be described as "mild satisfaction". Civil War continues the trend of the past few years and perpetuates the popularity of superhero movies, and is yet another installment of the so-called "Marvel Cinematic Universe", which is showing no signs of slowing down in the near future, with Doctor Strange scheduled to be released later this year and another Thor film in the works. Don't let the title fool you - even though Captain America is the supposed centerpiece of the film, Civil War is more or less a showcase of the Marvel All-Star lineup, minus Thor and the Hulk. We are introduced to Black Panther not too far into the movie, Warmachine and Ant-Man make appearances, Hawkeye and the Scarlett Witch (who, I recently learned, is portrayed by one of the Olsen twins, who I though died with the 90s) interestingly pop-up at key points in the movie, and Black Widow and Vision are along for the ride all the way throughout. The end result is something that feels more like "Avengers Light" than a narrative focusing on Captain America. Despite this, Civil War still did a much better job of illustrating the personal narrative of not just Captain America, but several other characters as well, when compared to our most recent installment in the line of superhero films, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The film centers on Captain America and his attempts to rescue his buddy, the Winter Soldier, who is accused of bombing a United Nations meeting intended to ratify an agreement that would put heavy regulations on the Avengers. In a show of protest against this agreement, Captain America takes it upon himself to hunt down the Winter Soldier and learn the truth about who bombed the UN meeting himself. With the perception that Steve Rogers has gone rogue, international authorities enlist the help of Iron Man to capture both the Captain and the Winter Soldier. The remaining Avengers are then forced to choose sides - they can either side with the Captain, and help him rescue Bucky and solve this mystery, or they can side with Tony Stark and implicitly acquiesce to the UN agreement. We open up with a flashback to the brainwashing experiments used to train the Winter Soldier in a hidden Hydra base in the former Soviet Union, where we learn that, as part of the experiment, there are certain Russian key words that can be used to control him. Fast-forward to present day Africa. Captain, Black Widow, Falcon, and the Scarlett Witch are hunting an international terrorist and arms dealer, and the ensuing fight ends up destroying part of a building, killing and injuring innocent people. Back in the US, the Avengers are held accountable for this and other incidents, and a treaty is written that is meant to place international regulations on them. Among the Avengers, there are voices of both consent and dissent, spearheaded by both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, respectively. At the UN meeting where these accords are supposed to be signed and ratified, a bomb goes off, killing many more innocent people, including King T'Chaka, the king of the African nation where the previous incident took place. We quickly find out that security footage reveals that the Winter Soldier is responsible for the bombing (or so it seems), and an international manhunt ensues.
As news spreads that the UN meeting was bombed and that the Captain is going after the Winter Soldier, our two sides begin to assemble. Falcon, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and the Scarlett Witch quickly join the Winter Soldier and Team Captain, while Warmachine, Vision, and Black Widow join Team Iron Man, who also enlists the help of Black Panther, i.e. T'Chala (i.e. the son of the murdered King T'Chaka) and the young Spider-Man. The Captain quickly learns that multiple super soldiers were created as part of Hydra's Winter Soldier program, and that a survivor of the incident at the end of Age of Ultron (where the Avengers dropped an entire town from the sky), Zemo, has gotten his hands on the top-secret Soviet training manual with the Russian keywords to control them and is making his way to the base where the remaining soldiers are held in cryogenic sleep. It is also revealed that this is the same man who bombed the UN meeting and framed the Winter Soldier in order to lure him out of hiding. After Bucky reveals the location of the base to Rogers, they quickly make their way to an airfield in Leipzig where they intend to commandeer a jet and cut off our antagonist before he reaches the base first, but not before they themselves are cut off by Team Iron Man. The rest of Team Captain shows up and what ensues is one giant punch-up, reminiscent of the ending sequence of either of the Avengers films. Eventually, Captain America and the Winter Soldier make it onto the jet and head towards the hidden base. Realizing the truth about what happened at the UN meeting and that the Winter Soldier was framed for it, Stark has a change of heart and joins Rogers and Bucky at Hydra's Soviet facility. While investigating, however, they find the other super soldiers have all been shot in the head, as opposed to being woken up and used as weapons, and our antagonist, with Rogers, Bucky, and Stark all in the room, plays a small video clip of Bucky, under the influence of Hydra's brainwashing, killing Stark's parents some decades before. An enraged Iron Man then quickly turns on the Captain and the Winter Soldier and yet another fight ensues, with none of them really coming out as the victor while Black Panther captures Zemo. The film ends with the Winter Soldier willfully going back into cryogenic sleep until a cure is found for his brainwashing, the rest of Team Captain being locked up for a while, and Stark and Rogers reconciling their differences.
I previously mentioned that my overall impression of Civil War was that of "mild satisfaction". It's certainly a lot more coherent and in-depth than Dawn of Justice (which wouldn't be too particularly difficult to achieve), but it does miss the mark in certain areas. As I've said in the past, story and character development are very important criteria that can mean the difference between success and failure, and Civil War seems to be lacking in this regard. It's a shame because, historically, the Captain America series has been one of the better in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; The Winter Soldier remains towards the top of my list of better films in the Marvel series, and the setting of WWII for The First Avenger provided a nice reprieve from the pseudo-futuristic take on the modern decade seen in the Iron Man films. In Civil War, however, no one character is really developed further than he or she already is, except for, notably, the Winter Soldier himself. This is then ultimately undermined in the end when the Winter Soldier decides to go back into cryogenic sleep, removing a recently developed character from the equation altogether. The Scarlett Witch is another example of a character with a missed opportunity; as a young girl who grew up in Eastern Europe, there was potential to expand on her past as a Hydra research subject and tie her character into the background of the Winter Soldier, but, instead, we didn't even get a mention of her brother, Quicksilver, who was recently killed in Age of Ultron, let alone legitimate character development. Conversely, some of the characters who already had a well-established background in the series seem to have just been thrown into the film without any kind of real explanation at all. Hawkeye, for example, appears halfway through the film by casually walking in to Tony Stark's heavily defended compound to rescue the Scarlett Witch for no apparent reason other than the production team realizing that they ran out of characters to rescue her. Our villain, Zemo, is also a highly questionable character. To be frank, Zemo is literally just some asshole who is mad at the Avengers because his family was collateral damage in Age of Ultron. How Zemo manages to bomb the UN, steal the secret Soviet training manual from ex-Hydra operatives, find the Hydra research base where the other super soldiers are being kept, frame the Winter Soldier for the bombing, and get the Avengers to fight each other, and almost get away with it, not to mention outsmart international intelligence organizations, is beyond me. In previous installments of the Avengers or Captain America films, we at least have villains that pose a believable challenge to the Avengers: a mischievous Norse god, a rogue artificial intelligence, an augmented super soldier, a deformed renegade Nazi. Zemo? Literally just some guy who is mad at the government and the Avengers.
It seems as if many of the above points are side effects of a larger, over-arching point: Civil War is just too over-crowded with various Marvel All-Stars to really develop any of them in any significant way. This is the same criticism that I have leveled at the Avengers films for some time; much like the two Avengers films, Civil War makes the mistake of bypassing any kind of character development in favor of an action-packed quagmire of special effects and cliche dialogue. And, also much like the two Avengers films, Civil War culminates in one giant brawl at the end, a clusterfuck of superheroes punching each other until Black Widow randomly decides to have a change of heart and tilts the brawl in favor of the Captain. Like the ending fight of Age of Ultron, a lot of our heroes seemed to blend into one of two archetypes: the hero who punches things really hard (i.e. Captain, Black Panther) or the hero who shoots lasers (i.e. Scarlett Witch, Vision, Iron Man). The end result is something along the lines of a cartoon fight; I was half expecting our heroes to be enveloped in a thick dust cloud, complete with Looney Tunes-esque sound effects and words like "POW!" And "BOP!" to flash across the screen. Again, this is in stark contrast to the previous two Captain America films; The Winter Soldier presented us with a Captain that questioned the meaning of "freedom" and "security" as Nick Fury revealed the missile-loaded-death-planes meant to keep America safe. But, alas, we don't get anything like this in Civil War.
It should be noted that, despite my above points, Civil War wasn't bad - it was merely average. It was a satisfactory installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and illustrated why the Marvel films set the bar for superhero cinema without actually raising the bar any further. Every so often, there is an entry in the MCU that illustrates a depth of character unprecedented in the series (The Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World), but an eerie pattern is beginning to emerge where, once we start gathering the various faces on screen at the same time, things begin to fall apart. That said, there are a number of things that Civil War does well. Though it was somewhat rushed, Black Panther had an otherwise pretty well developed introduction. T'Chala is introduced to us as the prince of the African nation at the beginning of the film and we actually see his father, King T'Chaka, murdered by Zemo in the UN bombing, which motivates him to mistakenly seek vengeance on the Winter Soldier for the bombing as Black Panther. In other words, we see Black Panther's "angle", so to speak: we are given a given a brief overview of where he comes from and what motivates him, and what role he plays in the Avengers. This is in stark contrast to Spider-Man, who was literally thrown into the film for a reason that still eludes me (and by "literally", I mean literally - Tony Stark simply walks into Peter Parker's apartment and says "You're hired" and then suddenly...Spider-Man). And, continuing with the trend of the Captain America series of being multi-lingual, the film constantly invokes the Soviet-era and makes extensive use of the Russian language, which gives the film this kind of "international" flavor, and genuinely makes it seem as if the problems that plague the world aren't all just threats to America, which is the impression given by, say, most of the Iron Man series, and which is not reflective of the way the world actually is. And, by comparison, Civil War, and the rest of the MCU, continue to be the standard that superhero films should adhere to. I railed against Dawn of Justice in one of my previous reviews, and Civil War seems to underline many of my previous points. Civil War managed to introduce Black Panther far better than Dawn of Justice introduced Wonder Woman, and developed the Winter Soldier far better than Dawn of Justice developed Ben Affleck's Batman. Granted, there is a dedicated Wonder Woman film in the works, but there is also a dedicated Black Panther film as well, and yet we already have an idea of who Black Panther is and how we can relate to him.
In short, I think Captain America: Civil War will end its theatrical run well. The masses, of course, will easily be drawn to the superficial elements of over-the-top special effects and convoluted brawls, and the fact that these are characters that the American public has grown attached to from previous Marvel films will ensure that the film continues to generate revenue for many weeks (this is the point that Dawn of Justice seemed to miss - if you don't develop the characters adequately beforehand, then no one is going to care when you put them all on screen together). That said, if you have more of an attention span than that of a squirrel, and are able to look past the quagmire of special effects and all-star cast, then you likely won't find much. Civil War is a steady stream of meaningless action, strung together by a number of questionable plot points. Granted, last year's Mad Max: Fury Road was also a steady stream of action, but that was exactly the point - Fury Road was using the action to make a point about the world, which is something that Civil War doesn't seem to be doing.
