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(07/18/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>David Sedaris, champion of the narrative essay and the New York Times Bestseller List to boot is back with his ninth book, “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls.”As always, Sedaris presents his audience with a touchingly human and comedic view of absolutely ordinary events — his recollection of being a boy on his country club swim team and not meeting his father’s expectations, purchasing a stuffed owl as a Valentine’s Day present for his partner and spending time in the airport. His prowess and writing ability makes it so that we can relate so deeply to his personal self that we feel like we’re friends with him, and he’s just telling us a story over dinner. Sedaris has a sharp and satirical way of explaining his stories — lightly setting down his feelings rather than overbearing us with them. His tone is bordering on condescending, but in a loving way. He knows his audience is smart enough to roll with just about anything, and he has a way of making even toilet humor seem on-point and not off-colored. “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls” is right up there with other greats from the author of titles such as “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” and “Me Talk Pretty One Day in Paris.” His essays are fun and incredibly insightful into his true self from his compulsive nature to his underlying judgmental attitude. On a side note, Sedaris is highly enjoyable to listen to in audiobook form. He reads his own essays and it’s a more personal experience to hear the main character of these stories tell them himself. However, with “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls,” Sedaris does veer slightly off course with his new direction, and it’s just not pretty when he does. Sedaris chose to include a few, shorter essays in this book that are not personal narratives, just fictional essays written by fictional characters. In these, Sedaris loses so much of what makes his writing beautiful. His satire is clunky and far too overstated, the humor isn’t light, and the contrast from these essays to reality is so dramatic that it’s hard to take the satire seriously at all; thus completely losing its bite. Overall, Sedaris knocks it out of the park with his personal essays, and his fictional essays are easy to overlook when surrounded by such wonderful work. The humor is rarely laugh-out-loud, but rather a smile-while-reading type of humor. It rarely lets down. Sedaris is an incredible storyteller with a gift to show his life in a way that is so personable and, in the end, such a pleasure to partake in.David Sedaris will be
reading his essays live, including a Q&A session and a book signing at 8
p.m. Nov. 7, 2013, at the IU Auditorium. His performance is part of the IU
Auditorium’s 2013-2014 season. The reading is meant for mature audiences, and
student tickets, available to purchase now at www.IUauditorium.com, cost $25,
$34 and $39.
(07/18/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“The Newsroom” is back. The world once again has reason to rejoice.That’s right. Aaron Sorkin’s HBO drama “The Newsroom” featuring Jeff Daniels as the lead anchor, Will McAvoy, at a fictional national news network steered by executive producer MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) returned this past Sunday in the premier of the show’s second season.In this season’s opener, we return to the normal ensemble of characters in their hectic news-gathering. This time however, Sorkin has us jumping through time, flashbacks to and from a deposition MacKenzie is giving to ACN’s defense attorney about a major on-air flub the team committed: the false reporting of an operation they believed to be real, codenamed “Genoa.” According to the report, the U.S. military used nerve gas. It’s safe to assume this aspect of the plot will ultimately change the structure of the season, making the time between the flashforwards and the present smaller and smaller until “Genoa” is the climax. In these flashforwards, we also discover Maggie has changed, now looking, well, punk, after a trip to Africa went awry. In the present, Maggie and Don break up after Don has been tipped off to the YouTube video of Maggie screaming her famous “Sex and the City” tirade. Jim decides he can no longer be around Maggie and so decides to take a trip on the Romney campaign bus, one that doesn’t take kindly to him because of Will’s “American Taliban” comment, for which Charlie took him off the 9/11 anniversary report. Of all the subplots opened in this episode, however, the most promising seems to be the lovable Dev discovering the very beginning dividing cells of a movement called “Occupy Wall Street.” In Sorkin’s impeccable trademark style, he makes it fun for us to watch the roots of something we’ve already seen grow and flourish. This will be a winner. This isn’t a new show, but it is slightly different. Structure and opening sequence aside, the feeling of this episode was slightly lethargic. Don’t get me wrong: overall, this episode maintained and upheld the amazing lineage of “The Newsroom,” it’s just that it lacked some of the show’s characteristic explosiveness and fire under its belly. Sorkin drops us in the middle of things, but then overexplains the hell out of everything for the first bit of the episode, dumbing it down as if he’s presenting to an audience far less intelligent than the crowd “The Newsroom” draws.Aside from that, this is a very solid opening to what is bound to be yet another amazing season. The fun is all back — I was audibly cheering for MacKenzie patching in her source live on-air. The sharp dialogue, while not here in full, rears its beautiful head, and the acting from the entire ensemble is once again nearly flawless. If Sorkin keeps doing what he does best in this show, and that’s exactly what he did in the last season, we’re in for a hell of a ride.
