Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 (2010), Lee Unkrich

Toy Story 3 is impossibly close to being a truly perfect film; but the minor quibbles I hold for it do not prevent it from being yet another amazing achievement from the ever-impressive Pixar. Director Lee Unkrich, along with fellow writers and Pixar veterans John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, have crafted a surprisingly dense closing to one of the more consistently satisfying film series (and also a pretty dense one, for a kid's film).

With an explosive, kinetic opening in which Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), with the help of Jessie (Joan Cusack), Bullseye the horse, and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) are engaged in a Western-style chase involving runaway trains, exploding bridges, a pig-shaped spaceship, and death by monkeys, that closely follows the opening (pretend) scene in the 1995 original. Alas, as it was then, this scene is all a scenario concocted by the hyperactive imagination of Andy (Charlie Bright as a child; John Morris as a teenager). We then watch Andy grow up via his mother's video recordings, the hero toys in tow. In seemingly no time at all, though, Andy has grown into a 17-year-old ready to head off to college and consistently being hassled by his mother not only to pack up, but also to decide which of his toys he wants to throw out, which will be stored in the attic, which are going to be donated to the local Sunnyside Day Care, and which will be going with him to college. Through a mix-up, the hero toys (sans Woody, who was chosen to be taken to college) wind up on the curb to be thrown out. After a close call with a trash compactor, the hero toys then wind up being donated to Sunnyside Day Care and greeted by the multitude of toys there, led by the genteel, Southern-lulling Lotso-Huggin' Bear (played fittingly by Ned Beatty), where the plot takes on a decidedly darker tone.

That's not to imply the film is too dark to enjoy, as its darkness is balanced out by its affable and buoyant charm and mostly genuine emotion. And, for the most part, the darkness present is not so much out of a desire to purely raise the stakes for the sake of raising them (again, for the most part), but instead to illustrate many of the resonant themes present therein. The film is "dark" due to its honesty and openness in regards to certain unavoidable and inevitable aspects of life. Some friends grow apart. Others, for one reason or another, leave forever. Children move out...and on. For whatever reason, one way or another, we may be forgotten by those we once loved. Faith can be lost. Change is painful and unavoidable and necessary; but sometimes, it can also be a beautiful thing. That's a lot for a children's summer movie to ask its mostly young audience to consider.

The theme of faith, however, remains the most prominent in the film, and there are three main instances in which it shines brightest. Early in the film, Woody and the gang concoct a scheme to get Andy to play with them: they steal his cell phone and store it in the toy chest (where they are kept), and then call it using the house phone; when he comes to retrieve it, they hope he'll remember to play with them upon seeing them. Instead, he simply pulls Rex off the cell phone and walks away. Alone again, the toys are excited that he at least looked at them, and Rex is beyond ecstatic to have been picked up by him. Here, the act of just being looked at and picked up (even momentarily) is a joyous, exciting event (which makes the final scene that much more poignant).

Lotso's back-story, meanwhile, is rooted in the idea of loss of faith, and a resentment towards a world in which that loss is permitted. His history reflects Jessie's back-story, but whereas she remains (initially) broken, Lostso turns that pain inward, becoming a menacing force of control and dictation, overbearing and resentful. When he tells Woody, "We're just pieces of plastic. We're meant to be thrown out," he speaks not just about the plight of fictional toys: the world is not governed by kind, benevolent masters, but rather is a cold, methodical system (much like the ojne he created in Sunnyside) that objectifies every single person. In such a place, everyone and everything is easily replaceable, and the kind, benevolent master is an easily-destroyed illusion. In the end, everything is just a thing.

(***SPOILER***) Which leads to the final set-piece. Whoa. With a single motion (all the hero toys holding hands), the film forced the audience to confront the very motion of mortality. Without getting into the specifics as to how, the hero toys eventually find themselves at a landfill incinerator and without any way of escaping. And in a silent instant, just looking at each other, they decided to actively accept their fates. Perhaps they are just pieces of plastic, and perhaps that's all they've ever been, but there's still no avoiding the unavoidable. Fighting the inevitable is a far less brave notion than facing up to it. Sure, there is a literal deus ex machina that emerges at the nick of time ("The Claw!"), but it is still a scene in which the heroes lose faith and instead accept their fates, even if their fate is death (***NO MORE SPOILER!***)

It is through that trust in faith, ultimately, that reunites them with Andy. The reunion is brief, as Andy ultimately gives the toys to Bonnie, a young neighbor who briefly had Woody in her possession following his escape from Sunnyside. When Andy introduces Bonnie to each of his toys, highlighting their personalities, and ultimately playing with them one last time before driving off to college, it's clear that beyond the frozen stares and blank faces, the toys are beyond ecstatic, but will never be able to tell him that. As much as the toys and Andy need each other, they'll never be able to truly connect in the ways that each needed, nor to communicate that need. Even Andy's final goodbye ("Thanks, guys.") is whispered as he's already in his car. The closest the toys ever get to actually communicating with Andy is when Woody writes Bonnie's name and address on a post-it note for Andy to see. The reliance each feels for the other can never be communicated, but in the end, once change truly occurs and the toys find a new home, everyone is able to move on. Change occurs, and then life goes on. C'est la vie.

Technically, the film is beautiful, with rich, lush colors and impressive use of lighting and depth of field for an animated film (a bit more impressive in 3D). The entire voice cast was great, with Beatty's Lotso emulating Strother Martin or a lucid Slim Pickens, among others, for a decidedly grandfatherly, droll performance. Bonnie's toy, though appearing only briefly, were great fun, with what I felt was a decidedly meta casting choice in Timothy Dalton as the thespian, always-in-character stuffed porcupine, Mr. Pricklepants. The action in this film was also pretty inspired, from the opening Western action scene, to Woody's escape from Sunnyside, to Mr. Potato Head's surreal escape from a sandbox, to Woody and Slinky Dog's battle with the watch-guard,

My minor quibbles with the film involve Andy, for the most part. First off, for three full films the toys get lost or otherwise disappear, only to wind up in the most obvious place possible, despite us seeing Andy and his mother having looked all over multiple times. Hey! The toys happened to be in this box we just happened to have finished packing this second, and neither of us can remember putting them in there! Isn't that weird? Ah, screw it! Something should have given away the fact that something...weird...has been going on this whole time. I mean, really, who else could have written Bonnie's name and address on the box if the only three people in the house were all in the hallway? Second, it appears Andy has no friends at all, which makes him kind of...creepy. In the "growing up" montage, Andy is shown with his toys only....watching movies. Having a birthday party. Having a slumber party. There is no other child present. The absolute pristine quality of all the hero toys (no smudges, cracks, chipped paint, faded stickers, etc.) suggests Andy has WAAAAAYYYY too much time on his hands.

