- Okay so I was actually able to find a hard copy of the new How To Destroy Angelsat a major, corporate outlet. I know what you’re thinking: “what’s a hard copy??” I was there to pay bills, not to record shop. So it was a nice treat; because — and I might be in the minority here — I do like owning a CD much better than just having it on my computer. Granted, this will get thrown onto my computer at some point… I just have yet to do that cause I’ve been blasting it through the stereo for the past few days.
So how is it, right? Fucking awesome. I’m loving this album. And it’s scary because like I’ve said in the past… I think I like this stuff more than I ever did NIN. And I consider myself a Nine Inch Nails fan, too. Mariqueen Maandig, as she’s credited in the liner notes, does a miraculous job breathing more life into into an ever expanding body of Trent Reznor production. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t enjoy this as much if it was a purely Reznor sung collection of music. Not that he doesn’t sing. He does, only a little. It makes his vocal appearances all the more exciting, and even haunting, when he’s not around all the time. To say this album is simply a showcase of Maandig’s etheral, spot-on vocals would be beyond misleading of me though. Indeed Atticus Ross and Reznor alike really bring their A games to the table here: using their illustrious pasts apart, their work together on David Fincher soundtracks, and something new and simple as a very like-minded production team. I guess when you go back and really listen to the soundtracks they’ve done — particularly The Social Network — it is pretty simple music, really. On the surface at least. Those more ambient leanings appear on “Welcome Oblivion“; they just sit behind some really catchy, borderline basic, Electro/Industrial beats that sound like they’ve ripped directly from a late 90′s MPC. Catching a theme here? This record manages to combine simplicity with a more organic brand of Electronic music, which oddly creates a forward-thinking sound. “A house on fire/burning all the past away.” Haunting, progressive, simple, organic… like the future. This is future music.
- Stained glass water-tower. Brooklyn. By Tom Fruin.
- “Iran shipping Chinese weapons to Yemen” sounds like a Tom Clancy novel’s starting point… but:
“As the article makes clear, the Iranians, via the Revolutionary Guard Corps, are accelerating the volume and sophistication of weapons supplies transferred to extent and potential proxies in the region. In the case of Yemen, that’s the Houthi rebellion. In all cases, Iran’s support is to Shi’a or Shi’a offshoot groups fighting Sunni government or groups. The qualitative escalation is symbolized by the presence of Chinese-manufactured manpads—the QW-1M. These weapons come from a Chinese state-owned company already sanctioned by the U.S. government for illegal arms dealing.
What are Iranian and Chinese officials thinking (and let me note that in neither case can we assume a monolithic government decision system)?”
- With the recent memos NBC news leaked — wow, good on you NBC — I’m getting a little frightened for the future of the USA. The President has taken the War on Terror ball from the last guy and he is running with it without looking back or stopping for nothing. When he hands it off to a more than likely more conservative successor in 2016 I fear we will continue down the rabbit hole to oblivion. Oblivion looking like a mild, subtle, and polite police state.
- 2013 could be one of the best years for science fiction films we’ve seen in some time. The ones I’m most excited for:
Neill Blomkamp‘s second feature film behind the brilliant “District 9″, called Elysium. The overall concept of the film: 2159, overpopulated and most likely trashed Earth, the well-to-do living in a massive glorious orbiting space station society (called “Elysium”), the less than fortunate living on the surface, an ex-Con who has a chance to bring about equality back to the human race. The fact that Jodie Foster is going to be the pseudo villain, in an anti-immigrant authoritarion role aboard the station, is enough to get me to the theater on this one. Throw in the fact that this is Blomkamp we’re talking here, who’s use of CG is so subtle, who’s art direction is so grimy, this film could turn out to be eerily plausible. And I would not be surprised if he throws in some modern day rhetoric to make it feel all the more real.
The highly anticipated (for me at least) Gravity. Alfonso Cuaron‘s first movie since 2006′s “Children of Men“, which is a great flick. The story is quite simple really: two astronauts (Sandra Bullok and George Clooney) get caught-up in the destruction (accidental, most likely) of something similar to our International Space Station, the film depicts their attempts to get back on Earth safely. Now, I think this was scrapped, but rumor had it the movie was going to be one long take. Which would be insane. I have read more recently though — from fairly reputable sources — that it’s looking like the movie will be composed of a select handful of long takes. That alone has my interest peaked, Cuaron’s shot at the end of “Men” was spectacular.