My overall impression of Civil War can best be described as "mild satisfaction". Civil War continues the trend of the past few years and perpetuates the popularity of superhero movies, and is yet another installment of the so-called "Marvel Cinematic Universe", which is showing no signs of slowing down in the near future, with Doctor Strange scheduled to be released later this year and another Thor film in the works. Don't let the title fool you - even though Captain America is the supposed centerpiece of the film, Civil War is more or less a showcase of the Marvel All-Star lineup, minus Thor and the Hulk. We are introduced to Black Panther not too far into the movie, Warmachine and Ant-Man make appearances, Hawkeye and the Scarlett Witch (who, I recently learned, is portrayed by one of the Olsen twins, who I though died with the 90s) interestingly pop-up at key points in the movie, and Black Widow and Vision are along for the ride all the way throughout. The end result is something that feels more like "Avengers Light" than a narrative focusing on Captain America. Despite this, Civil War still did a much better job of illustrating the personal narrative of not just Captain America, but several other characters as well, when compared to our most recent installment in the line of superhero films, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The film centers on Captain America and his attempts to rescue his buddy, the Winter Soldier, who is accused of bombing a United Nations meeting intended to ratify an agreement that would put heavy regulations on the Avengers. In a show of protest against this agreement, Captain America takes it upon himself to hunt down the Winter Soldier and learn the truth about who bombed the UN meeting himself. With the perception that Steve Rogers has gone rogue, international authorities enlist the help of Iron Man to capture both the Captain and the Winter Soldier. The remaining Avengers are then forced to choose sides - they can either side with the Captain, and help him rescue Bucky and solve this mystery, or they can side with Tony Stark and implicitly acquiesce to the UN agreement. We open up with a flashback to the brainwashing experiments used to train the Winter Soldier in a hidden Hydra base in the former Soviet Union, where we learn that, as part of the experiment, there are certain Russian key words that can be used to control him. Fast-forward to present day Africa. Captain, Black Widow, Falcon, and the Scarlett Witch are hunting an international terrorist and arms dealer, and the ensuing fight ends up destroying part of a building, killing and injuring innocent people. Back in the US, the Avengers are held accountable for this and other incidents, and a treaty is written that is meant to place international regulations on them. Among the Avengers, there are voices of both consent and dissent, spearheaded by both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, respectively. At the UN meeting where these accords are supposed to be signed and ratified, a bomb goes off, killing many more innocent people, including King T'Chaka, the king of the African nation where the previous incident took place. We quickly find out that security footage reveals that the Winter Soldier is responsible for the bombing (or so it seems), and an international manhunt ensues.
As news spreads that the UN meeting was bombed and that the Captain is going after the Winter Soldier, our two sides begin to assemble. Falcon, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and the Scarlett Witch quickly join the Winter Soldier and Team Captain, while Warmachine, Vision, and Black Widow join Team Iron Man, who also enlists the help of Black Panther, i.e. T'Chala (i.e. the son of the murdered King T'Chaka) and the young Spider-Man. The Captain quickly learns that multiple super soldiers were created as part of Hydra's Winter Soldier program, and that a survivor of the incident at the end of Age of Ultron (where the Avengers dropped an entire town from the sky), Zemo, has gotten his hands on the top-secret Soviet training manual with the Russian keywords to control them and is making his way to the base where the remaining soldiers are held in cryogenic sleep. It is also revealed that this is the same man who bombed the UN meeting and framed the Winter Soldier in order to lure him out of hiding. After Bucky reveals the location of the base to Rogers, they quickly make their way to an airfield in Leipzig where they intend to commandeer a jet and cut off our antagonist before he reaches the base first, but not before they themselves are cut off by Team Iron Man. The rest of Team Captain shows up and what ensues is one giant punch-up, reminiscent of the ending sequence of either of the Avengers films. Eventually, Captain America and the Winter Soldier make it onto the jet and head towards the hidden base. Realizing the truth about what happened at the UN meeting and that the Winter Soldier was framed for it, Stark has a change of heart and joins Rogers and Bucky at Hydra's Soviet facility. While investigating, however, they find the other super soldiers have all been shot in the head, as opposed to being woken up and used as weapons, and our antagonist, with Rogers, Bucky, and Stark all in the room, plays a small video clip of Bucky, under the influence of Hydra's brainwashing, killing Stark's parents some decades before. An enraged Iron Man then quickly turns on the Captain and the Winter Soldier and yet another fight ensues, with none of them really coming out as the victor while Black Panther captures Zemo. The film ends with the Winter Soldier willfully going back into cryogenic sleep until a cure is found for his brainwashing, the rest of Team Captain being locked up for a while, and Stark and Rogers reconciling their differences.
I previously mentioned that my overall impression of Civil War was that of "mild satisfaction". It's certainly a lot more coherent and in-depth than Dawn of Justice (which wouldn't be too particularly difficult to achieve), but it does miss the mark in certain areas. As I've said in the past, story and character development are very important criteria that can mean the difference between success and failure, and Civil War seems to be lacking in this regard. It's a shame because, historically, the Captain America series has been one of the better in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; The Winter Soldier remains towards the top of my list of better films in the Marvel series, and the setting of WWII for The First Avenger provided a nice reprieve from the pseudo-futuristic take on the modern decade seen in the Iron Man films. In Civil War, however, no one character is really developed further than he or she already is, except for, notably, the Winter Soldier himself. This is then ultimately undermined in the end when the Winter Soldier decides to go back into cryogenic sleep, removing a recently developed character from the equation altogether. The Scarlett Witch is another example of a character with a missed opportunity; as a young girl who grew up in Eastern Europe, there was potential to expand on her past as a Hydra research subject and tie her character into the background of the Winter Soldier, but, instead, we didn't even get a mention of her brother, Quicksilver, who was recently killed in Age of Ultron, let alone legitimate character development. Conversely, some of the characters who already had a well-established background in the series seem to have just been thrown into the film without any kind of real explanation at all. Hawkeye, for example, appears halfway through the film by casually walking in to Tony Stark's heavily defended compound to rescue the Scarlett Witch for no apparent reason other than the production team realizing that they ran out of characters to rescue her. Our villain, Zemo, is also a highly questionable character. To be frank, Zemo is literally just some asshole who is mad at the Avengers because his family was collateral damage in Age of Ultron. How Zemo manages to bomb the UN, steal the secret Soviet training manual from ex-Hydra operatives, find the Hydra research base where the other super soldiers are being kept, frame the Winter Soldier for the bombing, and get the Avengers to fight each other, and almost get away with it, not to mention outsmart international intelligence organizations, is beyond me. In previous installments of the Avengers or Captain America films, we at least have villains that pose a believable challenge to the Avengers: a mischievous Norse god, a rogue artificial intelligence, an augmented super soldier, a deformed renegade Nazi. Zemo? Literally just some guy who is mad at the government and the Avengers.
It seems as if many of the above points are side effects of a larger, over-arching point: Civil War is just too over-crowded with various Marvel All-Stars to really develop any of them in any significant way. This is the same criticism that I have leveled at the Avengers films for some time; much like the two Avengers films, Civil War makes the mistake of bypassing any kind of character development in favor of an action-packed quagmire of special effects and cliche dialogue. And, also much like the two Avengers films, Civil War culminates in one giant brawl at the end, a clusterfuck of superheroes punching each other until Black Widow randomly decides to have a change of heart and tilts the brawl in favor of the Captain. Like the ending fight of Age of Ultron, a lot of our heroes seemed to blend into one of two archetypes: the hero who punches things really hard (i.e. Captain, Black Panther) or the hero who shoots lasers (i.e. Scarlett Witch, Vision, Iron Man). The end result is something along the lines of a cartoon fight; I was half expecting our heroes to be enveloped in a thick dust cloud, complete with Looney Tunes-esque sound effects and words like "POW!" And "BOP!" to flash across the screen. Again, this is in stark contrast to the previous two Captain America films; The Winter Soldier presented us with a Captain that questioned the meaning of "freedom" and "security" as Nick Fury revealed the missile-loaded-death-planes meant to keep America safe. But, alas, we don't get anything like this in Civil War.
It should be noted that, despite my above points, Civil War wasn't bad - it was merely average. It was a satisfactory installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and illustrated why the Marvel films set the bar for superhero cinema without actually raising the bar any further. Every so often, there is an entry in the MCU that illustrates a depth of character unprecedented in the series (The Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World), but an eerie pattern is beginning to emerge where, once we start gathering the various faces on screen at the same time, things begin to fall apart. That said, there are a number of things that Civil War does well. Though it was somewhat rushed, Black Panther had an otherwise pretty well developed introduction. T'Chala is introduced to us as the prince of the African nation at the beginning of the film and we actually see his father, King T'Chaka, murdered by Zemo in the UN bombing, which motivates him to mistakenly seek vengeance on the Winter Soldier for the bombing as Black Panther. In other words, we see Black Panther's "angle", so to speak: we are given a given a brief overview of where he comes from and what motivates him, and what role he plays in the Avengers. This is in stark contrast to Spider-Man, who was literally thrown into the film for a reason that still eludes me (and by "literally", I mean literally - Tony Stark simply walks into Peter Parker's apartment and says "You're hired" and then suddenly...Spider-Man). And, continuing with the trend of the Captain America series of being multi-lingual, the film constantly invokes the Soviet-era and makes extensive use of the Russian language, which gives the film this kind of "international" flavor, and genuinely makes it seem as if the problems that plague the world aren't all just threats to America, which is the impression given by, say, most of the Iron Man series, and which is not reflective of the way the world actually is. And, by comparison, Civil War, and the rest of the MCU, continue to be the standard that superhero films should adhere to. I railed against Dawn of Justice in one of my previous reviews, and Civil War seems to underline many of my previous points. Civil War managed to introduce Black Panther far better than Dawn of Justice introduced Wonder Woman, and developed the Winter Soldier far better than Dawn of Justice developed Ben Affleck's Batman. Granted, there is a dedicated Wonder Woman film in the works, but there is also a dedicated Black Panther film as well, and yet we already have an idea of who Black Panther is and how we can relate to him.
In short, I think Captain America: Civil War will end its theatrical run well. The masses, of course, will easily be drawn to the superficial elements of over-the-top special effects and convoluted brawls, and the fact that these are characters that the American public has grown attached to from previous Marvel films will ensure that the film continues to generate revenue for many weeks (this is the point that Dawn of Justice seemed to miss - if you don't develop the characters adequately beforehand, then no one is going to care when you put them all on screen together). That said, if you have more of an attention span than that of a squirrel, and are able to look past the quagmire of special effects and all-star cast, then you likely won't find much. Civil War is a steady stream of meaningless action, strung together by a number of questionable plot points. Granted, last year's Mad Max: Fury Road was also a steady stream of action, but that was exactly the point - Fury Road was using the action to make a point about the world, which is something that Civil War doesn't seem to be doing.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
The Rise and Fall of Industrial Rock
I think it's safe to say that the 90s was a strange time for rock music. We saw the more or less linear evolution of Punk and Metal in the late 70s and 80s, two genres that, despite their anti-authoritarian or subversive message, were pretty well-defined. Even the Goth scene, a movement that at times dips into genres beyond Punk and Metal (such as Electronica), was pretty formulaic in its approach to what constitutes "Goth" music. Once the 90s came along, however, rock musicians began to experiment. The traditional formulas of Punk, Metal, and Classic Rock were left by the wayside and we saw the advent of things like "Progressive” rock and "Alternative” rock and “Grunge”. Songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Losing My Religion” signaled a paradigm shift in the approach to rock music in the early 90s, and the quick rise of bands like Nirvana and R.E.M. paved the way other Grunge and Alternative rock acts such as Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Primus. Everything else was more or less pushed back underground and Grunge was left to define the decade – that is, until the response finally came in the second half of the decade, in the form of Industrial Rock.
Industrial Rock can trace its roots back primarily to the Goth rock and Electronica scene of the 1980s. One can point to the dissolution of Joy Division and the advent of New Order as an early example of where we begin to see the crossover between rock and electronic music. The Cure were also reputed to implement things like synthesizers and experimental noises into their music (the albums Faith and Pornography can be cited as early examples of this). Covenant and Kraftwerk are also sometimes cited as more electronic influences on the genre. By the late 1980s, the groundwork had been set and we begin to see the genre take shape; Ministry had released their album The Land of Rape and Honey in 1988 and Nine Inch Nails had begun writing Pretty Hate Machine that same year.