But, now that I think of it, Andy comes from a single-parent home. There is no father in any of the films. Perhaps the hero toys (the ones to survive this installment, with the exception of Bullseye, Mrs. Potato Head, the Pizza Planet aliens, Buzz, and Jessie) were given to him by his father, and that is why they mean so much to him (especially Woody. If Toy Story 2 is to be taken into account, it makes sense that Woody belonged to Andy's father and was passed down to his son: what boy in 1995 would own the last surviving Sheriff Woody doll from the 1950's, unless it was owned by someone close?) Actually, looking at it that way, it makes sense.

But I wasn't too much of a fan of Randy Newman's score, which seemed too sickly, syrupy sweet. (*SPOILER*) And the near-death of the toys just slightly felt tacked on to make the final denouement that much more satisfying, but just felt like too much unneeded melodrama for the characters to face (and how could Slinky drop down from the magnet on the conveyor? His entire middle section is still metal, and the magnet wasn't turned off, as the toys actively jumped down...whatever (*END SPOILERY PART*)

Anyway, the point is, this film is a fitting finale to a great series (if finale it indeed be). While this summer has been mostly dreary and full of comparatively dismal excuses for films (Hello Eclipse and Marmaduke! I see you!), this truly is one of the best films out this summer, and near the top for the year. Pixar just keeps on doing it, and God bless them, I hope they never stop.

If you do see this, see it in 3D. This time, the 3D is worth it.

Kick Ass

Kick-Ass (2010)

