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(04/28/10 8:07pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Willie Nelson has been recording country albums on a shockingly regular basis since 1962, but there’s one sub genre he’s never touched: bluegrass. With “Country Music,” his latest full-length, that all changes.Nelson calls “Country Music” his first bluegrass record, and while it lacks some of the requisite speedy tempos inherent in that genre, there’s more than enough banjo, fiddle and forlorn caterwauling for it to qualify.All hair-splitting classification aside, the most important thing this album does is display that even at 76 years of age, Willie’s still got it. His continuing output of quality music in the face of his trouble with the IRS and the rigors of aging is a testament to his strong will. His vocals on new songs such as “Dark As a Dungeon” and “Satisfied Mind” are as powerful as they ever have been, and he has a full line-up of concerts scheduled. At the risk of sounding ageist, there can’t be many other 76-year-olds who can say that.
(04/21/10 6:38pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the weeks leading up to the release of “Kick-Ass,” director Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s blood-soaked graphic novel of the same name, test audiences all over the world were reaching a similar verdict: This is some of the most fun we’ve ever had at the theater.It should come as no surprise that regular audiences have started chiming in with the same sentiment. Simply put, “Kick-Ass” kicks ass. It is everything that a comic-book movie can and should be, and belongs right up there with “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” among the best films in that category.While concerns arose that the over-the-top nature of the movie’s fight scenes would leave other elements — namely, plot and performances — lacking, those concerns were thankfully misguided. In fact, without Vaughn’s snappy script and career performances from wunderkinds Chloe Moretz, Aaron Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (not to mention Nicolas Cage in a rare role that doesn’t detract from the movie), the action violence and foul-mouthed antics wouldn’t amount to much.Moretz commands the screen especially well. As Hit-Girl, a preteen weapons master indoctrinated in the ways of crime fighting by her father, she kills more people and drops more four-letter words than any other character but is still given immense emotional depth by the 13-year-old Moretz in a performance showing poise far beyond her years. Critics of stylized comic-book movies will likely find plenty to hate in “Kick-Ass.” It isn’t accessible in the traditional sense of the word. But anyone willing to take a movie whose leads parade around in brightly colored spandex at face value will find an uproariously self-aware action comedy that showcases some fine young talent and, beyond a shadow of a doubt, kicks ass.
(04/21/10 5:37pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When Coheed and Cambria released “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow” in 2007, those paying attention rejoiced. The music it contained was easily the best thing the band had done, and perhaps more importantly, it meant the end of a four-album concept arc that had dragged on for far too long.After a three-year wait, Coheed gave in once more to the temptation of pretentiousness: “Year of the Black Rainbow” is a prequel to the four albums that came before it. This would be acceptable if it continued to expand on the band’s formula of fusing infectiously catchy emo-tinged rock songs with a keen ear for the epic and progressive.Unfortunately, “Year of the Black Rainbow” is a largely complacent rehashing of the band’s back catalog. It seems the group decided that because the album takes place before its last four albums lyrically, it should take place there musically, as well. The result is a disappointing hour of music — not bad, per se, but dripping with an overwhelming sense of what could have been.
(04/14/10 9:46pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Jan. 25, the justice department of the United States approved a proposed merger between ticket brokering agencies Ticketmaster and Live Nation. While many saw this seemingly minor deal as a litmus test of the Obama administration’s attitude toward antitrust legislation, most fans couldn’t look beyond the negative consequences of such a merger.Ticketmaster (or Ticketbastard, as it’s often lovingly called by concertgoers) has a well-documented history of jacking up ticket prices and creating surcharges of questionable origin with names like “convenience charge” and “processing fee.”Live Nation, on the other hand, has notoriously broken software that somehow allows people who go to buy their tickets a week after the on-sale date to get front-row tickets while people who logged on immediately can do no better than row fifteen. This, paired with an asinine “paperless ticketing” policy that only exacerbates the problems with the software, has made them Public Enemy Number Two for fans of live music.What the merger seems to do is combine the very worst elements of these two companies and reflect all the inefficiencies in the ticket-buying process and the prices. Some of what fans fear has already come to pass, as Ticketmaster has begun redirecting buyers for certain shows to the Live Nation site, and vice versa.Perhaps the most disturbing thing about all of this is that it’s perfectly legal for these companies to do what they did, and it’s unlikely the decision will ever be overturned. As long as a customer can still drive to the venue box office and buy a ticket, and as long as small brokering firms like TicketNow and TicketWeb exist, Live Nation Entertainment, as the firm resulting from the merger is known, will never have a monopolistic share of the market.Live Nation Entertainment has found a way to be the most convenient way to buy tickets, and they’re going to make consumers pay dearly for that convenience. There are no winners here except for their shareholders.
