300; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Male Dudity

So, a brief review of "300," the movie that is, well, everywhere right now:

I want to start by saying I did my absolute best not to get excited about this movie. Previews have been showing everywhere for at least six months, my wife has been begging to see the movie for at least that long, and despite all the positive word-of-mouth and exuberant test screenings, I have been doing my absolute best NOT to give into the hysteria. Why? Well, because I've been burned by movies like "300" before. If we take the preview at face value, here's the information we know: 1) it's based on a comic book. This is a hit-and-miss proposition. 2) it is hyper, hyper stylized. Again, although I love to see the cinematic art form advance, I'm sick of movies that think crazy editing and pretty pictures equals significant growth for motion pictures. For evidence of this, see movies like "Domino." And 3) it's written by Frank Miller. Alright Joe, hold on - let me clarify: I love Frank Miller's comics, they're brilliant. We're not disputing that. But there's something that happens when you take the badass-ness of a Miller comic, with all its dark pictures and brooding dialogue, and attempt to turn it into a movie. It's very possible I am the only 25 year old man on the planet who didn't really like "Sin City." To me, the movie pushed the noir style about two steps too far, and suffered for it. I didn't like the sexual exploitation of women in the film, and I felt that the "noir" dialogue, with all its curt one-liners, ended up hammy and stupid in the finished product. Also, Michael Madsen is one of the worst actors ever. And the movie was slow. And everything except for the Marv storyline had big, big flaws all over it. But that's not the issue. Let's get back to "300":

So, what's going on with this movie? Well, I have to say: I thought it rocked. Director Zack Snyder brings a visual flair to the film that extends beyond mere panache and works to actively engage the medium of film itself. To pare that down a bit: this movie looks like a series of moving paintings, one after the other, and it does this very, very, very deliberately. In addition to the plain kick-ass-ness of the fight scenes (I've never cheered for men in loincloths before...), the movie frames itself brilliantly, letting the hyper-stylized movement of it all - the hard rock soundtrack, the slow motion scenes, the giants, the mutants, the innumerable waves and waves of Persian soldiers - take place as a campfire story, told by the only surviving Spartan from the Battle of Thermopylae to a new army of Spartans on the eve of a new battle. This simple narrative device allows so much of what follows to embrace the fantastic in a way that feels, somehow, entirely authentic, and gives license to our own lionizing of these soldiers. In a word, "300" is impressive. In terms of the artistic nature of the direction, the "moving-portrait" approach to the cinematography not only thrills the viewer as a work of art, it uses the nature of cinema to enhance the power of a story. This is, of course, no small task - many a movie is made that gains nothing by actually BEING a movie - "300" could not work the same way in any other medium.

Of course, the film isn't without its flaws. I felt the emphasis on a sexual economy for the women in the film was condescending, and although the film's opening in Sparta works to build up the strength of its one female lead, episodes later in the film, including an encounter with an oracle and an incredibly inarticulate subplot involving a weasel of a senator, undercut all the progress the film's opening makes. I also felt that the militaristic dedication of Sparta, however historically accurate, was translated here for specifically political purposes - the Spartans' violent resistance to the decidedly black Persian empire shifts at some point in the film from an attempt to "defend our wives and children" to a need to kick the asses of all "others" in order to communicate the message of "freedom." Certainly, incorporating lines like "Freedom isn't Free," which is also a popular conservative bumper sticker slogan, into the dialogue of a film in which the decidedly white Greeks go to war against the evil armies of the Middle East can't be entirely chalked up to chance. In any case, the lack of any sustained emphasis on either of these points keeps them from deeply troubling the film, but I think it would be remiss to not point them out at least in passing.

Alright, so to wrap this up: "300" is an exciting, incredibly beautiful and visceral war movie that energizes film as a medium and whose hyper-stylized battle sequences will, without any doubt, be picked up and copied by every crappy action movie for the next five years, ad nauseum. We will refer to this occurance as the "Matrix effect," and we will do our collective best to weather the storm.

"300" - 3 1/2 out of 4 stars

This and That

Note: I am awesome at updating my blog regularly. I will not accept comments to the contrary.

That being said, here is the first (in a series) of scattered notes, reviews and updates, some of which have been promised for a month, others I have just come up with.


1) EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY - LIVE IN ASHEVILLE

So, last night my friend Graham and I went to Asheville to see Texas's own Explosions in the Sky. For those of you who are not familiar with either this band or their music, they are best known for their score-work on both "Friday Night Lights" the TV show and "Friday Night Lights" the movie. They are an instrumental post-rock band from West Texas, and they have been playing together for, I don't know, seven or eight years. They seem like very nice fellows. In any case: last night, we headed to the Grey Eagle, on the west side of town, which, as it turned out, was a very nice venue. The room was big and open, there were a lot of signed and framed posters on the wall, everything was clean, the floor was made of plywood, and there was a grill/bar in the corner - basically, it had everything I ever want in a concert venue: space, food and room. Even a nice courtyard with a giant abandoned mansion a la "Psycho" looking over it from a nearby hilltop. In a word: pleasant. Explosions had two openers: a one-man-band by the name of Eluvium, and a four-piece rock/rap/metal outfit in the vein of Limp Bizkit called The Paper Chase. Eluvium was a very, very nice surprise with a sound that cried out to me: reading music! reading music! The guy played mainly on piano/organ with a few tracks performed on guitar, all worked through a mixer/modulator that controlled loops/feedback. Things came together nicely, and I'm sure I'll hear more from this guy soon - I dug it.