(07/18/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It looks like an average terrible horror movie, feels like an average terrible horror movie and, on paper, has every single cliché of an average terrible horror movie.But, it’s safe to say “The Conjuring” is one of the best, if not the best, and scariest horror movies of the past five years.“The Conjuring” tells the story of a family in the 1970s, haunted by a Rhode Island house they just moved into. A pair of demonologists, the famous Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, come to dispel the demons, discovering in the meantime the demon has taken ahold of the mother, played by Lili Taylor. The movie, like almost every horror movie released these days, ends in the exorcism of Taylor, restoring peace to the family and the demonologists.This sounds, like, so bad, right? Like, you may have yawned reading that synopsis. That’s where “The Conjuring” is such an enigma. I knew what I was watching was cliché and overdone, but still, I was curling up in my seat, screaming, and having an absolute blast. I can’t remember the last time a horror movie sunk this deeply into me. This is what I assume to be the markings of good horror — the emotional distress it causes its audience and the fun it is to go through that distress. Kind of like a roller coaster.Maybe it was the well-done atmosphere, an element a horror movie relies on heavily. Maybe it was the solid acting of Wilson, Farmiga and the entire cast. Maybe it was the outstanding production value. Maybe it was the fact it was based on a true story, basic as that may be, and maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that Ed Warren is the only demonologist ordained by the Catholic church. I really couldn’t tell you. It was probably the combination of all these things, but regardless, I can’t remember the last scary movie that was this scary and fun. It’s so refreshing to see horror done right, because it is so incredibly rare. It’s like I’ve been drinking lukewarm water for years and “The Conjuring” is a nice, tall, horrifying glass of ice-cold water. Go see it. Go see it with someone who doesn’t mind you clutching onto them for dear life.
(07/11/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s easy to be skeptical about Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” Presented entirely in black and white, using the original Shakespearean text, but taking place in a completely modern-day setting, it has the potential to end up feeling pretentious, gimmicky or incredibly clunky, or all of the above especially when you look at Whedon’s track list of superhero and sci-fi work. Believe me, “Much Ado About Nothing” at moments feels pretentious, gimmicky and clunky, or a combination of those three, but for the most part, it works well. The film is almost exactly the same, on paper, as its original Shakespearean drama of the same name — a tale of a young man, Claudio, seeking love and marriage in Hero, then defaming her, then falling back in love with her and marrying her, all while Benedick and Beatrice let their love unfold in its comedic anti-love ways, ending in their marriage. At the helm of all things good in this adaptation is the brilliant work of the ensemble cast, notably the acting of Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Clark Gregg and Fran Kranz, as Beatrice, Benedick, Leonato and Claudio respectively. It looks like they’re having fun, a true testament to the art of acting in its purest form, and they make text that is 400 years old very real and human. Joss Whedon leaves a giant stamp on this film, for better or worse. It’s filmed in his house, he wrote the score for it and he produced and adapted it for the screen. Much of the time, it’s great. The imagery is beautiful and the black and white pretty much works. The only problem “Much Ado About Nothing” has is its only selling point, though, which makes for a sticky dilemma. I can’t help but shake off the feeling that if it was in modern language, and in color, it would be painfully average. But the Shakespearean text sometimes just doesn’t work. It feels overly ambitious and falls flat when it’s so difficult keeping up with just the most basic of plotlines. It’s hard to really love the movie when it is riding so hard on a concept that is sort of gimmicky. I imagine the audience for “Much Ado About Nothing” is small, but that’s OK, since this tiny-budget nugget didn’t venture out to be the next “Avatar.” But the few people that do watch it will most likely find themselves enjoying the film — not in a life changing or top-10 list kind of way, but in a light comedic-waltz kind of way. “Much Ado About Nothing” is a solid piece of cinema simply because of how close it gets to reaching its lofty goals of intermingling the modern and the antiquated in a world of movies that have given up on trying to be anything at all.