(04/14/10 9:36pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Heavy metal is a genre that has always had a split personality. By the middle of the ’80s, metal fans were aligning themselves in camps: if you were into Slayer and Anthrax, you were true; if you were into Poison and Ratt, you were false.It’s still true that so-called false metal gets radio play, and true metal is forced to build its fan base by word of mouth. Two relatively new subgenres — metalcore and deathcore — provide perfect examples. These genres take the worst elements of melodic metal, death metal and modern hardcore, throw them in a blender and sell out theaters all over the country.But beneath the surface, metal is thriving as much as it ever has. Atlanta’s Mastodon has spent the last decade becoming the biggest metal band on the planet, and in a rare convergence of popularity matching up with prowess, they deserve it. Their sound is unmistakable, and each album has pushed them higher into the SoundScan stratosphere, with 2009’s “Crack the Skye” selling 41,000 copies in its first week and debuting at 11 on the Billboard 200.The immense popularity of Mastodon even amidst the success of the aforementioned “core” genres has to be seen as a good sign. Several other bands have straddled the lines of mainstream critical acclaim and true metal fan approval, most notably black metal duo Cobalt and progressive metal quintet Between the Buried and Me.Perhaps most responsible for the propagation of great metal in the last decade are media outlets and labels. Decibel Magazine and the Invisible Oranges blog give national exposure to bands that might never get the chance to play outside of their hometowns otherwise. Profound Lore Records and Relapse Records have become the kingmakers of metal, signing bands and helping them explode in popularity.Chris Bruni, the founder of Profound Lore, has taken a special interest in Indianapolis bands: The Gates of Slumber released their “Conqueror” LP on the label before moving to Rise Above Records, and Coffinworm and Apostle of Solitude have both released new full-lengths on the label this year. These bands, along with Columbus, Ohio, native Struck By Lightning, Chicago trio Lair of the Minotaur and others, have started a metal revolution in the Midwest, and now it’s one of the genre’s geographical strongholds.
(04/14/10 7:47pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There’s no getting around how odd this is going to sound, so I’ll just put it out there: former Guns n’ Roses guitarist Slash’s solo debut rocks.The album has a skull with guitar-shaped crossbones wearing a top hat against a garish red background with a graffiti-style logo on its cover, but it rocks. It has guest appearances from Fergie, Kid Rock and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, among others, but it rocks.Slash is undoubtedly one of the most legendary guitarists in the history of rock, but on paper, his solo album seems too gimmicky and insincere to be any good. He defies the odds by letting his phenomenal blues-based licks guide the fourteen songs, each of which features an appearance by a different guest singer (excluding Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy, who appears twice).Shaking off accusations of irrelevance and suggestions that he’s merely a nostalgia act, Slash has given us a solid new set of songs that can sit comfortably next to his work in Guns n’ Roses.It might be shocking, but Slash still has it.
(04/12/10 10:43pm)
Best Short Story
(04/05/10 10:35pm)
“The Onion” can always be counted on for a laugh, and last’s Thursday’s “American Voices” feature was no exception. When informed that a copy of “Action Comics #1” sold for $1.5 million, the unemployed (and fictional) Meredith Tunison responded by saying “What's the point? That whole timeline was wiped out after the Crisis On Infinite Earths.”This made me laugh, but it also got me thinking. Comic book universes are constantly growing and evolving as dozens of issues are released each month. But these issues aren’t self-contained. The writers have to be ever-conscious of how their stories will affect the universe at large. As such, the universes get ridiculously convoluted as the writers try to respect continuity. When this happens, sometimes you just have to blow everything up and start all over again.That’s exactly what DC did when they released the aforementioned “Crisis on Infinite Earths” series. Some of the higher-ups decided that continuity was getting too complex, confusing and inconsistent, so they decided there would be a twelve-issue run to simplify things. In the series, catastrophic events put an end to the parallel universes that DC had confusingly created and created a new universe at the dawn of time where all future DC stories would occur. In an effort to clean up fifty years of confusing continuity, DC literally destroyed everything and started from scratch.The series was wildly successful. Along with Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” and Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” it gave DC back a lot of the readers it had lost to Marvel in the preceding decade of confusion and mediocrity. DC became relevant practically overnight, and they haven’t lost much steam since.Marvel’s response to an overly convoluted continuity wasn’t quite as drastic as blowing up the world – Marvel Comics take place on our own, real planet Earth, after all. Instead, they did the exact and added a new one.In 2000, Marvel launched the Ultimate Universe with the publication of “Ultimate Spider-Man.” The intention was not unlike DC’s intention during “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” Marvel leadership thought that the origin stories and continuity were becoming too convoluted for casual readers and wanted to move their product to a new fan base. Rather than eliminating the old continuities and annoying the dedicated readers who had been following them for decades, they just started a parallel universe, one where origin stories were tweaked and Nick Fury looked like Samuel L. Jackson. The new universe was a hit. Not only did new readers pick it up, seasoned comics veterans devoured the fresh new look at their beloved characters. Meanwhile, the traditional Marvel Comics universe kept clicking along, getting as complex and convoluted as it wanted with dozens of event comics changing the face of the world as we know it, and no one complained.When continuities get too complex for average readers, it is the job of the comic book company to correct things. Both DC and Marvel saw great success with their separate ways of fixing their universes, and they’ve become stronger companies because of it. Could we see another overhaul in the near future? Will Marvel blow up the world? Will DC give us a new universe (they already sort of have with the Elseworlds books, but those aren’t within one continuity)? Only time will tell, but we have no reason not to trust them to do it right.
