Seeing as how I LOVE film, and I have in fact seen The Social Network, I decided to give the soundtrack a gander as well. I love it, and then last night, the Hollywood Foreign Press agreed with me, as the film and the film’s soundtrack won top prizes at the Golden Globes. I guess its a sign of the times we find ourselves in when our media, and most notably the film industry, thanks Facebook.

I’ll easily argue that the film’s success stems from a collaboration between Fincher and Reznor. It’s not the first time either, they both chipped in on a little masterpiece called Se7en. Both of these guys thrive on the darkness and the noir of film and music alike. I was skeptical of what the film would deliver, but all doubt aside, wow. An excellent script, a well casted esemble and a feel and sound that I’m very happy the Hollywood Foreign Press recognized. Also, I’d like to thank Ricky Gervais for one of the best comedic roastings of the Hollywood scene that I’ve witnessed in, well, I can’t remember.

This soundtrack is dark and vivid, I love the way its tempo fluctuates in a way that motivates you to keep listening. It has so many murky layers that allow you to explore and discover new sounds and feelngs everytime you listen to it. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross blow me away with this one. Comparable to Ghosts I-IV, and some of Trent’s work with the Quake and Quake II soundtracks. Here are some solid tracks. Enjoy.

This kind of quality requires headphones. Trust me.

Kurtz and Marlow (who is named Willard in the movie) both work for a Belgian trading company that brutally exploits its native African workers. When Marlow arrives at Kurtz’s outpost, he discovers that Kurtz has gone insane and is lording over a small tribe as a god. The novella ends with Kurtz dying on the trip back and the narrator musing about the darkness of the human psyche: “the heart of an immense darkness.”

In the novella, Marlow is the pilot of a river boat sent to collect ivory from Kurtz’s outpost, only gradually becoming infatuated with Kurtz. In fact, when he discovers Kurtz in terrible health, Marlow makes an effort to bring him home safely. In the movie, Willard is an assassin dispatched to kill Kurtz. Nevertheless, the depiction of Kurtz as a god-like leader of a tribe of natives and his malarial fever, Kurtz’s written exclamation “Exterminate the brutes!” (which appears in the film as “Drop the bomb. Exterminate them All!”) and his final lines “The horror! The horror!” are taken from Conrad’s novella.

Michael Jackson – arguably the most famous man in world history and easily the greatest entertainer of all time, died this past summer.

Oh, you’ve heard?

The aftermath and mourning of his passing included this past Tuesday’s release of “This Is It”, a documentary-style film that followed Jackson as he rehearsed in the weeks before what was going to be his curtain call – a string of 50 sold out concerts for over one million people, taking place in London’s O2 Theatre, beginning in July of this year.

Much more than way to salvage what was surely going to be a massive profit for Jackson and his camp and what may have been the catalyst that re-launched Jackson’s career, This Is It was released for the fans (as noted in the opening titles) – those that truly miss the King of Pop, what he did for music and what he tried to do for people all over the world.

Filmed in Digital Technicolour, which is easily one of the best ways to see a movie, This Is It offers a  backstage look at an icon, his processes, handlers,  and some rare candid scenes of Jackson smiling laughing and having fun while he played music – the only thing he’s ever known.  This is what is most entertaining about This Is It – a look at the raw Michael Jackson and something void of biased media, gossip and whatever stories and rumours that have followed him for at least the past ten years.  He seems happy to be back on stage and comfortable.  Even without these scenes though, any fan of Jackson’s music will find this film a joy to watch because of the music itself and a reminder of what it was that made him an unstoppable pop music juggernaut.  More than that it is a memorial and a reminder of why we miss him.

Watching him on film, the fact that the man was nearly 50 years old is almost forgotten.  Yes, he can still dance, yes he can still sing and points in the film where he seems tired and lethargic can easily be attributed to the fact that this movie was 115 minutes of rehearsal footage, and a far cry from the enormous, exciting and mind-blowing entertainer that Jackson becomes on stage in front of thousands of screaming, crying fans. We forget that MJ is just a man and probably wasn’t always the crotch-grabbing, rhinestone-glove wearing singer that we always knew.  We want him to always dance and sing and karate kick the air in front of him.  We forget that he is human and at the base point, is just like everyone else.  He’s moody, quiet and sometimes he doesn’t shave, too.  Watching him even at 50, it is quickly understood that this man was born to sing, dance and entertain and even as he aged his talent remained as sharp as it was during his rise in becoming the King over 25 years ago.  But still, he is just a man.

This Is It centres on a man with mind-blowing fame and success, yet when he speaks he is polite and timid – almost scared.  The struggle comes when deciding whether Jackson really was a truly good and pleasant man, who put all of his energy into spreading love, or a man-child scared of being vilified again by the press, his peers or anyone who ever really knew him.  The dichotomy of Jackson on stage and Jackson the person is something really remarkable.

