In Which I Make a Triumphant Return and Declare Myself Lord and Master of All I Survey

Maybe I should write something in here. I feel neglectful and ashamed at my lack of productivity towards my worshipful masses. (Hi, Mom!) The pop culture landscape has been rife, RIFE I SAY!, with subjects worthy of venom, bile, and excoriation, and yet I have remained silent, content in my place of "Fuck that, I would rather keep (re)reading Douglas Coupland and David Foster Wallace, while the world falls apart around me." Which, admittedly, is a rather ostrich-esque way of dealing with things. But screw you, I am the master of this particular domain (not in the internet "domain name" sense, but that's just splitting rabbits), and I will say WHAT I want, WHEN I want, and NOBODY, you hear me meatball?, is going to tell me otherwise!
.....
Sorry, I went all Master Shake for a second, I needed a space to breathe.

BUT ANYWAY, like I said, there's been a lot that has pissed me off, and I would go into exactly what, but then this would become a fount of negativity, and if there's anything that there is too much of on the internet, it's porn. Followed by cat pictures. Then negativity. And I'd like to think that, today, in this rather expansive and (some might say rarely) jolly mood that I am in, I'd like to balance that equation with some positivity. So, without further ado (ok, maybe SOME ado), I will write on what my favorite things of the past Year of Their Lord Two Thousand and Seven are. Bear in mind, this is just one lone (handsome intelligent and awesome) man's opinion, and that it might not necessarily agree with yours. In that case, leave a comment, telling me I'm wrong and why, and then fuck off and start your own blog.* But yes, favorite things, here we go:

Favorite Movie of 2007:
HOT FUZZ
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are awesome. That could be the only sentence in this section, and it would still be a perfect encapsulation of why I love this film. They have made two almost perfect films now, Shaun of the Dead and this one, and also produced previously the great BBC series Spaced, and I am now willing to follow them everywhere they go. I mean, jeez, even their contribution to Grindhouse, the fake trailer for a British horror movie Don't!, was genius.

Hot Fuzz was a note-perfect parody of the distinctly American genre of "Buddy Cop" action movies, but set in a distinctly non-American setting: a rural village in England. Skewering every cliche and trope that the genre is known for in its first two-thirds, while also playing as a wonderful mystery with elements of the giallo, the movie then takes an abrupt, Adaptation-esque turn, and BECOMES what it was parodying: a thrill-ride action movie. Except this time, the audience is in on the joke, and what would have seemed ridiculous earlier now makes complete sense in the world that Pegg and Wright have established. As full of laughs as Shaun of the Dead (which I maintain is, along with the first Back to the Future, one of the few perfect screenplays**), it's not only the funniest movie of the year, it's one of the best, period.

honorable mentions: Grindhouse, American Gangster, Knocked Up


Favorite Album of 2007:
Motion City Soundtrack - Even If It Kills Me
I wholly reserve the right to change this at some future date, as I am nothing if not capricious about music. But, as of right now, Motion City Soundtrack's latest entry in their catalog of goodness is the number one on my own personal Billboard chart. While not as rough as their earlier work, and without the apologetic air of "I fucked up" of their last album, the pop sheen production on this album, along with the much more... well, not overtly positive, but less mopey lyrics, I suppose?... makes Justin Pierre and company's latest effort the one I keep coming back to out of the albums that have come out this year.

The themes hit the usual for Pierre: love, loss, love lost, but this time, it ends on a good note. His struggles with his chemical dependencies and mental instability have been well-chronicled, both on the previous records and elsewhere, but his new-found sobriety seems to have coincided with a brighter outlook in his love-life, as the songs "It Had to Be You", "Antonia" and the title track evidence. The stand out track to me, though, is number 4, "Last Night", if only for the bridge section, which contains the lines "My body aches, it heaves it shakes / all somersaults for so-called art. And I still don't know exactly who I am / I never will, amen." No one knows exactly who they are, and it takes a very strong person to admit that. This album is a great accomplishment for the band, and a stand-out for the year in general.