(07/11/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A western based off of a 1950s television show, featuring Armie Hammer as the titular ranger, and his Native American sidekick Tonto, played by Johnny Depp with a $215-million budget? Oh, and it comes from the Disney powerhouse team of Gore Vebrinski as director and Jerry Bruckheimer as producer, a duo of “Pirates of the Caribbean” fame? Sounds okay, right? Like, it would be at least mildly entertaining?No. No. No. “The Lone Ranger” is one of the worst movies to come out this year, and there have already been a number of absolute flops.Just so I can begin my uninterrupted tirade of describing why this film is so painful, let me tell you the two (count them, two) good things about this movie. The scenery is absolutely beautiful, and the finale is an uncharacteristically fun gallant of a train takeover. Now that those are out of the way, let’s start talking about why “The Lone Ranger” fully deserves to be the biggest box office failure of the year, as it’s on track to be. For starters, the tone of “The Lone Ranger” is so frustratingly arrogant it’s difficult to watch. Johnny Depp is now reprising the role of himself, while Armie Hammer plays the deadpan John Reid. I never once cared for either one of the characters. Granted, Hammer’s performance is slightly more redeemable than Depp’s, but nonetheless, the acting is poor. I may have audibly groaned when Helena Bonham Carter took the stage, with her contrived and annoying accent. (Note to Hollywood — the Depp/Carter duo is done. Was done. Will always be done.) Depp, with his bold and offensive strokes of “Native American” is so mind-numbingly boring in this film that I have no problem continuing to think of him as one of the most overacted actors in Hollywood. The plot of the film is boring and uninteresting. We watch as Hammer takes on all the bad guys of the railroad industry to avenge his family’s death. Back to the film’s arrogance, “The Lone Ranger” gives us nothing to latch onto. It just assumes we’re going to love everything about the movie, notably the lead duo. Disney, if this film was intended for the 13 and under crowd, they won’t understand it. If it’s meant for the adult crowd, they won’t care. The pacing goes from slow to slower. It feels like we’re taking a walk in the film’s desert with no wate — a never-ending walk to an unknown destination. Granted, this may be in part to the film’s two and a half hour running time (back to the arrogance); the film easily could have been a half hour shorter and it would still feel too long. I’m so happy “The Lone Ranger” is going to cost Disney so many hundreds of millions of dollars and so much pride. It serves them right. You can’t slap a few big names on a poster and give it such an overinflated budget that it borders on astronomical and just expect it to be a winner. In the end, the quality of the movie is what will make people come. And “The Lone Ranger” is just absolutely, completely, through and through, terrible.
(07/11/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“You in the presence of a king. Scratch that; you in the presence of a god.”So proclaims Jay-Z in the song “Crown” on his new effort “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail,” his 12th studio album. But does he deserve this self-proclaimed praise for this album? Well, no, but it is a damn good album. Jay-Z delivers his rhymes in his trademark impeccable spitting on top of some very solid foundations and the numbers that feature guest artists enhance the album to a lofty place. So what’s not to love? Why is it not perfect?Well, it’s not that smart, and it’s not that fun. On “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail,” Mr. Carter falls into the fatal trap of lyricizing mainly about ... well, nonsense. Over and over and over again. It’s not terribly creative. Instead of filling his album space with smart, powerful and poignant lyrics that deeply express his thoughts, in the same quality of his delivery and production value, much of the poetry ends up being one-liners of things we assume he owns. Or lyrics about how he’s the greatest, and how he has so much money. Or n-word fillers. Granted, the whole album isn’t like this. Tracks like “Ocean” and “Heaven” do have wonderfully penned lyrics for the most part. “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail” also often lacks the existential quality that makes much of good hip-hop good — that of being fun to listen to, fun to bump along to. It’s amazing music for the most part, but we only really get to see the “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”-side of Jay-Z come out in a couple of songs, like “Somewhereinamerica” and “Beach Is Better.” The latter, by the way, features a hilarious line about Beyoncé. I think I literally laughed out loud.But, in the end, “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail” is an outstanding hip-hop album and definitely a solid addition to the already venerable 2013 lineup of new work from the genre.The record features the know-how of a veteran superstar. Everything is refined to such a fine tip, yet it sounds so spontaneous and off the tongue that it’s hard to believe. The opening track, “Holy Grail,” which features Justin Timberlake’s sexy falsetto styling at the top, is an almost perfect hip-hop song. Tracks like “Jay Z Blue” and “Part II (On the Run)” are testaments of the deepest cares he has in life — to his child and wife. Both showcase Jay-Z’s incredible writing ability. It’s easy to get hung up on the negatives of the album, because Jay-Z, while not yet at the status of “god” or “king,” is definitely a legend. Any piece of work he releases will be scrutinized with a fine-toothed comb. Nevertheless, when looked at in the macro, “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail” is without a doubt a great album. It’s nothing game-changing, but still a sturdy reason to love Shawn Carter.
(06/27/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s hard to believe “Under the Dome” has such iconic backers as Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, the author of the novel the show is based on. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s not that the series premiere of “Under the Dome” was all that bad. It just wasn’t good enough to live up to massive reputations like Spielberg’s and King’s.I really did want to love the show. It stars the flawless Dean Norris of “Breaking Bad” fame, who, as was expected, was at the top of his game in the pilot episode. It’s based on a pretty ingenious concept. On paper, it leaves its viewers guessing and craving more, but that just didn’t pan out onscreen.In the pilot episode, the audience watches as different citizens and visitors in small-town Chester’s Mill suddenly have their world literally shaken by a massive force-field-like dome suddenly, and seemingly out of thin air, surrounding them. Different secrets of the ensemble cast begin to take shape as more and more questions unfold. However, in the premier of “Under the Dome,” we’re treated to something slightly disappointing. The acting is just kind of matte, the dialogue wasn’t all that fun to follow and the suspense just wasn’t there. I found myself not caring much about the questions the show was throwing at me. The production quality of the series premier was laughable. At times, I felt like I was watching a SyFy Channel original movie. If you’re going to do science fiction, you can’t leave the effects to null. They have to be honed out to make the show feel polished. Granted, a pilot episode has to be judged for the potential it sets its show up with, and “Under the Dome” definitely has some potential. There’s a strong likelihood it just needs to get in its stride, that this was just first-episode stage fright. I’m rooting for you, “Under the Dome.”
