Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Sunday, September 28, 2014
NEW VIDEO!! CineMatt Reviews: About Cherry (On Flawed Protagonists)
VIDEO HERE!!!
It's been over a year in the making, but it's finally here! A review of one of the worst movies I've ever seen! Also, James Franco.
It's been over a year in the making, but it's finally here! A review of one of the worst movies I've ever seen! Also, James Franco.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Lucy Review: Embrace the Stupid
What do you get when you let Luc Besson's crazy imagination run rampant with zero restraints? Well, you get a half-baked, messy, measly fragment of a screenplay full of unfulfilled rumination on human existence and glorious displays of ludicrous acts that has enough filler in under 90 minutes to feel excessive. But, the thing is, I'm struggling to call Lucy a "bad" movie.
To give you an idea of what type of film this is, in the first 5 minutes alone, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is forced by handcuff by her boyfriend of one week (seriously) to deliver a briefcase full of synthetic drugs to a trafficking kingpin (Choi Min-sik, Oldboy himself). This opening scene lets us know right off the bat that we're in for something unorthodox, as it's completely littered with unsubtle, intrusive cuts to a cavewoman (seriously), a mouse nearing a mousetrap (seriously), and a cheetah hunting down a gazelle (seriously). By the end of this setup, Lucy becomes an unwilling drug mule and the synthetic drugs leak out into her bloodstream, causing her to access "more than 10% of her brain" (there aren't quotes big enough for that misappropriation of science) and escape to share her knowledge with the world.
Everything you'd rightfully assume would be a strike against Lucy, from flagrant pseudoscience to lack of pacing and tension, is present in the film, but there's something gleefully insane about this movie. It's a front-row seat to Besson's wildest fantasies without any guardrails. Or guiding mechanisms of any sort.
Most of the fun comes from seeing what egregious mockery of common sense will come next. From aberrations of gravity to fundamental misunderstandings of technology to control over other human beings, by the end of the film, you'll wonder if Besson even knows what a brain is. The dialogue swerves from mundane to gear-shiftingly jarring casual dusting-aways of someone's death and foreshadowings of events like the significance of a cavewoman (seriously) in a matter of seconds. Most spectacularly, though, is watching the film utterly disregard any notion of plot in its third act when Besson decides he wants to transform this action movie into something resembling 2001: A Space Oddysey. In truth, it's actually pretty fun watching this trainwreck.
Not all of the film's negatives are in the "so bad it's good" camp. Morgan Freeman is on autopilot in a minimal role that only exists to accelerate the film towards its breakneck finale. (For reference, the film barrels from 60% brain capacity to 100% in the span of 10 minutes.) The film lacks tension mainly because Lucy is such an unstoppable juggernaut and loses all sense of pacing and structure by the second act. Besson tries to muster up a moment of tension of the climax, but it comes off as ridiculous that, while Lucy is traveling through space and time to access every known moment that ever existed in the universe and uploading it to a single flash drive (seriously), she can't pull a gun away from Oh Dae-Su.
But the main issue is actually the character of Lucy and Johansson, who turns in a career-worst performance, trading in her nuanced personality in Her for (ironically) a robotic, inhuman personality and monotone delivery that makes her difficult to root for. I mean, this is the woman who, just mere months ago, infused a cold, ruthless alien serial killer with humanity in Under the Skin. And, in Lucy, she's essentially playing Abed Nadir with an encyclopedic mind and psychic powers, completely devoid of any emotion or sympathetic qualities. (The film tries to offer a bullshit explanation as to why Lucy's brain-gaining rids her of her emotions because apparently Besson didn't stop and realize that more access to the brain, were such a thing to exist, would result in more access to its segments that regulate emotions as well.)
Lucy doesn't even have a character arc, only a power arc that resembles an upwards parabolic curve. The film tries to give her a moment of humanity when she calls her mother, but it only serves to highlight the film's ludicrous dialogue as Lucy's listing of all the things she is newly aware of more closely resembles a monologue from an esoteric philosophizing stoner. What bothers me the most about her character is that, for all the powers and abilities at her fingertips, Lucy is not a strong female protagonist because she lacks any sort of personality or nuance. There are a total of three scenes in the film where we get any sort of peek into her life before this event, but they all seem like such afterthoughts that it ultimately amounts to nothing.
She's also, for lack of a better term, kind of a dick. She shoots a taxi driver in the leg simply because he doesn't speak English, triggers a traumatic memory of the death of a potential ally's daughter in order to convince him of her powers, and kills an innocent person on an operating table without consulting the surgeons because she sees that his/her condition is incurable. While the film is, at its best, gleefully ignorant of all possible consequences and constantly in the moment, at its worst, it's an unawarely ugly and reprehensible display of a psychotic criminal doing as much harm as she is good.
Otherwise, Lucy is a film very much in the moment, one that I found equally terrible and fun, but one that I probably won't think much of in the coming weeks nor can recommend wholeheartedly. It's definitely something that I feel is worth watching once, but I can't vouch for the whether it should be seen in a theater (unless you get one with people laughing along with you at the ridiculousness happening on screen). But, hey, if Scarlett Johansson shooting laser beams out of her mouth like Ghidorah is your thing, knock yourself out.
To give you an idea of what type of film this is, in the first 5 minutes alone, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is forced by handcuff by her boyfriend of one week (seriously) to deliver a briefcase full of synthetic drugs to a trafficking kingpin (Choi Min-sik, Oldboy himself). This opening scene lets us know right off the bat that we're in for something unorthodox, as it's completely littered with unsubtle, intrusive cuts to a cavewoman (seriously), a mouse nearing a mousetrap (seriously), and a cheetah hunting down a gazelle (seriously). By the end of this setup, Lucy becomes an unwilling drug mule and the synthetic drugs leak out into her bloodstream, causing her to access "more than 10% of her brain" (there aren't quotes big enough for that misappropriation of science) and escape to share her knowledge with the world.
Everything you'd rightfully assume would be a strike against Lucy, from flagrant pseudoscience to lack of pacing and tension, is present in the film, but there's something gleefully insane about this movie. It's a front-row seat to Besson's wildest fantasies without any guardrails. Or guiding mechanisms of any sort.
Most of the fun comes from seeing what egregious mockery of common sense will come next. From aberrations of gravity to fundamental misunderstandings of technology to control over other human beings, by the end of the film, you'll wonder if Besson even knows what a brain is. The dialogue swerves from mundane to gear-shiftingly jarring casual dusting-aways of someone's death and foreshadowings of events like the significance of a cavewoman (seriously) in a matter of seconds. Most spectacularly, though, is watching the film utterly disregard any notion of plot in its third act when Besson decides he wants to transform this action movie into something resembling 2001: A Space Oddysey. In truth, it's actually pretty fun watching this trainwreck.