In terms of discussing the influence of film on American society and the alarmingly frequent and horrifically violent acts perpetrated by Americans on other Americans, we have recently heard, AGAIN, two specific films called out and scapegoated, American Psycho and Natural Born Killers; despite the field day that these so-called “film critics” could have had with movies actually from this decade like Killers, from 2010 (oops, that’s an Ashton Kutcher/Katherine Heigl romantic comedy). Taking a closer look at both American Psycho and Natural Born Killers, it becomes clear how weak both movies are when called out as examples of media “aired like propaganda loops on ‘Splatterdays’ and every day.”
- Considering I received an oh-so subtle death threat on Facebook the other day, it’s no surprise many users are taking hiatuses from the service right now, and will continue to in the year 2013 (it’s looking like). It was December 2012 when the data of a PEW survey was taken, finding that 61% of users were backing off from the social networking site. I think election hangover might have something to do with this. Although study subjects’ top two claims were “gave it up for lent” and “too much drama”. I actually do not agree with this idea though that on Facebook we can’t talk about deep philosophical issues. Sure, it gets tedious. But that’s because of the quality of discussion, not the discussion itself. People don’t listen to each other and they don’t think critically. Sure, I generally use Facebook to share music I like with my friends, or keep people updated on the status of my family… but it can be more than that. It’s not as good as the real thing, but it could be the 21st Century town square. Where someone presents an idea, then the rest of the public comments on it, likes or dislikes it. But no one is civil anymore. In fact, mostly what you get is 20-somethings lashing out against their family about how terrible they’ve been to them publicly. I know, this happened on my feed (not surprisingly) around December 2012.
We’ve written a few times about a patent trolling operation called Personal Audio. Like so many patent trolling companies, whose actually behind it is something of a mystery, but it does have an empty office in East Texas that no one ever goes to. It sued Apple and others claiming that it held patents on the concept of “playlists” and actually scored some victories. Amazingly, it sued Apple multiple times over the same patent, arguing that small changes to its products were new violations.
“It started with an interesting disease, I guess. I started writing it in film school, which means I took eight years to write it, on and off. I was sick with the flu, and I had this fever dream. I was obsessing over the physical nature of my illness, and how I had something in my body that had come from someone else’s body, and how that was a weirdly intimate thing, if you think about it that way.
So afterwards, I was trying to think about a character who might see disease as an intimate thing. I thought a celebrity-obsessed fan might reasonably want Angelina Jolie’s cold as a way of feeling physically connected to her in some way. And then it developed into a metaphor, which I thought was an interesting way of discussing that culture.”
- Seriously, Lars von Trier’s newest film is called “Nymphomaniac“? I swear, that guy just lives to push people’s buttons. Which is awesome. I still haven’t seen “Antichrist”… and to be honest I’m a little frightened by the disturbing imagery within. I mean, I’m sure I wouldn’t be fainting or anything like that (as has been reported); but I’m not so sure about my psychological tolerance for self-mutilation of the worst kind. I did however really, really like “Melancholia”, part two of his “Depression Trilogy” (“Antichrist” being part one). Maybe I’ll give this new one a watch at some point.
- Robin Hanson over at Overcoming Bias posted an excellent little piece about why certain movies do better than others, the relationship between consuming fiction and our lives, and the status of known achievement:
“There’s an apt old curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Which highlights the fact that while we like stories with drama, we don’t actually want drama in our lives. If you ignore the very end, and the fact that the characters are very high status artists, Amour is quite realistic and by far the drama most likely to actually be experienced by many of you. Which is why most folks don’t like it, because they don’t actually want to see realistic ordinary drama.
Amour is about a women who gets sick and then dies. I was stuck by the fact that what most bothered her and her husband were the insults to her pride. They could mostly handle the pain, the drudgery, and the loss of opportunity. But the loss of status, oh that stung.“
- The Times has a good article about the Coen Bros. next flick, Inside Llewyn Davis, they put up yesterday. The movie is set against the backdrop of the early-60′s folk revival, mostly in NYC’s Greenwich Village. Apparently there’s lots of music in the film, a large portion of which being live performances by the actors themselves uncut and unsupplemented. Joel compares it to a musical, notably “Les Miserables”. At the core of the film, it seems, is this notion that talent doesn’t always find its place in the world: “How good you are doesn’t always matter,” Joel said. “That’s what the movie is about.” It’s hard not to think of this film as some sort of tribute to Dylan though, coming from such proud MN artists in the Bros.
