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This is how you win “hearts and minds.” (h/t Mountainrunner)
Was poking around online last night and found an interesting Google discussion group on folklore and urban legend. Online discussion groups are optimal incubation points for urban legends and conspiracy theories–see this archive from UFO forums on Usenet from the late 80s and early 90s.
- Rambo: I didn’t come into the theater with terribly high expectations. The last Rambo film (III) was awful, and I wasn’t sure how an older Rambo taken out of his Cold War context would be any better. However, the film accomplishes Slyvester Stallone’s goal of achieving some measure of closure for the series. We finally do see Rambo coming home (to Arizona, of all places!) If you can stomach the truckloads of genre cliches and exploding bodies, Rambo is worth at least a DVD rental.
- There Will Be Blood: A flawed masterpiece. Very atmospheric, reminding me at times of Antonioni’s The Passenger and L’Avventura. I felt that critics overrated Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance–the real pleasure is watching newcomer Paul Dano as boy preacher/huckster Eli Sunday. All in all, a great combination of oil, greed, and religious fanaticism–this time in turn of the century California.
- Persepolis: Despite the rather depressing subject matter (the coming of age of a young girl in revolutionary Iran), Persepolis never feels like a downer. It is as boisterous, defiant, and scattered as its Abba-listening protagonist. My only complaint is that the black-and-white animation doesn’t really convey the storyline’s full emotional depth.
Some months after 9/11, I visited the mangled wreckage of the World Trade Center. My first (and last) visit to the WTC had been approximately a month and half before the attacks. I stared at the rubble and was deeply unnerved when I remembered how I had rode the elevator to the very top and looked down on the city. Even more disturbing was the image I had in my mind of what the collapse must have looked like from inside. Crews were still sifting through the wreckage, but most of the work had already been done.
A little ways out from the blast site was a small photo shop. Most of the pictures displayed were reproductions of famous news photographs of the attacks, but there were plenty of more obscure photos. I fixated on one picture of a graffiti’d wall–the words “You Are Alive” were spray-painted in black. I bought it on impulse and took it with me back to California. Since then, I’ve thought a great deal about the picture. It is easily the most powerful of all of the 9/11 images, and I’ve never really understood why. The simplicity? The earnestness? The uplifting yet melancholy underlying message? Whatever it makes me feel, I’ve never been able to put it into words.
I’ve been hooked on The Mars Volta since De-Loused in a Comatorium blasted them into the music scene in 2003. De-Loused was the perfect rock album for the 21st century, an ominous, violent, and defiantly postmodern fusion of punk’s manic energy and the majestic weirdness of Pink Floyd. Unfortunately, with each passing album they sound more and more like ADHD kids who just happen to have access to a multi-million dollar recording studio. Thankfully, their latest, The Bedlam in Goliath, is a return to form. I’ve had it on repeat since at least yesterday. Bedlam manages to distill TMV’s influences–dub, post-punk, Latin jazz, and Pac-Man beeps–into something listenable. No more 32-minute King Crimson wankoffs.
Predictably, Pitchfork doesn’t like it.
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