Not all of the film's negatives are in the "so bad it's good" camp. Morgan Freeman is on autopilot in a minimal role that only exists to accelerate the film towards its breakneck finale. (For reference, the film barrels from 60% brain capacity to 100% in the span of 10 minutes.) The film lacks tension mainly because Lucy is such an unstoppable juggernaut and loses all sense of pacing and structure by the second act. Besson tries to muster up a moment of tension of the climax, but it comes off as ridiculous that, while Lucy is traveling through space and time to access every known moment that ever existed in the universe and uploading it to a single flash drive (seriously), she can't pull a gun away from Oh Dae-Su.
But the main issue is actually the character of Lucy and Johansson, who turns in a career-worst performance, trading in her nuanced personality in Her for (ironically) a robotic, inhuman personality and monotone delivery that makes her difficult to root for. I mean, this is the woman who, just mere months ago, infused a cold, ruthless alien serial killer with humanity in Under the Skin. And, in Lucy, she's essentially playing Abed Nadir with an encyclopedic mind and psychic powers, completely devoid of any emotion or sympathetic qualities. (The film tries to offer a bullshit explanation as to why Lucy's brain-gaining rids her of her emotions because apparently Besson didn't stop and realize that more access to the brain, were such a thing to exist, would result in more access to its segments that regulate emotions as well.)
Pictured: the extent of Scarlett Johansson's emotional depth in Lucy.
Lucy doesn't even have a character arc, only a power arc that resembles an upwards parabolic curve. The film tries to give her a moment of humanity when she calls her mother, but it only serves to highlight the film's ludicrous dialogue as Lucy's listing of all the things she is newly aware of more closely resembles a monologue from an esoteric philosophizing stoner. What bothers me the most about her character is that, for all the powers and abilities at her fingertips, Lucy is not a strong female protagonist because she lacks any sort of personality or nuance. There are a total of three scenes in the film where we get any sort of peek into her life before this event, but they all seem like such afterthoughts that it ultimately amounts to nothing.
She's also, for lack of a better term, kind of a dick. She shoots a taxi driver in the leg simply because he doesn't speak English, triggers a traumatic memory of the death of a potential ally's daughter in order to convince him of her powers, and kills an innocent person on an operating table without consulting the surgeons because she sees that his/her condition is incurable. While the film is, at its best, gleefully ignorant of all possible consequences and constantly in the moment, at its worst, it's an unawarely ugly and reprehensible display of a psychotic criminal doing as much harm as she is good.
Otherwise, Lucy is a film very much in the moment, one that I found equally terrible and fun, but one that I probably won't think much of in the coming weeks nor can recommend wholeheartedly. It's definitely something that I feel is worth watching once, but I can't vouch for the whether it should be seen in a theater (unless you get one with people laughing along with you at the ridiculousness happening on screen). But, hey, if Scarlett Johansson shooting laser beams out of her mouth like Ghidorah is your thing, knock yourself out.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Snowpiercer Review: Or, "Stop the Hype Train, I Want to Get Off"
*This is by far my lengthiest written review I've ever done. Short Version: Snowpiercer has some isolated highlights, but the framework is corroded to the point that, once the elements that make it work are removed, the entire film eventually comes crashing down.*
There was a fleeting span of time during which I was really enjoying Snowpiercer. During the second act, there comes great sequence after great sequence, starting with one involving a room full of masked mooks armed with only axes and night vision goggles that consistently surprises and excites, and ending with an insanely surreal scene in which Alison Pill (yes, Kim Pine) plays a deranged pregnant preschool teacher hammering propaganda into her students' heads through song.
Then it all goes downhill.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. The signs were clear early in the film that the best parts of Snowpiercer are those just off to the side rather than those at the forefront. Chris Evans, more than able to play a human, invigorating lead (see: the Captain America movies), is basically a blank slate in this. Compared to the performances from pretty much every other actor in this movie, you'd be surprised to learn that his role isn't played by a half-trying Lucas Lee. The few subplots never seem to wholly intersect, each one stopping the main plot dead when they're brought up.
The backstory is that, due to global warming, a chemical called CW-7 is spread throughout the atmosphere. However, this only ends up screwing the world over by freezing the planet and driving humanity to near-extinction. The remaining survivors all congregate onto a "cruise train" built by an entrepreneur who lives in its engine room that travels the world. But all of this is pretty much just a set-up for an economic metaphor, as those in more destitute conditions live in the back and are unjustly treated while those towards the front live in the lap of luxury. Despite some really gorgeous set design towards the back end of the film, the sociological angle here is only slightly more subtle than it was in last year's Elysium.
Yet, I feverishly attempted clutching onto the small glimmers of promise the movie held. Tilda Swinton steals the entire film with a scenery chewing villain role based around a crazy haircut, dentures, and inappropriately placed malapropisms. Whenever she's on screen, the movie's elevated into a dementedly fun ride that leaves you clinging onto her every word and action.
So, it makes sense that the second act works the best since she's pretty much present throughout most of it. Once that's no longer the case, it symbolically signals the slow death of the film in the coming scenes.
Almost every other supporting character is compelling to some extent as well. Song Kang-Ho and Ko Ah-Sung play a father-daughter pair of technicians who also happen to be huge drug addicts. Their relationship and occasional comic relief are the closest thing to actual humanity this film has to offer. The aforementioned Alison Pill one-scene-wonder is either a thing of uncharacteristic cheesiness or brilliant madness (I'm going to go with the latter, since it was by far the most fun moment in the film, intentional or otherwise). Ed Harris gets to schmooze it up in luxury towards the end. Even John Hurt works well despite limited screentime.
But this doesn't end up amounting to much when the film's relentlessly violent streak ends up cutting out the sole strengths it has one by one. As the number of living characters slowly dwindles, it becomes increasingly clear that, by the end, we'll be stuck with Chris Evans in bland stoicism mode. It doesn't help that he's constantly got the patented Chris Evans Intense Stare of Stoic Intensity™.