I'm back, writing reviews on a more regular basis. I know it's been a while, but fuck it, I'm back.
I'm back and here to review Matthew Vaughn's latest film, Kick Ass. I had no preconceived notions of this film outside of the SXSW reviews, and web film critic Devin Faraci's ode to it over at CHUD.com, so I have no idea how faithful this film is to Mark Millar's and John Romita Jr.'s original graphic novel. Frankly, though, it doesn't matter. This film surpasses its namesake, and is by a long shot the single most unadulterated entertaining film this year (so far). Between this film, Iron Man 2, The Expendables, and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (and, to an extent, Knight And Day) this summer is going to be the best since 2008. But that is besides the point.
Kick Ass is nihilistic, morally reprehensible, anarchic, gratuitously violent, subversive and socially bankrupt; and I absolutely love it for that. Don't walk into the theater expecting a treatise on the human condition (although, with another viewing, I'm sure I can find plenty of exceptions to that warning), and don't expect this film to be a game-changer of the genre the way The Dark Knight seems to be viewed. The plot concerns Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a teenaged comic book nerd who no one notices and few care about. He spends his afternoons hanging out with his two friends Todd (Evan Peters) and Marty (Clark Duke) at Atomic Comics, and his days trying to attract the attention of Katie Deauxma ((Lyndsy Fonseca) by doing absolutely nothing. As he laments in the opening narration, he “wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider and he isn't the orphan of some doomed planet”; the most tragic part of his life (played as an off-handed punchline by Vaughn) is that his mother died of a brain aneurism at the breakfast table. After realizing that normal civilians in New York (where the story is set), don't give a shit if they see someone getting mugged, or asking for help, he orders a scuba diving suit, dons a mask, and goes out in his first night as a costumed crimefighter, Kick Ass. He promptly gets his ass handed to him during his first foray, and spends six months in hospital in consequence. A result of his first battle is that his nerve endings were so damaged he can no longer feel pain, and he has metal grafted onto his skeleton to keep it together. His second night out as Kick Ass is more successful, and he soon finds himself a YouTube and internet sensation, and inspiring several other masked vigilantes, including the father-daughter team of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (11 year-old Chloe Moretz). A case of mistaken identity finds Kick Ass the target of mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), who eventually agrees to let his son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), don the costume (and Dodge Charger) of the Red Mist, in an attempt to draw the heroes out.
The Red Mist, as embodied by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, is the ultimate poser. At first, Dave is also, but he slowly grows out of that stage into actual “superhero” status. Red Mist, however, is in it purely for the appeal and the fame (as well as the Mist-Mobile, which he shows off and describes in a braggart tone)...which makes sense given the character of Chris D-Amico as presented in to film: nerdy, lonely, and unable to relate to anyone due to his bodyguard. The appeal of becoming Red Mist is to gain some fame, a chance to make a friend (Kick Ass), and to potentially make his gangster father proud. Mintz-Plasse plays the character with a surprising amount of menace towards the end: sure, the kid is goofy and nerdy, but his earnestness to make some sort of impression to someone (Kick Ass, his father) leads him to make some pretty poor decisions: and its these decisions that make cause the most damage (some of it fatal). No longer is Mintz-Plasse “McLovin'”; that moniker is dead with this. He is, now, the Red Mist.
First of all, Nicolas Cage is GOOD in this film as former cop Damon Macready; this is the Leaving Las Vegas Cage. The Rock Cage. The Bringing Out The Dead Cage. While it's difficult for me to remember a Nic Cage movie released within the past 5 years (that I've actually seen) in which he was actually trying, he really does an amazing job here; sure, his character is insane, and an asshole for essentially brainwashing his daughter into being the most adorable psychotic in years, but he still makes the character likeable. The Big Daddy/Hit Girl dyad is one that while entertaining and violent and psychotic, is oddly touching because the two are doing what they're doing because they genuinely do love and care about one another. And speaking of Hit Girl...
Chloe Moretz owns this movie. While the scenes of Hit Girl in action are the most outlandishly “comic-book-y” of the entire movie, she plays the character exceedingly well; there was no doubt that this 11 year-old in purple wig, pink utility belt, and plaid skirt will kill every living thing in sight. She's the mouth of a sailor, the looks of a schoolgirl (which is odd, considering it is revealed she never went to school), and the artillery skills of a soldier (or, to keep the comic book comparisons alive, a more talkative Punisher). All this talk in the more mainstream reviews addressing and decrying the sexualization of this 11 year-old are playing into the caveats and satirization of the entire comic book genre: the women in comic books are (for the vast majority) entirely sexualized. Just look at the costumes for the Huntress, Witchblade, Poison Ivy (who usually goes nude, depending on the artist), Power Girl, or Wonder Woman (just to name the first few to pop in my mind). There is no way those costumes are practical. Hell, Power Girl's emblem just seems to be her exposed cleavage. The only female super hero I can think of who has a practical, non-sexualized costume is the latest incarnation of The Question; but even then, her sexualization is displayed in the form of her homosexuality (which has only just, post-52 mini-series) become something more than just a character trait. Perhaps even Spellbinder, but even she is killed not long after her appearance. The sexualization of female characters within comic books is, sadly, nothing new. And I doubt the same critics lamenting Hit Girl's fetishistic costume (which, to me works as a physicalization of the modern aspects of comic books: brightly colored, silly, and ironic, but deadly serious and extremely violent when you get down to it).will be making the same complaints over Scarlett Johanssen's Black Widow costume in Iron Man 2.
The concern here is that, being a child, Chloe Moretz will be setting herself up to be a bad example, merely becoming a perpetuation of the same exploitation of girls that persists all throughout film as a medium. Forget the fact the fact that the character is interesting, fun, has desires and motives, and is surprisingly strong (and driven by a cause), and never once has to resort to her status as “girl”. If the character had been a boy, perhaps the brouhaha over Hit Girl would be different. Perhaps the emphasis would actually be on the strong, bloody violence that an 11 year-old inflicts. Perhaps it would be the cuss words used by said 11 year-old. Perhaps it would be film's satirization of online sensations and the fame earned therein, of citizens taking the law (and guns) into their own hands. Or, if the character had been removed entirely (making Big Daddy merely a revenge-driven psychopath...again, like The Punisher), maybe something else would be blown out of proportion. Like...the frank depictions of teenage sex.
Yes, Kick Ass gets the girl. But only after a certain condition is met. And Aaron Johnson, perfectly cast, doesn't really make the audience want him to get the girl. Sure, we want him to sustain his relationship with her after the fact, but we're not too invested in whether he gets to fuck her or anything. Johnson pulls off that likability perfectly, allowing the audience to warm on Kick Ass as a character long before we fully warm on Dave Lizewski as a person. It was easy to picture myself encountering Dave in college or back when I went to high school, and that was what made him incredibly appealing. Whereas Big Daddy and Hit Girl seemed to know they were in a fantasy (Big Daddy even talking in the campy Adam West style of cutting his words), and where Red Mist obviously played the whole lifestyle as a nerd and celebrity (and casting Mintz-Plasse made it easy to identify him as a nerd, someone who isn't a threat...and his final confrontation in his father's gym ended on a decidedly nerdy, funny note), Dave seems like someone who has a passion and then quickly...and violently...realizes that his passion is getting people killed. And could potentially get him killed too.
The film doesn't hold back with the ridiculous costumes (Red Mist's is especially comic-book-y...with a superfluous cape) and the bright colors, but when the violence occurs, it gets plenty violent. However, Vaughn manages to keep every set piece interesting, shooting each in a stylistically unique way (the first-person-shooter sequence was probably the most visually kinetic, though not the most exciting...although the use of the theme from 28 Days Later was an inspired touch). Kick Ass's first two forays are realistically handled, each hit and punch being felt and having real weight and consequence and the damage inflicted being brutal (also, I love the fact that Kick Ass has to use batons, as he has no real stopping power in his attacks at all).
Cinematographer Ben Davis films much of the movie as a teen-centric comedy (the general tone of the Dave-centric scenes reminded me a lot of Donnie Darko), and a moderately smooth use of the camera (no shaky-cam or handheld, techniques I tend to hate for their confusing nature...and not the sort of “confusing” that the directors intend). Two sequences stand out in terms of sheer cinematic ingenuity: Dave's second night out as Kick Ass, where he beats up three gang members while a diner full of patrons film him; in that scene the lighting suggests a park-set school brawl, and intercutting the action with shots of the security-camera and videophone footage not only made the scene more kinetic, but also more visually interesting. The other exceedingly well-executed scene is the aforementioned first-person-shooter sequence, which works on so many levels, both visually, plot-wise, but also thematically (an 11-year-old being the focus of a POV sequence fashioned after a video game...in which she is shooting and killing men? Start the discussion!); the use of strobe lighting, slow-motion, music, pacing, visual ingenuity, and genuine emotion (one of the characters gets burned alive) makes this sequence perhaps the most well-executed in the entire film. The kinetic cutting technique employed (rather than a shaky camera) provides much of the action scenes with its kineticism.
The use of music (both contemporary pop songs and themes, as well as the original score) grounds the film in a modern realism, and the original theme is hinted at throughout the film until the end of the final action sequence, in which Kick Ass has finally, literally, made himself into a superhero the type of which might be found in the pages of a DC or Marvel comic. At that point, Kick Ass's main theme resounds triumphantly, and I for one couldn't help but smile and think, “Fuck yeah”, watching the sequence.
Thematically, the film is playing with a lot of different ideas, each handled light enough to start a conversation over, but not heavy-handed enough to defuse the film or make it some sort of moralistic “message” film (questions abound: why does Dave seem to spend most of his time in costume reading his MySpace? Why do the only times we see him in action –aside from the climax- serve only to benefit him? What can be said about Dave's opinion that Big Daddy and Hit Girl are “real” superheroes only because they kill the villains?). The film at once celebrates the entire superhero genre, while breaking it down, much like last year's very uneven Watchmen. But unlike Watchmen, Kick-Ass presents a much more convincing view of a world in which costumed heroes run around punching each other in the face and that doesn't feel as if the director were trying his damnedest to please the core fans. The morals here are extremely shaky (again, “superheroes” are defined as such by their willingness to kill the enemy; Kick Ass's acts primarily benefit himself; Big Daddy and Hit Girl kill not only drug dealers, but also drug users, as well as people who just happen to be in the room), and the film does take a dark tonal shift at the end of the second act (much, much darker than would have initially been expected, even if the film follows the proper three-act structure). However, I've seen this film twice already, and will probably watch it once more when it reaches the $4 theatre in my town.
Kick Ass is the first purely fun, memorable, energetic film that I've seen since Star Trek, that also has a lot of points of discussion, and that works on so many levels (teen comedy. Satire. Superhero film. Action film. Etc. etc.) So much works here that it's hard not to be charmed by this film, and the relative success of it (in comparison to Matthew Vaughn's previous two films) promises that a sequel is not too far in coming. But this is also a film that is not going to conform to your idea of what's going to occur, nor is it going to play safe; already critics (including Roger Ebert) are swooping down on this film, listing many reasons why you shouldn't see it and why you should stick to the movies that have a clear moral lesson. Fuck that. Embrace the anarchy and actually make your own judgment about what you think and feel, and why. If Kick Ass is a precursor to the films that are going to be coming our way this summer, then this is going to be an entertaining summer.

P.S--- Preceding the film were trailers for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Iron Man 2, The A-Team (which looks like loads of fun), A Nightmare On Elm Street (which looks promising with Jackie Earle Haley as the newest incarnation of Freddy Kreuger), and The Expendables, the trailer that got the largest applause that actually built in severity as each of the actors was individually introduced. I cannot wait.