(04/05/10 5:30pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Alright, so here's some thoughts:Horror movies are not great cinema - in fact, despite being a horror buff of sorts, I can easily count on two hands the number of horror movies that I like that are also great movies. A lot of the appeal can be in the campy violence and satanic undertones; you know, metal stuff. But this recent wave of horror remakes (with exception for the first Rob Zombie "Halloween" remake, I would say) are mainly made for people who don't like horror movies. They put asses in seats for a couple of weeks and then no one will ever buy the DVD. "True" horror movies breed fan cultures not unlike the ones I wrote about last week - they transcend their objective worth. 90% of horror remakes are lose-lose scenarios. They're bad movies, the people they should be marketed to shun them, the people they are marketed to don't like them, and they're tarnishing the names of franchises even more than unnecessary sequels already have. And Wes Craven is dead to me. By the end of the summer, his entire Unholy Trinity ("The Last House on the Left," "The Hills Have Eyes," and "A Nightmare on Elm Street") will have been remade, and that's being generous and forgetting that he ruined his own reputation with "Scream."Thoughts?- Brad Sanders would have to disagree with you slightly about the quality of horror cinema. I don't believe that the horror film as an institution is fundamentally flawed; rather, horror films key into very animalistic and primal fears in a way that executives and movie makers long ago learned could be used to exploit viewers. Few films can get such a strong emotional reaction from viewers, and the people making horror films know that. I would also put the number of horror films that I consider great movies in the single digits, but I don't think that necessarily says anything about the genre.I agree that horror remakes are usually just a waste of time for everyone involved. Maybe I'm just sounding like an old guy, but I think horror films may have already peaked as far as shock value goes. Most of the horror remakes I've seen in the last decade or so derive their scariness just from violence and gore - the grossout. They seem to be marketed as an even scarier version of a preexisting movie. But the horror films from the late '70s and '80s aren't much softer than their horror remakes. Romero's Dawn of the Dead has as much people-eating as the remake and I would say it's just as graphic. Shock value seems to be the main selling point of these remakes, but it's already been done. Where is there to go?- Brian MarksI agree that it doesn't make the genre less legitimate; there was a time when I primarily watched horror movies, and they attract some of the most serious fans of anything in pop culture.And I definitely agree that the gross-out factor is the primary tactic used by new horror directors despite the fact that everything has been done. More obnoxious than that, even, is the propensity of these directors to show the breasts of sexy ladies and get a cheap scare out of the audience by having something loudly pop onscreen. The formula is painfully easy to master, and the product is never anything worthwhile.Adding insult to injury, the only great horror film of the last decade, "Let the Right One In," is being remade in English this year and retitled "Let Me In." It's only been three years, for Satan's sake! Leave it alone! Remakes and reboots are running rampant throughout Hollywood, but nowhere is it more evident than in horror.- BSWow, "Let Me In." I wonder if that has sexual undertones.I'm sure we could bash horror remakes for hours, but are there any remakes that you think actually work?- BMI think the first "Halloween" movie by Rob Zombie and the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" were the closest thing to good. "Halloween" gave back story if that's what you were into, personally, I think the greatness of the original lies in the total lack of a Michael Myers back story. And "Hills" put an unfortunately modern twist on the Craven classic, but did some stuff in the realm of visuals that Craven probably wishes he had access to in 1977. And "The Ring" is a totally acceptable reimagining of "Ringu" as well. Otherwise, none that I can name. You?- BSI haven't seen the new "Hills Have Eyes," although it seems like the rare remake that actually had a few okay reviews thrown in. I like bits of Rob Zombie's "Halloween," but the acting was the most frightening part of that movie. I think Rob Zombie does interesting things with horror movies and has a great knowledge of the genre, but he is incapable of getting an actor to do anything believable, or even picking actors who have that capacity. It might help if he stayed away from friends and family members.I have an admiration for "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" that I'm not very proud of. Maybe it's because it was the first horror remake I can remember seeing, before I was sick of them. I admire something about how nihilistic that movie is, and think it has a great sense of atmosphere. But the cast isn't anything great, as is expected, and by trying to give a back story to the Leatherface character, they make him seem like a little kid with an anger problem.But I can't really say there are any horror remakes I'm in love with.