However, the fledging Industrial rock genre, serving as an evolution of the Goth and Electronica scenes of the 1980s, became a casualty of the rise of Grunge and Alternative rock in the early 1990s. The popularity of Nirvana’s Nevermind and R.E.M’s Out of Time brought about an abandonment of the now well-established Punk, Metal, and Electronica, or any off-shoot of them, in favor of things like the down tempo, gritty guitar sounds of Grunge, or the introduction of non-traditional instruments in Alternative rock (such as the mandolin in “Losing My Religion”), or even the fusion of rock with funk and slap bass that we find with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus. Despite the success of Pretty Hate Machine, Industrial rock remained something underground.
Fortunately, the experimental nature of the early 1990s didn't last long. Around the mid-90s, we begin to see Industrial rock rise in popularity, mostly as a response to popularity of Grunge at the time. Nine Inch Nails is usually credited as being at the forefront of the Industrial movement; The Downward Spiral is considered one of the band's finest albums and they found success with songs like "Closer" and "Wish". 1996 saw the release of Marilyn Manson's second album, Antichrist Superstar, in which we can see a return to the dark aesthetic and "shock" performance that we saw with Metal and Punk bands of the 1980s. Adding on to the snowballing success of the genre, Rob Zombie released his debut solo album, Hellbilly Deluxe, in 1998, bringing with it such definitive tracks as "Dragula" and "Superbeast" ("Meet the Creeper" was also notably featured on the soundtrack to Twisted Metal III). It is also in 1998 that Orgy released their cover of the New Order song "Blue Monday", which ranked highly on numerous top 10 and top 40 charts.
Then, at the turn of the century, everything went underground again. This new century seems to have brought with it the rise in popularity of such genres as "Metalcore", “Post-Punk”, "Post-Hardcore", and “Emo” rock. And while there has been a renewed interest in Metal and Punk (the success of bands like The Casualties and Rancid is testament to this), these genres aren't experiencing growth like they did in the 1980s, and the advent of Industrial in the late 1990s seems to have fizzled out with it (it also probably didn't help that Industrial was briefly associated with a certain high school shooting in the late 1990s either). I think it's safe to say that there hasn't been a new definitive entry in the Industrial genre since the late 90s, and any success that the genre has seen since then has come from its already established acts (for example, "The Hand that Feeds" and "Came Back Haunted" are both successful tracks from Nine Inch Nails). It's a shame insofar as Industrial was perhaps the best innovation in rock music from the 1990s (better than Grunge - sorry Nirvana fans), and songs like "Sin", "The Beautiful People", and "Superbeast" are infinitely better than most things making the stage at modern rock music festivals. This is not a call for Industrial to be given the same kind of mainstream attention as other contemporary acts. On the contrary, much like Punk and Metal, Industrial rock is not designed to have the same kind of mainstream success as certain rock acts today. Rather, this is simply a lament that, while we have started to see renewed interest and innovation in Punk and Metal, Industrial has more or less been left derelict.
Still, there may be hope yet. Like any other genre, Industrial seems to be evolving. On the one hand, there are those acts that stay true to its rock roots, using heavily distorted guitars and acoustic drums - Godflesh is a good example of this, as well as Millennium-era Front Line Assembly. On the other hand, there are those acts that have gravitated more towards the electronic elements of Industrial, minimizing the use of distorted guitars and relying more on creating the oppressive atmosphere associated with Industrial through the use of synthesizers, keyboards, and drum machines. Sometimes referred to as "Aggrotech", one can usually find the likes of Suicide Commando, God Module, and Combichrist in this camp. It may also be worthwhile to point out that there seems to have been an increased interest in this "Electro-Industrial" genre in recent years, interestingly coinciding with the advent of electronic music in general this century. As long as we recognize these two evolutionary branches of Industrial, we may yet see a resurgence in the near future; the Rivethead culture often associated with Industrial seems to be making a comeback, and the persistent success of acts such as Nine Inch Nails seems to be drawing continued attention to the genre. Perhaps we will even see a repeat of what we saw in the late 90s, where Industrial re-emerges as a response to the current obsession society has with "Metalcore" and "Dubstep" (one can only hope).
Originally written for LIKEYOUSAID Magazine 4/15/2016.
Industrial Rock can trace its roots back primarily to the Goth rock and Electronica scene of the 1980s. One can point to the dissolution of Joy Division and the advent of New Order as an early example of where we begin to see the crossover between rock and electronic music. The Cure were also reputed to implement things like synthesizers and experimental noises into their music (the albums Faith and Pornography can be cited as early examples of this). Covenant and Kraftwerk are also sometimes cited as more electronic influences on the genre. By the late 1980s, the groundwork had been set and we begin to see the genre take shape; Ministry had released their album The Land of Rape and Honey in 1988 and Nine Inch Nails had begun writing Pretty Hate Machine that same year.
However, the fledging Industrial rock genre, serving as an evolution of the Goth and Electronica scenes of the 1980s, became a casualty of the rise of Grunge and Alternative rock in the early 1990s. The popularity of Nirvana’s Nevermind and R.E.M’s Out of Time brought about an abandonment of the now well-established Punk, Metal, and Electronica, or any off-shoot of them, in favor of things like the down tempo, gritty guitar sounds of Grunge, or the introduction of non-traditional instruments in Alternative rock (such as the mandolin in “Losing My Religion”), or even the fusion of rock with funk and slap bass that we find with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus. Despite the success of Pretty Hate Machine, Industrial rock remained something underground.
Fortunately, the experimental nature of the early 1990s didn't last long. Around the mid-90s, we begin to see Industrial rock rise in popularity, mostly as a response to popularity of Grunge at the time. Nine Inch Nails is usually credited as being at the forefront of the Industrial movement; The Downward Spiral is considered one of the band's finest albums and they found success with songs like "Closer" and "Wish". 1996 saw the release of Marilyn Manson's second album, Antichrist Superstar, in which we can see a return to the dark aesthetic and "shock" performance that we saw with Metal and Punk bands of the 1980s. Adding on to the snowballing success of the genre, Rob Zombie released his debut solo album, Hellbilly Deluxe, in 1998, bringing with it such definitive tracks as "Dragula" and "Superbeast" ("Meet the Creeper" was also notably featured on the soundtrack to Twisted Metal III). It is also in 1998 that Orgy released their cover of the New Order song "Blue Monday", which ranked highly on numerous top 10 and top 40 charts.
Then, at the turn of the century, everything went underground again. This new century seems to have brought with it the rise in popularity of such genres as "Metalcore", “Post-Punk”, "Post-Hardcore", and “Emo” rock. And while there has been a renewed interest in Metal and Punk (the success of bands like The Casualties and Rancid is testament to this), these genres aren't experiencing growth like they did in the 1980s, and the advent of Industrial in the late 1990s seems to have fizzled out with it (it also probably didn't help that Industrial was briefly associated with a certain high school shooting in the late 1990s either). I think it's safe to say that there hasn't been a new definitive entry in the Industrial genre since the late 90s, and any success that the genre has seen since then has come from its already established acts (for example, "The Hand that Feeds" and "Came Back Haunted" are both successful tracks from Nine Inch Nails). It's a shame insofar as Industrial was perhaps the best innovation in rock music from the 1990s (better than Grunge - sorry Nirvana fans), and songs like "Sin", "The Beautiful People", and "Superbeast" are infinitely better than most things making the stage at modern rock music festivals. This is not a call for Industrial to be given the same kind of mainstream attention as other contemporary acts. On the contrary, much like Punk and Metal, Industrial rock is not designed to have the same kind of mainstream success as certain rock acts today. Rather, this is simply a lament that, while we have started to see renewed interest and innovation in Punk and Metal, Industrial has more or less been left derelict.
Still, there may be hope yet. Like any other genre, Industrial seems to be evolving. On the one hand, there are those acts that stay true to its rock roots, using heavily distorted guitars and acoustic drums - Godflesh is a good example of this, as well as Millennium-era Front Line Assembly. On the other hand, there are those acts that have gravitated more towards the electronic elements of Industrial, minimizing the use of distorted guitars and relying more on creating the oppressive atmosphere associated with Industrial through the use of synthesizers, keyboards, and drum machines. Sometimes referred to as "Aggrotech", one can usually find the likes of Suicide Commando, God Module, and Combichrist in this camp. It may also be worthwhile to point out that there seems to have been an increased interest in this "Electro-Industrial" genre in recent years, interestingly coinciding with the advent of electronic music in general this century. As long as we recognize these two evolutionary branches of Industrial, we may yet see a resurgence in the near future; the Rivethead culture often associated with Industrial seems to be making a comeback, and the persistent success of acts such as Nine Inch Nails seems to be drawing continued attention to the genre. Perhaps we will even see a repeat of what we saw in the late 90s, where Industrial re-emerges as a response to the current obsession society has with "Metalcore" and "Dubstep" (one can only hope).
Originally written for LIKEYOUSAID Magazine 4/15/2016.
Is 2016 the Most Punk Year in U.S. Politics?
It goes without saying that 2016 is an important year in American politics. And, by this point, it also goes without saying that 2016 may very well be one of the most bizarre years in American politics. Yes, I am referring to the current election season, culminating with the advent of a new president which, given the current field of candidates, may drastically change our lives forever. Whether or not this is for the better or for the worse would depend on which side of the political spectrum you fall on. Unlike previous election years, our options seem to cover a much broader range on the spectrum; to the left, we have a candidate who aims to bring American politics and culture more in line with that of European and Canadian “democratic socialism”, and to the right, we have a candidate that suggests that building walls on our borders will somehow fix America's problems and that, for those problems that a wall can't fix, we do something to remove those that feel like there's a problem (i.e. deporting immigrants, punishing women who get an abortion, sucker-punching those who disagree, etc.). Given this apparent polarization of American politics, there is a sense in which this is the most "punk" year in election history, and, regardless of which side of the ideological spectrum you fall on, the role of punk rock and punk culture this election season is more important than ever.
One may argue that this is the most "anti-establishment" U.S. presidential election ever, which, in the most basic sense, captures the spirit of the punk movement. Throughout the 20th Century, American politics fluctuated between being slightly left-of-center or slightly right-of-center, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt is usually heralded as the paragon of liberalism while Ronald Reagan is usually idolized as the ideal conservative. Far-left or far-right wing movements were never widely recognized in American politics. In fact, during the 20th Century, proponents of far-left or far-right ideas were usually scrutinized and persecuted (see the McCarthyism paranoia of the 1950s), and there is even evidence suggesting that proponents of these ideas are still being harassed and persecuted in the 21st Century (as May Day protestor Leah Lynn Plante laments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctdn9xVXSo8).
Suddenly, however, it would seem as if this election season has evaporated a lot of the remaining doubt and skepticism the American public may have had about far-left or far-right wing ideas. Bernie Sanders, for example, has brought the notion of "democratic socialism" to the mainstream American public, advocating for an amalgam of ideas championed by the likes of former British prime minister Tony Blair and ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, such as a heavy involvement by the federal government in regulating capitalism and universal healthcare coverage. Conversely, Donald Trump has exploded onto the forefront of the Republican Party, a billionaire business tycoon with virtually no political experience, in a party where experience and "traditional" political values are held in high regard, and has seemingly hijacked the spotlight from the conservative establishment. He is an advocate of mass surveillance programs, "closing down parts of the Internet", stopping vaccinations because "they cause autism", and building a wall on the Mexican border to keep "murderers, drugs, and rapists" out, among other things. The popularity of both Sanders and Trump seems to have polarized the American political spectrum this election season, providing an alternative to the slightly left-of-center or slightly right-of-center establishment.