Antichrist

Antichrist (2009, Lars von Trier)

Somewhere in this film is a thesis, an absolute point to it that defines exactly what it is that director Lars von Trier was hinting at when he made this maddeningly terrifying, wholly frustrating, perhaps-misogynistic film. That does not mean that this is not a good film, or one that should be ignored: just don't expect any easy answers from it. Don't expect a “point”. Don't expect to be told how to react to it. But do expect to react.

The story is simple enough: a married couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) are vigorously fucking in their home late at night when their young son, Nick, a toddler, wanders out of his crib and falls out of a window, dying. Charlotte (I shall use the actor's names, since the characters have no names in the film) reacts horrendously to the loss, eventually being hospitalized and undergoing various psychiatric treatments. Her condition degrades to the point where she is unable to sleep, suffers from convulsions, hysteria, and self-harming behaviors. Her husband, a psychiatrist of some sort, decides to help her by taking her to the one place she reveals that she is most scared of: their cabin in the woods, Eden. There, in the middle of nature, alone, Charlotte's psyche degrades further until she becomes murderously psychotic.

Dafoe gives one of his typically subdued performances, playing the husband character as being clueless to his wife's distress, unable to cope with her emotions once is is alerted to her predicament, and once he realizes her emotional distress, remains distant in an attempt to objectively “cure” her with his own unique brand of therapy. Charlotte, on the other hand, provides a much more powerful performance. The physical and emotional duress with which von Trier challenges her is staggering. Seeing her in this film and in her performance as Stephanie in The Science Of Sleep is like witnessing day and the blackest night. It's clear that she worked much, much harder than Mr. Dafoe in her performance (not to demean his work), but I'd never seen anything quite like her work. The fragility, emotional instability, and overall degradation of not only her mind and body (man...what she does to her body), but also her soul is apparent. Nothing she does on screen is fake or insincere, and by the last act she becomes a scary visage of rage and violence, and it's astonishing to see that evolution throughout the film.

The actual story sounds very much like a horror film (which this should be considered: this is cerebral horror as well as visual, visceral horror). It is deceptively simple. The underlying themes and imagery of the actual film, though, are anything but. Von Trier (a director called by some, prior to this film, a misogynist) imbues the film with a nearly unbearable sense of dread that actualizes itself in various different ways: the sound of wind blowing because the growl of a hell-beast; acorns falling on the roof of the cabin become unnerving signals of approaching doom; the ground undulates and vibrates, the contours distorting at the edges (achieved through some impressive camera effects). The sound design itself was a marvel, immediately reminiscent of David Lynch’s foundry and industrial sound design that opened and permeated throughout Eraserhead. Here, von Trier uses sound to accentuate the aggression and ultimate violence by creating a cacophony of grating, rumbling, growling sounds, punctuated every so often with dreamlike instances of silence and steamy sighs.

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (who helped shape the frentic, kinetic look of last year's Slumdog Millionaire) provides some of the most beautiful imagery put to celluloid all year (honestly, regardless of the content, this film looks absolutely beautiful; each frame deserves to be framed on a wall). Mantle's restrained camera work and defused colors provide a memorable palette of visual expression to most of the film, but in other instances (such as the “dream” sequences and opening sequence), he shoots some of the most beautiful black-and-white sequences of the past decade, combining the two-toned images with a cranked-up camera to slow down time in the midst of -in the case of the opening sequence- vigorous, manic, almost hysterical fucking, counterpointed by a child's curious wandering to a window and eventual death. The snow that falls out the window falls one flake at a time; the water that flows off the bodies of the two lovers glistens and slides one drop at a time. Time slows down in this opening sequence, the only moment of true happiness for any of the characters that literally crashes at the crescendo of Lascia ch'io pianga from 'Rinaldo', which is the only sound played through the sequence.

However, all technicalities aside, this film is about one central theme: gynocide. Mankind’s eternal war against women. Before even walking into the theatre, I had read several reviews (most notably A.O Scott's over at The New York Times, and Devin Faraci's dissemination over at CHUD.com) and ever-present in each was the question of mysogony. Von Trier, with Antichrist, was waging his own war of sorts against the fairer sex, so they seemed to see. While Mr. Scott abhorred the film, seeing nothing of redeeming value within it, Mr. Faraci remarked how much he'd liked the film...though he shouldn't have. I too am in that same league, for several reasons.

The film posits many positions and questions, and none of them are easy to answer or even face, and some (and I feel I'm going to get a lot of flak for even saying this) I feel that, as a man, I am unable to ask without inviting glares. The first, perhaps the most important question I faced while watching the film is: “What is misogyny? What is the nature of it?” That's not to suggest that I don't know what misogyny is, but to what degree does misogyny extend? For example, in the film, Charlotte is pushed by Willem to come to terms with their son's death by using unconventional means, by facing her fears and confronting, without any real psychological protection, the very places that pain her and remind her of her son and that she fears most. To simplify the result, Charlotte snaps and attacks Willem (viciously...I'll get to that later), and tries to kill him before mutilating herself and then being killed herself by her husband. All of this is violence on many levels, and while it is easy to point at the son's death as the impetus of all the insanity, the film posits that perhaps the violence unleashed in the final act (which begins with the death of the son a year prior in the film's chronology) is in fact the end result of a long tragedy for the characters.

Now, the tone of this film is very “horror”: this can be described as a horror film (one that works more effectively than the current “torture porn” or “CW bullshit” that seem to define the horror genre of late). The typical horror film convention is that there is a killer (often male) terrorizing victims (often female). Here, the roles are reversed, with the female providing the threat and the male defending himself (or, if you want to really get into the structure, this film is like an inverse The Shining, where Wendy goes insane and tries to kill Jack). Charlotte's character is a writer who had spent a summer with her son working on her thesis, a book called Gynocide that worked as a chronicle of hatred and violence towards women, and she began to realize that throughout the countless centuries where women were victimized, women are just as capable of perpetrating violence and hatred as men. Therein lies the single issue I had not only with the film, but also with those who viewed the film and saw it as nothing but misogynistic hatred: are women not capable of being just as evil and vile and viciously violent as men? Are women not equal to men in terms of evil? Is it not misogynistic itself to deny women their violence, if that is what they choose?

