Torches Together

The Great Gatsby Review

I originally posted this review here: http://letterboxd.com/jdsarge/film/the-great-gatsby-2013-5/

Let me start this review by making one thing clear: I like Baz Luhrmann. While I haven’t seen Strictly Ballroom or Australia, his adaption of Romeo+Juliet is highly entertaining, and Moulin Rouge is one of my personal favorite movies. His bombastic style in those films just somehow works and never detracts from the narrative.

In Gatsby however, I’m not sure that his style works for this story very well. Sure, the novel is a surreal and and dreamy, but for me the story has always been about the great character conflicts and interactions. This adaption falls completely flat in drawing those out.

My main gripe with this film is its complete lack of subtlety. It seems like Luhrmann read the book once, read the spark notes and picked out the themes, and then proceeded to hammer you over the head with them for the next two hours. I get it, the green light was a symbol for Gatsby, and we don’t need to see it a thousand times. The voice over narration, and the writing on the screen completely goes against the rules of film-making. A film must show, not tell what is going on screen. I like the writing of the novel very much, but it doesn’t need to be portrayed on screen incessantly to remind me of Fitzgerald’s style.

The CGI was also a big detractor for me. It was used far, far too often, and often looked rather amateur most of the time. This movie had a ridiculous budget, and they can’t render what Manhattan looked like in the 1920’s? Come on. The entire movie felt ethereal, which I suppose is keeping in line with the tone of the novel in some sense. The problem is that there is nothing to combat this tone. We have scenes of crazy partying and very quiet intimate moments, but neither of these have any weight whatsoever to add to the film. The film needed a solid anchor, which should have been Gatsby’s memories, but these are even more fleeting than the rest of the film.

Only two scenes stood out to me as exceptional: the Plaza Room hotel and Myrtle’s death. With the Plaza Room scene, the characters finally get a chance to act without all of the pomp and circumstance getting in the way. DiCaprio and Edgerton really show off their acting chops here, and the tension is immense. Myrtle’s death, while a bit over-dramatic and extravagant, was a great visual image that happened just like I remembered it happening in the novel.

Contrast these scenes with Gatsby’s death. Or any of his parties. Or any scene of Nick back at the sanitarium. Gatsby’s death is so drawn out and over-dramatic that I just wanted it to end. The scenes leading up to his death felt the same way. It’s as if Luhrmann is screaming at us “BY THE WAY THIS IS THE LAST TIME NICK SEES GATSBY! OH AND IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW HE’S GOING TO DIE SOON.” What made Gatsby’s death so memorable in the book was how sudden and surprising it was. Luhrmann’s take has none of these qualities. The parties weren’t bad by any means, but for how extravagant they were supposed to be they felt rather bland and tame compared to what I imagined them being like in the book.

The casting was so-so. DiCaprio was incredible, as was Edgerton, but everyone else was either forgettable or way too dramatic. Carey Mulligan, you may be beautiful, but you are not a good crier, and you do not have the acting skills to pull off a character that is as troubled as Daisy. The decision to have Tobey Maguire narrate from a sanitarium is questionable at best, and his look of wonder is more akin to a 5 year old child than that of a 20 something bond trader.

For all the complaints I’ve heard about the soundtrack, it really wasn’t bad at all. I rather enjoyed most of what Luhrmann was trying to do, and nothing felt entirely out of place. My main issue was that it hardly enhanced the film whatsoever. You get some modern pop during the dance scenes, and whenever black people are present some old Jay-Z song will start playing. Lana Del Rey covers all the quite dramatic moments of the film, and that’s about it. I think Luhrmann’s choice of music is actually quite restrained. If he had gone all out I would have enjoyed it a bit more. The standout moment is the use of Gershwin, but that might just be because I love Rhapsody in Blue so much.

Visually the film just never grabbed me. Lots of bright colors, lots of really fast cuts, and not a whole else. And a whole lot of bad green screen. I understand that the story is rather fantastical, but the lack of real set pieces really irked me a whole lot. Even though the sets that the characters inhabited matched the novels perfectly, I never felt that enough attention was drawn to them. You get a shot that sets the scene, and then the set just disappears into the background. The editing is also flat out BAD at points. How many times do we have to cut back to back between a bearded Maguire, and a shaved Maguire? Luhrmann keeps cutting back to these shots incessantly. This is a basic no-no for film making. And one last tidbit: whenever the characters were in the cars, their dialogue never quite synced up with their mouths. A minor issue I know, but a film with this much money poured into it shouldn’t have missed these little details. The whole film just feels like it was rushed through the editing process, and it really suffers for that.