Such a polarization of the political spectrum has been reflected in the punk scene for a much longer period of time. One can point to the anarcho-punk movement of the late 1970s/early 1980s as an example of the intersection between far-left ideology and punk rock. British band Crass is usually cited as a paradigmatic example, espousing a lifestyle of anarchism, pacifism, and environmentalism outlined in the songs "Bloody Revolutions" and "Big A Little a". Other anarcho-punk bands were quick to follow suit; that same message of pacifism can be found in Antischism's song "Salvation or Annihilation" or Nausea's "Smash Racism". And, of course, left-wing ideology need not be confined to anarchism or pacifism, or even anarcho-punk. California skate punk has often had many anti-authority, anti-establishment, and left-wing views since its inception in the 80s. One simply need look no further than Bad Religion, a band founded on the resistance to the American religious establishment (as suggested by their song "American Jesus"). Bad Religion's albums touch on a broad array of social issues plaguing American culture, from the environmental and cultural impact of unrestrained technological advancement ("Progress" on No Control) to the inherent irrational nature of human "animals" ("New Dark Ages" on New Maps of Hell). And, of course, the California punk scene extends well beyond Bad Religion, and anti-establishment themes can be found in many other songs from many other bands (such as "Skate or Die" from D.I. and "Abolish Government" by T.S.O.L.). Such leftist and anti-establishment themes have even seen some mainstream success with Green Day's 2004 album American Idiot, much to the dismay of punk rock "purists" who maintain that punk rock is something that should inherently be an underground movement. The anti-establishment attitude of punk rock has, at times, been so strong that some bands have even "circled back" and criticized the "punk establishment" itself (Milo Goes to College by the Descendents is a good example of an album that does this).
To be fair, there are several notable cases of those in the punk movement advocating more right-wing, or even centrist, views. In 2004, The Guardian published an article about those in the punk movement that supported the re-election of George W. Bush (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/jul/07/uselections2004.popandrock), which includes an interview with former Misfits frontman Michael Graves, where he notes that "in American mainstream culture, the cool thing to do now is to hate the government and speak out against the war". The article also notes that, when the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Johnny Ramone famously announced "God bless President Bush and God bless America", in stark contrast to views of, say, Bad Religion or Green Day above. There are even notable cases where those in the punk movement have advocated ultra-nationalist or neo-Nazi themes. British band Skrewdriver is often credited as being at the forefront of this movement, having been a crucial part of the Rock Against Communism movement in the 1970s, in opposition to bands like Crass and The Clash.
It should be clear at this point how this particular election season, in many ways, has come to represent the same polarization that we have seen in the punk movement for decades. Crass and Antischism were advocating environmentalism and uniting people well before Bernie Sanders decided to run for president (though, it should be noted that Sanders was advocating these things in U.S. politics well before the punk movement even began). Likewise, those in the punk scene who advocate for ultra-nationalist or anti-communist/anti-socialist views would likely find a candidate like Trump more appealing. And it should be pointed out that, of course, Sanders and Trump are not the only ones running for president. If you think that the most progressive thing would be to have a female president, regardless of what her views on various issues are, then you might find comfort in Hillary Clinton. Likewise, if you are a proponent of a centrist way of thinking, you might even consider voting for John Kasich come November.
Regardless of where you fall on the ideological spectrum, it would seem as if the behaviors advocated by the punk scene are more important than ever. This election season has been particularly brutal - we have seen Trump rallies erupt into violence, nationwide protests that have closed city streets, and armed civilians, who sometimes refer to themselves as a "militia", showing up at rallies and religious centers to threaten and intimidate immigrants. Many people in the U.S. would not find one or more of these things acceptable in a civilized society. Yet, depending on who gets elected this November, these things may very well become the norm. Accordingly, the most obvious way to voice your resistance to these things would be to make sure you vote this election season. For those of you who want to be a little more “pro-active” in your approach to addressing these issues, you might consider taking a page from Antischism or Nausea and participate in sit-ins and demonstrations. As I hinted at in the first paragraph, since this election is so polarized, the results of it may very well radically change the future of our lives forever.
Originally written for LIKEYOUSAID Magazine 4/11/2016.
One may argue that this is the most "anti-establishment" U.S. presidential election ever, which, in the most basic sense, captures the spirit of the punk movement. Throughout the 20th Century, American politics fluctuated between being slightly left-of-center or slightly right-of-center, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt is usually heralded as the paragon of liberalism while Ronald Reagan is usually idolized as the ideal conservative. Far-left or far-right wing movements were never widely recognized in American politics. In fact, during the 20th Century, proponents of far-left or far-right ideas were usually scrutinized and persecuted (see the McCarthyism paranoia of the 1950s), and there is even evidence suggesting that proponents of these ideas are still being harassed and persecuted in the 21st Century (as May Day protestor Leah Lynn Plante laments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctdn9xVXSo8).
Suddenly, however, it would seem as if this election season has evaporated a lot of the remaining doubt and skepticism the American public may have had about far-left or far-right wing ideas. Bernie Sanders, for example, has brought the notion of "democratic socialism" to the mainstream American public, advocating for an amalgam of ideas championed by the likes of former British prime minister Tony Blair and ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, such as a heavy involvement by the federal government in regulating capitalism and universal healthcare coverage. Conversely, Donald Trump has exploded onto the forefront of the Republican Party, a billionaire business tycoon with virtually no political experience, in a party where experience and "traditional" political values are held in high regard, and has seemingly hijacked the spotlight from the conservative establishment. He is an advocate of mass surveillance programs, "closing down parts of the Internet", stopping vaccinations because "they cause autism", and building a wall on the Mexican border to keep "murderers, drugs, and rapists" out, among other things. The popularity of both Sanders and Trump seems to have polarized the American political spectrum this election season, providing an alternative to the slightly left-of-center or slightly right-of-center establishment.
Such a polarization of the political spectrum has been reflected in the punk scene for a much longer period of time. One can point to the anarcho-punk movement of the late 1970s/early 1980s as an example of the intersection between far-left ideology and punk rock. British band Crass is usually cited as a paradigmatic example, espousing a lifestyle of anarchism, pacifism, and environmentalism outlined in the songs "Bloody Revolutions" and "Big A Little a". Other anarcho-punk bands were quick to follow suit; that same message of pacifism can be found in Antischism's song "Salvation or Annihilation" or Nausea's "Smash Racism". And, of course, left-wing ideology need not be confined to anarchism or pacifism, or even anarcho-punk. California skate punk has often had many anti-authority, anti-establishment, and left-wing views since its inception in the 80s. One simply need look no further than Bad Religion, a band founded on the resistance to the American religious establishment (as suggested by their song "American Jesus"). Bad Religion's albums touch on a broad array of social issues plaguing American culture, from the environmental and cultural impact of unrestrained technological advancement ("Progress" on No Control) to the inherent irrational nature of human "animals" ("New Dark Ages" on New Maps of Hell). And, of course, the California punk scene extends well beyond Bad Religion, and anti-establishment themes can be found in many other songs from many other bands (such as "Skate or Die" from D.I. and "Abolish Government" by T.S.O.L.). Such leftist and anti-establishment themes have even seen some mainstream success with Green Day's 2004 album American Idiot, much to the dismay of punk rock "purists" who maintain that punk rock is something that should inherently be an underground movement. The anti-establishment attitude of punk rock has, at times, been so strong that some bands have even "circled back" and criticized the "punk establishment" itself (Milo Goes to College by the Descendents is a good example of an album that does this).
To be fair, there are several notable cases of those in the punk movement advocating more right-wing, or even centrist, views. In 2004, The Guardian published an article about those in the punk movement that supported the re-election of George W. Bush (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/jul/07/uselections2004.popandrock), which includes an interview with former Misfits frontman Michael Graves, where he notes that "in American mainstream culture, the cool thing to do now is to hate the government and speak out against the war". The article also notes that, when the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Johnny Ramone famously announced "God bless President Bush and God bless America", in stark contrast to views of, say, Bad Religion or Green Day above. There are even notable cases where those in the punk movement have advocated ultra-nationalist or neo-Nazi themes. British band Skrewdriver is often credited as being at the forefront of this movement, having been a crucial part of the Rock Against Communism movement in the 1970s, in opposition to bands like Crass and The Clash.
It should be clear at this point how this particular election season, in many ways, has come to represent the same polarization that we have seen in the punk movement for decades. Crass and Antischism were advocating environmentalism and uniting people well before Bernie Sanders decided to run for president (though, it should be noted that Sanders was advocating these things in U.S. politics well before the punk movement even began). Likewise, those in the punk scene who advocate for ultra-nationalist or anti-communist/anti-socialist views would likely find a candidate like Trump more appealing. And it should be pointed out that, of course, Sanders and Trump are not the only ones running for president. If you think that the most progressive thing would be to have a female president, regardless of what her views on various issues are, then you might find comfort in Hillary Clinton. Likewise, if you are a proponent of a centrist way of thinking, you might even consider voting for John Kasich come November.
Regardless of where you fall on the ideological spectrum, it would seem as if the behaviors advocated by the punk scene are more important than ever. This election season has been particularly brutal - we have seen Trump rallies erupt into violence, nationwide protests that have closed city streets, and armed civilians, who sometimes refer to themselves as a "militia", showing up at rallies and religious centers to threaten and intimidate immigrants. Many people in the U.S. would not find one or more of these things acceptable in a civilized society. Yet, depending on who gets elected this November, these things may very well become the norm. Accordingly, the most obvious way to voice your resistance to these things would be to make sure you vote this election season. For those of you who want to be a little more “pro-active” in your approach to addressing these issues, you might consider taking a page from Antischism or Nausea and participate in sit-ins and demonstrations. As I hinted at in the first paragraph, since this election is so polarized, the results of it may very well radically change the future of our lives forever.
Originally written for LIKEYOUSAID Magazine 4/11/2016.
Monday, April 4, 2016
Review - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
The opening paragraph of my film reviews usually consists of a brief
introduction and a description of the context leading up to it. However,
when it comes to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I feel inclined to
present my reaction to it up front, before any kind of introduction,
which, while trying to be as poetic and elegant as I can while staying
true to my raw feelings, can best be captured as follows: WHAT IN THE
HOLY FUCKING SHIT WAS THAT?? Ok, now that I have gotten that off my
chest, my review can continue as normal. I return to the realm of
writing after something of a hiatus since my Deadpool review. There were
a number of reasons for this, the most pressing of which being recent
financial obligations that I have to prepare for, which require that I
invest more time into things both at work and outside of work. That, and
a lack of films to write about that would generate a decent review (I
will admit that I started brainstorming and writing a new philosophical
piece last month, but, while working on it, I quickly realized that that
particular piece will take some time to produce). Thus, I figured that
the release of Batman v Superman would make for an opportune moment for
me to come back to writing. And it appears as if superhero films
continue to be the flavor of the decade, despite the strong performance
of Mad Max, Jurassic World, and Star Wars last year. New to the arena
this time around is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Comics'
attempt at entering into the fray with Marvel's Avengers, directed by
Zach Snyder.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the second installment of the DC Comics Cinematic Universe, after 2013's Man of Steel, and is meant to ultimately segue into a full-blown Justice League movie at some point in the future. And, in case you've lived under a rock for the better part of your life, the Justice League is DC's amalgam of their most famous superheroes, including Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, who band together to fight evil, not unlike Marvel's Avengers, both of which appeared in the 1960s. The film stars Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman, with a supporting cast consisting of the likes of Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Jeremy Irons, and Gal Gadot, and pits our two heroes against Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor, portrayed by Jesse Eisenburg. This also marks the first silver screen appearance of Batman since Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, and comes on the heels of Man of Steel, which, while not groundbreaking, is usually considered the most successful silver screen iteration of Superman to date (after a long list of failed attempts).