Honorable mentions: Radiohead - In Rainbows, Sundowner - Four One Five Two, Say Anything - In Defense of the Genre


Favorite Book of 2007:
The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland is a writer I have been following since high school. To give a better picture of that statement: the only other writers who also fall in that category are William Gibson and JRR Tolkien. My reading taste has changed... not drastically, but has... I suppose the phrase would be "been refined" since then. And yet, Coupland remains. He endures. And this year, he put out one of his best novels since Girlfriend in a Coma (which is in my top 5 all-time).***

Honorable mentions: Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis, Rant by Chuck Palahniuk, I am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert


Favorite Comic/Graphic work of 2007:
The Nightly News by Jonathan Hickman

This one was the hardest for me to decide, because there was quite a few great things to choose from this year. And it was made even harder by how much OLDER things I read this year, which confused in my head what came out when, and so forth. As it stand, Jonathan Hickman's mini-series from Image, The Nightly News, keeps popping out in my head as the one. The very distinct art style, and very "controversial" subject matter, kept me interested and involved through it's running time.****

Honorable mentions: LoEG: the Black Dossier by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, Casanova by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba/Fabio Moon, Fell by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith

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SO. Yes. I will be writing in here more. So, check back... I dunno, a lot. There'll eventually be more posts. And they will be fun. And full of awesome. Much like me!


* Make sure to link to me, and tell me, and then we'll have a circle of disagreement. It'll be AWESOME.

** I'll probably do an entire post on my views on this in the future.

*** More info coming.

**** More info coming.

kill the big pig, kill the big pig.

William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a literary classic, no questions there. It has been countlessly ripped off and parodied in movies and television, but there has actually not been a whole lot of direct adaptations. The only two I am aware of are the 1963 British production directed by Peter Brook, and the 1990 American production directed by Harry Hook. And, in my estimation, Peter Brook's interpretation is superior to Harry Hook's version.

Though both have merits and flaws, and are both products of the enviornment and culture in which they were made, Brook's adaptation is the greater, due to its use of symbolism, its closer following of the text, and of the choice to film in black and white. The cinematography evidenced in the Hook version was competent, but did not display the same use of framing and juxtaposition that Brook did, and its use of color, while more suitable for the time in which it was filmed, allowed the film to take shortcuts in representation that Brook did not have access to. For example, in the scene where the boys first start a fire, Hook's film used the bright red fire as a signifier on the screen, its color automatically announcing itself as an important element. The color red stands out when presented as a single element, and the contrast between the boys, the sky, and the fire was clear. Brook's film had no such advantage, being in black and white (or grey-scale). The contrast had to be shown through varying the brightness of the image, and Brook (or his cinematographer) made the interesting choice to up the contrast of the fire against the other elements on-screen, so that it appeared as a large amount of negative space. Symbolically, and taken within the context of the novel, this is more interesting, as the fire, while important for their continuing life, can also be destructive and be a force for taking away life.

The main difference, though, and the one from which a lot of minor differences can be extrapolated, is the choice of Hook (or, more likely, the producers who hired him) to make the boys on the island from an American military camp. The language and attitudes of the boys in the novel, especially towards the beginning, are steeped in the British school system of the time, and changing that element fundamentally changes the prior relationships of the boys. Ralph is no longer made leader due to his more "take charge" attitude (as in Brook's film), he's made leader because he already was one in the cadet corps. Jack, who is shown as more of a totalitarian leader-in-training in Brook, becomes the "bad kid" in Hook's, sent to military school for some unknown offense. This predilection to anarchy and violence in Hook's film makes his descent into tribalism and savagery less effective, as he was already that way before they ever came to the island.

As said previous, there is good and bad in both films, but Brook's vision seems truer to Golding's original novel. Its such a product of its time and setting, that moving the story to a different era and millieu fundamentally damages the plot, and sends it off on tangents that do not benefit the story. Brook's film is the superior. What do you think, Stephen?

The Ministry is watching.

The dystopian society seen within George Orwell's novel 1984 is close enough to our own that the similarities can be frightening. It has influenced countless novels and films, perhaps more than any other speculative science fiction work (with the possible of exception of Blade Runner, though that is more in the visual realm than thematic.) Some of these films include THX-1138, Equilibrium, Dark City, The Matrix, V for Vendetta, and Terry Gilliam's film Brazil. Brazil, while painting a picture of a slightly different society than Orwell's novel, hits many of the same themes, and parallels the novel's portrait of a society that has sacrificed freedom and privacy in the name of security. The differences are small, but profound, and are, with some analysis, indicators of where Gilliam's personal view differed from Orwell's.