The film's eventual explanation of why he's always got the look of a recently neutered pit bull is quite possibly the single most insulting scene in this thing. What's supposed to be the emotional core of the film that gives background to Evans's character ends up becoming an unhealthily long exposition dump that so quickly veers into pitch black territory that had never been encroached that quickly becomes unintentionally humorous. The sudden shift is so perplexingly phrased and delivered in such a maudlin manner that it causes any impact it has on our perception of Evans's character to immediately become flattened into insignificance. This single moment alone is a deadening affair on the entire film's momentum, not helped in the least by the fact that Evans's monologue drags on interminably and keeps obscenely adding onto his character's tragedy with each sentence that leaves his mouth.
Ultimately, the main problem with Snowpiercer is that any goodwill towards the film is canceled out by a larger element in the same field that causes the entire thing to suffer. All of the supporting cast is more than noteworthy, but it eventually just comes down to Chris Evans's comparatively blank cipher. The cinematography occasionally stuns, but it becomes insignificant next to shaky camera movement during action scenes that cause even the act of shivving the keys out of an extremely tall guard's chest to get lost in incomprehensibility. There's a continual sense of curiosity in seeing what the next room of the train will look like, but, to get there, you have to endure the exposition-laden script that sometimes even contradicts itself (i.e. someone telling Evans's character that he's the first person to walk the entire distance of the train when at least one other person in the film does just that before him). The second act actually made me excited to see how the film would conclude, only for the movie to stumble over itself in the third act, render a neglected subplot about kidnapped children irrelevant, and end with a stunningly dumb act of literal self-immolation followed by a note of implied optimism that's supposed to tie up the loose end that is the film's world but only prominently displays a poorly rendered CG polar bear.
That said, I would definitely cosplay as Tilda Swinton's character at next year's New York Comic-Con.
There was a fleeting span of time during which I was really enjoying Snowpiercer. During the second act, there comes great sequence after great sequence, starting with one involving a room full of masked mooks armed with only axes and night vision goggles that consistently surprises and excites, and ending with an insanely surreal scene in which Alison Pill (yes, Kim Pine) plays a deranged pregnant preschool teacher hammering propaganda into her students' heads through song.
Then it all goes downhill.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. The signs were clear early in the film that the best parts of Snowpiercer are those just off to the side rather than those at the forefront. Chris Evans, more than able to play a human, invigorating lead (see: the Captain America movies), is basically a blank slate in this. Compared to the performances from pretty much every other actor in this movie, you'd be surprised to learn that his role isn't played by a half-trying Lucas Lee. The few subplots never seem to wholly intersect, each one stopping the main plot dead when they're brought up.
The backstory is that, due to global warming, a chemical called CW-7 is spread throughout the atmosphere. However, this only ends up screwing the world over by freezing the planet and driving humanity to near-extinction. The remaining survivors all congregate onto a "cruise train" built by an entrepreneur who lives in its engine room that travels the world. But all of this is pretty much just a set-up for an economic metaphor, as those in more destitute conditions live in the back and are unjustly treated while those towards the front live in the lap of luxury. Despite some really gorgeous set design towards the back end of the film, the sociological angle here is only slightly more subtle than it was in last year's Elysium.
Yet, I feverishly attempted clutching onto the small glimmers of promise the movie held. Tilda Swinton steals the entire film with a scenery chewing villain role based around a crazy haircut, dentures, and inappropriately placed malapropisms. Whenever she's on screen, the movie's elevated into a dementedly fun ride that leaves you clinging onto her every word and action.
The face of true evil, ladies and gentlemen.
So, it makes sense that the second act works the best since she's pretty much present throughout most of it. Once that's no longer the case, it symbolically signals the slow death of the film in the coming scenes.
Almost every other supporting character is compelling to some extent as well. Song Kang-Ho and Ko Ah-Sung play a father-daughter pair of technicians who also happen to be huge drug addicts. Their relationship and occasional comic relief are the closest thing to actual humanity this film has to offer. The aforementioned Alison Pill one-scene-wonder is either a thing of uncharacteristic cheesiness or brilliant madness (I'm going to go with the latter, since it was by far the most fun moment in the film, intentional or otherwise). Ed Harris gets to schmooze it up in luxury towards the end. Even John Hurt works well despite limited screentime.
But this doesn't end up amounting to much when the film's relentlessly violent streak ends up cutting out the sole strengths it has one by one. As the number of living characters slowly dwindles, it becomes increasingly clear that, by the end, we'll be stuck with Chris Evans in bland stoicism mode. It doesn't help that he's constantly got the patented Chris Evans Intense Stare of Stoic Intensity™.
Pictured: Emotion
The film's eventual explanation of why he's always got the look of a recently neutered pit bull is quite possibly the single most insulting scene in this thing. What's supposed to be the emotional core of the film that gives background to Evans's character ends up becoming an unhealthily long exposition dump that so quickly veers into pitch black territory that had never been encroached that quickly becomes unintentionally humorous. The sudden shift is so perplexingly phrased and delivered in such a maudlin manner that it causes any impact it has on our perception of Evans's character to immediately become flattened into insignificance. This single moment alone is a deadening affair on the entire film's momentum, not helped in the least by the fact that Evans's monologue drags on interminably and keeps obscenely adding onto his character's tragedy with each sentence that leaves his mouth.
Ultimately, the main problem with Snowpiercer is that any goodwill towards the film is canceled out by a larger element in the same field that causes the entire thing to suffer. All of the supporting cast is more than noteworthy, but it eventually just comes down to Chris Evans's comparatively blank cipher. The cinematography occasionally stuns, but it becomes insignificant next to shaky camera movement during action scenes that cause even the act of shivving the keys out of an extremely tall guard's chest to get lost in incomprehensibility. There's a continual sense of curiosity in seeing what the next room of the train will look like, but, to get there, you have to endure the exposition-laden script that sometimes even contradicts itself (i.e. someone telling Evans's character that he's the first person to walk the entire distance of the train when at least one other person in the film does just that before him). The second act actually made me excited to see how the film would conclude, only for the movie to stumble over itself in the third act, render a neglected subplot about kidnapped children irrelevant, and end with a stunningly dumb act of literal self-immolation followed by a note of implied optimism that's supposed to tie up the loose end that is the film's world but only prominently displays a poorly rendered CG polar bear.
That said, I would definitely cosplay as Tilda Swinton's character at next year's New York Comic-Con.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Film Review: Filth
Filth is an odd movie. Not odd in the same sense as Under the Skin, in which the coldness and artistic deviations from the expected play pivotal roles, but rather odd in its execution. It's a film with an absolutely reprehensible protagonist, addicted to various illicit substances, sleeping with every woman at his disposal, and itching to gain a coveted promotion by undermining the chances of his coworkers in any and every way, that's a hell of a lot of fun in spite of the person we're following. It also begins, not with our unreliable main character, but with his distant wife in a framing device that bizarrely pops up every so often in increasingly disjointed non-sequiturs. Oh, and Jim Broadbent plays a psychiatrist who may or may not also be symbolically acting as the protagonist's ravaging tapeworm.