The film opens up with a re-enactment of the ending scene of Man of Steel, except told from the perspective of Bruce Wayne. Wayne finds himself running around frantically trying to save friends (and, interestingly, employees) from the chaos and destruction wrought by the final fight between Superman and General Zod. Faced with the sorrow and grief caused by all of the collateral damage, Wayne begins to harbor animosity towards Superman that festers as the film plays on. Fast forward to about two years after Man of Steel ends. Superman has become a kind of "on call" hero figure, appearing around the world to thwart evil wherever it may arise, while working as a journalist for the Metropolis newspaper The Daily Planet as his alter ego Clark Kent. Despite saving the world from General Zod and becoming a kind of celebrity figure, overall doing good throughout the world, Superman also has his share of detractors, including influential public officials in the U.S. Senate. These detractors see Superman as a kind of authoritarian figure, or a figure of unlimited power without any kind of checks or balances. Among them is the young, wealthy business and engineering tycoon Lex Luthor, who, through some shady business dealings around the world, comes across a large chunk of Kryptonite from Zod's failed attempt at terraforming Earth, found not far from a beach off the coast of the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, across the river from Metropolis in Gotham City, Batman continues to live up to his reputation as the mysterious vigilante, using his various gadgets and gizmos to bring evil-doers to justice, who, as far as this film is concerned, are usually petty street thugs. Of course, both heroes get their share of face time in the local media, Batman usually portrayed as a rogue vigilante, Superman as the paragon of righteousness, a messiah to some, a burgeoning dictator to others, including Wayne and Luthor. And it is through the media that Superman develops the perception that Batman is a kind of oppressor, skulking around the underbelly of Gotham to intimidate and threaten the destitute and dispossessed, many of whom have to resort to petty crime in order to survive. While this rivalry is developing, Luthor lobbies certain members of the U.S. Congress to help him weaponize the chunk of Kryptonite he managed to get his hands on as a kind of deterrent to Superman. After his proposal is ultimately rejected, he bombs the U.S. Capitol building, indirectly implicating Superman in the process. Wayne is then given reason to suspect Luthor of foul play, so, after researching recent projects that Luthor has been working on, Batman then manages to steal the chunk of Kryptonite from Luthor and uses it to create a spear designed to kill Superman. Eventually, with a little bit of coercion from Lex Luthor, our two heroes meet face to face and duke it out. That is, until the eventual interference of Lois Lane who manages to convince Batman to help Superman stop Luthor from using General Zod's ship to create an abominable Krypton creature. By the time our heroes put aside their differences, however, it is too late. The creature is released and the end of the film consists of our two heroes trying to find a way to stop it, eventually even getting help from Wonder Woman, who, quite literally, appears from nowhere.
As can be inferred from my opening evaluation of Batman v Superman at the outset, my overall impression of the film was pretty dismal. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice more or less embodies everything that is wrong with superhero films, arguably even more so than the Avengers. It's difficult to even find a place to start critiquing it, there are so many to choose from. Perhaps the narrative and characters are a good place. Frankly, the story was mediocre and the character development is more or less what I would expect for a superhero movie, which is to say, virtually non-existent. I will admit that, while there are several comic series and superhero movies that I really enjoy (including Batman), Superman was never among them. The Superman series always struck me as boring and uninteresting. Superman is just too ridiculously overpowered - he flies, is faster than "a speeding bullet", near-impervious to damage (unless, of course, he is around Kryptonite), and shoots lasers out of his eyes, not to mention the fact he is jacked with an 8-pack and his pectorals always look like they are about to burst out of his shirt. He has virtually no flaws, and, for the flaws that he does have, they are not easy to exploit. Quite literally, the only creatures that stand a chance against Superman are otherwordly, much like the creature at the end of Dawn of Justice. But then, at this point, we have gone beyond the willful "suspension of disbelief" and completely detached the narrative from the viewers, instead focusing on an absolutely over-the-top fight between two ridiculously overpowered creatures. I continue to find myself perplexed by the fact that people are actually entertained by this - one thing that can make fiction really interesting is watching the characters grow and develop - watch their flaws be exploited, watch them learn from their mistakes, and watch them cope with everyday life, which makes them relatable to an audience. None of this applies to Superman (unless, of course, you're a shredded hunk with an 8-pack who can shoot lasers out of his eyes).
Of course, the film's problems go well beyond those of Superman. The overall narrative was a minefield of plot holes, arguably leaving more questions than it answered. Why exactly was Lex Luthor so hell-bent on destroying Superman? Luthor was portrayed as one who has a kind of fanatic devotion to the cause of destroying Superman, but his motivating factors are never made clear. Bruce Wayne at least had the excuse of revenge, but Luthor never seemed to have anything to worry about when it came Superman. Was Luthor always this fanatical, even before Superman appeared? Even in the first five minutes of his screen time, Lex Luthor gave off the impression that he belonged in a straight jacket, leaving one to wonder how exactly he got to where he was as the CEO of LexCorp. Granted, a Superman fanboy may try to refer me to the comics for answers and attempt to defend Dawn of Justice's portrayal of Lex Luthor with religious zeal, but this would be a poor cop-out. Chris Nolan's Dark Knight series was able to give an adequate backstory to Bruce Wayne/Batman without having to refer the audience to the comics for answers. Speaking of Batman, there also seemed to be a gross disconnect between this iteration of Batman, and the character archetype set for him in the previous films (and, if I may say so, this iteration of Batman is even at odds with the characterization of him in the Emmy Award-winning animated series from the 1990s). Specifically, there are several points in the film where Batman is portrayed with guns and actually using them to kill people, such as his vision of the future where he leads a resistance against Superman, as well as his big fight scene with Luthor's Russian henchmen while trying to save Superman's adoptive mother. This is starkly at odds with the identity of Batman established for him in previous film iterations; Batman famously doesn't kill people, let alone use guns to harm others, preferring usually to just beat them into submission. It's one thing to reboot a character, or take a character in a different direction (clearly, Chris Nolan's Dark Knight is radically different from the Tim Burton version of Batman from the late 80s/early 90s), but it's an entirely different thing to break away from one of the core traits that has come to define the character. This would be like having Captain America suddenly start fighting for Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, something wholly incoherent with the character.
The introduction of Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League didn't help the film's odds either. In fact, their introduction felt a bit rushed; this is only the second installment of the DC Cinematic Universe and already we have the Justice League assembling on screen. I'm sure this is DC's and Warner Bros' attempt at catching up with Marvel's Avengers, but, as is typical with Warner Bros., they are just making things worse, and are always late to the party (see Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe). There were five installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before the release of the first Avengers film, allowing Marvel to really dig deep into the narratives of each of our primary protagonists, however silly those may (or may not) have been. With DC, however, it looks like they just want to skip to the part where a whole bunch of random superheroes appear on screen at the same time. This is a pity because it makes Wonder Woman's appearance feel very rushed and arbitrary; she is literally given no background at all, other than arguably a random photo from what looks to be World War II, and just shows up out of nowhere to help Batman and Superman fight the Krypton creature at the end. There is so much potential with Wonder Woman; this is her first really big live-action iteration, but the character's background wasn't established at all. And while there is a full-blown Wonder Woman movie in production for a slated 2017 release, it doesn't really help Dawn of Justice for it to be released after the fact. A similar criticism can be aimed at this version of Batman - there is a lot of untapped potential here as well. One of the defining characteristics of Chris Nolan's Dark Knight series is the fact that he tried to situate Batman in the realm of crime drama, using believable villains and mobsters as the scourge of Gotham that Batman is dealing with. This framework inevitably ruled out some of Batman's more "sci-fi" antagonists, such as Poison Ivy or Mr. Freeze. I think there is an opportunity here in the DC Cinematic Universe to really push Affleck's Batman, and perhaps revisit some of these more sci-fi villains that, while wholly inconsistent with the Nolan version of Batman, would seem plausible given what we have seen so far in Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice. Besides, it would take little effort to improve upon Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze since their last silver screen appearance in 1997's Batman and Robin ("WHAT KILLED THE DINOSAURS?"). In fact, on that note, it might even be a good idea to revisit the Riddler as well (one of my personal favorite Batman villains, along with the Scarecrow).
Is there anything that Dawn of Justice does well? Well, yes and no. The area where I can give praise to Dawn of Justice is in its special effects, but, at the same time, I could also make the case that this works to its detriment. Make no mistake, Warner Bros. pumped a lot of money into making sure that Dawn of Justice was at the forefront of special effects, from Superman's eye lasers, to Bruce Wayne's apocalyptic dreamscape, to General Zod's crashed ship. This is in stark contrast to The 5th Wave, that alien invasion movie from earlier in the year that didn't look like an alien invasion at all, partially because of a lack of special effects. Dawn of Justice is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. But that's also the thing that works against it. While The 5th Wave had no special effects at all, Dawn of Justice feels like it was directed by Michael Bay and seems to have gone completely overboard with its special effects. In many ways, I can't fault Dawn of Justice for this; this seems like the inevitable side effect of having Superman in your movies, and such an addiction to special effects, by this point, seems inherent to superhero films, as evidenced by the Avengers. But again, we can contrast Dawn of Justice and the Avengers with Nolan's Dark Knight series. Another thing that works in favor of Nolan's Batman films is the fact that they are not over-laced with special effects, making them more relatable, and facilitating the suspension of disbelief. It's difficult to maintain that when the primary protagonist just drops in to a terrorist stronghold and begins shooting lasers out of his eyes.
Overall, my dissatisfaction with Dawn of Justice can be summarized by two major points. First, DC has a tendency to show up late to the party, so to speak, and, as a result, everything seems so rushed and incomplete. Much in the same way the Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe didn't offer anything above and beyond Marvel vs. Capcom, Dawn of Justice doesn't really offer anything that sets it apart from the Avengers. In fact, the Marvel Cinematic Universe at least developed its primary characters by giving them their own individual stories, something sorely lacking from the DC Cinematic Universe. Second, Dawn of Justice appears to have also jumped on the bandwagon of over-done and unnecessary special effects, using that as a mere distraction from an otherwise silly and underdeveloped plot. Like my feelings towards the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I would be much more interested in the characters' individual stories; there are a lot of unique character points that could be had with Batman and Wonder Woman, and I think developing those characters individually would greatly benefit the series before cramming them together into a hodge-podge of convoluted superhero action. On that note, though, this gives us something to look forward to in the Wonder Woman film due out next summer. And, speaking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, now that Dawn of Justice is out of the way, this paves the way for Captain America: Civil War as the next big superhero film coming out in the next several weeks.
Lastly, I bring some good news for my (currently nonexistent) fans: I believe I have finally found an outlet for my writing in the form of LIKEYOUSAID Magazine. A punk/alternative music magazine based out of Boston, I have been in talks with one of the lead editors to contribute rock-related articles to their cause. As those get published, it is my intention to also post them to the blog. My first submission for the magazine, "Is 2016 the Most Punk Year in U.S. Politics?", should hopefully be making it to the "Features" column of LIKEYOUSAID soon!