The novel deals with a lot of basic human questions, but these are entirely absent in the film. Instead we get this dramatic love story and lots of bright colors and flashy editing. I hardly got to know any of the characters at all, and that to me is what Gatsby is about. It’s not a circus movie, it’s a character movie. Luhrmann seems to have forgotten that, and instead chooses to remind his audience constantly that people partied a lot in the 20’s and that’s all that happened. Oh and by the way, Fitzgerald wrote this, so here’s some lines of his on screen in case you forgot.

Now I like the story quite a bit. I don’t think it’s the greatest American novel of the 20th century, but I always enjoyed it, even when I was forced to read it in High School English class. Luhrmann either has done this story a great disservice, or the story wasn’t as good as I remember it being. Then again my girlfriend, who loves the novel and Fitzgerald very much, cried at the end and proclaimed it as her new favorite movie. So there will be some out there who find it entertaining.

The Great Gatsby tries very hard to be a modern classic. Instead it ends up being a confused film that relishes far too much in bombastic visuals and fails to understand the importance of character development. I walked out of the theater very disappointed. Sorry Baz, maybe next time

Violence, Melodrama, and Warfare: Thoughts on Saving Private Ryan

Growing up in a relatively conservative Christian household, I was rather sheltered from the world of cinema. The exception to this was watching war movies. I distinctly my first PG-13 film: U-571.  I was hardly 9 years old, but my fanatical obsession with submarines and World War 2 led me to convince my dad to see the film. Hearing curse words, seeing people die on screen, the violence, the explosions… it was all a bit too much for me at the time. Regardless of my emotional state during the film, I walked of the theater in a daze. Wow! A violent movie about submarines and warfare and my dad let me see it! Of course my mother complained, but her laments fell on deaf ears. After all this time reading about the history of World War II and all the glorious battles and great men that fought in it, I had found a new passion: war movies.

Parents can have strange standards. All the violence in the world was perfectly fine to depict on screen, as long as it was based on a true story. A flurry of war films followed, and they dominated my viewing time up until I went to college. After taking a film class or two and discovering other types of cinema, I put war films on the shelf for a while until yesterday.

Saving Private Ryan was always my favorite war film growing up. It was realistic, brutal, and memorable, but most importantly to my very conservative 12-year-old mind, it glorified America. I must have watched it dozens of times, and the battle scenes even more so. 

Before I critique the film a bit, let me be clear: I don’t think Saving Private Ryan is a bad film by any means. Re-watching it yesterday for the first time in nearly six years, I still think it is an incredibly powerful war film. I fought back tears at the final scene, just like Spielberg intended me to do.

And therein lies my central critique with Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg more often than not is telling us how to feel rather than just depicting the action and letting the viewer judge. If he wanted us to realize the horrors of war and how evil men can be, he certainly got that point across. But other themes come across: glorification of American patriotism—in the extreme—and the antisemitism of the German fighting forces.

Consider the the very first and last shots of the film.  image

image    

Besides the obvious imagery of opening and closing a film about a war with shots of an American film, I think there’s also something to be said for the different colors. In the beginning the flag Is very muted, almost to a sepia texture. At the end of the film, the flag, though not shown in brilliant red, white and blue, is much more colorful and the vibrant than the flag in the beginning of the film. Symbolism in light of the American victory? Perhaps. Regardless, it’s clear who the heroes are here in this film.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with portraying American soldiers as war heroes, but I do think there is something wrong as portraying them as the only heroes of the film. There is little discussion at all about the German men, and the few German soldiers we do get to know are portrayed diabolically, which leads me to my next point.

Adam Goldberg, who plays the only Jewish character in the film, is given a prominent role throughout the film for a relatively minor character. Early on, he is shown showing off his Star of David necklace mockingly to German prisoners. He also earns the longest and most brutal death scene in the entire film; after a grueling duel, a German soldier slowly kills Goldberg with his own knife, while whispering in German what roughly translates as “Give up, you don’t stand a chance! Let’s end this here; it will be easier for you like this!” Goldberg’s death is unquestionably significant; but questionable for an insignificant character.

But, in the immediate following scene, the same German soldier is shown in a sudden face-to-face with another American solider, a situation in which the American is armed but crippled by fear. And instead of easily disposing of another enemy, the German soldier walks slowly and confidently away. The scene is a topic of much debate. I interpret the scene as a show of German valor: the soldier fights honorably and will not shoot a non-threatening mark. But, in contrast to the American moments, this moment of arguable heroism passes without comment.

Despite an overzealous portrayal of American heroism and prominent pro-Jewish bias, Saving Private Ryan is still the greatest World War II feature film to date. 