1984 is set in a dystopian future, where British and American society as a whole have been subsumed under the rule of the Party, the figurehead of which is the omnipresent Big Brother, whose stern gaze glares out from posters and signs everywhere one can look. There are constant reminders of the Party's Ingsoc (or English Socialism) philosophies in the also prolific signs proclaiming the slogans "WAR IS PEACE", "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY", and "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." Constantly at war with one of the two rival countries, Eastasia and Eurasia, while conversely allied with the other, the Outer Party members are kept subservient to the will of Big Brother and the Inner Party through the use of the techniques of "doublethink", and the application of "newspeak", the official language of Ingsoc. The Party itself is split into four main Ministries, which each govern a different are of society: Peace (war), Plenty (rationing), Truth (propaganda) , and Love (surveillance and interrogation).The members of the Party are constantly under surveillance, sex is forbidden except strictly for procreation, and with the proper application of newspeak, no Party member will ever have a thought that the Party would not approve of. In addition, the people are constantly reminded of an enemy in their midst, Goldstein and his Underground, who seek to undermine the Party, and cause terrorist incidents. The main character, Winston Smith, is a cog in the machinery of the Party, mindlessly doing his job, though he often thinks of rebelling. Eventually, he meets up with a girl, Julia, another Outer Party member who rebels in her own way, through sex. They maintain a secret room in an antique shop in the Prole section of the city. A series of events leads to Winston and Julia both being arrested by the Thought Police (the Party's instruments of order and intimidation), and taken in for interrogation and torture. During his torture (an attempt to "cure" him of his traitorous thoughts), Winston's superior, O'Brien, explains to him the true nature of the Party and the reasons for the endless war, as well as the philosophy of power for power's sake. Eventually, Winston's will and mind are broken down until he is practically destroyed, and the novel ends with Winston's realization of his impending death and that he now loves Big Brother.


Brazil is set in a similar society to 1984, though the time is less distinct and slightly more anachronous. The title card states that it is set "somewhere in the 20th century at 8:49PM", and it takes place in an uncertain locale, as there are no landmarks or identifying characteristics that one can latch on to. The characters speak in many dialects, both British and American, and the technology is a combination of retro and futuristic. For example, there are computers, but instead of having large or fancy looking monitors, the prevailing tech is a small screen with a magnifying glass placed in front of it. The society seems to be more permissive than that of 1984, though the government is similarly split into Ministries, the Ministry of Information being the predominant one in the film, and where the main character, Sam Lowry, works. There are many terrorist bombings throughout the film, though they seem to be regular occurance, as people in a restaraunt continue eating though a bomb goes off on the other side of the dining room. Sam is a low-level worker who often daydreams of escapes and a mysterious "dream woman". These dreams form the most stunning visual aspect of the film, as they often intersect and play off what Sam has experienced or is experiencing in his life at the time. Sam's attempt to correct a mistake on the records leads to a convoluted series of events, including him meeting a woman, Jill, who is his "dream woman", becoming mixed up with the "plumber terrorist" Harry Tuttle, who works outside of government channels, and ends up with Sam being arrested and about to be tortured by his childhood best friend. He enacts a miraculous escape, with the help of Tuttle, and ends up battling through a nightmarish series of obstacles to be reunited with his love, Jill. At the moment when the audience believes Sam has escaped and everything is going to end happily, the rug is pulled out, as it is revealed that everything from the escape attempt on have occurred in Sam's head, and that he has escaped into insanity rather than be tortured and interrogated. He prefers the fantasy to reality.


One can see in the plot synopses that there are many surface similarities between the two works. Both take place in dystopian future societies, feature main characters who are small-time bureaucratic workers in their respective areas, both find "love", and both are captured and interrogated. The possibility is stated within 1984 that the terrorist activities, and even the missile strikes by Eastasia/Eurasia, are in fact perpetrated by the Party as a way to keep the population afraid and obedient; the same sentiment is in Brazil, though not stated outright, that the bombings throughout the film are set by the government as a form of control. Here is where the movies diverge, though. Gilliam, in interviews about the film, has called Brazil "1984 1/2" and "a 1984 for 1984", so the influence of the book on the film cannot be denied. What makes the difference here is Gilliam's sense of escapism. In Orwell, the only rebellion against the Party is actually a ruse perpetuated by the Party itself. In Brazil, there is real rebellion and escape possible. The character of Harry Tuttle proves it, as he operates outside of the government's system, and is actually in a small way, the cause of Sam's capture. The ending of both novel and movie carry through on this thread. Whereas Orwell's novel ends with Winston Smith subsumed within the Party, awaiting death and aware of the love in his heart for that which he previously hated (Big Brother), Gilliam's film ends with Sam Lowry's figurative "escape" from torture and the reality that he despises into his own fantasies. This ending, which was one of the causes of Gilliam's well-documented problems with Universal Studios, is meant to be seen as a happy ending; Sam has won, he has beat the "bad guys" by not cooperating and not doing what they want. This essential optimism is what separates 1984 from Brazil; where Orwell sees no escape from Big Brother, Gilliam says that one's mind is always a viable escape.