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the second installment of the DC Comics Cinematic Universe, after 2013's Man of Steel, and is meant to ultimately segue into a full-blown Justice League movie at some point in the future. And, in case you've lived under a rock for the better part of your life, the Justice League is DC's amalgam of their most famous superheroes, including Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, who band together to fight evil, not unlike Marvel's Avengers, both of which appeared in the 1960s. The film stars Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman, with a supporting cast consisting of the likes of Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Jeremy Irons, and Gal Gadot, and pits our two heroes against Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor, portrayed by Jesse Eisenburg. This also marks the first silver screen appearance of Batman since Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, and comes on the heels of Man of Steel, which, while not groundbreaking, is usually considered the most successful silver screen iteration of Superman to date (after a long list of failed attempts).
The film opens up with a re-enactment of the ending scene of Man of Steel, except told from the perspective of Bruce Wayne. Wayne finds himself running around frantically trying to save friends (and, interestingly, employees) from the chaos and destruction wrought by the final fight between Superman and General Zod. Faced with the sorrow and grief caused by all of the collateral damage, Wayne begins to harbor animosity towards Superman that festers as the film plays on. Fast forward to about two years after Man of Steel ends. Superman has become a kind of "on call" hero figure, appearing around the world to thwart evil wherever it may arise, while working as a journalist for the Metropolis newspaper The Daily Planet as his alter ego Clark Kent. Despite saving the world from General Zod and becoming a kind of celebrity figure, overall doing good throughout the world, Superman also has his share of detractors, including influential public officials in the U.S. Senate. These detractors see Superman as a kind of authoritarian figure, or a figure of unlimited power without any kind of checks or balances. Among them is the young, wealthy business and engineering tycoon Lex Luthor, who, through some shady business dealings around the world, comes across a large chunk of Kryptonite from Zod's failed attempt at terraforming Earth, found not far from a beach off the coast of the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, across the river from Metropolis in Gotham City, Batman continues to live up to his reputation as the mysterious vigilante, using his various gadgets and gizmos to bring evil-doers to justice, who, as far as this film is concerned, are usually petty street thugs. Of course, both heroes get their share of face time in the local media, Batman usually portrayed as a rogue vigilante, Superman as the paragon of righteousness, a messiah to some, a burgeoning dictator to others, including Wayne and Luthor. And it is through the media that Superman develops the perception that Batman is a kind of oppressor, skulking around the underbelly of Gotham to intimidate and threaten the destitute and dispossessed, many of whom have to resort to petty crime in order to survive. While this rivalry is developing, Luthor lobbies certain members of the U.S. Congress to help him weaponize the chunk of Kryptonite he managed to get his hands on as a kind of deterrent to Superman. After his proposal is ultimately rejected, he bombs the U.S. Capitol building, indirectly implicating Superman in the process. Wayne is then given reason to suspect Luthor of foul play, so, after researching recent projects that Luthor has been working on, Batman then manages to steal the chunk of Kryptonite from Luthor and uses it to create a spear designed to kill Superman. Eventually, with a little bit of coercion from Lex Luthor, our two heroes meet face to face and duke it out. That is, until the eventual interference of Lois Lane who manages to convince Batman to help Superman stop Luthor from using General Zod's ship to create an abominable Krypton creature. By the time our heroes put aside their differences, however, it is too late. The creature is released and the end of the film consists of our two heroes trying to find a way to stop it, eventually even getting help from Wonder Woman, who, quite literally, appears from nowhere.
As can be inferred from my opening evaluation of Batman v Superman at the outset, my overall impression of the film was pretty dismal. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice more or less embodies everything that is wrong with superhero films, arguably even more so than the Avengers. It's difficult to even find a place to start critiquing it, there are so many to choose from. Perhaps the narrative and characters are a good place. Frankly, the story was mediocre and the character development is more or less what I would expect for a superhero movie, which is to say, virtually non-existent. I will admit that, while there are several comic series and superhero movies that I really enjoy (including Batman), Superman was never among them. The Superman series always struck me as boring and uninteresting. Superman is just too ridiculously overpowered - he flies, is faster than "a speeding bullet", near-impervious to damage (unless, of course, he is around Kryptonite), and shoots lasers out of his eyes, not to mention the fact he is jacked with an 8-pack and his pectorals always look like they are about to burst out of his shirt. He has virtually no flaws, and, for the flaws that he does have, they are not easy to exploit. Quite literally, the only creatures that stand a chance against Superman are otherwordly, much like the creature at the end of Dawn of Justice. But then, at this point, we have gone beyond the willful "suspension of disbelief" and completely detached the narrative from the viewers, instead focusing on an absolutely over-the-top fight between two ridiculously overpowered creatures. I continue to find myself perplexed by the fact that people are actually entertained by this - one thing that can make fiction really interesting is watching the characters grow and develop - watch their flaws be exploited, watch them learn from their mistakes, and watch them cope with everyday life, which makes them relatable to an audience. None of this applies to Superman (unless, of course, you're a shredded hunk with an 8-pack who can shoot lasers out of his eyes).
Of course, the film's problems go well beyond those of Superman. The overall narrative was a minefield of plot holes, arguably leaving more questions than it answered. Why exactly was Lex Luthor so hell-bent on destroying Superman? Luthor was portrayed as one who has a kind of fanatic devotion to the cause of destroying Superman, but his motivating factors are never made clear. Bruce Wayne at least had the excuse of revenge, but Luthor never seemed to have anything to worry about when it came Superman. Was Luthor always this fanatical, even before Superman appeared? Even in the first five minutes of his screen time, Lex Luthor gave off the impression that he belonged in a straight jacket, leaving one to wonder how exactly he got to where he was as the CEO of LexCorp. Granted, a Superman fanboy may try to refer me to the comics for answers and attempt to defend Dawn of Justice's portrayal of Lex Luthor with religious zeal, but this would be a poor cop-out. Chris Nolan's Dark Knight series was able to give an adequate backstory to Bruce Wayne/Batman without having to refer the audience to the comics for answers. Speaking of Batman, there also seemed to be a gross disconnect between this iteration of Batman, and the character archetype set for him in the previous films (and, if I may say so, this iteration of Batman is even at odds with the characterization of him in the Emmy Award-winning animated series from the 1990s). Specifically, there are several points in the film where Batman is portrayed with guns and actually using them to kill people, such as his vision of the future where he leads a resistance against Superman, as well as his big fight scene with Luthor's Russian henchmen while trying to save Superman's adoptive mother. This is starkly at odds with the identity of Batman established for him in previous film iterations; Batman famously doesn't kill people, let alone use guns to harm others, preferring usually to just beat them into submission. It's one thing to reboot a character, or take a character in a different direction (clearly, Chris Nolan's Dark Knight is radically different from the Tim Burton version of Batman from the late 80s/early 90s), but it's an entirely different thing to break away from one of the core traits that has come to define the character. This would be like having Captain America suddenly start fighting for Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, something wholly incoherent with the character.
The introduction of Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League didn't help the film's odds either. In fact, their introduction felt a bit rushed; this is only the second installment of the DC Cinematic Universe and already we have the Justice League assembling on screen. I'm sure this is DC's and Warner Bros' attempt at catching up with Marvel's Avengers, but, as is typical with Warner Bros., they are just making things worse, and are always late to the party (see Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe). There were five installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before the release of the first Avengers film, allowing Marvel to really dig deep into the narratives of each of our primary protagonists, however silly those may (or may not) have been. With DC, however, it looks like they just want to skip to the part where a whole bunch of random superheroes appear on screen at the same time. This is a pity because it makes Wonder Woman's appearance feel very rushed and arbitrary; she is literally given no background at all, other than arguably a random photo from what looks to be World War II, and just shows up out of nowhere to help Batman and Superman fight the Krypton creature at the end. There is so much potential with Wonder Woman; this is her first really big live-action iteration, but the character's background wasn't established at all. And while there is a full-blown Wonder Woman movie in production for a slated 2017 release, it doesn't really help Dawn of Justice for it to be released after the fact. A similar criticism can be aimed at this version of Batman - there is a lot of untapped potential here as well. One of the defining characteristics of Chris Nolan's Dark Knight series is the fact that he tried to situate Batman in the realm of crime drama, using believable villains and mobsters as the scourge of Gotham that Batman is dealing with. This framework inevitably ruled out some of Batman's more "sci-fi" antagonists, such as Poison Ivy or Mr. Freeze. I think there is an opportunity here in the DC Cinematic Universe to really push Affleck's Batman, and perhaps revisit some of these more sci-fi villains that, while wholly inconsistent with the Nolan version of Batman, would seem plausible given what we have seen so far in Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice. Besides, it would take little effort to improve upon Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze since their last silver screen appearance in 1997's Batman and Robin ("WHAT KILLED THE DINOSAURS?"). In fact, on that note, it might even be a good idea to revisit the Riddler as well (one of my personal favorite Batman villains, along with the Scarecrow).
Is there anything that Dawn of Justice does well? Well, yes and no. The area where I can give praise to Dawn of Justice is in its special effects, but, at the same time, I could also make the case that this works to its detriment. Make no mistake, Warner Bros. pumped a lot of money into making sure that Dawn of Justice was at the forefront of special effects, from Superman's eye lasers, to Bruce Wayne's apocalyptic dreamscape, to General Zod's crashed ship. This is in stark contrast to The 5th Wave, that alien invasion movie from earlier in the year that didn't look like an alien invasion at all, partially because of a lack of special effects. Dawn of Justice is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. But that's also the thing that works against it. While The 5th Wave had no special effects at all, Dawn of Justice feels like it was directed by Michael Bay and seems to have gone completely overboard with its special effects. In many ways, I can't fault Dawn of Justice for this; this seems like the inevitable side effect of having Superman in your movies, and such an addiction to special effects, by this point, seems inherent to superhero films, as evidenced by the Avengers. But again, we can contrast Dawn of Justice and the Avengers with Nolan's Dark Knight series. Another thing that works in favor of Nolan's Batman films is the fact that they are not over-laced with special effects, making them more relatable, and facilitating the suspension of disbelief. It's difficult to maintain that when the primary protagonist just drops in to a terrorist stronghold and begins shooting lasers out of his eyes.
Overall, my dissatisfaction with Dawn of Justice can be summarized by two major points. First, DC has a tendency to show up late to the party, so to speak, and, as a result, everything seems so rushed and incomplete. Much in the same way the Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe didn't offer anything above and beyond Marvel vs. Capcom, Dawn of Justice doesn't really offer anything that sets it apart from the Avengers. In fact, the Marvel Cinematic Universe at least developed its primary characters by giving them their own individual stories, something sorely lacking from the DC Cinematic Universe. Second, Dawn of Justice appears to have also jumped on the bandwagon of over-done and unnecessary special effects, using that as a mere distraction from an otherwise silly and underdeveloped plot. Like my feelings towards the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I would be much more interested in the characters' individual stories; there are a lot of unique character points that could be had with Batman and Wonder Woman, and I think developing those characters individually would greatly benefit the series before cramming them together into a hodge-podge of convoluted superhero action. On that note, though, this gives us something to look forward to in the Wonder Woman film due out next summer. And, speaking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, now that Dawn of Justice is out of the way, this paves the way for Captain America: Civil War as the next big superhero film coming out in the next several weeks.
Lastly, I bring some good news for my (currently nonexistent) fans: I believe I have finally found an outlet for my writing in the form of LIKEYOUSAID Magazine. A punk/alternative music magazine based out of Boston, I have been in talks with one of the lead editors to contribute rock-related articles to their cause. As those get published, it is my intention to also post them to the blog. My first submission for the magazine, "Is 2016 the Most Punk Year in U.S. Politics?", should hopefully be making it to the "Features" column of LIKEYOUSAID soon!