Notable Albums of 2012

I’ve really grown to hate ranking things. Scores and charts seem more arbitrary and meaningless as I listen to more music each year. Without getting into a discussion of linguistics and how one should qualify music, I’ll just simply talk about some albums I thoroughly enjoyed this year without ranking them.

Kendrick Lamar —good kid, m.A.A.d city

Up until the last few months of 2012, the Hip-Hop genre wasn’t looking at many good albums from this year. Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music collaboration was solid, but certainly not the album everyone was hoping it would be. The only notable album in my mind was Killer’s Mike R.A.P. Music, but coming into October I was eagerly waiting for a hip-hop album that would solidify itself as one of the best of all time. I may a bit overeager, but I think this is that album.

I could go on and on about how great this record is. Luscious production, addictive beats, Lamar’s fantastic wordplay and lyricism, great features and more. I can see how it won’t be for everyone. Lamar’s tone is slightly grating at first, and it strikes a weird divide between hip-hop listeners. There will always be those that find any well-touristed rap album “too commercial,” but this album isn’t full of super-catchy hooks, either. But I think that’s a great thing about good kid, m.A.A.d city: it’s accessible but it has a lot of depth. If you’re into hip-hop at all and havent’ checked this album out, get on this one quick.

Busker Busker — Busker Busker 1st Album

Ah yes, K-Pop. Though my obsession with the genre has died down quite a bit over the past year, I still find great stuff to come from the aesthetically-obsessed Asian nation. This group is very different from what you’re probably used to hearing from the country. It’s not Gangnam Style. It’s not Super Junior or Girl’s Generation. Busker Busker is a three-piece indie rock trio, with each member sporting some serious vocal ability. They got their fame from their runner-up performance on an American Idol knock-off, but their full album release soon dominated Korean airwaves. All that history aside, listen to this track. If you like what you hear, pick up the album and enjoy the rest.

Punch Brothers — Who’s Feeling Young Now?

Chris Thile has been making records since the 90’s, and, despite his relatively popular success with Nickel Creek, Punch Brothers is definitely his shining achievement in my mind. My view may be tainted by the fact that I saw the band play for nearly three hours on New Years Eve in Bowery Ballroom, but make no mistake, Punch Brother’s newest record has some of the best songwriting I’ve heard this year, and incredible musicianship to boot. If you like bluegrass, Nickel Creek, folk music, or the tracks below, Who’s Feeling Young Now is the record for you.

P.S. Their new EP Ahoy! is also worth the purchase.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — The Heist

Yeah, it’s really obnoxiously poppy at times. Yes, all the white kids who don’t normally listen to hip-hop won’t stop talking about it. Yes, you’re definitely sick of Thrift Shop. But still—don’t write Macklemore off. The Heist has some of the best hooks I’ve heard in hip-hop in a long time, and Macklemore has a genuine approach to lyricism and rapping that connects well with his wide, and hence unusual, audience range. I kept wondering if I really should add this album to this list, but considering how much I kept coming back to this record and the lack of any filler at all, The Heist has a place here.

Bireli Langrene & Sylvain Luc —Best Moments

I’m not even sure if this album counts as a 2012 release as it seems to just be a compilation between these two fantastic guitarists, but I’ve listened to this album more than enough for it to warrant a spot here. Playing in the style of Django Reinhardt and other jazz greats, Langrene and Luc are inspiring players who never overdo it and have a great sense of melody. The first half of the album also features a considerable amount of pop covers, but the last track I’ve listed here is my personal favorite. I’m no authority on jazz music by any means, but if you like jazz-style guitar or jazz music in general, you owe it to yourself to listen.

Zac Brown Band — Uncaged

A country album? This may surprise you, but I actually enjoy a lot of country music. Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney: there’s something about the sound of country music that resonates with me. Zac Brown’s latest record is no different. It may not have the most complex songwriting or musicianship you’ve heard, but it’s an undeniably solid collection of songs. If you’re already opposed to country music you won’t find much to like here, but fans of country music are missing out if they haven’t heard this album already.

Stuff that didn’t quite make it—

Metal. I’m slowly losing my passion for this genre, so that’s why you didn’t see an album on here. However, I did really enjoy the following in the genre:

Periphery — Periphery II (same as their last record, but still just as great)

Wretched — Son of Perdition (Listen to The Stellar Sunset of Evolution series if anything)

K-Pop. As mentioned before, this is another genre I’m losing interest in. Still some good albums coming out though.