- BMI can get behind that criticism of Zombie. I used to worship him as a director and I'd say that The Devil's Rejects is one of the best horror films of the last decade, but the acting is terrible. It used to be okay because it was supposed to be campy, but if he's going to keep making "real" movies, he needs to get some real actors and not just his damn wife.Not to mention "House of 1000 Corpses" is the only semi-parody of that campy, schlocky 1970s style that actually transcended it and became a really good movie on its own merits. In fact, I'd say the right thing to do rather than remake, reboot, or make sequels to old horror movie is to pay homage to them as Zombie did with his first two films. He should be an example to directors interested in doing this kind of stuff - of course, he went and broke his own rules and continues to, but hey, he tried for a while.- BS
(03/31/10 6:48pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Time has been cruel to Germany’s once-premier hard-rock outfit Scorpions. 1982’s “Blackout” was a landmark in German heavy music — the soaring vocals of Klaus Meine, the Iron Maiden-esque guitar harmonies of Matthias Jabs and Rudolf Schenker and the fists-in-the-air arena anthem “No One Like You” gave them international superstar status, and rightly so.Unfortunately, on “Sting in the Tail” — the quintet’s final album — nothing goes right. This is tepid, stale old-man rock at its finest, a middling attempt to recapture past glories that can’t even capture the listener’s attention. The first two tracks employ an obnoxious Framptonian talk box, and the album has at least four ballads (it’s easy to lose count when none of them are memorable).It’s sad to see such a classic band go out so ugly, but if this is all they’re capable of at this point, it’s probably for the better that they quit.
(03/30/10 1:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Comic book lovers are generally thought to be one community, in solidarity against detractors, with comic shops as their citadels. But there is a huge rift among these brethren that brews without much discussion. Some people are readers, and some people are collectors.Now, that isn’t to say that the two types of fan are mutually exclusive, because they aren’t. In fact, I would guess that there aren’t any comic book collectors who don’t also read comic books, nor any people who primarily buy comic books for reading aren’t proud of their collections. But the priorities of these two groups are radically different, and that’s reflected in the way comic books are marketed.Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn, Ohio, the largest comic book store in the United States, exacerbates the friendly rivalry between readers and collectors. The store is divided into two rooms, one of which has trade paperbacks, new comics, and back issues that aren’t worth very much. The other room is stuffed full of vintages pulps, Golden Era comics, and various other books whose prices have more numbers before decimal point than after. I use Bookery as an example because it’s fascinating to listen to how different the conversations on either side of that threshold are. People browsing the collectibles boast to the store’s owner about the enormous value of their collections and the immaculate condition they keep them in. There are discussions of temperature control, display shelves, and how much money it costs to maintain such amazing collections.Walk through the doorway to the other side, though, and the conversations take on a different form. Discussions about continuity in the Marvel Universe emerge. Geeks debate the merits of various writers and artists. People complain about having to pay extra for alternate covers when the store sells out of the standard. Chances are, most of the people scouring the trade paperbacks for a glossier version of something they’ve already read aren’t interested in the proper care of 1940s pulps. It’s interesting to me that this rift exists. Both groups are composed very niche hobbyists, but their priorities differ so greatly that it’s hard to imagine that they’re fans of the exact same thing.Still, if someone marched into Bookery Fantasy one day and proclaimed that comic books were for losers, I think it’s safe to assume that members of both factions would rise up in arms. At the end of the day, we’re all nerds. We just express ourselves slightly differently.