(06/27/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Zombies are back from the dead.I’m not exactly sure as to what movie, television show or book brought them back, but they’re back. In the past decade, we’ve seen them in every form: comedy, action, horror, romance, drama; the list goes on and on. We’ve also seen every type of zombie: fast, slow, super strong, weak, blah blah blah.So what makes Marc Forster’s “World War Z,” based on Max Brooks 2006 novel of the same name, so unique?Well, nothing. It’s just zombie-apocalypse refined to an unparalleled degree.“World War Z” takes us through a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies seen from the eyes of an ex-United Nations investigator, played by Brad Pitt, during his search all over the hellish new world to find the cure for the disease claiming the planet. From the very get-go, “World War Z” moves at such a brisk and dizzying speed that keeping up is fun, edge-of-your-seat cinema. Save for a slightly disappointingly slow finale, it’s well-paced — it does give us needed breathers, but for the most part, the movie keeps chugging from city to city, from one terrifying zombie onslaught to the next. Just as soon as we think we’re in the clear, that’s when the mania starts again. Relentless. Visually, “World War Z” is stunning. Not many films’ special effects truly enhance them to an insane degree, but the effects featured in “World War Z” are incredible. From the zombies themselves to the speed of the zombies as they tumble over another in massive hordes to the veritable ocean of zombies climbing vertically on walls, climbing on top of one another to reach the top — it’s all breathtaking. It brings out the life in a very hard-to-imagine world, and elevates the danger to a staggering new height. Aesthetically, “World War Z” is simply on a different plane than its competitors. Throughout the movie, there would be moments where my heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest, where my breath would be taken away and where the sheer horror on the screen would feel so real that I almost felt like I was there.And in that lies the film’s almost fatal flaw. “World War Z” was so intent on making such an outstanding zombie movie that it forgot that, at its core, it was the story of humans. It found difficulty in bringing its characters to life. There was a lack of soul, no flavor and nothing that bridged the final connection between audience and screen. The acting and dialogue felt sort of stale, which, granted, can be slightly more forgivable in movies like this, but still lacking nonetheless. A much smaller complaint is the film’s compromise to nail that ubiquitously friendly PG-13 rating. For what it’s worth, the film could have brought itself to an even higher plane if it made the violence more realistic. The gore could have been way more in-your-face, and with that, heightened the urgency of the situation even more. It definitely would have been better aiming for an R rating. At the end of the day, “World War Z” is an outstanding zombie movie, a fun summer blockbuster and another solid addition to the line of strangely incredibly high-quality zombie art that has been released recently. Keep the zombie trend going, Hollywood. We don’t mind.
(06/20/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s funny. It seems like Colorado pop duo 3OH!3 put more effort into the album artwork of its fourth studio album, “Omens,” released on Tuesday, than it did into the rest of the album.This is laziness in its purest form. Before I delve into why “Omens” is one of the most disappointing works of “music” in recent memory, let me give it due credit.Its lead single, “You’re Gonna Love This,” is honestly an outstanding pop song. It’s fun, explosive, in-your-face and more enjoyable than about 90 percent of what plays on the radio these days. The track has an international-sounding, timeless-feeling electronic chord progression that makes for the only portion of this album I could listen to with a smile on my face. Other than that, the album ranges from garbage to varying shades of mediocrity. Some songs, like “Youngblood” and “Do Or Die” are okay enough to include on a respectable pop album, but that about rounds it out. If the album isn’t trying to force on its cheap, faux dubstep wannabe nonsense, it’s boring the hell out of whatever poor listener it’s plaguing. The lyrics are a joke, filled with borderline misogynistic lines and rhymes and puns that would make Weird Al Yankovic cringe. The album opens with the one-two punch (and I mean that in the most sardonic way possible) of “Omens” and “Eyes Closed,” one of the most awful introductions to an album that I think I’ve ever heard. The top of an album is supposed to be loud, fast, upbeat — just like the top of a live performance. These two songs are a joke — slow, boring, mindless and a complete chore to listen to. It’s truly not that difficult to make ten solid pop songs and an intro, especially considering their last studio album, “Streets of Gold,” was released nearly three years ago, but it seems a task that was out of 3OH!3’s reach. With a successful effort, the duo could have regained relevance and stepped back into the limelight, but with “Omens,” the band is seemingly destined to remain in the dark, musty crawl space, just like the Hollister apparel its listeners donned when 3OH!3 meant something of significance.