Big Bang — Alive

Nell — Slip Away

SHINee — Sherlock

Super Junior —Sexy, Free & Single

G.O.O.D. Music — Cruel Summer. Maybe I just want a Kanye solo album. Maybe half the songs just didn’t do it for me. But this still deserves a mention; the first four tracks are GOLD, and it’s a damn shame the rest of the compilation didn’t live up that introduction.

fun. — Some Nights. The title track and Stars are probably two of my favorite songs from the year. And then the rest of the album really didn’t click with me at all. It’s a shame, because The Format was fantastic and the first fun. album was great.

I’m sure I forgot a lot of music here. Feel free to comment or message and let me know what other stuff I should check out from last year. Thanks for reading!

“Engaging But Not Fun”

Never in my life would I think these words would apply to a video game. After all, don’t we play games for entertainment? To escape from reality? 

Sure there are games that are engaging and fun. There are games where I simply try to be competitive, and get enjoyment of out trying to be the best.

But Spec Ops: The Line is different. Very different.

You play as John Walker, a Delta Force Operative sent into Dubai sometime in the near future. Dubai has been hit by the worst sand storms ever recorded, and the United States Army sent in a large battalion to assist the city and evacuate the civilians. No one has heard from the army or Dubai in six weeks. It’s up to you and your squad to find out what has happened.

Without giving too much way, it becomes apparent that the battalion deployed in Dubai has been massacring civilians. Because of this, you spend the majority of the game killing American soldiers. There’s a lot to more the plot, but hopefully that should be enough to hook you. 

Now you ask, why would you ever want to play a game like this? Why would you want to play game where you systematically slaughter soldiers from your own country?

Decision making and hard moral choices are not new to video games. But Spec Ops is one of the few games where I didn’t want to make a choice. I just wanted to stop playing so that the madness would end. I was sick of the images and violence being depicted on my screen, but the narrative was so gripping that I had to continue.

Lead writer Walt Williams says there are four “official” endings to the game but also mentioned a fifth option. Simply put the controller down and stop playing. That is the only “choice” you can make as a gamer that results in a “good” ending. 

This game will not be remembered because of its gameplay. In fact the gameplay is rather average. It’s a basic third person shooter with cover mechanics that make you feel your playing the first Gears of War installment. But it’s a very violent action game that villainizes violence. Unfortunately despite great critical reviews, Spec Ops sold poorly while big name franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty continue to sell well. 

Is the market ready for a game like this? Sales illustrate no, but I could see this becoming a cult classic talked about for years to come. Let’s hope that Yager Development continues to make games, because it took a lot of balls for them to make this and for publisher 2K games to distribute it. 

I could go on and on about this game. Mechanics as metaphors. Plotline ripped from the classic novel Heart of Darkness.Your character’s gradual descent into madness. Fourth wall breaking. The soon to be infamous phosphorous attack section. 

It may sound strange that I’m recommending a game that I hard time completing not because of its difficulty, but because of the subject matter, and the actions I was “forced” to do. But in an age of mindless shooters and action games, Spec Ops: The Line makes you think like no other game before. If anything just play it once through for the experience of the best video game story this year next to The Walking Dead. Here’s to an innovative and truly wonderful experience. 

Violence In Television

A friend of mine is noteworthy for despising violence in film and television. I made the mistake of showing her The Departed early on in our relationship. At the end of the film’s brutal concluding moments, I looked over, expecting a wiry smile of satisfaction at the brilliance unfolding on screen. Instead what I saw was a look of horror. She was disgusted by the violence and was unable to get past the shocking horrors she saw to appreciate the film.

Fast forward to now. She’s racing through AMC’s show The Walking Dead at an alarming rate. She comments on the violence, but she’s no longer disgusted as she once was. Has she become desensitized to violence over the past year? I’d like to propose an alternate idea.

Violence on The Walking Dead is an essential part of the show. The characters must use it in order to survive the world they now inhabit. Humanity is the central aspect of the series; the zombies are there just as a tool to advance the plot. The real conflict is the tension between the character’s personalities. Thus, unlike most zombie films and other sorts of horror, The Walking Dead does not delve into scaring the viewer. Zombies are cannon fodder for our heroes, easily killed by all manner of weapons. They are slow, lumbering creatures, and not very bright. They almost never get the jump on the characters.

Yet the show is still incredibly violent. Zombies are dismembered, set on fire, blown apart, hacked to bits, and annihilated in nearly every episode. Some will argue that this violence is easy to watch because zombies aren’t human. Yes, this is a part of why the violence is more bearable, but not the essential feature of why it is so.

To illustrate my point, let us turn to, in my opinion, television’s greatest series: The Sopranos. Violence is an integral part of this fictional world as well, but it does not appear nearly as frequently as it does on The Walking Dead.  Violence is brief, but incredibly brutal, and often unexpected and generally happens to characters we are heavily invested in. 