If Willem Dafoe had been the character to go crazy and try to kill his wife, that would follow the normal horror film contention and there would be little issue with the film simply because it is conforming to the norm of the genre; however, when it is a woman being evil, a cry of “misogynist” is immediately cried out. To me, that is hypocrisy. I viewed the film as two characters interacting in a fucked-up way through a fucked-up situation and reaching fucked-up conclusions; rarely upon first viewing do I see anything more than characters. However, I feel that if there is a character of color, or of a handicap or, in this case, a woman, then that character represents to the public every single one of that denomination, and the public perception of that group hinges on how fair or balanced or benign a character within that represented group is portrayed. To me, again, that's hypocrisy.

This is a film about misogyny that is interpreted as being misogynistic due to its addressing that topic. The imagery and themes (the Three Fates; a tree reminiscent of fallopian tubes---under which Willem Dafoe hides himself, literally crawling back into the womb which, at that point in the story, betrays him to the violence of woman---, and Charlotte's degrading into an hysterical state) repeatedly highlight the film's exploration of men's attitudes in confronting, controlling, and ultimately trivializing the female psyche.

Nature, too, becomes a spectre of violence. Personified in three female animals that rove the woods outside the cabin and in the sudden horrific screams that Charlotte imagines hearing while with her son, nature is out to destroy the fragile stability of the human mind (and, once Charlotte refuses to resist any more, becomes exclusively the bane of men's “rational” minds). The Three Fates, the sisters, are personified in the guises of a dead crow brought back to life, a doe giving birth to a stillborn deer, and (the movie's most iconic image), a self-cannibalizing fox that speaks (literally)the undeniable message of nature to Dafoe: “Chaos reigns”.

What does all of this mean (and there is so, so much more...remember that I wrote of Charlotte's character becoming “hysterical”? Well, I meant that in the strictly Freudian sense. This film has a lot going on with it. I've maybe discussed half of it's themes, and haven't even touched on the psycho-sexual dynamics of the final acts of genital violence present in the final act)? To me, I'll put it like this: the film is about the condemnation of life. Charlotte's character rages against a world that took her child, but, in becoming one with nature, she realizes that giving birth is itself an act of death (something she herself discusses with Dafoe during the course of the film). In forming a new life, one forces that life to struggle, grow old, and eventually die. Childbirth, it seems, is prescribing a life sentence to someone. That is what I walked away with from this film. Dafoe's character cannot understand this fact, instead thinking that logic and rationality can cure all the ills of the world, when in fact the ills are much more cerebral and eternal and subjective: Charlotte's character, like any mother, knows the power of holding and giving life within her. Men can never understand that (and I'm talking the traditional definition of men here). As powerful an experience being a father is, for a mother it is much, much more powerful. It has to be. There is no way it can't be (look at it this way: a mother always knows that the child she's carrying is hers). Nature is life giving birth to life that will eventually die itself. The screams that Charlotte's character hears (both literal child's screams, and the “screams” of the acorns on the roof of their cabin at night) is nature itself, lamenting the lives lost through the act of birth, of the paradoxical destructive act of creation.

This is a hard, difficult film to sit through, and you'll be hard-pressed to sit down and watch it a second time. But if you do see it (and I cannot recommend it enough, but not without its warnings), be ready for lengthy discussions to follow. Fuck the people to condemn it as being purely about hating women, because it is not a film propagating that mentality. It is a film that strives to open a discussion about what it means to be rational, emotional, hysterical, alone, unloved, distant, violent, a man, a woman, a parent, depressed...it is a movie about ideas. Do they all coheir evenly? No. But whether you're swept up in the absolutely stunning cinematography, watching through fingers (as I was), or realizing just how little you knew about misogyny itself, you'll walk out of the theatre wanting to talk. In this case, as the fox says, chaos does reign. But out of the rubble of this film, hopefully enlightenment will arise.

Below are some leading critiques of the film, one by the "misogyny consultant".

http://tobatheinfilmicwaters.com/2009/08/01/interview-lars-von-triers-misogyny-consultant/

http://tobatheinfilmicwaters.com/2009/06/09/review-antichrist/

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/lars-von-trier-women-and-me-1763851.html

CHUD's own Devin Faraci

New York Times' A.O. Scott

P.S.- I hate the Dogme 95 school of filmmaking von Trier developed...

Riff Trax Live: Plan 9 From Outer Space

The worst movie of all time gets the MST3K treatment by three of that show's stars: Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbitt, and Kevin Murphy, performing live from Nashville, Tennessee and broadcast to the AMC 16 Theatre in Paramus, New Jersey (one of the few theatres in the Tri-State area to host the event). The purpose of the show (for those who have never followed Mystery Science Theater, The Film Crew, or RiffTrax) is to showcase feature-length films (often, if not exclusively, some of the worst ever made) and provide running comedic commentary throughout. The original Mystery Science Theater premiered in 1988 and ran until 1999, garnering a large cult following and several Emmys for writing. Being fans ourselves (and having converted several people myself), I reserved tickets and took Lacey to the show, anticipating a brief introduction to the movie and then diving right into the show.
Here the event was vastly different than what was expected: an entire movie theatre full of fans (completely full. The show was sold out), broadcast live (at points the signal was lost, which prompted shouts of "Oh no!" in unison from everyone) and even featuring fake commercials (from Something Awful regular Rich Kyanta, the most amusing being a fake ad for the "Three Day Mill Event") and a sing-along session (by geek musician John Coulton, who "Re: Zombies" and "The Future Soon"). Host Veronica Belmont was amiable, although she seemed slightly nervous in her first minutes on-stage, although she visibly mellowed out.
The show featured the afformentioned Ed Wood anti-masterpiece, and an instructional short "The Flying Stewardesses" being the opening act. While it was somewhat obvious that Nelson, Corbitt and Murphy had rehearsed some of the lines beforehand, there were still many instances where they were visibly confused by the content of the films; at certain times during the show, three video images of each host would appear on-screen alongside the film (think picture-in-picture) and show the hosts reacting and commenting. While it was amusing to see the bemused reactions to the films they were watching, after the second transition to the picture-in-picture it got very distracting (it wound up appearing another 3 times in the course of the show). Eight times out of ten, the jokes and riffs hit their marks (and even when they didn't, I'd notice things in the film that were just too ridiculous to not be funny), and the hosts even referenced the MST3K episode The Atomic Brain when poking fun at actor Tor Johnson, who played the police chief in Plan 9 and Lobo in the aforementioned MST3K film (I think I was the only one to directly notice the reference).
What most surprised me, however, was simply the amount of people in the theatre. Young people, old people, people my age, an entire family, and (to the right of me) a single well-dressed 30-something who disappeared about an hour into the show and when he came back to his seat he smelled of rum and vodka. Awesome.
It was nice to realize that there were so many people within a ten-mile radius who took time out to sit down to laugh at (and with) an inexplicbly failed film (one that isn't bad conceptually...just executed poorly for a variety of reasons). Towards the end of the film it also dawned on me how, despite its horrible execution, Plan 9 From Outer Space still managed not only to fill an entire multiplex theatre in competition with summer blockbusters, but managed to do so a full fifty years after it was made. That's something to be fuckin' impressed about, folks.
I hope the turnout was well enough that there is another event. I might just get a group to go this time.