(03/24/10 10:52pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Ever since Captain America punched Adolf Hitler in the face on the cover of his very first issue, the American comics industry has always commented on the contemporary political atmosphere, if not always as blatantly as it did in 1943.Since he started it all, it’s only fitting that Captain America stirred up a fit of controversy recently when he – inadvertently, according to Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada – condemned the Tea Party movement as racist in Ed Brubaker’s “Captain America #602.” In the story, Captain America is observing a white supremacy march and one of the signs being held by a protestor clearly reads “TEA BAG THE LIBERAL DEMS BEFORE THEY TEA BAG YOU” – an actual sign famously photographed by the Washington Post at a Tea Party march in Washington, D.C. The controversy rose to a fever pitch in the days following the issue’s release, and Quesada had to issue a formal apology. The backpedaling read as follows:“On the following page featuring the protestors again, there were signs, but nothing written in them. From a continuity standpoint, this omission stood out like a sore thumb, but was easily fixable. So, just before the book went to the printer, the editor asked the letterer on the book to just fudge in some quick signs. The letterer in his rush to get the book out of the door but wanting to keep the signs believable, looked on the net and started pulling slogans from actual signs. That’s when he came upon this one.And used it in the scene and off it went to the printer. Unfortunately, to make the deadline, the work wasn’t double-checked thoroughly, and it was printed as is, which is where we as an editorial group screwed up. We spoke to the letterer, and he was mortified at his mistake and was truly sorry as he had no political agenda. He was just trying to do his job, but ultimately the onus falls on me as E-i-C. All that said, we caught the mistake two weeks ago, after it was printed and removed the sign from the art files so that it no longer appears in future reprints of the title or collections. So, while the crowd protesting has nothing to do with the villains in the story, we in no way meant to say they were associated with the Tea Party movement, it was a simple perfect storm of screw-ups. It happens, we’re human.”Alright, that’s fair. It was a mistake. Ed Brubaker was not calling the Tea Party protestors racists, and neither was Captain America. The official story makes Marvel sound bumbling, but certainly not overtly political. Still, there’s something deeply unsatisfying about this explanation. Sure, it’s the most likely one, but there’s a part of me that hopes it was totally intentional. The politics Brubaker expresses here might be of questionable taste, but it would at least show that he has the balls to be political in a comic about a superhero who fights for what’s right for America. It’s not like it would be the first time it happened.Spencer Ackerman of the Attackerman Blog summed it up best: “I’ve read Ed Brubaker’s run as Captain America writer and this strikes me as entirely commensurate with the stories Brubaker tells portraying Cap as a redeeming figure for an increasingly hysterical country. (And his “death” as jostling America’s moral gyroscope.) Captain America would tell the teabaggers that they ought to consider that freedom is something rather more than the top marginal tax rate. Marvel is a huge corporate entity, so I get that it can’t be so overtly political, but c’mon — one of the villains of Siege’s accompanying Embedded book is based on Glenn Beck. Norman Osborn demands that the enemies of the Dark Avengers be taken alive “for enhanced interrogation.”It’s somewhat disconcerting to think that Marvel needs to be concerned about being political. Comics have consistently been one of the most political sources of alternative media since their inception. Captain America’s very existence is evidence. Alan Moore’s title character in "V for Vendetta" is a terrorist against an increasingly authoritarian British government, and that book was released during the Thatcher Administration. Brian K. Vaughan’s hero in "Ex Machina" is the dope-smoking, gay marriage-legalizing mayor of New York City, and his allegoric family of lions in "Pride of Baghdad" walked through an Iraqi warzone before being gunned down by American troops. Politics are not something new to comics, and if Brubaker meant to belittle the Tea Party, then he should have been allowed to, Disney-Marvel buyout or not.
