Blog Migration

Hello all,

For those who haven't yet seen it, I've bought my own domain at www.whatimeanbyhmm.com. All my old posts are found there, and I'm hoping to make it into a more navigable site than this one.

My goal is to make this into a serious professional venture, a place to develop my writing abilities, connect with people online, and share some of my thoughts and visions about the world. Those of you who have enjoyed my blog here will find on my new site a more concentrated effort to offer something of myself to you, in the hope that you might benefit from it in some way.

Thanks for the support so far, and I hope to connect with you in the near future.

Movie Review: Prometheus

In keeping with my goals for this blog, this review will take a more analytical approach than my usual reviews. It contains no spoilers, and I intentionally posted it with only the teaser trailer, since the longer trailers give too much away. However, I’ll say right off the bat that I highly recommend seeing this movie.

The Alien franchise is known as one of the most significant science fiction series, and is arguably the best-known example of a sci-fi/horror crossover. A prequel to the first film was at least dreamed up in 2000, but it's taken a dozen years to actually get made, this time under the direction of Ridley Scott.

Having not touched an Alien-related project since 1979, Scott's approach was always different from those who took on the later films. James Cameron's Aliens took its premise, imagery, and characters from the first film, but was essentially a sci-fi/action film with significant horror elements. I’ll give credit to Cameron for significantly expanding the universe, however I personally didn’t enjoy it or any of the other sequels as much as the 1979 original. It was Alien which to me was the most inspiring, fearsome, and (despite its subject matter) beautiful film of the series.

Other than Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator, I’m not particularly familiar with Scott’s work. Out of his recent films I only saw Robin Hood, with which I was a bit disappointed. It didn’t bother me too much that the story didn’t go according to most retellings of the Robin Hood legend, and visually it was an excellent film. The characters and storytelling, though, were not clear or well developed enough to regard it a really good film. Still, from what I have seen I regard Ridley Scott as a highly competent, artistic, and original filmmaker.

To give a fair review, I should state a few facts about my moviegoing experience. First, I had already been excited to see Prometheus due to my love for the original ’79 film.

Second, it was a midnight premiere showing. I haven’t been to many of those, so it there was an element of novelty.

Third, I saw it in IMAX 3D. I actually didn’t have a choice about that. It was the only theatre in my area that was showing it. I consider 3D to be rather gimmicky, and for me it doesn’t add enough to most films to really justify the extra cost. However, the amount of effort the Scott put into the visuals of Prometheus was aided somewhat by the technology. And, IMAX is just a superior cinematic experience in general.

The visual production values of Prometheus were extremely high, and as is consistent with Scott’s style, none of it is pure eye-candy. Scott is an artist – beauty, to him, is meaningful, as is ugliness. These concepts are constants in his style, forming a remarkable visual dynamic in a sort of mythical vision of a film.

The level of audience immersion was also high. Scott cares about the details, but not in and of themselves: his aim is to tell a story, so he must make his setting seem real. The audience is able to “settle in” to the basic setting in order that the more dramatic, otherworldly elements can be appreciated and experienced to the fullest. There are constant visual references to the original film, and it’s worth being familiar with it in order to really grasp the richness of Prometheus, as well as the difference between the two films.

The main heroine, Elizabeth Shaw, is played by Noomi Rapace. There is temptation to think of her as the “new Ripley.” Shaw is not Ripley. Not in the least. The difference in character is actually a brilliant artistic choice: thirty-three years after we met Ellen Ripley, our world is a very different place. Alien still packs a wallop, but it is time for new heroes and new stories. Shaw is still very much a strong character, but not in the way that Ripley was: not cold, not masculine, and not utilitarian. She is a woman of conviction, of emotion, and of faith. I don’t fully understand feminism and its development over the past decades, but I get the sense that while Ripley was the right woman to root for in the Generation X era, Shaw is a Gen Y heroine: warm, feminine, and spiritual, yet possessing a deep strength of character.