In personal news, I am currently waiting to hear back from from the director of a website focusing on sustainability and social awareness and activism. I applied to write a 30 minute script abuot Buckminster Fuller, and am hoping I get the job (despite the fact that it's non-paying...but could lead to paid work in the future). Getting paid to write? Sign me the fuck up. That's half of what I want to do with my life!

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds (2009, Quentin Tarantino)

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds ends its two-and-a-half-hour run time with one of the main characters smiling directly into the camera, addressing the audience and stating proudly, "I think I may have just made my masterpiece." To say that the line is meant to reflect director Tarantino's mindset in regards to this, his sixth film, is apt (although I beg to differ: I still consider Jackie Brown to be his best film to date...let the arguing begin!) but somewhat premature. This isn't Tarantino's best film, but it's right up there, right next to Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction. Like that film, Basterds unwinds slowly, methodically, perfectly paced and with the characteristic dialogue and set pieces and ratcheting of tension that climaxes into one of the most perfectly staged, purely cinematic endings in recent memory.

However, don't let the title or the trailers fool you: this isn't a men-on-a-mission story. This isn't necessarily about the Basterds (they're in maybe one third of the film's run time). Their story unfolds tangentally along with that of the film's protagonist, Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent, who looks suspiciously like Julie Delpy), who owns a cinema in Nazi-occupied France (under the assumed name of Emmanuelle). The two stories intertwine when the Basterds plot to sabotage the premiere of Joseph Goebbels' newest propaganda film, Nation's Pride, starring Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl playing an oddly sympathetic Nazi war hero/movie star in the line of Audie Murphy), which will not only be attended by every high-ranking Nazi in the war (including Hitler, played as a caricature by Martin Wuttke), but is also being hosted at Shosanna's cinema. While the Basterds plot to sabotage the premiere by blowing up the theatre and everyone in it, Shosanna plans to likewise sabotage the film by igniting the highly flammable nitrate film negatives archived therein. That is the entire plot. Not exactly the "men-on-a-mission" film the trailers and posters suggest.

What is left to enjoy (or wait in anxiety for) are scenes of the Jewish-American Basterds killing and scalping Nazis and trying to acquire information on the location of Goebbels' premiere from the German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), Frederick Zoller's seemingly innocent courting of Shosanna, or Col. Hans Landa's (the incredible and charismatic Cristoph Waltz) suspicion of Shosanna after being introduced to him by Zoller at a luncheon with Goebbels. That, essentially, is the plot of the film. There are, however, moments when the film stops so Tarantino can indulge in several instances of characteristic pop culture masturbation.

I know, I know: pop culture is what Tarantino "gets", but the problem with this script (his second weakest, following the scripts for Kill Bill) is that there are scenes where people talk about 1940's-era pop culture just because. There is one scene which is a prime example: while the Basterds are waiting for von Hammersmark to arrive at a bar, the action cuts to the interior of the bar, where a group of Nazis are playing a drinking game. The game consists of writing the name of a character or famous person on the back of a card, passing the card (unseen) to the person on the right, and the person has to stick the card on their forehead and guess what character they are. The game comes into play later when the three German-speaking Basterds play the game with a Nazi corporal, but prior to the introduction of those Basterds, we don't need to see the other characters playing the game.

The above example is the singlar scene that I remembered, and the only time in the film where I actually felt the film's length and just wanted the action to begin again (I actually looked at my watch to see how long it took for the plot to get moving again). However, the opening scene (which introduces us to both Col. Landa and Shosanna) plays out just as long and "slow" (I guess "slow-burning" is a more apt description), but is infintely more suspenseful on virtue of the fact that what the two characters (Col. Landa and Mnsr. LaPadite, a minor character who is hiding Shosanna) are talking about is actually important to the story. This opening scene, along with the final forty minutes, features Tarantino writing with utmost skill.

For such an epic movie, the action seems very contained, and most of the exteriors are shot in medium or long shots, making the film seem a lot smaller in scale than the story itself is. Whether this was intentional on the part of Tarantino and cinematographer Robert Richardson (who otherwise does a typically amazing job) is unknown, but seeing as the film felt slightly rushed, I wouldn't be surprised if it was scaled down simply due to scheduling.

Those squabbles aside, though, I did enjoy the film immensely, and it's only now, after having been able to mull it all over in my head and converse and find others' points of view that I think I understand The Point of it. In the August 24th & 31st issue of Newsweek, reviewer Daniel Mendelsohn laments that Inglourious Basterds, with its penchant for brutal violence perpetrated against a brutal regime, sells a message of "visceral pleasure of revenge" by "...turning Jews into Nazis". What he seems to warn against is the act of audiences internalizing and applauding such behavior and thus extraxt a deep emotional satisfaction from the revenge meted out by victims to their perpetrators. At its lightest, Basterds makes its protagonists as thuggish as its villains; at its worst, it's distorting the past and representing the victims as overpowering their oppressors (which is reflective, so Mr. Mendelsohn suggests, by our cultural tendency to find meaning and empowerment from tragedy: as he writes, "...it may be that our present-day taste for 'empowerment,' our anxious horror of being represented as 'victims' - nowadays there are no victims, only 'survivors'- has begun to distort the representation of the past, one in which passive victims, alas, vastly outnumbered those who were able to fight back."

Mendelsohn is right in asserting that the film is, indeed, a revenge film. But where I disagree with him is his assertion that this distortion of history (so obvious and blatant that you must have been living under a rock if you didn't notice it) is damaging to our society. The final 40 minutes of the film, where (SPOILERS!!!!!) the entire Nazi high command and Adolf fucking Hitler get machine-gunned to death in a burning theater (END SPOILERS!!!) speak volumes to the power of cinema as a weapon (both literal and figuratively). Hitler and most of the high command escaped justice, opting to take their own lives instead; at least in one film they get theirs (I almost want to count Raiders of the Lost Ark in this capacity also: there is nothing more satisfying than watching Nazis get their faces melted and heads detonated by the wrath of God Himself.)

The sight of Eli Roth pumping bullets into Hitler brought a cheer from the audience: this is something that, deep down, we'd wanted to see happen. Tarantino has already rewritten history by making a period film (face it: nearly every period piece - based on actual events or not- is embellished and, thus, a product of imagination. Did The Dirty Dozen receive such condemnation for Lee Marvin's detonation of a Nazi high command gala? If not, why?), so he might as well go all-out.

