Spring Breakers, Stoker, and Pig Destroyer

I find myself in a position of writeness.

The only thing I've seen before of Harmony Korine's is this, so my knowledge of his style is limited; however it seems to be pretty consistent with Spring Breakers, a somewhat surreal film that at first glance appears to be something akin to those Girls Gone Wild clips everyone has seen somewhere or another, but is instead a strange, dark story of two humans and a bunch of very troubled people. Yes, there is a lot of skin here, but it's a lot more than that. I've heard comparisons to Natural Born Killers, and those are not unwarranted, although the pace is quite different. It's funny, disgusting, and engrossingly erotic, at times concurrently. James Franco shines brightly as Alien, the stereotypical white-man-who-thinks-he's-black, and the four leading ladies take strangely subdued roles while maintaining nearly constant screen presence. Even more oddly the ones who stay the longest are the least developed. It's a weird movie.

I've tried watching the Revenge trilogy aside from Oldboy without much success. It probably deserves another go. Same with that one vampire movie that I was so excited about and never got around to seeing. Park Chan Wook definitely proved himself with Oldboy, and Stoker is no slouch either. Like his previous masterpiece, this one is intensely creepy, and probably very offensive to a lot of people who will never see it. It's impressive that the Korean director's first English-language/acted film is as good as it is, although a lot of the dialogue is really quite awkward; this may be intentional but I tend to think it could be a by-product of the language barrier. It sure doesn't hurt the atmosphere. Mia Wasikowska plays a beguilingly strange young woman with some sort of psychosis that gives her heightened senses and a bloodlust suppressed by her father. Her estranged uncle comes into the picture with the intention of showing her her true self. Madness and a possibly unnecessary shower scene ensues. I enjoyed it all.

Pig Destroyer has been one of my top favorite bands for several years now, ever since I clicked with either Phantom Limb or Terrifyer; I can't remember which. Their most recent album, Book Burner, takes a more traditional grind-core route than their last few but still rips tremendously, and has a few of my favorite tracks of their discography (notably The Bug.) The band doesn't tour much (they have jobs), which made it even more unlikely for me to ever have a chance to see them, until I moved down to the DC area, which just happens to be where they are based. Still it took over three years before I got to experience this megalith of grind in person. It was worth the wait. A good portion of their set at Black Cat was from their latest, but there was definitely a generous sampling of their past catalog as well. I couldn't really sing along of course due to having no idea what the words are for the vast majority of their songs, but when I could I felt like their biggest fan, up there in the middle of the second row fighting to stay upright against the pummeling mass of moshers. Kat Katz came on for a couple songs which was fantastic; it's entirely awesome that such a slight, beautiful woman can belt out that kind of vitriol so violently and maintain her elegance. I hope to see these guys (and gal, perhaps) destroy the stage again, hopefully soon.

Good night.

Mama

From the first time I saw a trailer for this movie, I was pretty intrigued, even before I saw Guillermo Del Toro attached as executive producer. I think that, in addition to the inclusion of Jessica Chastain, is really what clinched it for me, but it really looked quite good for what it is, which is not a whole lot more than your average horror movie. Or is it?

It's obvious that's all the audience was expecting. There was always a mounting level of excited whimpering followed by a huge wave of shrieking for every jump scare, even when the scare was just somebody breaking a chair. If it's not obvious, this was the first time I can remember going to see a legitimate horror movie in a theater on opening weekend. I'm not used to this much "interaction." It didn't help that a bunch of the jump scares were almost immediately followed by some subdued dialogue that I couldn't hear due to all of the screaming and laughing.

All that said, I think the audience kind of figured out what was actually going on near the end, once the nature of the big-bad was given more attention. Mama is not the mindless, ruthless killer of most slashers; she's called Mama for a reason. The movie definitely has a theme of motherhood. Jessica's character goes from someone entirely opposed to having a child at all to being a badass, protective mother figure to two girls with which she has no blood relation, and it's a believable journey. Speaking of Chastain, holy hell, casting one of the most talented actresses in film today in a role seemingly tailored to my desires is a great way to get me into the theater. Excellent job. The kids are pretty great too. Lots of effective, beautiful shots of huge, dark eyes.

Yes, it's definitely a horror movie. Mama herself may not be all that believable, but she has her moments for sure. I actually felt a little bit of tension in my chest during a couple of the scares, but really I found the most effective bits to be in the suspenseful moments, of which there are a lot. There are also some pretty great shots of the kids doing really strange things, closely followed by the realization that Mama is in the room off screen, which is always fun.

Altogether it's really quite a beautiful thing. It's no Pan's Labyrinth, but there aren't many of those.

Y’all want a 2012 top 10 music thing?