This time around, Scott’s character development is a bit utilitarian. Where Alien spoke largely in silence and subtlety, Prometheus is more dialogue-heavy. I understood this choice to a degree – there’s a lot of information to reveal and story to tell, as opposed to the rather minimalistic script and cast of Alien. Still, I wish that sacrifice hadn’t been necessary, because to me it was the main weakness in this otherwise excellent film.

Still, there were some good performances from the supporting cast. Charlize Theron’s enigmatic, bossy corporate executive is toned down compared to her evil queen in Snow White and the Huntsman, but still I thought a bit too intense, especially since she wasn’t nearly as relevant to the plot as I had expected.

Michael Fassbender played the android assistant. Despite the fact that the character “had no soul,” he was the best defined character out of the entire cast, except perhaps Shaw, and I largely credit Fassbender. It’s not a particularly original character, but Fassbender put a lot into this paradoxical archetype – profoundly human, despite being decidedly not human.

Other than these two, though, none of the other characters had enough screen time to really stand out on their own. This is unfortunate because it would not have taken much extra time to accomplish this. Perhaps we will see more relevant footage in the DVD/Blu-Ray release, as with Blade Runner.

It is clear within the first fifteen minutes of the film what the goal of the voyage of the starship Prometheus is – to discover meaning. This is one of the most stark contrasts between Prometheus and Alien: where the crew of the Nostromo were driven by the basic motivations of money and survival, there is a sense of nobility, for the most part, about the main characters at least, and even the crew of the ship. This again suggests a shift in the values of film audiences over the decades. We have become more humanitarian in our mindset – materialism is regarded as crass and inauthentic. A very interesting shift indeed.

Prometheus wastes no time in getting the plot moving. Again, due to the significantly broader scope than most of the other Alien films, a more economical approach to storytelling was needed. As a result, though, the element of mystery was a bit predictable, despite the fact that the plot really hung on the discovery of the truth.

Fear is definitely an element here, but not as much as in Alien. Additionally, the kind of fear is different. As opposed to the more Lovecraftian approach taken previously, fear in Prometheus is more obvious and imminent – not of the unknown, but of discovery, of the truth. Whether intended or not, the message is clear: what you are out to find, you may not like when you find it. In this sense, Prometheus is more science fiction than horror, which also is appropriate for the age – the unknown does not interest contemporary audiences as much as the immediate reality and its implications for the future.

There is one exception to this. I promised no spoilers, so in keeping with that I’ll be brief and abstract: there is one extremely intense scene about halfway though, in which a very present yet unknown fear is the object of attention. It is probably the most memorable scene due to how deeply it rocks the world of the character experiencing the fear. Perhaps when more people have seen it I will post again to discuss it in depth.

The emphasis on the sci-fi side of the setting is marked by an element which in my opinion is sorely absent from a lot of science fiction these days: wonderment. The characters’ encounters with very advanced technology and an extremely foreign society inspire in them a sense of awe. This doesn’t happen much these days. Too many characters take high alien tech for granted – they are too genre-savvy for their own good, and, as a result, so are audiences. The amazing discoveries made in Prometheus are treated with a due sense of wonderment, of the specialness of the discovery. This is why visuals are important in a film – not in and of themselves, but as a means to experiencing something wondrous, something other than ourselves and our world.

One of the major strengths of science fiction is that it is an excellent platform for philosophizing, and Prometheus is no exception. Shaw in particular is a spiritually-minded person, and much of the metaphysical discussion goes on around her. The fact that she manages to reconcile her incredible scientific discoveries with her faith in God shows remarkable strength of character, and reminds us of an important fact – “Why are we here?” is not the same as, “How did we come to be?” This is particularly relevant for Christians today. We must not let science negate our relationship with God, nor the opposite. Facts are facts, but truth is truth.

Shaw is driven not only toward meaning, but toward relationship, from which meaning is derived.  She has maternal instincts, a desire to “create life.” Even this is consequential to her faith, because a significant theme in the film is the relationship between a creator and creation. There is a great deal of tension between these two, even elevating to hatred at times, yet truth and hope for reconciliation are still held to.

Prometheus is a great film: definitely the best of the summer so far, and among the best of the year. In making it, Scott along with writers Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof respond to the call of the artist: to grasp at the most profound meanings of life; to excel at their craft and create beautiful, deeply human works; and to honor the past while creating something truly new.