The difference in endings aside, both novel and film tell a similar story, and provide a similar warning to future generations on the dangers of sacrificing freedom for security, and putting too much power into the hands of those who claim to know what's best for society. One could say, "That will never happen here in the US, we are the free-est nation on Earth," but the seeds of it can be seen in the PATRIOT Act, and in the ease with which citizens have given up their personal freedoms and liberties in the name of "security" from terrorists. One hopes that people would be a little more careful. 1984 says that hope is pointless because Big Brother is always watching. Brazil says that hope is in escape, and that is always possible.

Infinite Jest.

Infinite Jest, a novel by David Foster Wallace released in 1996, is quite possibly the most dense and literate book I've read (of my own choice) thus far in my life (and keep in mind, I've read The Silmarillion.) But don't let that fool you: I loved it.

Obstenibly a "sci-fi" story (though not in any way I would say), Infinite Jest is about (alternately) a tennis academy, a drug/alcohol treatment house, avant-garde cinema, game theory, addiction, nationalism, love, abuse, damaged childhoods, the connections between people, ghosts, commercialism, and the burdens of intellect. And endnotes, lots of endnotes. And just in writing that list, I have left out about 18 things. As you can see, it's a well-stocked book. The most amazing thing, though, is that it is a wonderfully written and coherent narrative, with viewpoint shifts mid-"chapter" (in quotes because there obstenibly ARE no chapters, just time-stamps), brilliantly drawn characters, and much left unsaid that can be drawn from context clues. If you know me and my reading habits at all, then you know this book is probably one of the purest examples of what I like to read ever produced.


The best part, according to me (and I'm my favorite person), is the plethora of endnotes, many of which contain vital pieces of plot, narrative, and character detail that are almost indispensible in understanding the narrative. Woe to those that ignore them.

Anyway, it's very hard to write a review of this in any impartial way, since I enjoyed the book so much. All I want to do is fill ten paragraphs with "OMG", like I was some 14 year old girl talking about Bobby Sherman, or whoever it is the kids love these days. Suffice to say I heartily recommend this to any- and everyone who likes to read. At all. Ever.


Do it. Now.

The Da Vinci Code

And now, a quick review:

A perfectly mediocre piece of entertainment, The Da Vinci Code manages to make the book (which I despised for its leaden prose, artificial cliffhangers, and appallingly bad language usage) somewhat more coherent, but at the same time it is so dreadfully dull that the only way I got through the movie without tearing out my hair was to make jokes to my significant other about the name "Bezu Fache" and how Robert Langdon is Batman. Tom Hanks spends the majority of the movie standing around looking befuddled or getting knocked around, until required for exposition delivery. Audrey Tatou looks radiant, as usual, but isn't required to do a whole lot either. Paul Bettany is scary and religious, OOOOHHH!!! (makes scary hand motions) The only person who seems to have any life or verve in the movie is Sir Ian McKellan, and thats because he's Gandalf and fought the MOTHERFUCKING BALROG. The plot, such as it is, moves insanely fast in the first half hour, then slows down to about the speed of glass moving, and actually climaxes about 45 minutes before the movie ends. Actually, I think the movie is still running, and in fact HASN'T ended and will never end, and in some bizarre application of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, will continue as long as it is not directly observed not running.

If you shut your brain off, I'm sure the film can be enjoyed immensely, and I'm pretty confident that the movie will make huge amounts of cash for all involved, but its inspired me to write a huge treatise/rant on the dumbing down of pop-culture and the concept of mediocrity as acceptable in all forms of society. I was jokingly told that I am full of so much anger about something so trivial, but the fact is, its not trivial. Pop culture is a reflection of society's mores and values, and an acceptance of mediocrity and inanity leads to the general decay in intellectual discussion and an adherence to a policy of apathy in all affairs. Hence, Bush Administration.

Or maybe thats just how I see it.

In any event, the movie was, in cinematic metaphors, not "White Chicks" bad, but it was nowhere near "Lord of the Rings" levels of bliss. See it, don't see it, I don't care. Its not the worst movie coming out this summer. (That's Little Man.)