No, you don’t. Here it is anyway.

Stolen Babies – Naught

2006’s “There Be Squabbles Ahead” is awesome. It’s definitely in the top tier for me. Oddly though I didn’t really follow Stolen Babies’ progress after that, and it turns out for most of the time there wasn’t any. They took a big hiatus, but eventually they found out that people actually wanted to hear more music, and they happened to have a some on the burner; and so Naught came to pass. It’s as good as Squabbles if not better, and slightly darker, meaner, but still jaunty dark cabaret masterpiece. Their headlining show that I caught this year was possibly the greatest concert I’ve ever attended (along with the 15 other people who decided to show up).

Pig Destroyer - Book Burner

“Dangerously angry one minute, rocking and rolling the next!” These guys never disappoint, except for the whole barely ever performing live thing. Book Burner is the best sort of grindcore; honest, raw, and heavy as balls. It’s just great. It is, in a way, a regression though. It sounds quite a bit more like their earlier work, say Prowler in the Yard, as opposed to the slower brutality of Terrifyer and Phantom Limb. This is due to the replacement of their drummer with the guy from Misery Index. It works.

Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

I really don’t like the album cover art, but what does that matter? It’s another column of hellfire from the masters of true metalcore, Converge. They’re a close second to Stolen Babies for best concert experience of my life; these guys just tear it to pieces. All We Love… is not much of a progression, but Axe To Fall is hard to follow in that regard. It’s an extremely solid piece of music with everything I’ve grown to love from them.

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

A momentary detour from the metal bits. I’m not sure why I tried this. Maybe just because I kept seeing the cover of Bitte Orca and being intrigued by it. Turns out that one isn’t really my thing, but this right here is just wonderful. It’s got a great sort of angularity in every aspect of the music, and lots of the lyrics pierce my little emo-heart.

 

Die Antwoord - Ten$ion

Definitely a worthy follow-up to 2010’s $O$, Ten$ion is another tongue-in-cheek masterwork of weirdness and irony that just hugs my hipster self all warm-like. Yo-landi and Ninja’s artistry is a sort that might be dismissed as trash by a lot of people, but underneath the ugly exterior is some positively innovative stuff.

 

Mares of Thrace - The Pilgrimage

Back to the metals! Mares of Thrace is primarily a female death/sludge metal duo with a huge sound. Their previous album, The Moulting, didn’t really do much for me aside from impress me by the concept of two beautiful ladies playing metal so honestly, but this year they really created something I can enjoy on its own merits. It’s got that angularity that I crave in spades, and it’s just straight-up heavy.

Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

It’s another Gojira album! It can not suck! That’s why it’s here. Like Converge, they didn’t really forge any new ground, just made yet another hugely enjoyable, groovy metal album. I’ve got to catch these dudes live before I get sick of them.

 

Absvrdist - Illusory

Here we start getting ito somewhat less familiar territory. I found a review of this on MetalSucks, and though of lot of the stuff they’ve been recommending lately is starting to leave my areas of interest, I was intrigued by the “blackened grindcore” description, which isn’t really a thing that happens much aside from with the increasingly stagnant Anaal Nathrakh. This here is mostly just good grindcore with occasional black metal mixed into some of the later tracks, but it’s still really enjoyable. “Come on, doesn’t anybody wanna slam-dance?”

Matt Elliott - The Broken Man

Elliott’s perfected his style here. Misery loves company. I can’t get enough of “Dust Flesh and Bone”

 

 

Andy Stott - Luxury Problems

I think I’ve only listened to this three times or so, but I’m still including it here because it’s just so different. I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it before, which is probably because my dabbling with electronic music is sadly limited. This is not typical techno or whatever by any means; it’s a dynamically vibrant, lush, dark experience. Highly recommended.

Some extras that deserve attention but I’m done writing so whatever

Napalm Death - Utilitarian
Beach House - Bloom
Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine
Abigail Williams - Becoming
Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
Gaza - No Absolutes in Human Suffering 

Skyfall, Wreck-It-Ralph, Masquerade

Here I sit. Time to write.

Masquerade struck me as very similar in concept to The Devil’s Double, which is another foreign film I knew next to nothing about before I saw it. This one’s a lot less soul-destroying, and more heartwarming than its predecessor. I guess the writer also worked on Oldboy, so it’s got some pedigree, and while it doesn’t rise nearly to the heights of that masterpiece, it’s a wonderfully rousing tale of good-hearted commonfolk versus ancient Chinese politics. The main character is very likeable and the humor element makes it very watchable. Going in I expected it to be a lot more stuffy. Good stuff, if you can stand subtitles.