Go out and watch it.

About my movie reviews...

I found out that I sort of offended someone while watching Snow White and the Huntsman, and possibly with the review I published on it. This has never been my intention, and to be honest, writing movie reviews was not what I set out to do with this blog. It was a convenient format for expressing my thoughts on culture, since a lot of people like movies. However, I acknowledge that my reactions to that particular film were a bit extreme. Add to that the fact that my review was fairly emotionally charged and hastily written, and... well, I don't have much of a case here. I'll be re-writing my review, in the next little while, but for now it won't be visible on my site. If you're reading this, I'm sorry for stating my opinions poorly, and please keep reading.

I saw Prometheus in IMAX 3D last night, and I'll be posting my review on that soon.

So I Saw Mogwai Last Night...

Mogwai, the famed Scottish instrumental post-rock band, played the Commodore Ballroom last night. I attended with a couple of friends, one of whom I had never expected to share an experience like that. He had only heard a few Mogwai songs before, but seemed to enjoy the concert pretty enough to take a closer listen.

Random cautionary note: the Urban Fare location on Alberni doesn't take paper gift certificates, even if they seem legit and should apply to any location. The story of how I know this is pretty boring. Just take my word for it.

Sorry, back to the concert. It was hardly a packed house. Where for bands with a bigger local following, such as Mother Mother, the lineup outside would be wrap around the corner to Smithe Street a half hour before the doors open, my friends and I showed up 8pm on the dot to find a line that barely got to Megabite. I guess the post-rock zeitgeist did't really take here on the west coast, so the only people who showed were the few, scattered Mogwai fans from the area.

The opening band never really introduced themselves, which was unfortunate because I kinda liked them. I guess you could call it very poppy, song-driven noise-rock. I suspect they're local. They had that "Vancouver hipster" vibe to them. The singing was pretty good, they had some sweet male harmonies. As an act, though, the sheer amount of sound turned the whole thing into mud at a lot of points. Mogwai obviously does that, too, but they seem to put more purpose behind it - it's part of the experience. This band didn't exercise that same prudence, so it sort of seemed like filler. They honestly didn't play that many songs. In particular, the guitars were really, really bassy and drenched in delay-based effects, so it was impossible to hear what they were doing most of the time. Still, I wish I'd found out who they were because I'd love to hear what they sound like on a record.

I've become very conscious of personalities these days, so as I watched Mogwai come up I tried to read their vibes a bit. This is clearly a very introverted band. Guitarist Stuart Braithwaite likes to move to the beat a lot, and is the only one who ever speaks to the audience, mostly just to thank them for their applause and appreciation. He struck me as rather shy but sweet, like he really enjoyed playing music, and really appreciated the people who showed up. I've seen some stoic bassists, but man, Dominic Aitchison takes the cake. Multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns reeks of calm coolness. He just really knows what he's doing, whether on keyboards and Vocoder, guitar, or bass. Guitarist John Cummings was obscured to me by the fans in front of me, so I didn't read much there. Drummer Martin Bulloch wasn't particularly visible, but he seemed to be having  fun.

This is not music for the impatient, but if you stay open and listen right, the songs don't drag. As a listener, I almost don't even think of them as "songs." If I may get a little mushy for a moment, I think of them as musical moments that last six minutes. It's as if the music itself isn't even the main point, but a way to experience something... other. It's actually very spiritual.

The biggest moment of the night for me was the song, "Rano Pano," off last year's, "Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will." Musically speaking, it's pretty brilliant. It has easily one of their most memorable melodies, and it builds to such huge point. There's a lot of tension and release throughout the song, which is kind of Mogwai's thing. It's my new favorite track from them.

My only disappointment was that they didn't play, "Hunted By A Freak." This is the band I wanted most to see live in my lifetime, and I want to see them again, and again, and again.

My Identity in Punk

This post was on my old blog, under the title, "A (Very) Short History of Punk, and The Beginnings of a Statement of Vision." I'm re-posting it (with some slight editing) for several reasons: 1) it serves as an appropriate preface to another post I'm working on; 2) I already wrote it; 3) I really don't want you to read my old blog. It sucked.