If all of that makes you intrigued, this might be the film for you. Most of what makes the movie work overall is James McAvoy's fantastic lead role as Bruce Robertson, one of several police officers vying for the aforementioned promotion. He's crass, lewd, offensive, manipulative, unhinged, and altogether a blast to watch even as you find yourself hating him for everything he does. At first, his character seems like it'll wear thin and become a mere caricature, but the depth and humanization that comes later on makes the character worth sticking with even if we don't find him worthy of redemption.
The director, Jon S. Baird, infuses a wild, unpredictable speed to the film, always leaving you unsure of where it's going to go next. The editing zips along at a pace befitting the cocaine-addled mind of Bruce and some scenes are genuine head-scratchers that make you wonder how in the hell you got from Point A to Point B. I mean this in the best of ways, as it keeps the film feeling punchy and energetic rather than succumbing to rigorous boredom. It's quite appropriate given Bruce's raging mood swings, as he often goes from states of frustration to ones of pure antagonism in a single given scene. And even the off-kilter deviations into moments of questionable significance end up having a purpose by the end of the film that will make those who enjoy the ride want to experience it again sometime later.
Filth is a type of film that will appeal to those who can deftly handle depictions of drug abuse, womanizing, manipulation, harassment, and homophobia throughout and see it for the very enjoyable portrayal of a troubled individual it is. It certainly lives up to its title, but is far more engaging and riveting than I expected a film covering the lurid exploits of a dirty cop to be. To drive the point home, this is a film that has a scene in which the protagonist hallucinates that he's having sex with Hitler. Adjust your expectations and morals accordingly.
If all of that makes you intrigued, this might be the film for you. Most of what makes the movie work overall is James McAvoy's fantastic lead role as Bruce Robertson, one of several police officers vying for the aforementioned promotion. He's crass, lewd, offensive, manipulative, unhinged, and altogether a blast to watch even as you find yourself hating him for everything he does. At first, his character seems like it'll wear thin and become a mere caricature, but the depth and humanization that comes later on makes the character worth sticking with even if we don't find him worthy of redemption.
The director, Jon S. Baird, infuses a wild, unpredictable speed to the film, always leaving you unsure of where it's going to go next. The editing zips along at a pace befitting the cocaine-addled mind of Bruce and some scenes are genuine head-scratchers that make you wonder how in the hell you got from Point A to Point B. I mean this in the best of ways, as it keeps the film feeling punchy and energetic rather than succumbing to rigorous boredom. It's quite appropriate given Bruce's raging mood swings, as he often goes from states of frustration to ones of pure antagonism in a single given scene. And even the off-kilter deviations into moments of questionable significance end up having a purpose by the end of the film that will make those who enjoy the ride want to experience it again sometime later.
Filth is a type of film that will appeal to those who can deftly handle depictions of drug abuse, womanizing, manipulation, harassment, and homophobia throughout and see it for the very enjoyable portrayal of a troubled individual it is. It certainly lives up to its title, but is far more engaging and riveting than I expected a film covering the lurid exploits of a dirty cop to be. To drive the point home, this is a film that has a scene in which the protagonist hallucinates that he's having sex with Hitler. Adjust your expectations and morals accordingly.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Film Review: Under the Skin
Huh. That was… well. I'm flabbergasted. Flabbergasted and flummoxed and dumbfounded and other adjectives. This film wowed me unlike anything else I've seen in quite a while. I didn't know what to expect from the very polarizing opinions I've heard across the board (no joke: the concession stand employee at the last movie I saw warned me not to see it), but… I'm speechless.
Let me say this outright: I loved this movie. Save for the very anticlimactic ending (which I guess is kinda the point?), this was just the movie for me. But it's not a movie for everyone. Specifically, if you find films from Kubrick or Malick dull or boring, stay away from this movie. This is the type of movie specifically made to be analyzed, where the plot is conveyed rather than stated, where each moment of lingering silence is made to be picked apart. If that's not your cup of tea, don't bother because this movie will test your patience.
But, personally, I found that this film was teeming with directorial fingerprints and plenty of style to go around (even though it's nothing like director Jonathan Glazer's debut, Sexy Beast, which you should check out simply for its amazing Ben Kingsley performance). It also had a palatable tension and creepiness that stuck with me from its hypnotically enigmatic opening.
Giving a career-best performance, Scarlett Johansson plays the lead role as an alien roaming around Scotland and feeding off the men she seduces. Her vacant stare and calculated eroticism fit the bill perfectly and, even as she shows cracks in this stoicism in the film's final act, it always seems to fit where her character is plot-wise. Once she leads her victims into her lair, an entirely black room with a reflective floor that the men sink through, the film really shows its teeth, albeit in a restrained fashion. The build-up to this moment is punctuated by a peak in dread and the shrieking soundtrack (good God, the soundtrack to this film is wonderfully terrifying), but ends in muted terror rather than a sudden climax. When it's followed up later on in nightmarish detail, it's far more effective in its minimalism than going out of its way to horrify.
What I didn't expect given its emotionless opening act is the sympathy I felt for some of the characters in the film. One of Johansson's victims, whose backstory made me actually cringe in wait for his fate, conjures up more empathy in his five to ten minutes of screen time than most protagonists in films from the past year. And, in the last act, Johansson's character goes through an interesting series of events that brought me back around to her character's side despite the various murders she committed earlier in the film.
However, not all of this final act fits what comes before. A late development that hints that it may add a new avenue to the plot never goes anywhere and amounts to nothing, and the film itself rather abruptly ends once the plot has nowhere else to go. But, ultimately, the feel of this film was definitely worth the experience. It's a weird little film that felt just like the type of movie you see at 10 pm after you make a 30 minute drive (which is exactly how I saw it). And it's bound to stay with me for quite a while. At least, those skin-crawlingly frightful seduction sequences will.
Let me say this outright: I loved this movie. Save for the very anticlimactic ending (which I guess is kinda the point?), this was just the movie for me. But it's not a movie for everyone. Specifically, if you find films from Kubrick or Malick dull or boring, stay away from this movie. This is the type of movie specifically made to be analyzed, where the plot is conveyed rather than stated, where each moment of lingering silence is made to be picked apart. If that's not your cup of tea, don't bother because this movie will test your patience.