I’d heard Wreck-It-Ralph was on-par with Brave, which made me a little less excited about it. Brave was pretty darn mediocre, especially for PIXAR. This, while certainly not another Toy Story, was better than mediocre. The use of familiar video game properties was as brilliant as I’m sure it was costly, and every character was incredibly loveable. The amazing Alan Tudyk as Ed Wynn as the King of Sugar Rush was a real treat, and I always love Sarah Silverman. John C. Reilly did a great job as well with Ralph. The only problem with the film I had is similar in a way to how I felt about How to Train Your Dragon; the moral of the story is off. In the aforementioned film, the takeaway was “Your parents are wrong and probably idiots. Do something dangerous and it’ll work out fine.” I’m not entirely cool with that. Here, the message is going in the opposite direction but still not particularly great: “This is your job. You have to do it. If you do anything else everything will suck.” Communism anybody? Still a very enjoyable movie.

Skyfall is good. I don’t think I liked it as much as I was supposed to. Casino Royale hit me hard, Quantum of Solace fell flat, and this one just kind of breezed by. It did a good job with legacy fanservice, and the action was pretty good. I’m a big fan of Javier Bardem. His role in this reminded me a bit of Heath Ledger’s Joker here and there. The finale was the best part, keeping the scale of the action down and simple. Jolly good show, old bean. Props to Tank Dong for having the best name in the acting business.

Movie Catchup

I’ve seen a bunch of movies since Batman. These might be all of them. They might not. I can’t remember. Boredom breeds needless words.

Argo

I think it’s safe to call this Ben Affleck’s best work so far, although I might have enjoyed Gone Baby Gone a bit more. I really liked the 80s aesthetics in both the costuming and production aspects, probably done better than even Let the Right One In did. The best part of the movie was during the credits where all of the rescuees’ passport photos were shown in comparison to their perfectly cast actors, and then Tony Mendez shows up. Derpfleck.

Frankenweenie

Tim Burton’s return to form as an expansion on his first(?) short-film is a heart-wrenching, delightful homage to classic horror and Tim Burton movies. It was a great decision to do it in black and white; I don’t think it would have had nearly the same impact in color.

3, 2, 1… Frankie Go Boom

Perlman as a transgender ex-con computer hacker. That’s all you need. Oh alright, Lizzy Caplan in a candy bra. Got it? Good. VOD that sucka.

Seven Psychopaths

In Bruges passed me by in theaters, but once I heard it was actually good, I checked it out and was blown away by Colin Farrell and Peter Dinklage’s performances in a clever, gripping, funny and heartfelt movie that had appeared to be some sort of midget exploitation film from the trailers. Hearing that Martin McDonogh had another movie coming out was enough for me to get excited but then attaching Sam Rockwell, Colin Farrel again, Woody Harrelson, Tom Friggin’ Waits, and Goddamn Christopher Walken, holy balls was I into that. And it delivered bygummit. Picture Adaptation with a better cast and more excitement.

Looper

Brick’s really good. I have yet to see Brothers Bloom, which I unfortunately keep confusing with The Brothers Grimm. Anyway, Rian Johnson is crazy talented, so it’s fantastic that he finally got his due with this hit. He gets Bruce Willis to prove that he can still kill an action movie, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt didn’t really have anything to prove but he did it anyway with his awesomely in-depth transformation into mini-Willis. A much better job than that tyke Disney’s The Kid. I loved how the aspect of telekinesis was only hinted on in the trailer but became one of the main components of the plot as the story progressed. Pretty darn.

Dredd 3D

Yes, I did see it in 3D. I would have been fine without it, but it’s not a post-conversion so I’m cool with it. Coupled with the frequently and cleverly used slo-mo it actually worked pretty well. It’s a great, violent romp in a nicely contained setting, and the complete absence of a world-ending baddy made it much fresher as a comic-book movie than it could have been. I liked seeing Wood Harris from The Wire again, as I don’t think I’ve seen him in anything else since. Major props to Karl Urban for not taking off the helmet.

Slither

So it’s not new or anything, but I hadn’t seen it before and it was directed by James Gunn and has Nathan Fillion in it. And that racist hillbilly guy from Walking Dead. Loads of disgusting fun for a small portion of the family. I definitely recommend checking it out if you like that sort of stuff. It’s on Netflix Instant last I checked.

The Dark Knight Rises

Welp, if I’m going to write about something it might as well be Batman, right?

This little film is the capstone of Chris Nolan’s trilogy on the Goddamn Batman, in which Batman is rarely the centerpiece. He mostly was in Batman Begins, because that was an origin story. He definitely wasn’t in The Dark Knight because Heath Ledger. Here, there doesn’t seem to be a centerpiece per say; it’s a huge, sprawling epic of characters and characters that could have better served as extras, all vying for their piece of the picture while only a few really make the grade. The Goddamn Batman strangely has more of an arc this time but still manages to be not-in-the-movie for most of the six-hour runtime. And yet, we still get WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT.

