me: gotta go
ack in a bit
Matt: I know that's a typo, but it's great anyway.
Monday, July 9, 2007
For Scott Jennings and Nick Faber
I'm in your consciousness, deconstructing your memez.
I know, another Achewood post. But still.
I know, another Achewood post. But still.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Set Your Phasers on Funky
Lately I've been turned on to Kiwi folk-parody duo Flight of the Conchords. They're dry to the point of sometimes telling anti-jokes, but their comedy is infused with such a sense of fun that I can tell that they love what they are doing and want us to love it, too. Case in point:
Thursday, July 5, 2007
I Agree With Teodor
Ah, Achewood. Purveyors of good taste since 2001. Click on the strip to read a bigger version.
You're A Soldier Now! - A Review of Transformers (The Movie, not the Franchise)
My July 4 pseudo-weekend was great fun, from beginning to end. On the actual holiday, Becky and I loaded up a cooler full of beer, delicious rice-fruit salad, broccoli salad, taco dip, and family reunion dessert, all Becky's creations, grabbed some chairs, and went out with a cohort of D.S.I. people to enjoy the festivities at Regency Park in Cary. I had a great time, and even rode a mechanical bull.
Tuesday night I went to see Transformers. The complaints about this movie have been well documented. I find Nick Faber's review of the film to be both concise and true. I'll expand upon it thusly:
*SPOILERS, MAYBE, I DUNNO*
The film is basically one long, bad sketch, the premise of which is "What if the Transformers were just, you know, regular dudes?" There are far too many stupid asides, sight gags (a chihuahua pees on a Transformer), and lame shots across the pop-culture bow for the script to have any urgency behind it. When we are finally given a scene that isn't encumbered by horrible bits, Michael Bay's "throw indistinct flashes of light at the camera, combined with loud clanking noises" style of directing*, keeps the audience from seeing what we paid to see: giant fighting robots. This really disappointed me, because the robots were very cool: when a police-car Decepticon turned into a car in midair and shot off at full speed, the theater broke out in applause, and the battle between an interstate-skating Decepticon and Optimus Prime (who was, incidentally, played less as a fearless leader and more as a bumbling sitcom alien, albeit one with a huge sword coming out of his arm) was quite thrilling.
To make matters worse, writers Roberto Orci (who, according to IMDB, wrote an indeterminate nubmer of episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess), Alex Kurtzman (writing the upcoming Star Trek movie), and John Rogers (he wrote Catwoman!) apparently studied at the Moran and Mack school of screenwriting, because the film is really irresponsible with its minority characters. There are two black "mammies"** and two big ole' fat black goofballs, one of whom hilariously crashes through a glass door, and another who is phoned in by the talented or not-talented (I'm not sure yet because he keeps taking roles like this) Anthony Anderson. Tyrese Gibson's character seems to exist solely to say words like "dawg" to Josh Duhamel's withered stump of a soldier. Bernie Mac plays "the cool-but-slightly-flustered black dude" he plays in the Ocean's 11 films. The one Latino character often lapses into Spanish and is chastised for it by his buddies, in a move that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but comes off as chauvinistic. And then there's Jazz.
Jazz's only line that means anything, other than the mild shit-talk he throws at Megatron when he's fighting him and is summarily dispatched, is something to the effect of "This looks like a good place to chill and kick it."
C'mon guys. I'm not mad that you have a "hip hop" (read: African American) Transformer. I'm really not. I'm just mad that all of the black characters in this movie were curious goofballs (with the exception of Gibson's, who was more of a curious bad-ass). And unfortunately, this kind of lazy filmmaking perpetuates itself: mammies are easy to make jokes with (see Norbit and Big Momma's House), it's easier to write hollow jive dialogue than to have a character who uses African American vernacular and still says something meaningful, and it's easier to show white, middle class audiences stereotypes than it is to ask them to think about race.
I realize I'm coming off as a prickly liberal for writing this, but I figure that it has to be said, because it seems obvious to me that Hollywood is really inadequate in its treatment of race. Transformers would still be a one-star movie without all of the racial issues, but the offhand way in which the stereotypes are thrown around is really disconcerting.
*SPOILERS END HERE, I GUESS*
Uh, also...God Bless America.
*That said, I'm not going to spend too much time lambasting Michael Bay. He isn't an artist, or if he is, he's a bad one. And his movies are mostly unenjoyable explosion-fests. I know. But if I were a producer, and wanted to make an explosion-fest, I would want a director who was the right kind of asshole to figure out the direction of a movie that has n explosions, a huge crew, and a huge production budget. Something tells me that Michael Bay is that guy. The movie still largely sucks, though.
**Ups to Jeremy Griffin for pointing this out to me.
Tuesday night I went to see Transformers. The complaints about this movie have been well documented. I find Nick Faber's review of the film to be both concise and true. I'll expand upon it thusly:
*SPOILERS, MAYBE, I DUNNO*
The film is basically one long, bad sketch, the premise of which is "What if the Transformers were just, you know, regular dudes?" There are far too many stupid asides, sight gags (a chihuahua pees on a Transformer), and lame shots across the pop-culture bow for the script to have any urgency behind it. When we are finally given a scene that isn't encumbered by horrible bits, Michael Bay's "throw indistinct flashes of light at the camera, combined with loud clanking noises" style of directing*, keeps the audience from seeing what we paid to see: giant fighting robots. This really disappointed me, because the robots were very cool: when a police-car Decepticon turned into a car in midair and shot off at full speed, the theater broke out in applause, and the battle between an interstate-skating Decepticon and Optimus Prime (who was, incidentally, played less as a fearless leader and more as a bumbling sitcom alien, albeit one with a huge sword coming out of his arm) was quite thrilling.
