Sound and Fury

I might as well start by linking to Anthony Lane's review of Star Wars Episode III (published in the New Yorker), because it's wittier than anything that I'm going to write.

That said, I don't completely agree with everything he wrote. Much of the charm in the original trilogy came from some of the less septic locations: the cantina from A New Hope, Jabba's palace, etc. In fact, the first scene in the cantina was one of the most amazing displays of effects of its time, and did a lot to convince people that the movie coming up was going to be cool. However, the more recent movies have completely lost that charm. Even in the one visit to a "seedy" location in the more recent trilogy felt more like a bone thrown to fans of those moments in the original series than a serious attempt to explore the underside of Coruscant.

My real problem with Episode III is that George Lucas is about as subtle as the average jackhammer. Lane comments on his tendency to pick overly dramatic locations —— the lava planet is a prime example —— for the action, but it goes far beyond that. One example that caught my eye is that the Jedi characters all have full-on face lighting (except for one painfully out-of-place noir-like scene), while Annakin has half his face shadowed for the entire movie. Used once or twice, the contrast would have been interesting, but Lucas drives it in and breaks it off. It spreads to costuming: while rest of the Jedi wear brown and white, Annakin wears black. Symbolism is good and all, but when it's that obvious, and within something that pretends to be a religious order, it would have been nice if Lucas had given us a word of explanation.

The characterization is equally black and white, and that really sinks the trilogy. Palpatine is so overtly creepy that it's difficult to see how anyone could trust him, let alone an entire galaxy. Meanwhile, the Jedi are portrayed as so ascetic it's difficult to really believe that they're human —— or anything like it. Annakin's range of emotions consists of wooden and screaming, and his love interest manages to extend that range only to crying. In the end, it's difficult to care much about Annakin's betrayal when his tempter has been overtly evil from the beginning of the trilogy, the characters he betrays are generally unsympathetic, and Annakin himself is completely unappealing.

The general consensus has been that Episode III is better than the two that preceded it. Unfortunately, the improvement doesn't extend beyond the special effects; George Lucas can still only see the world in one of two extremes and that gets very boring very quickly.

Mile Markers

I've gotten fairly tired of most of New York.

The drive from Carol Stream, Illinois to Hanover, New Hampshire goes much of the length of New York — from Buffalo to Albany and then north, to be exact — and it turns out that much of that is quite flat and quite the same. It's not that it's necessarily boring; I've just seen it once too often. On the other hand, I haven't seen much of West Virginia recently. It's been a while since I was down in the Carolinas or Georgia either, and I've spent relatively little time west of the Appalacians.

This was all brought to mind recently when I was watching a trailer at Waverly Films' website for a short film called Naked Pictures. It's a neat trailer. It also reminded me that I've always had dreams of finding someone I wouldn't get tired of talking to, a relatively reliable car, and driving for a while. There's something awfully peaceful about driving, as long as you're not too worried about where you're going or when you get there, and you never know what you find.

First Impressions

I've noticed two new albums recently: Nine Inch Nails' long awaited With Teeth, and Garbage's reunion album Bleed With Me.

It's been almost six years since Trent Reznor released The Fragile, which is a long time to let anticipation build for an album. He's been talking about the state of music too; last year, he told Rolling Stone that he was coming back to wage war on the waves of shitty music currently populating the music world. Responding to criticism that The Fragile was too long by half, he described With Teeth as ten sharp punches to the face.

My first encounter with the music didn't live up to any of those expectations. The video for The Hand that Feeds was released on the internet several weeks ago, and it was completely underwhelming. The lyrics and melody seemed completely by the numbers: while it's true that Will you bite the hand that feeds you?/Will you stay down on your knees? is somewhat catchy, an occasional other lyric would really flesh the song out. The video itself combined all the excitement of a studio recording with a bunch of musicians sitting at the instruments with the edginess of a blue-tinted lens. It didn't even have Trent's Funny Antics like the video of March of the Pigs did.

A first listen to the album did little to reassure me. However, as I've kept listening to it, it's grown on me. While it never reaches the self-loathing intensity of The Downward Spiral or the complete depression of moments on The Fragile, there's a quiet acceptance and surrender in many of the track on With Teeth that can be just as moving. The final two tracks — Beside You in Time and Right Where it Belongs — are particularly strong in that regard, and none of the tracks are completely unlistenable. The album is Nine Inch Nails' weakest major release, and some of the lyrics are completely pedestrian, but it's still a cut above anything else on the radio these days.

My first impression of Bleed Like Me were the opposite. The video for Why Do You Love Me? captured much of the energy of many of Garbage's earlier "fun" songs, Shirley had finally abandoned the atrocious over-glammed blonde look she had sported for much of Beautiful Garbage (while it was perfect for Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go), that song wasn't the entire album). However, most of the rest of the album simply doesn't live up to that standard. The title track and It's All Over But the Crying are both up to the standard of Garbage's more introspective songs, Why Do You Love Me? is fun, and Happy Home is a serviceable closer. However, the rest of the album is completely uninteresting, and some lyrics (The boys wanna fight/while the girls are happy to dance all night) are nauseating. On Beautiful Garbage, Garbage found a number of interesting ways they could vary their sound while still remaining recognizable; with Bleed Like Me, they abandoned all of that for the same hard rock sound that I can get too much of on any Clear Channel station.

Trent Reznor was dead on target when he said that there is a lot of shitty music out there. Unfortunately, neither of these albums is ready to lead the counter-revolution.