There’s a real risk of my losing focus, motivation, and any hope of a dedicated audience if I just fly by the seat of my pants here. Before I say too many things I know I’ll regret, I want to define my vision for this blog, in order that the things I say here will serve some kind of purpose. So I’ll talk about identity a bit. Probably a lot more of this will come out as I keep writing, but this is a good place to start, as it’s kind of core to the way I think.

I am a person who is very interested in the idea of subculture. One of the best and most obvious examples of subculture in Western society is punk rock. Unfortunately, the term "punk rock" has not aged well, and its meaning has fallen into ambiguity, though arguably it was pretty convoluted to begin with.

To me, the most essential aspect of punk is finding strength and identity in alienation. In a lot of cases that can be a very destructive kind of strength, and a volatile kind of identity. It's actually kind of amazing that punk is still exists in any form at all, considering how much it's suffered throughout the past several decades. The original boom lasted only a few short years. Regional scenes and splinter movements have developed and fallen apart. Many artists have quit, died, or sold out. Mainstream capitalist culture has taken every opportunity to cash in on its popularity, each time taking more than the movement could give. The words, “Punk rock is dead,” and, “Punk rock is still alive,” have been uttered too many times to count.

I am of the opinion that, despite it all, punk lives on to this day. Probably not in the way that the Ramones or the Sex Pistols might have guessed… but then they were insane. I doubt if they really understood what they were doing or what it would mean decades later.

How did it manage to survive, mangled and disfigured (or perhaps transfigured) as it is? It goes back to the “spirit” of punk rock. This was something that people in the post-punk and early hardcore era seem to have understood well. They were still who they were: angry middle-class intellectuals and anti-intellectuals, postmodernists through-and-through, snot-nosed kids with something to say. The scene that had embraced and inspired them had gone out in flames, but they kept going because punk was not just their scene. It was their identity.

And it's part of mine, as well. It resonates with me on a number of levels: the community of outcasts; the angry kids with guitars screaming about whatever; the spiky-haired prophets out to change the world.
I don't literally consider myself a punk, or a geek, or a metalhead, or really anything. Any time I get really close to any one particular subculture, I discover something really ugly about it that sends me running. But they all still have their place in my heart. Punk rock in particular is something of a symbol for me, and for a dream I have.

Basically, I want to change the world.

Threenie Tuesday Movie Review: The Dictator

Time for another Threenie Tuesday movie review! Unfortunately I got caught up doing other things yesterday afternoon and didn't get to the theater in time to catch a 7-ish showing, so only one this week.

I caught the new Sacha Baron Cohen film, The Dictator. I've not seen any of his previous films, though I have watched a bit of Da Ali G Show, so I kinda-sorta knew what to expect. Most people will remember the hype surrounding Borat, and a little bit with Bruno and Ali G Indahouse. Shock value can be a powerful thing if you're trying to get people attention or make a statement, but its effectiveness depends on people's sensitivity to it.

By now it seems that most people are somewhat at peace with Sacha Baron Cohen's own brand of offensiveness. Either they've become desensitized or don't care anymore, which seems to be happening a lot to entertainers these days. For example, did you know Marilyn Manson put out a new album this month? Didn't think so. People found out that he's not really as scary as he seem onstage or in his music videos. Actually, he comes across as a pretty nice, humble guy in interviews. All the controversy and mystique just sort of dissipated over the past decade. (Of course in Manson's case, there's also the fact that his fans all graduated high school and moved on with their lives.)

In order to properly critique The Dictator, we need some way to evaluate all the supposedly shocking content. The cast of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia have stated that they let humor be their guide in deciding whether a bit is too far or not: it all comes down to, "Is it funny?" It's not the most objective consistent criterion I've heard (I'll talk about that some other time), but it's good enough for now I guess.