Consider this scene: http://youtu.be/-x5uO2NyWOQ?t=3m48s 
^ Lots of violence and profanity. I linked for the scene to start exactly when the physical conflict erupts, but the whole video is worth a watch.
WARNING: SEASON FOUR SPOILERS FOR THE SOPRANOS FOLLOW

Tony Soprano strangles Ralph Cifaretto after nearly an entire season of conflict. Yet Tony in his last words to Ralph, claims he killed him for Ralph’s crime of killing Tony’s prized race horse. Tony justifies his killing because of this, but the audience knows there is a lot more going on here.

 So yes, in a way violence is much more powerful on the Sopranos because it happens between people. But it is also because the violence often illustrates a larger conflict between two characters. The violence is merely an extension of the turmoil that has been brewing between Ralph and Tony throughout Season Four. The death of a major character is rarely meaningless.

This doesn’t make The Walking Dead a bad show by any means. Season Two is pretty slow, but Season Three seems to be getting back on track. I just think that violence matters when it is brutal but most often when it happens to characters we are invested in. The Sopranos is the best example of this that I’ve seen so far. 

 

Thoughts On Christopher Nolan’s Recent Success

For me personally, Nolan’s films are one time viewings. The first time I saw The Dark Knight I was astounded at how good it was. It got worse and worse each time I saw it. This has been true for pretty much every Nolan film with the exception of Memento. He violates the whole “show don’t tell” ethos so explicitly in every film it’s maddening. I want emotion and tangible human elements from the films I watch, and Nolan’s films to me are staggering on first view but after thinking about them they are cold and lifeless.

He’s clearly surrounded himself with lots of talented people but he’s starting to repeat himself a lot. Think of any Christopher Nolan film. It will often have Hans Zimmer scoring, either Bale or DiCaprio starring, and have a supporting cast that you’ve seen multiple times before (Hardy, Levitt, Oldman, Murphy, etc.) But wait you say, he did a the Batman trilogy, of course he has to use the same actors! Yes, but that’s no license for each film to feel the same aesthetically in nearly every way.

Also probably the biggest pet peeve of mine… action scenes. Christopher Nolan is TERRIBLE at this. Fast cut! Fast cut! Quick pull away so it doesn’t have to be R! Fast cut! Fast cut! Every. Damn. Time. Also after Insomnia, there is notable lack of profanity in Nolan’s films. Not that profanity needs to be present in order for a film to be great, but ever since Batman Begins, Nolan seems to edit his films to perfectly fit that ever desireable PG-13 rating. Just enough violence and obscenity to be edgy and draw in teenager and adults a like, but not so much that the film does poorly at the box office. Nolan is not the only person who does this, but when people call him this generation’s Scorsese… that irks me. Scorsese never pulled any punches, in fact Goodfellas and The Departed set records for profanity when they were first released. Again, profanity does not a good film make. A good director does not compromise his craft so that he makes the most money in my eyes.

So there. Just some thoughts on Nolan’s films. By no means is he a bad director and Memento has been a favorite of mine ever since I saw it. Just don’t hail him as the greatest director of this generation.

Sandbox

This is a story about my dad.

First, a little backstory. I have never, in all my 21 years as a human being, seen my dad cry. He’s not an emotionless cold person, but crying was something I never even imagined him doing. 

My dad can fix pretty much anything. Today he happened to be fixing the minivan we own. He took apart the entire engine and fixed a giant oil leak all by himself. He tries to explain the workings of the car to me as we go along, but I can hardly understand the complexity of the machinery he’s working with.

In addition to fixing the car, we’ve been cleaning up the backyard to make room for some treemen to take down all the pine trees in our backyard. They’re old, unstable, and have caused a considerable amount of havoc to our property. So, we both had a lot of work to do, as the workers were coming tomorrow morning to take down the trees and this was the only time we had to work.

It came down to a time crunch and we needed to clear the yard so the trees would have room to fall. One last obstacle remained: a sandbox. The same sandbox I had played in everyday as a child. Only it was torn, rotted, and hardly used in the past few years.

We started to take the box apart but before we had even begun to my dad broke down crying. I was speechless. My dad, my role model, the man I have looked up to my entire life was crying before my eyes.

“I just can’t do this. There are so many memories tied in to this box. You grew up here… I have videos and pictures of you playing in this box.”

The tears swelled and fell from his eyes. For what seemed like an eternity he cried silently. At last he composed himself and took a picture of me in the sandbox.

We continued working until late in the night. I went inside while he packed up the tools. He came inside, kissed me good night, told me he loved me, and went to bed.

Outside the sandbox still remains.