But, personally, I found that this film was teeming with directorial fingerprints and plenty of style to go around (even though it's nothing like director Jonathan Glazer's debut, Sexy Beast, which you should check out simply for its amazing Ben Kingsley performance). It also had a palatable tension and creepiness that stuck with me from its hypnotically enigmatic opening.
Giving a career-best performance, Scarlett Johansson plays the lead role as an alien roaming around Scotland and feeding off the men she seduces. Her vacant stare and calculated eroticism fit the bill perfectly and, even as she shows cracks in this stoicism in the film's final act, it always seems to fit where her character is plot-wise. Once she leads her victims into her lair, an entirely black room with a reflective floor that the men sink through, the film really shows its teeth, albeit in a restrained fashion. The build-up to this moment is punctuated by a peak in dread and the shrieking soundtrack (good God, the soundtrack to this film is wonderfully terrifying), but ends in muted terror rather than a sudden climax. When it's followed up later on in nightmarish detail, it's far more effective in its minimalism than going out of its way to horrify.
What I didn't expect given its emotionless opening act is the sympathy I felt for some of the characters in the film. One of Johansson's victims, whose backstory made me actually cringe in wait for his fate, conjures up more empathy in his five to ten minutes of screen time than most protagonists in films from the past year. And, in the last act, Johansson's character goes through an interesting series of events that brought me back around to her character's side despite the various murders she committed earlier in the film.
However, not all of this final act fits what comes before. A late development that hints that it may add a new avenue to the plot never goes anywhere and amounts to nothing, and the film itself rather abruptly ends once the plot has nowhere else to go. But, ultimately, the feel of this film was definitely worth the experience. It's a weird little film that felt just like the type of movie you see at 10 pm after you make a 30 minute drive (which is exactly how I saw it). And it's bound to stay with me for quite a while. At least, those skin-crawlingly frightful seduction sequences will.
Matt's Monthly Music Musings: April 2014: What Constitutes An Album? (Or, A Mini-Review of Live From Death Valley)
Initially, I was going to use this month to talk about recent albums like Elbow's excellent The Take Off and Landing of Everything or personal favorite musician Chad VanGaalen's Shrink Dust. But, then, this album happened.
Well, it didn't recently happen. I just happened to stumble across it after seeing it talked about on forums for a while. Now that I consumed all of Death Grips's albums in record time and consider myself a very avid fan of them (I had a mini-freakout when I found at least one other person who loves them earlier this week), I'm starting to move into their deeper cuts. And this is quite a great find.
But, here's the thing. Those two songs I just linked? They're the entire album. Yep, ladies and gentlemen, I happened to find an "album" shorter than last year's Threat Level Ultra. This one clocks in at a mere three minutes. But, holy hell, what an amazing three minutes those are.
This got me thinking: What amount of music is needed to make up an album? This may seem irrelevant, as I'd consider both Live From Death Valley and Threat Level Ultra as EPs, but they both have a wealth of content in a short amount of time. Even more so than most major albums, I'd argue.
If I had to come up with an answer, I'd say that an album is any collection of music that gives you a good idea of its "feel" or "sound" in its entirety. For Live From Death Valley, in this case, it's a quicker, more punk vibe than Death Grips main stuff, with some rapid-fire drum beats from Zach Hill, more muddled and buried MC Ride lyrics, and some absolutely insane sampling. Seriously, if you thought their sampling of Venus Williams's grunts in "System Blower" was insane, you ain't seen nothin' yet. From what sounds like muffled, out-of-tune horns and Street Fighter "Hadouken" audio clips in "Poser Killer" to the crazy low, bird-like hums in "Fyrd Up," there's a ton of material buried in these songs that I haven't even scratched the surface of yet.
I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is that, you can debate endlessly over what qualifies as an album all you want, but I just managed to wring out all these words over this three minute EP. Before, I did the same with Threat Level Ultra. I think that's enough evidence for me.
Well, it didn't recently happen. I just happened to stumble across it after seeing it talked about on forums for a while. Now that I consumed all of Death Grips's albums in record time and consider myself a very avid fan of them (I had a mini-freakout when I found at least one other person who loves them earlier this week), I'm starting to move into their deeper cuts. And this is quite a great find.
But, here's the thing. Those two songs I just linked? They're the entire album. Yep, ladies and gentlemen, I happened to find an "album" shorter than last year's Threat Level Ultra. This one clocks in at a mere three minutes. But, holy hell, what an amazing three minutes those are.
This got me thinking: What amount of music is needed to make up an album? This may seem irrelevant, as I'd consider both Live From Death Valley and Threat Level Ultra as EPs, but they both have a wealth of content in a short amount of time. Even more so than most major albums, I'd argue.
If I had to come up with an answer, I'd say that an album is any collection of music that gives you a good idea of its "feel" or "sound" in its entirety. For Live From Death Valley, in this case, it's a quicker, more punk vibe than Death Grips main stuff, with some rapid-fire drum beats from Zach Hill, more muddled and buried MC Ride lyrics, and some absolutely insane sampling. Seriously, if you thought their sampling of Venus Williams's grunts in "System Blower" was insane, you ain't seen nothin' yet. From what sounds like muffled, out-of-tune horns and Street Fighter "Hadouken" audio clips in "Poser Killer" to the crazy low, bird-like hums in "Fyrd Up," there's a ton of material buried in these songs that I haven't even scratched the surface of yet.
I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is that, you can debate endlessly over what qualifies as an album all you want, but I just managed to wring out all these words over this three minute EP. Before, I did the same with Threat Level Ultra. I think that's enough evidence for me.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Matt's Monthly Music Musings: March 2014: Revisiting Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion
I'm going to start this one by flashing back a bit. Back in June of 2013, I wrote up an overview on my thoughts on all things Animal Collective, putting together brief review blurbs for every album and EP from the band (check it out here if you haven't read it). In said article, I commented on how I didn't really like the group's landmark album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, as much as the rest of the music community did. In fact, I put the somewhat maligned follow-up Centipede Hz above it in my rankings of favorite albums. The reason for this was that, while I liked a great deal of songs from MPP, I didn't feel it was as strong and cohesive of an album as the best work from Animal Collective.
Well, consider this me backpedaling on that remark. At the time, part of my affinity for certain albums and approaches from the group made an album like this frustrating for me. I entered the album, unlike I had done with previous entries, with a strong inclination towards MPP's singles, and felt like the rest of the tracks were lackluster by comparison. Additionally, I ignored the way the album flowed beyond the first three songs (though I still feel like the last three songs are somewhat incongruously arranged). These thoughts were all after my first listen, whereupon I liked the album, but not to the extent of everyone else.