(06/20/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Flop with some big-budget action movie or some romantic-comedy chick-flick, society doesn’t care. But mess up the superheroes people grew up loving and society will remember.Fear not, though. Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel” doesn’t join the parade of miserable superhero movie nightmares.However, will it stand the test of time with the legends such as “The Dark Knight” and “The Avengers?” Most likely not.Where “Man of Steel” succeeds most in is in its aesthetic. We are presented here with such a truly beautiful film — from Hans Zimmer’s valiant score to Henry Cavill’s perfect ... well, everything, to Snyder’s epic vision as a whole. The film is a piece of art.Henry Cavill is the perfect socially awkward Clark Kent, sent to Earth from Krypton as Kal-El, giving us just enough humanity to grip onto, but still keeping his distance as his role as Superman. Amy Adams plays the go-getting, tough-as-nails journalist Lois Lane, selling her character from top to bottom as well as she could have and Michael Shannon nails the role of Superman’s nemesis General Zod.“Man of Steel” presents us with some themes that are massive in scope, larger than those of your run-of-the-mill superhero film — that of Superman being a Messiah-like figure, what it means to be human and the idea of one race being superior to another. It makes for some very thought-provoking cinema. It’s refreshing to see a concept that could have been very two-dimensional become much more.However, “Man of Steel” does have its faults that will keep it from going in the superhero genre hall of fame.It’s clunky as hell. The movie seems to take itself so seriously that it stumbles upon itself all over the place. Of course the entire planet isn’t going to take a threat from an “alien” seriously. It creates distance between the viewer and the movie when the reactions of the characters are so unrealistic. Where films such as “The Avengers” and the Sam Raimi “Spider-Man” trilogy succeeded was in their ability to laugh at themselves — to make light of situations that should be light, and to give heavy its due course. In the entirety of “Man of Steel,” there are only a handful of lines and moments that could be considered light-hearted or funny.Going on, the film seems slightly confused as to the tone it’s trying to set, and the overall dynamic it’s trying to convey. “Man of Steel” is a great birth-of-Superman movie, but it’s not a great superhero versus supervillain movie. We bear through an impregnated prologue on Krypton and then fast forward to Smallville, and the film flips back and forth between sequences of both ecosystems until they come together in the finale.It doesn’t really work. I found myself wanting so badly to stay entirely within Earth. An overly nationalistic villain from Krypton may work with the comic-book fans, but I wanted a, well, cooler supervillain.“Man of Steel” has its big wins and its big losses, but in the end it’s solid enough. It’s huge, it’s loud and it’s very Superman. Hopefully, we get to see some more material milked out of this one, that “Man of Steel” was just a good first part to a great trilogy.If for no other reason, though, staring at Henry Cavill for two-and-a-half hours is well worth the admission price.
(06/13/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I really want to use a cliché pun on the title of “The Purge” to describe exactly what I wanted to do after watching this miserable excuse for a horror movie.But I won’t because that may be too offensive to print.Regardless of how you spin it, “The Purge” is without a doubt one of the worst horror movies released in the past year. And that really does say quite a bit, considering the horror genre has been slacking horrendously for the past decade. Or two decades. Finding a good horror movies these days is like finding a diamond in a rock pile. “The Purge,” though, is not one of those movies. Before I delve into all the reasons why “The Purge” is so awful, I’ll explain why it’s not. “The Purge” does, in fact, try to mix it up a little bit. The formula strays from the classic stranger-in-the-house plotline. The concept of the film has some potential. It shows us an interesting, albeit terrifyingly unrealistic, dystopian United States where for one night a year, all crime is legal and citizens go on murder rampages to “purge” themselves of the hatred and aggression they build up during the year. This supposedly keeps the economy up and the crime rate for the rest of the year down. However, the execution of this idea is absolutely, completely amateur. We follow the story of the Sandin family dealing with the night of the Purge in the year 2022 (which, by the way, looks exactly like the year 2013) as they face multiple threats to the home they thought was safe. Mediocre acting, atrocious writing that reminds me of something I would write in the sixth grade and one of the worst endings I’ve ever seen in a movie — the theater burst out into laughter — make up for one pretty bad movie.The scares are mild and far apart. The only way the movie got me even moderately frightened was by using creepy masks, one of the cheapest tricks in the book. “The Purge” only really flows when it’s at its quick-moving parts. The slow parts of the movie are a dead crawl. It tries to set up moral dilemmas, which, granted, is a welcome deviation from the average horror, but they don’t work when you kind of hate every character in the film and aren’t really rooting for anyone. It seems mean-spirited and is littered with racist undertones that make it even more dislikable than it already is. I love the horror/suspense genre, and like the hopeless romantic that I am I’ll continue to go to the movies to see the newest flick, even though I know I’ll probably leave the cinema disappointed. “The Purge” did nothing to end my disappointment.