Conversely, The Paper Chase were pretty awful. Their sound was reaching for Rage Against the Machine and falling both far short (the Bizkit effect) and rather late (mid nineties? really?). I won't go into it in detail, but the set was short and a pretty noticeable "bomb" - the room cleared out quickly and there was little applause.

And then Explosions in the Sky. I should say that I have been waiting on an Explosions in the Sky show to come anywhere remotely near South Carolina for about five years. I started listening to the band in 2002 when their first major record - "Those Who Tell the Truth..." - found a sort of tragic notoriety when its release date - September 10, 2001 - and its title track - "This Plane Will Crash Tomorrow" - inspired a handful of odd-coincidence articles in regional magazines in newspapers. In any case, I was amazed at what I heard - I have long been a fan of the big guns of post-rock - Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, etc. - but Explosions in the Sky made the genre real to me in a startlingly intimate way. There was something so amazingly honest about their reliance on a traditional four-piece rock band set up - two guitars, bass, drums - that made the goals and interests of post-rock so much more real for me. I felt that I understood what these guys were about, and it wasn't the apocalyptic wastelands of GY!BE or the walls of noise of Mogwai, but something textured and resonant and beautiful. EITS's next record did not disappoint me on this front, and since "The Earth Is Not a Cold, Dead Place" was released in 2003, I have been an avid follower of the group's various side-projects and recording endeavors. To say I was looking forward to seeing a rock show last night was an understatement.

So, on to the all-too-brief review. Explosions in the Sky were absolutely amazing. I say this with all the judicial reservation I can possibly muster - this is not an "I love the band, so I'll love their show" statement, it is not cheerleading - these guys were incredible to hear and to watch. The entire set - which ran about an hour and ten minutes - was fused into a single song with movements of various tracks, spanning their catalog's four albums and EP. Bridges were written to connect the different movements, and the energy - this band gives their entire, entire soul to this music. They didn't sway or jump or move or whatever because it felt like the right thing to do (listen up, Paper Chase), they did it because the sounds of what they were doing moved them to do it. They love their music, deeply, and it engages them, even on an international tour, each time they sit down and play it. That alone is an amazing thing to see at a rock show. To point out highlights is difficult, given the nature of the show as a whole, but the band caught the audience with the third "song" of the set, "Your Hand in Mine" off of "The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place." " Your Hand in Mine" has always been one of my favorite Explosions tracks, and it was used wonderfully in the "Friday Night Lights" movie as a recurring theme, but I never totally understood what that track was about until last night. Its softer moments are tender, even romantic, that's for sure - as the title implies, it is a song about affection, protection and human trust - but it is also a song about fierce, fierce passion, too, and how that passion can be about loving and defending something with equal intensity. I don't know why, but I think of fathers. It was an amazing moment to share with those four young guys from West Texas, and they deserve all the luck that comes their way. I know I'll be the first one to sign up when they come through here again.

SHOW: obviously, 4 out of 4 stars.



2) EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY - ALL OF A SUDDEN I MISS EVERYONE

Okay, given the enormous length of the previous review, I will keep this brief. I've been listening to this record for about a month, and frankly, I was struggling with it - the first track - "The Birth and Death of the Day" - is amazing, and it struck me as such the first time I heard it. In their most recent EP, "The Rescue," EITS made it clear that they were ready to shift the emphasis of their sound, and I don't know if it was the first track's evocation of Mono or perhaps my own anticipation, but as much as I loved this first song, the rest of the album felt like a long slide-off from what I imagined was the direction of their new sound. In other reviews, a fair amount of commotion has been made about the album's 13 minute third track, "It's Natural to be Afraid," but of all the songs on the album, this one was the one I had the most trouble listening to. I honestly didn't think it was worth the effort. But last night, driving home, I decided to give the album a fresh listen, and I have to admit: I was totally, totally wrong. "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" is a beautiful step for Explosions, taking threads of the music they had gotten so good at making and playing each of them out in a way that refuses any immediate expectations. "Welcome, Ghosts," the LP's first single, gives post-rock purists what they've been looking for, taking the somewhat conventional movements of the genre and bouncing around them quickly, spending only a minute or two on each theme before leaping to another one connected only by the smallest of threads, before rising to a sparse and sparkling finish. "It's Natural to be Afraid" echoes the movement of the previous track but in development rather than diversity: the song builds the foundational blocks of a movement and then, just before the last piece is put in place, pulls back from the structure and starts something new - it frustrates, but in a way that increases the clarity of the music and the project. Tracks 4 and 5 move us in another direction entirely, each functioning as fully-figured, singular songs but confining themselves in 5 and 6 minute blocks, pushing the musical payoff forward into the song and allowing a proper climax - something post-rock has been scoffing at in the last few years. As for the album's last track, "So Long, Lonesome," Graham said it best last night - "all I want is more of that song." "So Long, Lonesome" shifts the emphasis from instrument to instrument while undercutting each "lead" line with a deeply subdued and reflective tempo - the result matches the title marvelously, as "solos" become mournful affairs that seem to strike out and then fade quickly away. It is a beautiful, beautiful song. Today, looking back on "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" after a month of sonic "digestion," I think it's a remarkable album. Certainly, Explosions in the Sky is committed to growth, and to finding a series of sounds that not only convey an image, but a place. The album's cover art - a lone man in a boat, holding up a lantern as he drifts in the dark past buildings half submerged in flood waters - gives us both of these things: an image and an emotion, a space and a feeling for it. It is an impressive and exciting thing that Explosions in the Sky is able to give us the sound.

ALL OF A SUDDEN I MISS EVERYONE - 3 1/2 out of 4 stars