Five listens later, and this album is finally starting to click for me. While songs like "Brother Sport," "Summertime Clothes," "Bluish," and "My Girls" really drew me in initially, upon revisiting the album, "In the Flowers" and "Lion in a Coma" began to draw my attention. The next time, it was "Daily Routine." The time after that, it was "Also Frightened" and "No More Runnin." Then, deciding to take the plunge on more time, still not really feeling more about the album than mild interest, I found myself loving it all the way through. The last piece of the puzzle to fall into place was "Taste," which turned me off the first four times, but, for whatever reason, wormed its way into my head on the fifth listen. (I wrote about why I felt that it wasn't my cup of tea at first and why I changed my mind about it in this little write-up here.)
So, let's go over the points that made me realize why I really like the album at this point.
1.) The Flow
I mentioned that the flow (or initial noticing of a lack thereof) irked me the first time through. I feel like growing to like each individual song definitely helped with this, as I grew to expect when the next song would come and see how each connected and linked to the one that followed it. To me, this is most prominent in the transition from "In the Flowers" to "My Girls," or the integral lead-in to "Bluish" that begins with the ending to "Daily Routine."
Like any favorite album, what keeps you hanging on and listening is the anticipation for what will come next. Simply put, your favorite albums shouldn't be ones you want to turn off midway because you just finished your favorite song. (Although, MPP doesn't have that problem for me because it ends on its strongest note… but you shouldn't ignore what I said just for that reason.) On that same note, you shouldn't want to skip around willy-nilly just because there's a bunch of filler between the good stuff. Personally speaking, as of right now, MPP has nothing but good stuff.
2.) The Songs
This one seems kinda obvious, but it's still worth mentioning. Every song (as is expected from Animal Collective) has its own unique nuances and quirks, and each is able to stand on its own. As much as I've come to enjoy listening to this album as a whole when I want to gain a new level of appreciation of it, I've gone back to each song individually, separated from its context on the album, at least once. "Summertime Clothes" has been too catchy to ignore, "Brother Sport" is one of my go-to "get pumped" songs, "Daily Routine" reveals new layers with every listen, and "Taste" is a fantastic amalgamation of every phase of AnCo's career.
This is another element of a great album: you should want to revisit pieces from it even when you may not want to listen to the entirety of the album again. This doesn't mean you should disregard the album altogether; it simply means that you should be able to appreciate the album as a whole as well as the entities that comprise it as their own pieces.
3.) Its Place in Music Culture
There's no way of sugarcoating it: Merriweather Post Pavilion is the album that brought Animal Collective into the mainstream. Everyone and their mother was praising this album with an avalanche of laurels back in 2009 and, really, compared to every other album in AnCo's discography, it's easy to see why. The pop elements of the band are at the forefront and, unlike some of their more impenetrable efforts (*cough cough* Danse Manatee *cough cough*), the hooks, catchy as all hell, are laid bare for all the memorability they can muster.
Yet, I'd argue it's a very important album. It's one of the landmark instances of the indie crossing over into the mainstream. By popular standards, this album is quite unusual (even if it is one of the most "normal" AnCo albums). The synths can be somewhat grating, the time signatures are bizarre, and there's a song with a freaking didgeridoo, for God's sake. Yet, the pop elements win out and this album was warmly embraced by the public almost immediately (although maybe it's just due to the fact that "My Girls" is on this thing).
4.) Its Place in AnCo's Career
This is ultimately why I decided I really like this album. Merriweather Post Pavilion does a lot of things right, but it's an important benchmark between two phases of Animal Collective. The pop elements and use of synths first became prominent in the previous album, Strawberry Jam. The smooth transitions between songs and the integration of Animal Collective's live format in studio albums would improved to perfection in their next album, Centipede Hz.
But (similarly to how I feel that if AnCo didn't put out Sung Tongs immediately after Here Comes the Indian, they might not have integrated their more folk-esque elements as regularly), Merriweather Post Pavilion is an album that I feel was crucial for Animal Collective to release when they did as a building block for their future efforts. As the write-up on "Taste" that I linked to above states, by incorporating pretty much everything they had previously done, Animal Collective managed to make a palatable and precise distillation of everything that sonically makes who they are and, perhaps more importantly, figure out what parts of that identity are significant to keep carrying forward.
Well, consider this me backpedaling on that remark. At the time, part of my affinity for certain albums and approaches from the group made an album like this frustrating for me. I entered the album, unlike I had done with previous entries, with a strong inclination towards MPP's singles, and felt like the rest of the tracks were lackluster by comparison. Additionally, I ignored the way the album flowed beyond the first three songs (though I still feel like the last three songs are somewhat incongruously arranged). These thoughts were all after my first listen, whereupon I liked the album, but not to the extent of everyone else.
Five listens later, and this album is finally starting to click for me. While songs like "Brother Sport," "Summertime Clothes," "Bluish," and "My Girls" really drew me in initially, upon revisiting the album, "In the Flowers" and "Lion in a Coma" began to draw my attention. The next time, it was "Daily Routine." The time after that, it was "Also Frightened" and "No More Runnin." Then, deciding to take the plunge on more time, still not really feeling more about the album than mild interest, I found myself loving it all the way through. The last piece of the puzzle to fall into place was "Taste," which turned me off the first four times, but, for whatever reason, wormed its way into my head on the fifth listen. (I wrote about why I felt that it wasn't my cup of tea at first and why I changed my mind about it in this little write-up here.)
So, let's go over the points that made me realize why I really like the album at this point.
1.) The Flow
I mentioned that the flow (or initial noticing of a lack thereof) irked me the first time through. I feel like growing to like each individual song definitely helped with this, as I grew to expect when the next song would come and see how each connected and linked to the one that followed it. To me, this is most prominent in the transition from "In the Flowers" to "My Girls," or the integral lead-in to "Bluish" that begins with the ending to "Daily Routine."
Like any favorite album, what keeps you hanging on and listening is the anticipation for what will come next. Simply put, your favorite albums shouldn't be ones you want to turn off midway because you just finished your favorite song. (Although, MPP doesn't have that problem for me because it ends on its strongest note… but you shouldn't ignore what I said just for that reason.) On that same note, you shouldn't want to skip around willy-nilly just because there's a bunch of filler between the good stuff. Personally speaking, as of right now, MPP has nothing but good stuff.