- More movie magic. Apparently principle photography on Terry Gilliam‘s Zero Theorem has wrapped. Great news considering how notoriously difficult it’s been for Gilliam to get his projects up and running — then completed — throughout his career. Gilliam did not write this one, which hopefully should see at least a limited release this year, a guy named Pat Rushin did. Rushin’s IMDB page you’ll notice is very, very empty. That’s because this is his first feature film, he’s a writing professor by trade. Interesting. What’s more is the film’s premise… from IMDB:
“A computer hacker’s goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.”
The film stars Christopher Waltz, Ben Winshaw, Tilda Swinton, Matt Damon, David Thewlis, and very possibly Bill Murray.
- Brian Wood‘s The Massive is easily one of my favorite new comics. Lofty, character heavy, intelligent, and scarily plausible, it tells the on-going story of an ex-environmentalist group navigating the waters (literal and figurative) of a new global paradigm shrouded in economic and environmental collapse. I strongly recommend it. Apparently starting with issue #10 he’ll be plotting a “mini-event”, to which John Paul Leon has crafted this amazing (and gigantic) piece of art for:
“Black Hole is one of those stories that lingers long after you read it. If you require answers and nice / neat little packages, you may want to stick with Archie and the gang. This group of teens is far from Riverdale and far more desperate. Black Hole may remind you of places in your mind that you’ve put away since high school, forcing you to ask yourself, “What was my bug? What made me an outcast?” You may not have had a small mouth on the side of your neck, but chances are, if you felt anything that wasn’t pure apathy while reading this story, then you have more in common with the afflicted than you think.”
- Alfonso Cuaron‘s first film since 2006′s brilliant Children of Men has finally set a release date: October 4th, 2013. While this may seem like eons away it really isn’t too far to go considering it’ll have been seven years since “Children”. The movie stars Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts attempting to return to Earth. I’m a sucker for high concept, intelligent sci-fi flicks, so I’m counting this as one of my most anticipated releases of the year. Not to mention Cuaron’s spectacular direction… he’s certainly got an eye for it. The movie is called Gravity.
- Similarly, Shane Caruth‘s first film since the brilliant Primer (2004) is also set for release this year, it’s called Upstream Color. Primer is confusing, no doubt, but it’s one of the best science fiction films of the 2000s and one of the best time travel films of all time. And — it could be argued — the complexities of the film serve a purpose, in putting the viewer in the shoes of the characters. Synopses for “Upstream” have been vague to say the least. The IMDB description reads: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.“ The obvious wrench in there is “ageless organism”. Hmm.
When I was in Chicago I went to the art institute with my wife, I didn’t go there the last time I was in the city. Anyways they had a special exhibit there featuring the work of one Steve McQueen. No, not that one. This McQueen is from London, now living in Amsterdam. He’s probably most famous for his second major film, Shame. The Michael Fassbender movie from 2011. He also won the Camera d’Or at Canne for his first feature film in 2008. But he’s been making art for a long time. He’s a film artist mostly. So much of the exhibit was reels played on loops. There were a couple different makeshift theaters constructed for some shorts. We watched chunks of two, and the entirety of another. He’s definitely got his own style, but it’s hard to describe. The page for his exhibit in Chicago reads:
Most of McQueen’s oeuvre—including his gallery-based installations as well as feature films—evidences a potent, at times oblique, political consciousness. Many works address specific social and historical moments in ways that seemingly emerge from documentary or journalistic impulses. Other films are more abstract, their meanings shaped by allegory or metaphor. McQueen always communicates directly to viewers through what one writer termed “the medium of aesthetic affect.”
When I looked further into him, I found he shot a feature this summer to be released in 2013 tackling slavery. The cast is unreal: Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Giamatti, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children of Men, Serenity, etc), and on and on. As hard as it may be to watch, the film reportedly will be hyper-realistic. Almost journalistic, like his shorts. Paul Giamatti spoke about the project with Collider, explaining that McQueen did not want to sugar coat it at all, that he wanted to present it as is. Very matter of factly. The movie is a true story, based on the memoirs of one Solomon Northup. A New York musician who is conned by a couple gentleman offering him a job playing fiddle, they then sold him into slavery. He was in the slave trade for 12 years before returning home, most of which was spent in Louisiana.