(06/13/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>How much did Google pay to get a two-hour advertisement starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson? Better yet, how much did 20th Century Fox have to pay these two actors to pick up a script that was so clearly below any A-list actor? What was the demographic for this movie — the 18 to 24-year-olds who had seen the much funnier “Wedding Crashers” starring the two leads almost eight years ago, or the pre-teens who are just feeling content being at a PG-13 comedy?These are the questions running through my mind after watching “The Internship.”It seems that the creative team behind “The Internship” dug up every comedy script from the past decade and spun it around with the San Francisco-based Google being the fresh and innovative setting. And by fresh and innovative, I mean contrived and completely unessential. No, what Google turns out to be is just a stage for Vaughn and Wilson to play off each other, to show us that old dogs can, in fact, teach new dogs tricks, and to star in their own film — one that is wholly unentertaining and a “comedy” that just isn’t funny. The laughs were few, far between and less laugh-out-loud outbursts, more slight chuckles. The 119-minute comedy runs about 30 minutes too long. It’s almost as if director Shawn Levy is apologizing to us for having to pay $10 to see this flub by giving us too much poor-quality film. “The Internship” follows two middle-aged salesmen who’ve just lost their jobs as they find themselves at an internship with prestigious Google pitted up against kids half their age. As predictably as possible, the kids who resented Vaughn and Wilson for weighing them down at the beginning of the movie end up warming up to them, learning from them, and of course...the underdogs take the top prize of the coveted full-time careers at Google. I would warn you of spoilers at the top of this paragraph, but it would insult your intelligence to believe that you couldn’t predict that just by watching the trailer. All “The Internship” left me with was a longing for the 2010 “The Social Network” — a movie that actually uses all the massive potential of showing the onscreen relationship between the Internet and its human architects. In fact, there’s a good idea. Stay home, save your money, and watch that again...or any other movie that will save you from wasting your money on this cliché comedy.
(06/13/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Black Sabbath is back, and all guns are blazing.The “godfathers of metal” (sans original drummer Bill Ward) spared no effort on their 19th studio album, “13,” released on Monday.The album kicks off with a bang on the opening track “End of the Beginning” and is relentless in its pummeling thereon after. The lead single, “God Is Dead?” is one of the most valiant numbers on the album, circling down the classic Black Sabbath-style tri-tonage and a loud, catchy chorus that climaxes with Tony Iommi’s ripping solo that proves 65 years of age, two missing fingertips and lymphoma from just six months prior doesn’t stop a veritable guitar legend from making musical magic. “13” seems to be a stomp in the face to metal nowadays, showing to the younger bands how it’s really done. No crazy down-tuning or incomprehensible screaming or growling required. This is how metal should be.The music is characteristic of Black Sabbath, very typical of the 1970s and 80s, yet stays relevant. The album gives the listener a slight breather with the melancholy, atmospheric “Zeitgeist.” The number shows off that Sabbath can be great music without being as aggressive and loud as the band typically is, and how the rest of the album is. “Live Forever” is another gem on the album, sprinting through its ride-heavy drums and showcasing even more Iommi soloing. “13” truly is not without its flaws, however. It’s not that one or two specific songs on the album are clearly subpar to the others. It’s just that the band fails to give each song, save for a couple, a very distinct flavor. Per classic metal tradition, the songs are long and repetitive — which can be done to perfection a la Metallica’s 1986 “Master of Puppets” — but perfection is not achieved here. At the end of the day, though, “13” is an album that is wholly worth hearing and jamming out to. You’re not going to hear most of the songs on the radio. This isn’t like the latest pop album in which two-thirds of it will eventually end up in single form. No — most of the songs here clock in at the seven to eight minute range, and the style is simply too aggressive for heavy airtime. Teenagers will not be going in hordes to their local music piracy website to download this one and it probably won’t top many charts. But that shouldn’t stop you from giving it a chance. This music is balls-to-the-wall, pounding, loud fun. Join the other 45-year-old guys who are going to Best Buy to pick up the physical CD of “13”. Just because metal’s not popular anymore doesn’t mean there isn’t some really great stuff here.