So, is The Dictator funny? Sometimes. Admiral General Aladeen, Baron Cohen's principal character, is a rather ridiculous (what else) caricature of the Middle Eastern war criminal. He's crude, selfish, narcissistic, and most of all, bigoted, which is the main characteristic from which the humor is drawn. This is Baron Cohen's strategy: heinously racist, sexist, and otherwise politically incorrect comments are spouted at audience stand-in characters by some inane bastard whom nobody could ever take seriously.

It's so bizarre, yet it sort of works. I didn't catch myself getting personally offended by anything said or done. The only time it came anywhere close was when Aladeen made a comment about Filipinos, but the joke was too moronic to mean anything to me.

One of the most disappointing elements of this film was the amount of body humor it used. Not sexual humor (actually some of that was kind of funny), but honest-to-goodness pee and poop gags. These can be incredibly funny in the right context, but in this case it was just crude and predictable.

In general, there were very few surprises in the movie. The plot (not that it mattered) was stock Adam Sandler fare, the characters (not that they mattered other than Aladeen and the one girl) were irrelevant, and the political commentary (which was the best hope for this film to be anything but a juvenile gross-out flick) was no more insightful than anything you can find on a 14-year-old's Facebook page. I found this to be rather disappointing since Da Ali G Show makes me cringe with anticipation, pity the guests, and generally just laugh my ass off. Baron Cohen can be the epitome of facetiousness when he wants to be, and I can respect that. I caught glimpses of that in The Dictator, but for the most part it's pretty dumbed-down.

I plan to watch Borat in the next week in order to form a more contextualized opinion. However, I believe that a work should stand on its own, unless the necessary background is clearly identified (take the Family Guy Star Wars episodes, for instance). In that respect, I cannot recommend The Dictator. If you just want to be entertained... I don't know, watch cat videos at home or something.

6.7/10

Russian Circles & A Short Reflection on Genre

Here's a concert I'm pretty excited to attend: Russian Circles & And So I Watch You From Afar, June 22 2012 @ Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver. Russian Circles is an instrumental rock band I've liked for a few years now, and this is the first chance I've had to hear them live.



And So I Watch You From Afar (yes, that's the band's name) is a Belfast-based band also set to play that night. I'd never heard of them until I caught wind of the concert, but I checked them out, and I'm even more excited to go. This is the kind of music I want to make. Take a listen.



I read someone describe ASIWYFA as a "mathematically influenced punk" band. I suppose that's accurate, but the purpose of the comment was to point out that they're not a post-rock band. This is just silly to me. I honestly don't understand all the backlash against the term, "post-rock," or most genres for that matter. Remember all the bands that refused to be known as "emo" in the early- to mid-2000's? The same happened with "nu-metal" in the late 90's, and "grunge" in the mid-90's. You'll often notice artists, especially ones from alternative scenes, get really touchy when people talk about the genre of their work. (Just so we're clear, I'm not specifically talking about ASIWYFA.)

The thing is though, that these terms are not value judgements. Not originally, anyway. Genres are the territory of journalists and critics. They're descriptive terms invented to explain what a work (in this case, music) is like. Genre talks about the structure, style, and often the cultural context of the work. It's more for the benefit of the listener than for the artist, meant to set up appropriate expectations about how to listen to the music, not to put it in a box.

Many artists have a rather cynical outlook on genre. I've heard some dismiss it as an outdated system created by music shops to figure out how to stick which records where. [I'll leave the dirty jokes to you guys.] Others blame it more on music journalists, those guys who clearly don't understand music at all since they have to steal its soul by writing about it. It's an us-against-them mentality, and it may show my ignorance or naivete to say this, but my guess is that it's unnecessary for artists to be antagonistic about this. Other music business drama notwithstanding.

Personally, I find genre categorization fascinating, as a thinker, musician, and music lover. Genre is a critical thinking and listening tool, and this is what artists miss. Perhaps rather than fearing genre, they could study it and use it to their advantage. Categories and limitations are great creative tools. They eliminate the paralysis of the blank canvas, providing a place to start making art. At the same time, one doesn't need to be a slave to genre. If you know what the rules are, you also know exactly how far you can bend them.

So I guess what I'm saying is this: if the shoe fits, wear it. It not...

Become a cobbler? Or at least learn more about shoes.