What’s more interesting is that this movie was not intended for release and wasn’t even intended to be a movie at all, it was intended for Jackson only – a video diary for his own personal records.  It’s easy to forget this as you wait for a moonwalk across the stage or a slide to the left or right that looks like he is sliding on air.  You wait for the big payoff that doesn’t really come, a new dance move or something that pushes the boundaries because as is said in the film – that’s Michael Jackson.  Watching the heartfelt confessions of his dancers in the presence of his greatness, the process of the rehearsals themselves and watching his meticulous, precise involvement in his music and its production offers a look at a man who spent his whole life in the spotlight.

It feels good to see him out of it for once, even if we won’t ever see him again.

But every now and then the hype machine yields something unexpected – something worthy of the hype.  I guess I feel a renewed sense pride in the human race when something comes even close to being worth all the attention it receives (see: Barack Obama) but you know what’s even better?  When the hype machine produces something not only worthy of the hype, but something you’d call the best thing you have ever seen.

So I praise it its support of Paranormal Activity – the scariest movie of all time and the best horror film I’ve ever seen.

Yes, I’m becoming part of the hype machine.

Paranormal Activity – a movie with a tagline like “don’t see it alone” would normally make me laugh out loud.  It had been 10 years since I’d been genuinely scared by any film, and I come upon a movie with no real advertising budget, a viral marketing campaign and production costs of $15,000 but endorsements from the likes of Steven Spielberg.

Shot in one house over two days and written and directed by one man, Paranormal Activity should have been nothing more than a cheap Blair Witch Project – an attempt to blur the lines between fiction and reality and a rehash of a genius idea brought to all of us ten years ago.  It should have been a bad movie about a couple who are disturbed by nightly flicks of light switches and door creaks, thought to be the work of a demon who had occupied their home.  The couple then sets up a video camera to record the events with the hope of finding proof of their paranormal experiences.   In all honesty it should have been a bad movie, only furthering my ill feelings towards the hype machine – but it was the exact opposite of bad.  It was deeply haunting.

What makes Paranormal Activity so horrifying is the fact that it relies on tapping into our primal fears – what happens when we are asleep.  There are no real effects and tension builds throughout the entire 96 minute runtime.  Something as simple as getting up in the middle of the night becomes a scary thing to do, and there isn’t a single boring moment throughout the entire film.  It is void of cinematic booms and bangs, blood and gore and there isn’t even a musical score, but what the film does incredibly well is immerse the viewer into what would be an unbelievably terrifying situation.  Better than Blair Witch, and better than any horror movie I’ve seen.

What really does it for me though is the fact that still, a week after watching it – I still have a little bit of trouble sleeping.  There are scenes in this film that will stay with me, and what makes that so amazing is that on their own, the scenes shouldn’t be all that scary.  Put into context however and they become mortifying.

If the measure of a good horror film is being scared, then the measure of the best horror film is one that keeps you scared.  What’s even weirder than the fact that for five minutes each night, I’m haunted by visions from Paranormal Activity… is the fact that I like it.

The hype machine wins this one, and I’ll gladly concede.

(via holytaco)

Here’s a full five minute clip of the movie ’2012‘, which opens in November.  It looks pretty entertaining, but then again, so did The Day After Tomorrow.

In case you don’t have time to watch the whole thing:

• John Cusack tells his kids and wife to pack
• they don’t
• they drive through carnage
• fly through carnage
• watch California ‘go down’ as it were.

]]> http://w0rd.ca/2009/09/1952-2009/feed/ 0 http://w0rd.ca/2009/09/comrade-moore-takes-on-capitalism/ http://w0rd.ca/2009/09/comrade-moore-takes-on-capitalism/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:26:42 +0000 Matt http://w0rd.ca/?p=758

Michael Moore’s new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, premieres this Sunday at the Venice Film Festival. In it, the firebrand filmmaker offers an indictment of the entire capitalist system, calling it “an evil, and you cannot regulate evil.”

Whether or not you like Moore, his politics, or his films, what’s interesting about the idea behind this film is that it’s trying (I think) to show audiences that capitalism (an economic model) and democracy (a political one) are not inextricably tied together. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of alternatives he proposes, if any, as well as what kind of smears are leveled at him from his fellow (largely right-of-centre) citizens.

The Walt Disney empire is to buy the superheroes stable Marvel Entertainment for $4bn (£2.5bn) in a star-studded Hollywood deal that unites family names such as Mickey Mouse with lucrative characters including Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men.

Disney hopes to put Marvel’s 5,000 characters to work on its television channels and in video games, theme parks and movies. The agreed takeover is for a mixture of cash and stock, with Disney shares accounting for roughly 40% of the buyout price.

The tie-up unites two companies with similar business models – they both take characters which capture the popular imagination and promote them vigorously around the world on every possible media platform and through third-party licensing deals.