(06/05/13 7:54pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“I blow my load over the status quo.”So sings Josh Homme on the eighth track, “Smooth Sailing” of “…Like Clockwork,” Queens of the Stone Age’s hyped sixth studio album.The lyric perfectly describes the 70’s-inspired rock and roll album.“…Like Clockwork” succeeds in breaking the mold of a notably vacant hard rock scene, filled with a myriad of albums that are beginning to sound textbook and formulaic. That being said, formulaic is the very last word I’d use to describe “…Like Clockwork.”The veteran group’s effort valiantly transcends cliché chord progressions and rarely sticks to conventional song structures. It brings back the retro sound that not only made Queens of the Stone Age so beloved, but also made the 70’s a golden age of rock and roll, without sounding like the band is trying to copy directly from any long-gone band.The opening track, “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” spins us down a spooky and atmospheric spiral, crunching in huge palm-muted powerchords, introducing us into an album of upbeat rock, highlighted on songs like “I Sat by the Ocean,” “If I Had a Tail,” and “Smooth Sailing,” and rich piano-driven ballads like “The Vampyre of Time and Memory,” and “Kalopsia.” “…Like Clockwork” is Queens of the Stone Age perfecting its classic no-holds-barred 70’s distorted rock and roll, with frontman Josh Homme’s deep lyrics being sung through his trademark vocal patches. Debuted at Lollapalooza Brazil, the lead single, “My God is the Sun” is the heaviest and most upbeat track on the album, ripping through its loose riffage and catchy lyrics with style and ease. However, “…Like Clockwork” has its blunders, as well. “I Appear Missing” is forgettable, getting lost in the thick of the album, and the title track is a poor closing for the album. In fact, it feels like trudging through thick waters. It’s a welcome change of pace, but it’s disappointing to see such a strong effort finish with such a forgettable number. Overall, “…Like Clockwork” is an excellent piece of work as a whole, bouncing back and forth between all kinds of styles while maintaining a very strong stylistic presence. The 70’s crunchy groove on top of the driving rock and roll drums just works. The phased out guitar leads, the countless effects, and the rich, deep bass make the album sound well-crafted and fun to listen to. The sound is definitely weird. Much of the album isn’t meant for a casual listener, and a lot of it will only appeal to veteran Queens fans, but for the most part, the album lives up to the hype, and the weirdness of “…Like Clockwork” is welcome and wonderful.
(06/05/13 7:36pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Going to see “Now You See Me” is a lot like watching the magic tricks the film glorifies. It moves so quickly that even though you know you had fun, you aren’t completely sure as to what just happened.And therein lies the film’s biggest problem.Director Louis Leterrier presents us with a film that sprints so fast through its paces that while there’s a whole lot plot in the film, there isn’t room for much else. There’s little to no character development, no time to stop and smell the aesthetic beauty that the film so wholeheartedly deserved. It’s just a bullet-speed, sleight-of-hand buildup to a not-completely-satisfying twist.Don’t get me wrong, the film has a lot to praise. The ensemble cast does an excellent job in their respective roles, notably Jesse Eisenberg in classic form, with his fast-talking, condescending-yet-lovable arrogance. However, the cast is given a script that lacks much depth. The dialogue is stale, and we never really end up caring for any of the characters.The razzle-dazzle of the onscreen magic itself, however, is where “Now You See Me” shines. Sitting in the audience, I felt like a kid at a circus, exclaiming audibly and involuntarily with glee at the showy tricks and illusions the four leads would tightly choreograph on their larger-than-life stages. The film ends up being a meta of itself, panning us in so tightly on the action that we never see the big picture. This is not necessarily a good thing. It was handled sloppily. The twist doesn’t get the sought after reaction, and we never really understand the purpose of the main characters’ Robin Hood motives. Nevertheless, once you get past the bright lights and the smoke and mirrors, you realize that the film lacks much substance. Granted, for being a summer blockbuster flick, that’s not a terrible thing. I wasn’t going into this movie expecting Schindler’s List. “Now You See Me” gave me the fun I want out of a summer flick, and even though it’s not going on any Top 10 list anytime soon, it’s a great couple hours of enjoyable yet forgettable summer blockbuster...magic.
(05/30/13 12:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The folk rock band Night Beds made its return to Bloomington Tuesday night at the Bishop, accompanied this time by solo acoustic rock performer Jenny O. Jenny O. released her debut record Automechanic in February. A singer since she was 5 years old, and a songwriter since her teens, Jenny O. is currently on an international tour supporting both Night Beds and the band Rodriguez. “It’s my passion. It’s a craft that I live by,” Jenny O. said on her first night performing in Bloomington.Jenny O. took the stage at 9:30 p.m. to showcase some of her music about half an hour after the doors opened. Songs included a personal favorite of Jenny O.’s, “Get Lost,” a track she said is about “taking off with another person.”Night Beds has risen in popularity since its February 2012 performance in Bloomington, the home of their record label, Dead Oceans.Bloomington resident Matt Novak said he found the band a couple of months ago on a website and began enjoying its alternative rock style, a genre of music of which Novak was not usually a fan. “There’s a chill aspect to their music,” Novak said. Night Beds performed to an intimate, yet warm and receptive audience at the Bishop, cheering after the numbers and even participating in some playful banter back and forth with the frontman, Winston Yellen.All night long the ghostly vocal harmonies and atmospheric folk rock, with steel guitar to boot, washed over the audience at the Bishop. At the end of the night, Yellen performed an encore as a solo act, performing one of his favorites, “Tenn.” Yellen said he enjoyed his time in Bloomington.“I really love it here,” Yellen said. “It’s my kind of vibe.”