The aforementioned cheer, though, was unnerving in retrospect: it occurs after a scene in which the Nazi high command is watching a propaganda film based on Zoller's single-handed sniping of 80+ Allied infantry. As the bullets ring and buzz on screen, the audience cheers emphatically. Zoller, however, leaves and later tells Shosanna, "I don't really like those parts." Once the real bullets start flying and the Nazis start burning and the audience of which I am a member start cheering...how different is my reaction to those of the Nazis onscreen? Maybe that is the transitive power of film: to encite emotions we would otherwise not express.

Maybe Mr. Mendelsohn is right: revenge is a visceral pleasure. Maybe that's the point Tarantino was trying to make with the aforementioned juxtaposition. When the victims are just as ready for violence as their perpetrators, that reveals a lot of human nature, of our desires and our emotions. (And what would Mendelsohn say of this fact: the film is fucking HUGE in Germany. CHUD.com's Devin Faraci reports on that story over at his site, and I sympathize wholeheartedly with his interpretation as to why the success might have occurred.) If I didn't want violence, why, in any scene containing the Basterds and Nazis and there was TOO MUCH dialogue, why would I want a gun fight to break out? Why did I find the dialogue to go on for too long? Was it that I was expecting a different type of movie, or merely that the anticipation of violence overpowered my need to see characters exist in a fictional universe?

To be honest, I think Tarantino just thought it'd be fun to show Jews killing Nazis (something my Israeli coworker complained wasn't in the film enough). But I'm glad he left some room for discussion in there. I recommend it for anyone looking for a good late-summer entry.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker (2009, by Kathryn Bigelow)

In the opening minutes of Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, we're introduced to Bravo Company, a bomb disposal unit stationed in Baghdad in 2003. With a month left into their tour of duty, Bravo Company loses their chief bomb disposal engineer (played by Guy Pearce) in a deftly constructed sequence that illustrates just how harrowing an experience the battlefield is, as well as the unforeseen toll it takes on those involved.
The opening scene shows a routine bomb disposal mission that gets botched when a piece of equipment breaks and the squad leader (who is also in charge of defusing the makeshift bombs) is killed. Replacing him is the volatile Staff Sergeant William James (played by Jeremy Renner...more on him in a bit), a man who is less hardened by spending every waking moment in the field expecting something to kill him as he embracing of that lifestyle. The other men in his company are Sergeant JT Sanborn (played by Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (played by Brian Geraghty), and while at first impressed by James' skill at his job, soon realize that that their new leader is unhinged, impulsive, and increasingly reckless. The story, as iterated earlier, involves Bravo Company's last few weeks into their rotation, and whether they can stay alive long enough to return home.
Kathryn Bigelow is a revelation here. The director of k-19: The Widowmaker and the mid-90's actioner Point Break (yes. The One with Keanu Reeves) deftly balances taut action with a character-driven plot (true, the events in which the characters find themselves are dictated by outside factors, but how they react to those mitigating factors set up moments for deeper poignancy later on in the film). Also refreshing is her lack of political agenda: this isn't a story about the factors leading to the war, or whether it is "justified" or not, or even an argument that we "should" be there: this is a story about the people who are there in the shit, doing the work that none of us are doing and not getting enough thanks, praise, or recompense, and rarely waver in their devotion. The apolitical stance the film takes is refreshing, as the heavy-handed messaging of "the war is a mistake and unjustified" makes one view the soldiers overseas almost as the villains, when in fact they're just doing their job. Bigelow cuts out all the preachy bullshit and just lets the soldiers' stories speak for themselves.
The devotion, Bigelow observes, is not purely to ideology or country, but to each other. Walking out of the theatre I felt as I had when I went to see Black Hawk Down and Eric Bana says to another character, when asked why he keeps going to the front, "When I go home people'll ask me, 'Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?' You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is." That's what this movie could be boiled down to as well: just three men who keep going in for each other, just to keep the other safe. And the best part? The movie allows you to come to that conclusion on your own, the characters don't have to say it.
With that out in open, Bigelow is free to display some extremely tense scenes. The first time that Staff Sargeant James diffuses the IEDs (a scene that is used as the poster image) illustrates not just the danger of the battlefield, but also the suspicion by the soldiers of the Iraqi citizenry, as well as showing the second-nature attitude of Staff Sargeant James towards his work (a last-minute hunch clues him into a bundle of IEDs, and he sets about disarming them knowing full well they could blow any second).
While the main story is about Bravo Company's final days and their subsequent attempts to work together and trust together (an effort which only seems to pay of in a tense sniper shoot-out involving some mercenaries and insurgents), one of the most lasting and important subplots involves Sergeant James' instability and recklessness (which culminates in one of the team members getting injured and being forced out of action).
Refreshingly, each character is three-dimensional and relatable, expertly acted and distinct in personality from one another. Sergeant Sanborn (Mackie) is a resolute, proud, no-nonsense leader, doing his utmost to look after each of his men. But throughout the course of the film James' recklessness forces James to reevaluate himself: at first he hates James for his insubordination, then loathes him for his recklessness before trusting him for his expertise. By the end, Sanborn is unsure even of his reason for being in the front, and finds that James' attitude is the only thing that keeps him alive in the battlefield.
Eldrigdge (Geraghty) suffers most throughout the film, as he is the most emotionally weak of the group. He depends on his psychiatrist, Col. John Cambridge (Christian Camargo), while at the same time openly hating him for not knowing exactly what risks are out in the field: Eldridge is unstable, blaming himself for the death of his prior company leader, and his connection to Col. Cambridge is the only stable relationship he has in an otherwise unstable world. When James comes to rely on him (again, during the sniper battle), Eldridge slowly becomes more confidant, particularly when he saves Bravo Company by shooting a lone insurgent.
However, James is the star of the show, and Renner owns every scene he's in. He is at turns reckless, reliable, cooperative, independent, unstable, commands a unique sense of knowing his enemy, and even expressing some remorse and friendship to a young Iraqi boy named Beckham (Christopher Sayegh) who James befriends when the boy sells him bootleg DVDs. It is Beckham's friendship with James which proves to be James' emotional undoing, and provides one of the more emotionally rending sequences in the film.
I would comment on the music, cinematography (which, to Barry Ackroyd's credit, is stunningly beautiful) and production design, but all worked so seamlessly as to go unnoticed (and that's a compliment, don't get me wrong.) Actually, Ackroyd's cinematography is effective in several instances. While in Iraq (which is most of the movie) the camera is constantly moving, never set up on a tripod, so as to convey a never-ending sense of movement and instability; in instances of dramatic events (during the first explosion which kills Bravo Comapny's prior bomb technician, to a beautiful shot showing a spent bullet casing bounding on the sand) the camera slows down, highlighting the dramatic importance of the event. When James returns home near the end of the film, the camera is stable, static, the framing cramped with borders (such as a supermarket asile, a doorway, the bars of a crib). This is the real imprisonment, where life is static, cramped, and claustrophobic. James' inability to even decide what breakfast cereal to buy showcases just how impossible it is for him to readjust to civilian life, something which, so I've heard from second-hand accounts, is sadly common (but not as common as you'd think).
James' speech to his son, in the penultimate scene, is apt not only to other men and women in his position and with his experience, but also to anyone to find meaning in his or her life"