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Review - Deadpool
This is quite a relief. After what I would consider to be an overall
successful year for cinema in 2015 to be followed by the completely
horrible excuse for a sci-fi movie that was The 5th Wave at the start of
2016, my outlook for the remainder for 2016 had been regrettably
tainted. Rest assured, however, for a hero has come along and redeemed
2016 from the clutches of failure and my bleak outlook. And by hero, I
mean a katana wielding, sex-hungry, overpowered, semi-sadistic,
4th-wall-breaking joker wearing a red unitard who encourages cab drivers
to kill their family members, his roommates to do cocaine, and has no
shortage of dick jokes. Yes, I mean Deadpool.
Marvel has kicked off the superhero genre for year with our quirky comic book hero Deadpool, featuring Ryan Reynolds as our wise-cracking, ex-military mutant out to settle a personal score in the X-Men universe. And I must say, Marvel and Fox Studios deserve praise for this one; this is one of the few cases where a genre experiments and ventures out of its comfort zone. I would hesitate to call Deadpool a "superhero" movie in the traditional sense; there is no readily apparent disaster threatening the world that only Deadpool, with his mutant powers, can solve (although one may be implied), nor does our hero exemplify many of the virtues of the other characters in the X-Men universe, like, say, Professor Xavier. Rather, Deadpool is best understood as a parody of the superhero genre, with an anti-hero as the protagonist as opposed to your traditional hero. And these two characteristics alone already set Deadpool up to be a noteworthy entry not just in the superhero genre, but for 2016 in general. Good parodies and anti-heroes are rarely seen in cinema these days, and to have them done well is a noteworthy feat. Accordingly, I should say up front that I already have a feeling that this review may be slightly shorter than most of my previous film reviews, insofar as I really have no point of comparison for Deadpool (I will admit that this was a comic series that I had certainly heard of, but wasn't very familiar with); many of its primary characteristics don't follow the formula for your typical superhero film, and aren't meant to. As such, Deadpool is a kind of "lone wolf" in the genre, rebelling against the norm and setting its own rules. And because of all of these things, I have to give it a positive recommendation; it experiments with the genre, making a bold attempt at parody and shirking the superhero norms with gratuitous violence, sex, drugs, anti-heroes, and adult humor - and it does it all fairly well.
Deadpool opens up with a high-intensity, blood-soaked freeway firefight: our hero dives into a convoy of vehicles and begins assailing the occupants. It's not immediately clear who these guys are or why Deadpool is so inclined to stop them, only that he is looking for a man named "Francis". But it is apparent, at least, that they are up to some type of no-good; they all immediately pull out automatic weapons and grenades and unload clips of bullets at Deadpool, all while our protagonist calls out for Francis, much in the same way a dog owner excitedly calls out to Fido in his backyard. It is at this point that Deadpool takes us on a flashback of events leading up to this kill-fest. We learn that he was once referred to as Wade Wilson, an ex-military commando with a long kill streak and dishonorably discharged from service. After leaving the military, Wilson makes a living taking up odd jobs as a mercenary in New York City, mostly as "a bully who stops other bullies" sort of guy. He spends his spare time at a shady dive bar run by his friend, Weasel. Weasel's bar is more or less what you would expect of a place that caters to mercs: a joint for many of New York's more "unscrupulous" characters to hang out, a place for drug dealers and con artists, computer hackers and arms dealers, prostitutes and muscle-for-hire. It is at Weasel's bar that Wade meets the escort girl Vanessa, where both of them detail their troubled pasts and become romantically involved with each other. We are then fast-forwarded through the following year after Wade and Vanessa meet, which more or less consists of a montage of them having wild sex on various holidays until the Christmas season, where Wade suddenly collapses. He is then diagnosed with an extreme form of cancer, which his doctors say is terminal. Devastated, Wade and Vanessa desperately seek out any kind of treatment they can. One night, Wade accepts the offer of a man who represents Francis Freeman and his sidekick, Angel Dust, and is taken to a secret facility where Francis injects him with a special serum in order to trigger the rapid mutation of his body "under extreme stress" that promises to cure Wade of the cancer. It is then revealed that the serum is part of a super-soldier program where Francis auctions off the survivors to the highest bidders on the black market for use as obedient killing machines. After realizing this, Wade manages to escape from the facility, but not before being highly disfigured by the experiments. Here, we are more or less brought full-circle back around to the opening scene, where Deadpool is out to get revenge on Francis and hopefully reverse the disfiguring effects of the experiments on him, all while trying to reunite with Vanessa.
Assessing the pros and cons of Deadpool will be a somewhat new experience; there hasn't really been a film quite like this in recent years, and, as such, it is subject to a radically different set of evaluative criteria than many other superhero or action films. Perhaps the two most important things to take away from Deadpool are its re-introduction of parody into mainstream cinema, as well as its use of the anti-hero character archetype. Parody seems to have a kind of "love-hate" relationship with Hollywood; some may, for example, point to the Scary Movie series as the apotheosis of parody in modern cinema over the past couple of decades. However, the Scary Movie series is a good example of parody to the extent that Donald Trump is a good example of a philanthropist, which is to say, not at all. Contrary to popular belief, it is certainly possible for a parody to exhibit a degree of depth and complexity, and do more than simply rely on immature humor, something that is severely lacking from the Scary Movie series, or any films like it. I confess myself perpetually dumbfounded by those who find the Scary Movie series entertaining. However, Deadpool avoids many of these pitfalls. Wade, Vanessa, and Weasel all exhibit the same degree of character that we find in many other characters of the X-Men universe. Reynolds does a great job of portraying Wade Wilson as a wise-cracking tough guy, someone who approaches life with a notably morbid and mature sense of humor, like a cross between the completely "fuck you" demeanor of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with the complete lack of seriousness of the Joker from Batman. And such a persona lends itself well to the task of parody; Deadpool's lack of seriousness allows him to famously "break the 4th wall" and, quite literally, give to the audience a sense of lightheartedness to an otherwise extreme and violent situation. It also allows him to to provide the kind of commentary on superhero films that is desperately needed in the current cinematic landscape, commentary that I have been giving for some time. For example, there is a scene towards the end of the film where Angel Dust jumps from the deck of a docked aircraft carrier, but not before Deadpool predicts that she is going to do the famous "superhero landing" and draws the attention of Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead to the spectacle. And, sure enough, Angel Dust proceeds to leap from the deck and slam into the ground in an earth-shattering fashion, her fist planted firmly in the pavement, her form displaying a degree of subtle cartoonishness, betraying the amount of CGI that went into the sequence. Deadpool's point here has been long overdue in Hollywood; superhero movies have become so cliche to the point of being predictable, which ultimately undermines the genre insofar as predictability steals away some of the excitement and action from a superhero film.
Perhaps even more interesting than its exploration of parody, Deadpool re-introduces the "anti-hero" into mainstream cinema. Revisiting the notion of the anti-hero is something I have been a proponent of for a long time - in a cinematic and literary landscape dominated by the cliched and generic plot of "good vs evil" or "good guys win, bad guys die", which hardly ever reflects the actual complexities of conflicts in the world, it is easy to see just how detached and impersonal most stories are. I have always felt that the anti-hero was a literary or film device that is often underutilized, and allows for an entirely new dimension in the narrative that readers or viewers can relate to. And for those who aren't familiar with the concept, an "anti-hero" is a character that is distinct from a "villain", yet not quite a "hero", a character that may do all of the right things, but for all of the wrong reasons, or may do all of the right things, but not in the same way that a hero might do them. Lisbeth Salander again serves as a great example here: as a world-renowned computer hacker with a questionable sense of morality, her persona doesn't lend itself well to society's established notions of a "hero". However, her uncanny ability to use her eidetic memory and computer skill to help Mikael Blomkvist uncover the details of a young woman's disappearance nonetheless lend themselves to what many would consider to be a good cause. And such is the case with Deadpool; Deadpool seeks revenge against the man that tortured and disfigured him, violently cutting down any henchmen in his way with a gay bravado, ultimately splattering Francis' brain across the pavement, despite the protests of X-Man Colossus. It just also happens that this man was an international arms dealer on the black market, fueling international conflict. Earlier on during the flashback scene, Wade Wilson threatens to beat down on a young pizza delivery guy, but we find out later that this guy was stalking a young woman who paid Wilson to intimidate him. Again, nothing about this situation would normally sound appealing - a woman hires a merc to assault a pizza delivery boy who turns out to be a stalker - but the end result is ultimately that a stalker leaves a woman alone, so we suppose that's ok. There are many people in the world who, much like Wade or Salander, mean well, but don't necessarily exhibit the virtues that are expected of them. In many ways, the anti-hero is a more relatable character for them; Lisbeth Salander is nothing like Rey from The Force Awakens (other than both of them being female), but the idea that Rey is the only kind of character that we should appreciate or look up to (i.e. the "hero" archetype) is wholly impersonal, detached from the actual happenings of the world.
Much in the same way that it was difficult to highlight the pros of Deadpool, it is also difficult to highlight the cons. Perhaps this is due to the fact that there really isn't a point of comparison - as I mentioned, most would likely point to films like the Scary Movie series as the high-mark of parody these days, but comparing Deadpool to the likes of those films is like comparing Stephen King or Charles Dickens to the various writers of Star Wars fan fiction, i.e. wholly inappropriate. The question then becomes "what can we evaluate Deadpool on?" Well, I do think that Deadpool, at times, was trying too hard to be funny. Many of the various similes throughout the film give way to this. For example, Weasel's famous simile after first seeing Wade Wilson again, that he looks like "Freddy Krueger fucked a topographical map of Utah", quite frankly, is arbitrary and makes little sense. It hints at that species of "random humor" that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Humor, when done correctly, is tactful and precise, and may contain some random elements in it, but is never solely based on randomness. I have never been attracted to the idea that simply "being random" is funny, and, much like the people that find the Scary Movie films entertaining, the people that are amused by "random" humor have always perplexed me. It doesn't take a whole of skill or talent or purpose to devise random humor, and random humor often carries little depth or meaning. Weasel's expression that Wade "looks like Freddy Krueger fucked a topographical map of Utah" is about as artful and tactful as me saying "your face looks like a walrus fist-fucked a bowl of Chinese food", which quickly loses its impact. Perhaps another area where Deadpool missed a good opportunity is in its use of violence. Specifically, I don't think there was enough violence; Deadpool had the opportunity to really make a mockery of superhero action violence, and violence in general, by going over the top, a la Robert Rodriguez' Machete or Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, but didn't. What we got instead was only a slightly gorier version of what we typically see in superhero films and action films. Deadpool speeding away from an exploding vehicle while shooting terrorists is something we would expect of Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible, but if Deadpool really wanted to live up to the expectations of parody, then we should have seen something similar to that scene from Machete where Machete swings from hospital floor to hospital floor using a henchman's intestines, or the ending scene from Inglourious Basterds where the Jewish-American soldiers are gunning down a flaming theater full of Nazis and their French sympathizers while Shosanna Dreyfus' face maniacally laughs in the background. But this may be nitpicking. I suppose the upside to these criticisms is that they leave something to improve on if Fox Studios decides at any point to produce a sequel.
Overall, Deadpool gets my recommendation and serves as a jumpstart to a year in cinema that will hopefully rival its predecessor. Again, the best part about Deadpool is that it reintroduces us to the notions of parody (particularly, "parody with a purpose") and the anti-hero, in a time where these devices have fallen by the wayside in the current cinematic landscape. It is something we really needed; many science fiction and action series over that past several years have presented us with very complex and immersive world (i.e. Star Wars, The Avengers, and Hunger Games), which is a very good thing. But every once in a while, we need something that brings us back down to earth, and provides a different kind of antidote to the monotony in our lives that is distinct from the kind of escapism that the aforementioned series provide. Instead of immersing ourselves in the tales of epic heroes and the fables of distant planets, perhaps we sometimes just need to watch people have wild sex and then blow each other's brains out while old people do cocaine in the background. And I am ok with this.