(01/21/13 7:59pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Most people do not stay for the credits of a movie. It’s a different story for Hoosiers when an IU graduate makes the list.Ryan O’Connell, a 2011 graduate of IU,is now writing and arranging music for movies and theatrical productions. After graduating from the Jacobs School of Music with a degree in French horn performance and a minor in conducting and composition, O’Connell moved to California to study film scoring at the University of Southern California, where he worked with some professionals in the field, such as Kenny Hall and Rick Baptist. O’Connell has since written several scores such as multiple TV documentaries, music for a televised awards show, TV commercial music, Kickstarter videos and even choral music for Shawnee Press, such as “Caterpillar” and “Here We Come A-Wassailing.” One of O’Connell’s most prolific achievements so far has been writing a musical designed to be performed at the high school level, “Horror High: The Musical.”“It’s kind of like High School Musical if everyone was a monster,” O’Connell said. O’Connell said he enjoyed his time at IU. “Indiana helped me to be comfortable in my own skin and made me confident in the things that I was trying to do, even though they were unusual for what I had originally gone there to study,” O’Connell said. Even though he is currently working with more popular styles of music such as film scoring, O’Connell said he uses various aspects of his musical education for the better.“The orchestral classical background has definitely given me an advantage in the real world,” he said.O’Connell said he learned the right way to do things through his professors at IU. “I had very supportive professors who encouraged me, even when the stuff I was studying was not my chosen field originally,” O’Connell said. One professor at the Jacobs School who O’Connell said especially influenced him was Jeff Nelsen, professor of horn. Nelsen and O’Connell have collaborated since his time at IU, including work on a website for sheet music and artistic collaboration. O’Connell wrote a five-movement piece for Nelsen and his wife which premiered at the International Horn Conference in Australia.“Everybody loved it,” Nelsen said. “Everybody was in tears at the end. It’s a really beautiful work. We’re going to record it in the future.”Nelsen said O’Connell worked hard as a student. “He was great, very focused,” Nelsen said. “He really wanted to be as good as he could get. We worked a lot on him getting over setbacks quickly. He’s obsessed with his goals, and keeps working regardless of what gets in his way.” O’Connell also received a jumpstart at the Jacobs School and said assistant professor of Composition Aaron Travers was especially influential in his work making orchestral arrangements.“He was always a very enthusiastic student,” Travers said. “Always had a smile on his face. He was pretty talented, actually. He had a good sense of how to orchestrate.”O’Connell was in Travers’ first class. In his composition course, Travers offered a one-day study on music scoring in film – a study which now takes place during an entire week.Since graduating from IU in 2011, O’Connell said he has many things planned for the future. He said plans of work to be performed at Disneyland are underway. After his experiences, O’Connell said he has advice for current music students at IU.“There’s so much music out there, that it’s worth it to at least listen to anything and everything you can get your hands on,” O’Connell said. “Do things outside of music – just keep yourself diverse and keep life interesting.”
(10/26/12 3:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A two-year-old proposal by the student government of Ashton Center was finally passed and implemented, making certain buildings in Ashton co-ed, meaning that males and females would be living on the same floor with male-occupied rooms next to female-occupied rooms. Ashton is a dormitory the consists entirely of single rooms, and this switch was made to generate a greater sense of community, Ashton residence manager Shelley Arroyo said. “More people talking, more people getting vocal, that’s how it came up,” Arroyo said. “Feedback so far has been really, really good.”The switch hasn’t gone without its hitches, said Jennifer Swilik, a residence assistant at Ashton.“There are more girl-guy problems going on,” Swilik said. “I think the guys like to mess with the girls a lot, and some girls don’t appreciate that.”The lack of public knowledge of the change ahead of time also sparked issues, Arroyo said.“Three people wanted to move rooms as soon as they found out,” Arroyo said. “Part of our plan for next year is that you would know ahead of time that this is definitely happening.”Arroyo said another potential for problems is that some people would feel uncomfortable if there wasn’t an even number of males and females on any given floor. Swilik said it seems, though, that the goal of building a greater sense of community is being achieved. “This being my second year, and having guys on the floor, I’ve noticed that the floor seems to be more social,” Swilik said. “There seems to be guys and girls interacting a lot and people are out in the lounge more. It just seems like the co-ed has made everyone a bit more social. “