2.) The Songs
This one seems kinda obvious, but it's still worth mentioning. Every song (as is expected from Animal Collective) has its own unique nuances and quirks, and each is able to stand on its own. As much as I've come to enjoy listening to this album as a whole when I want to gain a new level of appreciation of it, I've gone back to each song individually, separated from its context on the album, at least once. "Summertime Clothes" has been too catchy to ignore, "Brother Sport" is one of my go-to "get pumped" songs, "Daily Routine" reveals new layers with every listen, and "Taste" is a fantastic amalgamation of every phase of AnCo's career.
This is another element of a great album: you should want to revisit pieces from it even when you may not want to listen to the entirety of the album again. This doesn't mean you should disregard the album altogether; it simply means that you should be able to appreciate the album as a whole as well as the entities that comprise it as their own pieces.
3.) Its Place in Music Culture
There's no way of sugarcoating it: Merriweather Post Pavilion is the album that brought Animal Collective into the mainstream. Everyone and their mother was praising this album with an avalanche of laurels back in 2009 and, really, compared to every other album in AnCo's discography, it's easy to see why. The pop elements of the band are at the forefront and, unlike some of their more impenetrable efforts (*cough cough* Danse Manatee *cough cough*), the hooks, catchy as all hell, are laid bare for all the memorability they can muster.
Yet, I'd argue it's a very important album. It's one of the landmark instances of the indie crossing over into the mainstream. By popular standards, this album is quite unusual (even if it is one of the most "normal" AnCo albums). The synths can be somewhat grating, the time signatures are bizarre, and there's a song with a freaking didgeridoo, for God's sake. Yet, the pop elements win out and this album was warmly embraced by the public almost immediately (although maybe it's just due to the fact that "My Girls" is on this thing).
4.) Its Place in AnCo's Career
This is ultimately why I decided I really like this album. Merriweather Post Pavilion does a lot of things right, but it's an important benchmark between two phases of Animal Collective. The pop elements and use of synths first became prominent in the previous album, Strawberry Jam. The smooth transitions between songs and the integration of Animal Collective's live format in studio albums would improved to perfection in their next album, Centipede Hz.
But (similarly to how I feel that if AnCo didn't put out Sung Tongs immediately after Here Comes the Indian, they might not have integrated their more folk-esque elements as regularly), Merriweather Post Pavilion is an album that I feel was crucial for Animal Collective to release when they did as a building block for their future efforts. As the write-up on "Taste" that I linked to above states, by incorporating pretty much everything they had previously done, Animal Collective managed to make a palatable and precise distillation of everything that sonically makes who they are and, perhaps more importantly, figure out what parts of that identity are significant to keep carrying forward.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Matt's Monthly Music Musings: February 2014: Album Roundup
And 2014 is now in full
swing musically. After being somewhat bored last month, with nothing really
interesting me other than Against Me!'s Transgender Dysphoria Blues,
four (let me repeat that: FOUR) albums from February have not only
come onto my radar, but been interesting enough for me to find something to
talk about in all of them. Some were anticipated, some were unexpected, but all
of them are worth checking out for very different reasons. So, let's get
started.
St. Vincent - St.
Vincent
Prior to late 2013, I had
heard absolutely nothing about or by St. Vincent. "Birth In Reverse"
instantly made me want to check out her work. Strange Mercy proved
to be a compelling and moving album. Then "Digital Witness" and
"Prince Johnny" further amped my hype for her upcoming album. And, lo
and behold, the album is actually quite good overall. In fact, it's probably my
current favorite album of the year. (We'll see if that remains unchanged when Chad
VanGaalen has his chance to blow me away in April.) Starting with a frantic
panic in "Rattlesnake," the album goes through various movements topically, including narratives about personal crises and epiphanies, meditations on modern technological trends, and
drug addiction.
Yet, it never feels
incongruous or jarring. The album is structured wonderfully and every song has
something to love about it (still trying to gather my thoughts on "I
Prefer Your Love," but aside from that, everything's golden). From the
jittery brass of "Digital Witness" to the luscious narrative in
"Prince Johnny" to the restrained teeth of "Huey Newton" to
the unhinged murderous streak in "Bring Me Your Loves," every track
brings something cool to the table. It doesn't hurt that Annie Clark's voice
has a certain bravado this time around that shows real growth and her guitar
chops are consistently engaging and solid throughout. Like the actions
described in "Birth In Reverse," this could very easily turn into a
typical part of my listening habits.
brentalfloss - Flossophy
YouTube musical prodigy
brentalfloss has been a personal favorite of mine since I started watching his
videos about three years ago. Since then, he's had this ambitious streak about
him that has resulted in a surprising upswing in his music's quality, a bold
feat in that I was already a big fan of what he was doing back then.
2012's Bits of Me showed the wide variety Brent is capable of
and displayed great promise in what was to come, a musician able to create
pieces both incredibly humorous and unexpectedly poignant (drawing from video
game characters with minimal explicit background, no less). I haven't had as
much time with this album as the others in this post, but the tracks on this
one continually won me over one after the other, all 20 in all, over the
album's 50+ minute runtime (brentalfloss's longest album yet).
And, not to speak too
rashly, but this might be my favorite of his albums yet. The comedy is the
funniest of Brent's career (particularly the spot-on criticism of
the minutiae in "3DS Streetpass with Lyrics," the hard-rocking
douchiness of "Ken's Theme with Lyrics," and the outright dickish
portrayal of Link in "Zelda: A Link to the Past with
Lyrics") and the resonance is the most powerful it's ever been (I
know it's been released in a video of its own, but the Ben Folds-esque
"Zidane to Vivi" might be the best thing brentalfloss has ever
written). Even previously released songs have been aurally tweaked and spruced
up, some with brand-spanking-new intros with fresh jokes, like the retooling of
the setup to "Super Mario Land with Lyrics." It even
starts wonderfully, with "Earthbound with Lyrics" (after a brief
intro) serving as a perfect musical companion to "Zelda II with
Lyrics" from Bits of Me in its evolving
structure. If you haven't heard any of brentalfloss's stuff, you owe it to
yourself to check it out, and this may be the greatest starting point.
[Random thought: Would
this album's track listing flow better if the "Introspective Bounty Hunter
in Space" piano instrumental came right before "Metroid: Fight for
Love"? Or if the album was bookmarked with ukeleles by switching
"The Bioshock Song" with "Ballad of the Mages"?]