(03/24/10 9:25pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When the Coen brothers’ comedy “The Big Lebowski” premiered in March 1998, it was a financial failure. It made just over $5.5 million in its opening weekend, landing it in sixth place at the box office. Four years later, two friends from Louisville, Ky., rented out a local bowling alley to hold a celebration of the film that they called Lebowski Fest, and, to their surprise, people flocked from all over the country to attend. Today, there are successful Lebowski Fests held in Louisville, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland and Boston every year. Something has happened since that disappointing first weekend in 1998, and that something is what makes a cult movie.Ed Comentale, a professor in the English department, studies cult films and recently co-edited “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies,” a collection of essays on The Dude’s cult following. He believes a cult movie is mostly given its status by the fans.“Cult films are defined mostly by the ways that people use them — rituals of socialization and sociability: viewing habits, costumes, quotations, parties, drinking games, mash-ups,” he said. “Cult films are always in post-production, and their appeal lies in the creative uses to which they are put over time.”Of course, not just any movie can become a cult classic. There’s a certain rejection of the Hollywood status quo that cult movies embody.“The best, most satisfying cult films tend to establish themselves against the system that produced them,” Comentale said. “Our most endearing cult films are films that never should have been made. They seem to kick against the big business of Hollywood and the culture industry at large.” It’s tempting to crown “The Big Lebowski” as king of all cult films. After all, there’s a festival in 10 cities every year. But there’s another movie that is celebrated in a just as intense manner in hundreds of cities across the country, including Bloomington. For this flick’s fans, the word “Rocky” has nothing to do with boxing or Sylvester Stallone.The Buskirk-Chumley Theater started screening “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on Halloween in 2005 in concert with the Bloomington-based Cardinal Stage Company, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.Katie Becker, the general manager at Cardinal Stage Company, has been involved in the production since it debuted.“The folks who come to ‘Rocky’ are a really cool mix,” she said. “They’re the people who have seen ‘Rocky’ dozens of times and keep going back. They get dressed up like the characters, know all of the audience participation stuff and really go all out. But the thing that’s really great about ‘Rocky’ for me is that there are also tons of ‘Rocky virgins’ who are coming to the show for the first time.”As with “Lebowski,” there’s a mysticism about the accessibility of “Rocky Horror.” It might be jarring to casual moviegoers, but the indoctrination of new fans is encouraged by longtime “Rocky” lovers.“The whole event is set up with a pre-show ‘de-virginization’ ceremony to get everyone in the crowd having fun and to teach the newbies some of the basics on what to do,” Becker said.Movies aren’t the only things that can attract cult followings. Certain genres of music, like jazz and electronica, have rites and rituals. Perhaps the most cult-oriented genre of all is black metal; in fact, “cult” — sometimes spelled “kvlt” — is an adjective readily used to describe black metal bands and albums.Mike Lang, a senior majoring in communication and culture who does scholarly work on extreme metal, sees the very definition of black metal as enough to make it “cult.”“By design, black metal seeks to abandon its human and communal attachments, becoming elitist as members try and abide by its individualist code,” he said.And just as with cult movies, it can be difficult to “get” cult music as a novice.“The first time I heard black metal, I hated it,” Lang said. “It took me a number of years of constant exposure to various kinds of metal to fully appreciate it. Now I’m really attracted to black metal’s ability to create atmosphere and mood.”The nature of anything that attracts a cult following is that once you’re in, it’s deeply rewarding. The first viewing of “The Big Lebowski,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” or “Army of Darkness,” won’t reveal cinematic greatness, and the first listen to Emperor’s “In the Nightside Eclipse” or John Coltrane’s “Interstellar Space” won’t sound like anything you’d want to listen to twice. But you do, and once you do, you catch things you didn’t catch the first time, and that inspires more viewings and listens, and you continue to catch things that you didn’t catch before. Before long, you’re a member of the cult, and there’s no turning back.
(03/24/10 5:45pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s a shame that it’s come to this, but family movies without the Pixar name on them are almost invariably mediocre these days. When laid next to those masterpieces, the shallow plots and ho-hum performances render the films almost unnecessary.But the announcement of a big-screen adaptation of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” — based on a book by Jeff Kinney that fuses the comic book and young adult fiction genres to tell the story of a youngster entering middle school — intrigued many.Unfortunately, despite some unique shooting techniques that play up the comic-strip elements of the book and solid performances by the tween cast, the script and pacing make the film wholly unspectacular. There’s nothing here that shows like “Ned’s Declassified” and “iCarly” haven’t done better.If it’s good clean family fun you’re looking for, though, there’s no better option in this mostly dead pre-summer part of the movie-going year. Your wimpy kid will probably love it.
(03/10/10 8:14pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Because it would be difficult to justify giving an “A” to the new Johnny Cash covers album and a “D” to the new Peter Gabriel one with similar logic, I made a list of reasons why “American VI” is a masterpiece and why “Scratch My Back” is ultimately unacceptable:1. Johnny Cash is dead. Peter Gabriel is still alive.2. The best song on “American VI” is an original cut by Cash. “Scratch My Back” has no original cuts.3. Cash hasn’t released an all-originals album since 1974. Gabriel’s last all-originals album was 2002’s “Up,” his best solo record.4. Cash covers contemporaries and kindred spirits. Gabriel covers Pitchfork-approved acts in a struggle for relevance.5. Cash tragically reinterpreted the songs he covered. Gabriel merely made already pretentious songs more pretentious.Gabriel is actually on top of his game vocally on “Scratch My Back,” but there’s an overwhelming sense of “We waited eight years for this?” on every listen. Simply put, he owed his fans more than this.