So ya know, all those people bitching about how Tarentino is just using the backdrop to tell a revenge spaghetti Western can go and see this movie this year too. There’s your art-house counter-part. The problem is I’m sure a lot of people will not. I think part of this is people look at Tarentino and for them he’s their artsy filmmaker. But that’s a problem. Cause he isn’t Michael Haneke, and Pulp Fiction is not The White Ribbon. So it’s a catch-22. Tarentino’s take on such a difficult part of our history isn’t examining things well enough for you, it’s just gun play and fake blood, but then again you also don’t watch real art-house, independent movies. That’s as oblique as it gets for you. Know what I’m saying?
- Hope you had a good first holiday. I will be in Chicago for New Year’s Eve, so this will likely be my last post until next week. 2013, damn I’m getting old.
- Wow… so it turns out Quentin Tarentino has similar taste to me! That makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Okay, I openly admit to not knowing who, much less seeing any of his flicks, William Witney is. Apparently he was a director who also worked at Republic Pictures with John Ford, and QT has quite an affinity for the guy. I watched Stagecoach in a film class once. And although I can respect certain scenes for plowing the way for action flicks (particularly the open range chase scene), I really found the entire thing lacking when sandwiched between movies like M or Rules of the Game. Not to be a dick or a snob about it or anything, but like it’s just an action movie from 1939. A damn good action, but still. Nothing more, nothing less. So I’ve always sort of thought John Ford wasn’t as greats as THE greats. Even Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance… they’re just sorta boring.
I thought I was on my own… the “John Ford is just an early version of Gore Verbinski” theory. In a recent interview Tarentino talked about American Western movies (as Django Unchained is modeled off of non-American Westerns, particularly Spaghettis) for TheRoot. In it he talks about how Whitney is one of his American Western heroes, and how John Ford is a racist pile of shit. And here I thought I was the only one, silly me.
- Speaking of The Root, they’ve got an impartial and practical article up right now in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings, and the media’s coverage of the event and what to do about it. Mental health in schools being the major focus.
- I’m loving the Saga #8 cover. It speaks volumes about the character. Saga is easily one of the best new comics of the last few years. Out of all the comics I read — a large variety — Saga is one of the books I consistently look forward to.
“For many years, I have been writing and following resistance movements and the new economic policy. I’ve always found that the chances of coming upon despair are much greater in middle-class households, than on the ground where people are actually fighting. Middle-class people have the choice between hope and despair, just like they have the choice between shampoo for dry hair and oily hair; they have the choice between doing politics and interior design. People who are fighting don’t have a choice; they are fighting and they are focused and they know what they are doing. They are arguing with each other a lot, of course, but that’s all right.”
- I’ve been getting really into a remix project lately, and will likely come very close to finishing on my days off work this week. Seems like lately I keep having the same crisis: during instrumental breaks do I go batshit crazy with a guitar or with a turntable. Obviously this depends on the song, but it’s still hard to be clairvoyant and know which one will work better. So typically I will just record both and compare and contrast. First World Producer Problems.
- I think I’ve posted Ulises Farinas’ art here before, but it’s well worth a second mention:
The past three decades of wanton patent-granting have created a disastrous environment for innovation. Today it’s practically impossible to build anything without violating a patent of some kind—and risking a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for your troubles. Once intended to protect lone inventors, patents now form a kind of shadow tech industry, in which billions of dollars are spent on amassing huge portfolios. (A recent New York Times article noted that Apple and Google, companies that define themselves by innovation, now invest more in patent acquisition and defense than in research and development.)
Why are companies spending so much money on patents? First, as protection. “Patents are like bullets,” law professor Chien says. “They’re cheap to acquire but can cause a lot of damage.” But if you have your own bullets, would-be assassins are less likely to target you. That’s the thinking behind RPX (Rational Patent Exchange), whose clients include Google, Microsoft, and IBM. RPX amasses patents, it says, to keep them out of the hands of lawsuit-happy competitors, and it vows not to sue anyone over them.
- I’m a massive proponent for not going to war with Iran. The problem with my viewpoint is we kinda already are at war with Iran. It’s just a sophisticated war, a secret war.
The dramatic spike in suspected Iranian cyber attacks this year also has some in the U.S. distinctly worried. While direct denial of service attacks on U.S. banks – widely seen as retaliation for US sanctions and attempts to freeze Iran from the international financial system – were seen relatively simplistic, attacks on US allies in the Gulf were more complex.
The most worrying, experts say, were those on Saudi oil firm Aramco and Qatari gas export facilities. Last month, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described the Saudi attack as the most sophisticated yet launched on a private company, effectively destroying tens of thousands of computers – although he stopped short of blaming Tehran directly.