Marvel has kicked off the superhero genre for year with our quirky comic book hero Deadpool, featuring Ryan Reynolds as our wise-cracking, ex-military mutant out to settle a personal score in the X-Men universe. And I must say, Marvel and Fox Studios deserve praise for this one; this is one of the few cases where a genre experiments and ventures out of its comfort zone. I would hesitate to call Deadpool a "superhero" movie in the traditional sense; there is no readily apparent disaster threatening the world that only Deadpool, with his mutant powers, can solve (although one may be implied), nor does our hero exemplify many of the virtues of the other characters in the X-Men universe, like, say, Professor Xavier. Rather, Deadpool is best understood as a parody of the superhero genre, with an anti-hero as the protagonist as opposed to your traditional hero. And these two characteristics alone already set Deadpool up to be a noteworthy entry not just in the superhero genre, but for 2016 in general. Good parodies and anti-heroes are rarely seen in cinema these days, and to have them done well is a noteworthy feat. Accordingly, I should say up front that I already have a feeling that this review may be slightly shorter than most of my previous film reviews, insofar as I really have no point of comparison for Deadpool (I will admit that this was a comic series that I had certainly heard of, but wasn't very familiar with); many of its primary characteristics don't follow the formula for your typical superhero film, and aren't meant to. As such, Deadpool is a kind of "lone wolf" in the genre, rebelling against the norm and setting its own rules. And because of all of these things, I have to give it a positive recommendation; it experiments with the genre, making a bold attempt at parody and shirking the superhero norms with gratuitous violence, sex, drugs, anti-heroes, and adult humor - and it does it all fairly well.
Deadpool opens up with a high-intensity, blood-soaked freeway firefight: our hero dives into a convoy of vehicles and begins assailing the occupants. It's not immediately clear who these guys are or why Deadpool is so inclined to stop them, only that he is looking for a man named "Francis". But it is apparent, at least, that they are up to some type of no-good; they all immediately pull out automatic weapons and grenades and unload clips of bullets at Deadpool, all while our protagonist calls out for Francis, much in the same way a dog owner excitedly calls out to Fido in his backyard. It is at this point that Deadpool takes us on a flashback of events leading up to this kill-fest. We learn that he was once referred to as Wade Wilson, an ex-military commando with a long kill streak and dishonorably discharged from service. After leaving the military, Wilson makes a living taking up odd jobs as a mercenary in New York City, mostly as "a bully who stops other bullies" sort of guy. He spends his spare time at a shady dive bar run by his friend, Weasel. Weasel's bar is more or less what you would expect of a place that caters to mercs: a joint for many of New York's more "unscrupulous" characters to hang out, a place for drug dealers and con artists, computer hackers and arms dealers, prostitutes and muscle-for-hire. It is at Weasel's bar that Wade meets the escort girl Vanessa, where both of them detail their troubled pasts and become romantically involved with each other. We are then fast-forwarded through the following year after Wade and Vanessa meet, which more or less consists of a montage of them having wild sex on various holidays until the Christmas season, where Wade suddenly collapses. He is then diagnosed with an extreme form of cancer, which his doctors say is terminal. Devastated, Wade and Vanessa desperately seek out any kind of treatment they can. One night, Wade accepts the offer of a man who represents Francis Freeman and his sidekick, Angel Dust, and is taken to a secret facility where Francis injects him with a special serum in order to trigger the rapid mutation of his body "under extreme stress" that promises to cure Wade of the cancer. It is then revealed that the serum is part of a super-soldier program where Francis auctions off the survivors to the highest bidders on the black market for use as obedient killing machines. After realizing this, Wade manages to escape from the facility, but not before being highly disfigured by the experiments. Here, we are more or less brought full-circle back around to the opening scene, where Deadpool is out to get revenge on Francis and hopefully reverse the disfiguring effects of the experiments on him, all while trying to reunite with Vanessa.
Assessing the pros and cons of Deadpool will be a somewhat new experience; there hasn't really been a film quite like this in recent years, and, as such, it is subject to a radically different set of evaluative criteria than many other superhero or action films. Perhaps the two most important things to take away from Deadpool are its re-introduction of parody into mainstream cinema, as well as its use of the anti-hero character archetype. Parody seems to have a kind of "love-hate" relationship with Hollywood; some may, for example, point to the Scary Movie series as the apotheosis of parody in modern cinema over the past couple of decades. However, the Scary Movie series is a good example of parody to the extent that Donald Trump is a good example of a philanthropist, which is to say, not at all. Contrary to popular belief, it is certainly possible for a parody to exhibit a degree of depth and complexity, and do more than simply rely on immature humor, something that is severely lacking from the Scary Movie series, or any films like it. I confess myself perpetually dumbfounded by those who find the Scary Movie series entertaining. However, Deadpool avoids many of these pitfalls. Wade, Vanessa, and Weasel all exhibit the same degree of character that we find in many other characters of the X-Men universe. Reynolds does a great job of portraying Wade Wilson as a wise-cracking tough guy, someone who approaches life with a notably morbid and mature sense of humor, like a cross between the completely "fuck you" demeanor of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with the complete lack of seriousness of the Joker from Batman. And such a persona lends itself well to the task of parody; Deadpool's lack of seriousness allows him to famously "break the 4th wall" and, quite literally, give to the audience a sense of lightheartedness to an otherwise extreme and violent situation. It also allows him to to provide the kind of commentary on superhero films that is desperately needed in the current cinematic landscape, commentary that I have been giving for some time. For example, there is a scene towards the end of the film where Angel Dust jumps from the deck of a docked aircraft carrier, but not before Deadpool predicts that she is going to do the famous "superhero landing" and draws the attention of Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead to the spectacle. And, sure enough, Angel Dust proceeds to leap from the deck and slam into the ground in an earth-shattering fashion, her fist planted firmly in the pavement, her form displaying a degree of subtle cartoonishness, betraying the amount of CGI that went into the sequence. Deadpool's point here has been long overdue in Hollywood; superhero movies have become so cliche to the point of being predictable, which ultimately undermines the genre insofar as predictability steals away some of the excitement and action from a superhero film.
Perhaps even more interesting than its exploration of parody, Deadpool re-introduces the "anti-hero" into mainstream cinema. Revisiting the notion of the anti-hero is something I have been a proponent of for a long time - in a cinematic and literary landscape dominated by the cliched and generic plot of "good vs evil" or "good guys win, bad guys die", which hardly ever reflects the actual complexities of conflicts in the world, it is easy to see just how detached and impersonal most stories are. I have always felt that the anti-hero was a literary or film device that is often underutilized, and allows for an entirely new dimension in the narrative that readers or viewers can relate to. And for those who aren't familiar with the concept, an "anti-hero" is a character that is distinct from a "villain", yet not quite a "hero", a character that may do all of the right things, but for all of the wrong reasons, or may do all of the right things, but not in the same way that a hero might do them. Lisbeth Salander again serves as a great example here: as a world-renowned computer hacker with a questionable sense of morality, her persona doesn't lend itself well to society's established notions of a "hero". However, her uncanny ability to use her eidetic memory and computer skill to help Mikael Blomkvist uncover the details of a young woman's disappearance nonetheless lend themselves to what many would consider to be a good cause. And such is the case with Deadpool; Deadpool seeks revenge against the man that tortured and disfigured him, violently cutting down any henchmen in his way with a gay bravado, ultimately splattering Francis' brain across the pavement, despite the protests of X-Man Colossus. It just also happens that this man was an international arms dealer on the black market, fueling international conflict. Earlier on during the flashback scene, Wade Wilson threatens to beat down on a young pizza delivery guy, but we find out later that this guy was stalking a young woman who paid Wilson to intimidate him. Again, nothing about this situation would normally sound appealing - a woman hires a merc to assault a pizza delivery boy who turns out to be a stalker - but the end result is ultimately that a stalker leaves a woman alone, so we suppose that's ok. There are many people in the world who, much like Wade or Salander, mean well, but don't necessarily exhibit the virtues that are expected of them. In many ways, the anti-hero is a more relatable character for them; Lisbeth Salander is nothing like Rey from The Force Awakens (other than both of them being female), but the idea that Rey is the only kind of character that we should appreciate or look up to (i.e. the "hero" archetype) is wholly impersonal, detached from the actual happenings of the world.
Much in the same way that it was difficult to highlight the pros of Deadpool, it is also difficult to highlight the cons. Perhaps this is due to the fact that there really isn't a point of comparison - as I mentioned, most would likely point to films like the Scary Movie series as the high-mark of parody these days, but comparing Deadpool to the likes of those films is like comparing Stephen King or Charles Dickens to the various writers of Star Wars fan fiction, i.e. wholly inappropriate. The question then becomes "what can we evaluate Deadpool on?" Well, I do think that Deadpool, at times, was trying too hard to be funny. Many of the various similes throughout the film give way to this. For example, Weasel's famous simile after first seeing Wade Wilson again, that he looks like "Freddy Krueger fucked a topographical map of Utah", quite frankly, is arbitrary and makes little sense. It hints at that species of "random humor" that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Humor, when done correctly, is tactful and precise, and may contain some random elements in it, but is never solely based on randomness. I have never been attracted to the idea that simply "being random" is funny, and, much like the people that find the Scary Movie films entertaining, the people that are amused by "random" humor have always perplexed me. It doesn't take a whole of skill or talent or purpose to devise random humor, and random humor often carries little depth or meaning. Weasel's expression that Wade "looks like Freddy Krueger fucked a topographical map of Utah" is about as artful and tactful as me saying "your face looks like a walrus fist-fucked a bowl of Chinese food", which quickly loses its impact. Perhaps another area where Deadpool missed a good opportunity is in its use of violence. Specifically, I don't think there was enough violence; Deadpool had the opportunity to really make a mockery of superhero action violence, and violence in general, by going over the top, a la Robert Rodriguez' Machete or Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, but didn't. What we got instead was only a slightly gorier version of what we typically see in superhero films and action films. Deadpool speeding away from an exploding vehicle while shooting terrorists is something we would expect of Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible, but if Deadpool really wanted to live up to the expectations of parody, then we should have seen something similar to that scene from Machete where Machete swings from hospital floor to hospital floor using a henchman's intestines, or the ending scene from Inglourious Basterds where the Jewish-American soldiers are gunning down a flaming theater full of Nazis and their French sympathizers while Shosanna Dreyfus' face maniacally laughs in the background. But this may be nitpicking. I suppose the upside to these criticisms is that they leave something to improve on if Fox Studios decides at any point to produce a sequel.
Overall, Deadpool gets my recommendation and serves as a jumpstart to a year in cinema that will hopefully rival its predecessor. Again, the best part about Deadpool is that it reintroduces us to the notions of parody (particularly, "parody with a purpose") and the anti-hero, in a time where these devices have fallen by the wayside in the current cinematic landscape. It is something we really needed; many science fiction and action series over that past several years have presented us with very complex and immersive world (i.e. Star Wars, The Avengers, and Hunger Games), which is a very good thing. But every once in a while, we need something that brings us back down to earth, and provides a different kind of antidote to the monotony in our lives that is distinct from the kind of escapism that the aforementioned series provide. Instead of immersing ourselves in the tales of epic heroes and the fables of distant planets, perhaps we sometimes just need to watch people have wild sex and then blow each other's brains out while old people do cocaine in the background. And I am ok with this.
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