(03/09/10 2:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Recently a fellow Weekend staffer lent me the first volume of “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life.” I did what I always do when someone tries to make me borrow their manga: I awkwardly tried to avoid accepting it, finally caved, then made no plans of reading it.But alas, I needed an idea for a column, and the storyline seemed interesting enough, so my exposure to a comic book style that I had never given a chance to began. “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life” isn’t strictly manga in that it’s actually Canadian, not Japanese. In fact, beyond the artwork, it has little in common with the traditional form. The script is full of Canadian idiosyncrasies and nods to Western pop culture, and, thankfully, it reads front to back.Still, as an avid reader of traditional superhero-style comic books, the art is very difficult to swallow at times. The people don’t really look like people. I don’t mean to say that, say, Superman looks like a real person either, but us westerners have conditioned ourselves to think he does. These bug-eyed, contour-void individuals are difficult to look at. Then there’s the issue of color. In traditional comics, the job of the colorist is as important as that of the artist. The palette that he uses ultimately defines the tone of the comic. “Scott Pilgrim” has no color, just black ink on newspaper-gray pages.The smaller page size is also difficult to handle. Manga is about the same size as your average Stephen King paperback, and that’s very jarring for comic book traditionalists.The writing, however, isn’t bad at all. It’s smart, funny, and fast-paced, and it’s easy to see why there’s going to be a film adaptation starring Michael Cera. Author Bryan Lee O’Malley knows his way around the written word, and in a different format, this is probably something I would anxiously await new issues of on Wednesdays. I didn’t hate “Scott Pilgrim,” but I won’t continue to read it, and I won’t read any other manga in the foreseeable future. O’Malley made a valiant effort to combine a traditionally Japanese format with English-speaking sensibilities, but the entire art form is at odds with traditional comic books from a visual standpoint. Still, the lesson to take away from this is that I read something that I didn’t think I would like and didn’t totally hate it. I survived.
(03/03/10 7:43pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The natural inclination of any discerning listener going into “Ain’t No Grave,” Johnny Cash’s second posthumous record and final collection of recordings, is to assume the bottom of the barrel has been scraped and the songs will be the weakest of his American Recordings era.Fortunately, that is not the case.“Where The Man Comes Around” and “A Hundred Highways” reconstructed the confident Johnny Cash of yore as a broken old man, obsessed with death and what lies beyond it, and “Ain’t No Grave” elaborates on those themes.“I Corinthians 15:55,” the last song Cash wrote before he died, is the album’s emotional centerpiece. His weathered, powerful vocals move mountains when laid against the song’s bare acoustic guitar and piano.A beautiful cover of Queen Liliuokalani’s “Aloha ’Oe” closes the record and, in effect, Johnny Cash’s career. When he sings “’Ere I depart / Until we meet again,” we’re invited to look back over the nearly sixty years of music that Johnny Cash has given us and mourn his loss once more.Aloha ’Oe, Mr. Cash. Farewell to you.
(03/03/10 7:35pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Joanna Newsom aficionados (read: hipster snobs) may very well find her new triple album worthy of their jeers — and with good reason.Gone are most of the dramatic caterwauls of records like “Yarn and Glue” and “The Milk-Eyed Mender,” replaced by more sophisticated and warm vocals. In short, Newsom has finally grown up.Lead single “Good Intentions Paving Company” sees the indie-folk icon sounding as confident as she ever has, with her trademark harp interweaving seamlessly with the trumpet and piano. The three-disc collection is full of these transcendent moments.Unfortunately, the length of the record also works against it, as the songs begin to run together by the end of the third disc. Tracks like “Kingfisher” and “Does Not Suffice” would have a greater impact earlier, but the over-two-hour duration weakens them considerably.Still, the strong points shine through and Newsom seems comfortable in her new skin. It may not be the “Peach, Plum, Pear” that longtime fans yearn for, but “Have One on Me” is a charming deviation from her more familiar path.