To make matters worse, writers Roberto Orci (who, according to IMDB, wrote an indeterminate nubmer of episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess), Alex Kurtzman (writing the upcoming Star Trek movie), and John Rogers (he wrote Catwoman!) apparently studied at the Moran and Mack school of screenwriting, because the film is really irresponsible with its minority characters. There are two black "mammies"** and two big ole' fat black goofballs, one of whom hilariously crashes through a glass door, and another who is phoned in by the talented or not-talented (I'm not sure yet because he keeps taking roles like this) Anthony Anderson. Tyrese Gibson's character seems to exist solely to say words like "dawg" to Josh Duhamel's withered stump of a soldier. Bernie Mac plays "the cool-but-slightly-flustered black dude" he plays in the Ocean's 11 films. The one Latino character often lapses into Spanish and is chastised for it by his buddies, in a move that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but comes off as chauvinistic. And then there's Jazz.
Jazz's only line that means anything, other than the mild shit-talk he throws at Megatron when he's fighting him and is summarily dispatched, is something to the effect of "This looks like a good place to chill and kick it."
C'mon guys. I'm not mad that you have a "hip hop" (read: African American) Transformer. I'm really not. I'm just mad that all of the black characters in this movie were curious goofballs (with the exception of Gibson's, who was more of a curious bad-ass). And unfortunately, this kind of lazy filmmaking perpetuates itself: mammies are easy to make jokes with (see Norbit and Big Momma's House), it's easier to write hollow jive dialogue than to have a character who uses African American vernacular and still says something meaningful, and it's easier to show white, middle class audiences stereotypes than it is to ask them to think about race.
I realize I'm coming off as a prickly liberal for writing this, but I figure that it has to be said, because it seems obvious to me that Hollywood is really inadequate in its treatment of race. Transformers would still be a one-star movie without all of the racial issues, but the offhand way in which the stereotypes are thrown around is really disconcerting.
*SPOILERS END HERE, I GUESS*
Uh, also...God Bless America.
*That said, I'm not going to spend too much time lambasting Michael Bay. He isn't an artist, or if he is, he's a bad one. And his movies are mostly unenjoyable explosion-fests. I know. But if I were a producer, and wanted to make an explosion-fest, I would want a director who was the right kind of asshole to figure out the direction of a movie that has n explosions, a huge crew, and a huge production budget. Something tells me that Michael Bay is that guy. The movie still largely sucks, though.
**Ups to Jeremy Griffin for pointing this out to me.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
You Guys, He's So Fucking Good At Math
I don't know if he reads this, but I'd like to give a 21st birthday shout out to my brother, Will Stanton. He's great at math, singing, and besting me. I love you, bro. In this picture he's posing with his lovely girlfriend, Elizabeth:
He's also posing with Elizabeth in this picture:
God bless her.
He's also posing with Elizabeth in this picture:
God bless her.
You Know It Has to Happen
The second book in the Remi Treuer Reading Project was Finder: Sin Eater, a beautiful and entirely unconventional book that you should all read. I won't review it further.
The third book is The Amulet of Samarkand, the first book in The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Johnathan Stroud. The essential premise of the trilogy is that wizards can control demons, and use this control to pacify "commoners" and create an authoritarian state.
It's already easy to see where these books intersect with Harry Potter, which I've always thought was deeply rooted in fears of totalitarianism: Voldemort's original rise to prominence parallels the rise of facism in Europe, and his return strongly implies fear of a present-day reversion to that system, especially in Britain.
And okay, J.K. Rowling is not a great writer. She traffics in cliche, her dialogue is stilted-- I know these things. But these are important books. I mean, Star Wars is pretty silly too, but it's such a part of our cultural vocabulary that you can't help but want to know what it means.
But rather than spend my precious writing energy on some dense Harry Potter criticism, I have to say one thing about the final book:
Harry Potter must die.
Everyone I say this to says "Of course, it's prophecied". Yep, I know, but I also know how easy it would be to simply end this book happily. Harry's death* is the only acceptable end to the series. I don't think Rowling is that lazy, but I swear, if Harry Potter doesn't die a virgin, I'm going to set England on fire.
*And maybe one of the Weasleys', there are too many of them, and definitely Snape's.
The third book is The Amulet of Samarkand, the first book in The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Johnathan Stroud. The essential premise of the trilogy is that wizards can control demons, and use this control to pacify "commoners" and create an authoritarian state.
It's already easy to see where these books intersect with Harry Potter, which I've always thought was deeply rooted in fears of totalitarianism: Voldemort's original rise to prominence parallels the rise of facism in Europe, and his return strongly implies fear of a present-day reversion to that system, especially in Britain.
And okay, J.K. Rowling is not a great writer. She traffics in cliche, her dialogue is stilted-- I know these things. But these are important books. I mean, Star Wars is pretty silly too, but it's such a part of our cultural vocabulary that you can't help but want to know what it means.
But rather than spend my precious writing energy on some dense Harry Potter criticism, I have to say one thing about the final book:
Harry Potter must die.
Everyone I say this to says "Of course, it's prophecied". Yep, I know, but I also know how easy it would be to simply end this book happily. Harry's death* is the only acceptable end to the series. I don't think Rowling is that lazy, but I swear, if Harry Potter doesn't die a virgin, I'm going to set England on fire.
*And maybe one of the Weasleys', there are too many of them, and definitely Snape's.
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