That’s all okay though, I guess. It all looks good usually, and it’s certainly not ever boring. There are lots of emotional heights and neat action scenes, the occasionally memorable lines, and Anne Hathaway in a cat suit while actually doing a great job on the character. I really really appreciate Nolan’s use of IMAX cameras, even though I don’t think it’s quite as effective as the smaller number of scenes filmed with them in The Dark Knight (that intro, mannnnn). I also really like the Scarecrow/Crane’s very limited appearance, and his delivery of probably the best line in the movie.

The real problems though come about because there’s just so much stuff. Bane never has the chance to become much more than an occasionally physical menace, and his voice is just comical. His army of villains requires an army of good-guys, and as such there are lots of scenes with a ton of extras, which just didn’t work very well for me, especially where the involvement of so many people seemed to degrade the performances of the main characters. There are a lot of “main” characters too, requiring a lot of separate scenes, breaking the flow all over the place, and adding to the considerable length of the film. I’m glad I drank a lot of Dr. Pepper before the 10:30 showing.

I’m not getting into plot-holes because I’m honestly not good at spotting them. I’m sure there are tons though. It just felt like it.

As I mentioned though I’ve got to point out Anne Hathaway’s performance as a standout; it’s a bit like Heath Ledger’s situation, as he was initially a weird casting, but then owned the role. She might not have done it to the same degree, but her scenes are consistently enjoyable and believable. Also that ass.

So it’s okay. I just like complaining I guess. You should go see Moonrise Kingdom.

Things

So hey, how’s it been? It’s nice outside.

Since last I wrote, I’ve seen The Avengers twice, Sound of My Voice, a few concerts, and probably some other stuff I can’t remember. I’ve spent a lot of time outside and have had no impulse to write about anything, but it’s all just piling up and I still have a vague sense of responsibility for some reason. Now since I’m taking the day off to recover from Meshuggah last night I’ve got some time to kill. Here we go.

The Avengers is super great as expected. It seems anything Joss Whedon controls is destined for wonderfulness, and now that he’s a got a familiar property to play with he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves, breaking pretty much every box-office record there is like Chris Nolan and James Cameron before him. It’s certainly not a perfect movie, but as far as super-hero stuff goes it’s what it needs to be, and Whedon’s penchant for witty dialogue and excellent handling of large principal casts makes it crazy entertaining.

Sound of My Voice is basically garbage. Don’t bother unless you like being bored and only enjoyed Lost before they started answering questions, except that’s not really even a valid comparison because Lost is good.

As I mentioned, I saw Meshuggah last night along with Decapitated and Baroness. Decapitated were pretty boring, probably because I don’t really know their songs at all, but they struck me as border-line deathcore of a sort I don’t really dig. Baroness kicked all sorts of ass and included a few songs from their yet-to-be-released Yellow and Green album, which seemed okay for the most part. Meshuggah owned the stage of course. I had to push my way out of the crowd though because the middle of a Meshuggah audience is no place for a short, bespectacled music lover.

The night before that I got to see Reggie Watts with some friends. I’m only passingly familiar with him so I probably didn’t enjoy the show as much as I might have, especially since as soon as any sort of music starts playing the speech-center of my brain shuts down completely and words lose all meaning to me. His standup was pretty good though. Very nerdy.

I saw Converge a while back too, which was just extremely excellent. It’s the second time I’ve seen them but this time I was much closer to the stage, which is really the only way to experience their ridiculous intensity. Jacob Bannon is a monster of a performer. They played a number of new songs, which didn’t really sound like anything as revolutionary (for them) as Dark Horse did before Axe to Fall was released, but they were definitely solid and I look forward to them. I only caught one of the opening acts, Loma Prieta, which sounded nothing like music at all and made me wish I’d remembered to bring my earplugs.

I watched some shows too. Some friends got me into Adventure Time, which is a great cartoon made for pretty much everybody, drawing from stuff like Dungeons and Dragons and Candyland, with both childish and adult sensibilities throughout. It’s a joy to watch. I also caught up with Justified, which seems to almost be a spiritual successor to Deadwood, starring the same Timothy Olyphant and guest-spotting a bunch of other alumni. It’s fantastically written and almost every episode is a gripping reprieve from some other less-awesome shows I’m still holding on to.

Community is not one of those less-awesome shows. It’s probably the most awesome. Shame that it probably won’t be next season though. We’ll miss you Dan.

I think that’s everything.