(03/03/10 3:26pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Academy Awards ceremony is among the finest television programming of the year, but it can be depressing to see how much fun all those talented and wealthy people are having in that grandiose auditorium when you’re sitting on your couch alone, eating Cheetos and wondering what could have been if you had decided to become a filmmaker.The best way to remedy that depression is by throwing a great party, one that even Brangelina would call a sitter for the privilege of attending. It’s not easy to do, but with the right touches, any ordinary Oscar party can be transformed into a good reason to call in sick on Monday morning.Classiness is key. The Oscars are not a T-shirt-and-jeans affair for the participants, so there’s no reason it should be one for partygoers. An evening gown and tuxedo dress code should be enforced. Alternatively, a costume party with a nominated-characters theme can also work, provided you trust your friends not to show up by the dozen as Colonel Hans Landa. Cheap beer is out of the question. Anything less than the finest in champagne available at Kroger is completely unacceptable. Wings and pizza are out, too. This isn’t the Super Bowl, and that isn’t pepperoni George Clooney will be scraping out of his molars when he thinks the camera isn’t on him. Provide the faux-classiest food you can find for your guests. You don’t lose points for clichés, so feel free to pile on the caviar liberally.Finally, the most important thing is making sure the ceremony is entertaining for all of your guests. Make sure that there will be ample seating and a high-definition television of at least 40 inches. If you can’t make these accommodations and you’ve read this far, it might be in your best interest to start looking for a great Oscar party to attend rather than throwing one yourself.
(03/01/10 11:35pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For most things that generate the buzz that “Watchmen” has generated in the quarter of a century since its release, it’s perfectly acceptable to throw the word “overrated” into the conversation. In the case of this twelve-part comic book miniseries by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, it’s a totally inappropriate adjective.While the book’s heroes may lack the merchandising power of fellow DC stalwarts like Batman and Superman, their stories are just as fleshed out and ultimately more impressive considering that they only have twelve issues that feature them. Alan Moore would probably say that he didn’t peak as a writer until he started America’s Best Comics and controlled every part of the creative process, and while it’s not as if “Tom Strong” and “Promethea” are throwaway titles, he’s dead wrong. “Watchmen” is not only the best thing Moore has ever worked on; it’s the greatest comic book of all time.“Watchmen” boggles the mind. It’s incredibly accessible; the color palette is warm, the dialogue is laced with surprisingly undated witticisms, and Gibbons’ artwork is understated and tasteful, like Roman sculpture or Greek architecture.Comic book heroes have had human flaws ever since the early days of Marvel Comics, but “Watchmen” amplified them to unprecedented levels and inadvertently created one of the best trends in comics. In an era of Cold War cynicism, nothing could have been more effective than to find out that, even in comics, the people whom we count on to protect us are the most fucked-up of them all.Critical reception was unanimously positive. It was pretty clear that “Watchmen” had changed the face of comics. A new generation of comic book writers was so inspired by what Moore and Gibbons committed to paper that they began to reinvent comics in their image. Those writers were the Brian K. Vaughans and Mark Millars and Mike Mignolas who are so important in today’s comic book scene.Speaking of today, “Watchmen” couldn’t just be left in 1987. One of our era’s most prized directorial treasures, Zack Snyder, announced in 2008 that he would be directing a film adaptation of the movie. He was going to be as faithful as possible to the graphic novel because he loved it so much and he wanted Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons to appreciate what he had done. Oh, he was going to change the ending, but whatever.In March 2009, the “Watchmen” movie hit theaters. It introduced the comic to a whole new segment of the population, and comic book lovers and newcomers alike loved it.The only problem was that it sucked. The beautiful subtlety of the comic was replaced by the brashness that Snyder specializes in. While it could claim to be faithful to the comic in a lot of ways, a discerning viewer could find something in every scene that blatantly changed the spirit of the book, presumably to sell more tickets.It wasn’t all bad, though. The film’s release prompted Gibbons to release a collection of sketches and letters between he and Alan Moore entitled “Watching the Watchmen.” A deluxe edition of the graphic novel was released. A new collection called “After Watchmen, What’s Next?” republished vital issues of similar series and sold them for a dollar to kids who wanted to get into comics but didn’t know where to turn. The crass capitalism that led to the making of the wretched film also gave the book a wholly new audience and probably turned some people onto comics who never gave them a chance.“Watchmen” will probably never be surpassed. In this columnist’s humble opinion, “Ex Machina” by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris and “The Ultimates” by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch have come the closest, but they’re still miles away from the high water mark that Moore and Gibbons set all those years ago. If you’ve somehow read this far without being familiar with “Watchmen,” please get yourself to the nearest bookstore immediately. Join the club. Know the greatness.Selected titles available this weekAmazing Spider-Man #623Invincible Iron Man #24Fall of the Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks #1Detective Comics #862Jonah Hex #53The Authority #20Jack of Fables #43Conan the Cimmerian #19