"You love your mommy. And your daddy. You love your pajamas, and your crib. You love your toys. You love everything. But you'll grow up and realize that your toys are just pieces of plastic, and you won't love them as much. You'll maybe find four or five things you love. And soon, when you're older, you'll maybe have one thing you love."

I remembered that speech out of everything in the movie. Writer Mark Boal's script is able to relate the story of everyone, not just those of the soldiers. And that's incredibly refreshing. In understanding them, we understand ourselves. And in doing both, hopefully we'll be able to treat our soldiers with the respect and consideration they fought and trained to deserve.
This is one of the best movies this summer, and is high in the running for best of the year. This is a film that has great character work, amazing acting (I wouldn't be surprised if Renner earns himself an Oscar or Golden Globe nom. He is the show here, and I can't wait to see what else he can do), and tense action. And it has all this while being true to its subject and not pandering to the audience, nor to any ideology.
I couldn't recommend this any more. Do yourself a favor and watch it.

Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King

Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King (2009)

Big Whiskey is the oddly named new album by the Dave Matthews Band, a follow-up to the reserved, toned-down, dense, yet extremely listenable Stand Up (2005). The album is also the first released after the death of lead saxophonist and founding member LeRoi Moore following an off-roading accident last year. With Moore's unfortunate passing, the band seems to have lost most of the lofty, free-flowing jam-session-esque sound that has characterized them for the past 15 years. Also gone, it seems, is any cohesion to the album, and what we're left with is a jumble of songs that sound extremely similar and sedate yet also, paradoxically, thematically unrelated to each other. Compared to the band's past efforts (especially Before These Crowded Streets, the Grammy nominated album that weaved a tapestry of melancholic sounds that segued into each other; and the aforementioned Stand Up, which kept up a dark, morose, yet ultimately transcendent theme throughout), Big Whiskey is like the aural equivalent of a poorly planned theme party set in a Southern mansion where, inside, each room of the mansion portrays and entirely separate theme ("You got alligator in my whiskey!" "Yeah? Well, you got time bombs in my squirming monkeys!" "Whare's the groogrux? What's a groogrux? WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GROOGRUX?!") The few songs that offer related and complimentary sounds and themes are buffered by a slew of songs that seem as if they were recorded right before the band went to sleep, and offer no topical relation to each other. (Why is that a problem? Well, I tend to think about the comparison with another band I listen to, Gorillaz: whereas their first, self-titled album is a disjointed hodgepodge of listenable tracks, their 2005 sophomore effort, Demon Days, is cohesive funky, apocalyptically catchy, and one can listen to the songs individually or as a whole and come out with a favorable result either way. Not so with Big Whiskey.) After the streamlined beauty of Stand Up, it's a shame the band stumbled back a few steps with this album.
To its credit, though, Big Whiskey does offer some listenable tunes, just nothing I can describe as jam worthy (I can only seriously picture 2 or 3 songs of the album's 13 being added to their concert set lists). The opening track, "Grux", is a one-and-a-half minute solo by the late LeRoi. The track starts slow and melancholic before building to a pitch, while in the background we faintly hear a band starting to tune up softly: the final high note holds, lingering, and fades away, instead transforming into Dave's energetic yowl which throws us into the next track, "Shake Me Like A Monkey". "...Monkey" sounds and feels like classic Dave Matthews: free flowing, lofty, and and an energtic tempo (also: the song is about sex. Shocking!) The next track, "Funny the Way It Is", is comparable in tone to the band's previous "Mother, Father".....only slower. And more somber. Much, mich slower. "Funny The Way It Is" lacks the energy or impact of "Mother, Father", and it suffers for it. Unfortunately, the successive tracks fare no better, and it isn't until the quadfecta of "Spaceman", "Squirm", "Alligator Pie", and (my favorite of the album) "Seven" that an overall theme and cohhesion actually appears. "Squirm" sounds like the opening track to Sgt. Pepper, where a fictional band starts performing at a fictional venue...but here it is unfortuantely stuck in the middle of the album instead of the opening (or at least the follow-up track to the excellent "Grux"); it just feels incredibly out of place here. It's hard to even describe the sound of the songs other than the four I just named, since they have the energy of a Benadryll fiend hopped up on horse tranquilizers, and I honestly can't remember a single tune from any of them, even having listened to the entire album 6 full times since July (although the chorus to "Why I Am" is prettty good...considering what a tepid song it is.)
But in an album of 13 songs, I've listed less than half of those that I actually like. Is it enough to have only 6 songs, barely half the album, that actualyl sound as if they have any life, energy, and "umph" to them, that I might actually want to listen to over and over again? I don't know. I don't think it is enough for me. Hell, I can listen to Stand Up and Before These Crowded Streets the whole albums through, but I can't see myself doing that very often for Big Whiskey.
Perhaps LeRoi's passing put a sombre tone to the rest of the band members, and therefore the album (although he was alive to record/collaborate most of the songs of the album before saxophonist Jeff Coffin covered for him for a few songs), or perhaps his death made the remaining band members contemplate their own mortality and actually mature a bit and break out of the college-frat-rock demographic with which they're associated. But, dammit, that's what makes them who they are. And, to be honest, they did that with Before These Crowded Streets and Stand Up, both to killer effect. One can mature without cutting outthe energy and verve (I'm looking at you, Green Day). Hell, the Beatles grew up a bit and wound up releasing fucking Rubber Soul and Revolver. Maybe this is the Dave Matthews Band's Rubber Soul. Just a lot less good.
It's a stumble and a misstep, but the hardcore fans will find at least a few songs to like here. I did.

P.S. --- if you can find the bonus track, "Beach Ball", it's SO much better than any other song on the album. Take that from what you will.


Enjoy a remastered version of the song "Seven", my favorite of the album, and featuring a ridiculous picture of Dave on a giant screen at some concert.



And the aforementioned bonus track, "Beach Ball":