Beck - Morning Phase
And here we have the first
of two major folk rock albums of the month. I know I'm not the only one, but I
like weird, zany Beck better than I like folk Beck. Don't get me wrong: Beck is
a fine songwriter and makes what could be dull, monotonous folk music breathe
with life and sincerity, but I just find the off-the-wall section of his career
far more interesting.
Thankfully, Morning
Phase is interesting enough for me to give it a recommendation. Like I
said before, my favorites from this album are ones where it feels like Beck is
infusing a livelihood into the folk music that just doesn't work as
successfully elsewhere, such as in "Blue Moon," "Heart Is A
Drum," and "Say Goodbye." Alternatively, even some of the rich
musical landscapes he creates when he's not in this mode are compelling, like
the climactic closer "Waking Light." Really, the only songs on here
that I can find legitimate complaints with are the two brief instrumental
interludes, both similar in sound and meaning, with no particular reason for
two of them to exist on the same album that only has nine other songs. Meh.
It's a minor gripe in a light album worth listening to at least once.
Sun Kil Moon - Benji
And, last but not least,
we have THE album of the month. Not mine (St. Vincent takes
that for me, easily), but the one that's been buzzing around in that there
music blogosphere for the past month. I can see why this album's been
attracting a ton of attention in music journalism, as its soul-baring bluntness
is something really unique, one of the rare instances of "narrative
music" if I had to invent a genre to describe it.
Although, it's not usually
a "narrative" necessarily, but more of a stream-of-consciousness look
into Mark Kozelek's mind as he reminisces on moments of life and death (but
mostly death) in his lifetime. "Carissa" simultaneously starts the
album and summarizes it. It's a melancholic, heartbreaking song about Mark's
cousin dying in a freak accident at 35 that really aches and is teeming with
emotional heft.
Other songs chronicling
death are strewn throughout, but the ones that draw my attention are the ones
that break from this thread. "Jim Wise" both musically and lyrically
captures a vivid, bittersweet portrait of a the titular man's tragic life.
"Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes" has an immediacy not
seen in anything else on the album with its vocal intensity (eventually joined
by an equally sharp percussion section) and rapid-fire listing of events.
Coming in after a slew of downbeat songs, album closer "Ben's My
Friend" is like an unexpected left hook with its sunny ukelele, central
drum beat, and booming brass. But my favorite song from the album (and possibly
my favorite of the year at this point) by far is "Dogs," an
incredibly open and detailed account of every romantic and sexual experience in
Mark's life. The specificity and calculated structure of the lyrics alone
impress me, but the way the song continually builds on itself, whether its the
percussion that enters midway through or the subtle guitar flourishes towards
the end, makes it one of the most captivating on the album.
The reason why I love
"Dogs" so much is also the reason why a lot of the album is lacking
to me. I kinda feel like a jerk for saying this, but not much of the album hits
me hard. "Carissa" is heart-wrenching, but there's not much musically
that evokes for me. This may be an entirely subjective thing,
but, while the lack of evolution and variation in most songs leaves the lyrics
at the forefront, there are only a few isolated incidences where I felt
something emotionally. Some songs merely stick with the same melody throughout
which makes sense in context, but it makes quite a few of the tracks feel rigid
and stationary. Maybe if the rest of the songs on the album were as dynamic as
"Dogs," I would be fawning over this album as much as pretty much
every other critic.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Matt's Monthly Music Musings: Album of the Month (January 2014): Against Me!'s Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Welcome to the first of what’s currently a planned monthly
series of music posts! These can be reviews, musings, concert reviews, or other
random music-related minutiae to keep my writing muscles working in between
videos. This January post falls into the first field, picking out a recent
album that held my attention the most this month and discussing why it’s worth
hearing.
And, I’ve gotta admit, the album that stood out the most in
January is one that certainly earns all the acclaim I’m about to heap onto it.
While I could go into detail about Laura Jane Grace’s personal journey and how
it impacts the music itself like every other reviewer who’s tackled this album,
I’ll leave that outside reading to you and focus on how the album tackles its
themes on its own terms.
Now, I’ve never heard anything by Against Me! before, but I
do like a good bit of punk and the two songs I heard from this album before I
heard the full thing more than convinced me to give it a chance.
And I’m absolutely glad I did. The album kicks off with a steady burst of
energy, anger, and angst with the title track with Grace spitting out lyrics
about ostracization and isolation despite trying to fit in. This theme
permeates the album, the difficulty of living the way you identify and finding
social acceptance at the forefront of songs like “Black Me Out,” “Drinking with
the Jocks,” and “FUCKMYLIFE666.”
Musically, the songs rock as hard as you’d like a good punk
record to, but have a melodic side too. “Drinking with the Jocks” is by far the
most aggressive song here, Laura’s voice acidic and with some killer
guitar riffs keeping the song driving all the way through. “FUCKMYLIFE66” has
some of the most poignant lyrics on the album with imagery vividly painting the
portrait the theme works hard to convey and also benefits from an incredibly evocative guitar hook. The title track,
by far my favorite song of the bunch, carves out an awesomely impactful drum track
and some of the greatest lyrics throughout, and is easily the catchiest thing
here. Though the album leans towards the loud and heavy, even the acoustic ballad “Two Coffins” resonates emotionally in the context
of the album as a whole.
However, there are a few stumbles in an otherwise smooth
album. Even though I've listened to the album approximately five times already, I still have trouble recalling how the lackluster "Paralytic States" sounds. “Dead Friend” seems a little underdeveloped lyrically and could have
probably used some tweaking and a more fleshed out chorus. The song is part of
a different avenue the album takes in its second half, reflecting on death and
its alienating loneliness that intertwines with the transgender themes. It
works well given what the rest of the album deals with, which is more than I
can say about “Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ” (there’s a song title
if I’ve ever heard one). Though the song’s instrumentation is intriguing enough
so that it doesn’t become too much of a speed bump in the album’s flow, I can’t
for the life of me decipher what place the song has in the album’s structure
other than further adding to the fiery vitriol put forth elsewhere.
Ultimately, the album succeeds merely because it’s an interesting album. I can’t necessarily
vouch for how well you’ll take to the album’s sound or quality, but I feel like
it’s one worth checking out simply due to how unique it is. It’s a solid
examination of a subject rarely discussed in music drawn from some deeply
personal places in a labor of love. When Laura screams out the powerfully
profane chorus of album closer “Black Me Out,” she transcends the lyrics themselves and
conveys the point of the song through her vocal delivery alone. Here is an
artist, putting out content that of great significance to her, with a passion
unmatched by any of her contemporary peers.
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