I'm sure anyone who has found this blog will have found Pandora by now but i had to mention as i am listening to new great stuff on my Camera Obscura station, that Pandora is nothing short of awesome. If you haven't heard of or heard Pandora you must, immediately, before they start charging something.
If you didn't get the memo, as i didn't for a long time, Pandora is a website wherein lucky music whores such as myself create their own radio station. So first you put in the name of a song or an artist you particularly like. Right now that is Camera Obscura and naturally enough it starts off with a song by them or that particular song. But that is not where it ends.
Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project, which means that it takes some basic similarities between music you like and music you don't know about and it gives it to you. For free. Okay so you don't get to steal the song. Which is fine as i believe that good musicians are rewarded for doing good work by our cash. If you like it enough, however, you may buy it. Having no external MP3 device right now this isn't all that important to me bu i can see losing paychecks to it at some point if i ever do have such an external device.
Granted, if you have a varied emotional look on things and set up a Camera Obscura radio station be prepared for having the Glasgow blues. Given a choice between the Glasgow blues and the Delta Blues...well it would be a toss up but i know that the delta blues would make me sweat whereas the glasgow blues would make me feel like i've been standing in a steady piss for days on end. Oh wait. I have. I'm living in southeastern wisconsin.
It is probably in your best interest as an avid listener to have a more balanced view of your radio stations for fear of falling into a serious funk. Which is pretty much where i am but that, of course, is complicated by having many sad things to think about right now. Besides, it may be blue but my lord is it gorgeous.
Well. Not much else to say really. Go forth good people and listen.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Film Review: Rambo
Wow.
No that is not the review. The wow is pertaining to the fact that i seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to post about. I could be posting about my new old computer or the fact that i just sorta finished another drawing but no. I am about to post about Rambo.
The worst thing about that wow is that Rambo wasn't nearly as cretinous as i expected. Yes there is an awful and i do mean awful amount of blood and no you will not be seeing any oscar caliber anything in here but it is - finally - a completely stripped down version of Rambo no frills and very little patriotic bombast.
Yeah we get this old hero wandering through the forests and jungles of Burma, but he isn't fighting a war on his own for a change. He does not single handedly defeat the evil empire and he is insistent (with precious few words) that everything he does and can do will have absolutely no effect on anything, ever. It's a suitably grim outlook on the burmese genocide and a reflection of a dim opinion of the human race in general.
So what do we have?
We have Rambo doing his best, and failing frankly, to defend a group of woefully idealistic american missionaries trying admirably to do their christian best in a situation way beyond them. We have a character who we have seen over and over again struggle against his own idealism only to finally give in completely to the inner demons of his own nature. We have a Rambo who is irredemably negative and almost nihilistic in the realization of who he is. And we have a disgustingly graphic version of genocide captured gratuitously on film, daring the spectator to turn away.
The movie simply does not believe in dialog. I would contend that had the script been better written there would have been no need at all for speaking and frankly that would have made it a better movie. It hinges entirely on what we already know of Rambo but what has taken four movies for him to figure out. That all he is and all he ever will be is a killer and the only real choice in it is who he kills for. In this simple realization there is a strange sort of mirroring of the Burmese military who have absolutely no regard for life whatsoever in this movie. I don't think this mirroring is intentional at all but it is there nonetheless. In one scene we have Rambo and cohorts slinking into the enemy camp to release the remnants of the mission who are being held prisoner in the midst of a drunken orgy that is an obvious mockery of morality of any kind. I found myself hoping that the whole camp would be wiped out under the capable hands of our intrepid reagan era hero. But no. He stays on task, rescues the missionaries - or whats left of them - and slinks off into the night without any comment on his own thoughts about what he's seen. We get the feeling that none of it suprises him anymore, that all of it is drearily familiar territory in much the same way that genocides and the horror of power washes over us daily without nearly as much notice or outrage as it should.
No. It is not a good movie. No it is not worth seeing. No it was not worth reviving the character for. But at least it takes itself in a different direction and retires itself with some dignity which it fights very very hard for and spills a revolting amount of blood to obtain.
Perfomances of note: Are you kidding?
Direction: Bloody and bloody detailed.
Writing: The less the better.
Anything else? A Silly recap of rambos life delivered in a montage (which sadly has become a parodic trademark of Sylvester Stallone) and a quick and painful recap of the history of Burma even though its completely unneccesary as if to say "we will show you this to justify what our hero is about to do to the burmese military."
No that is not the review. The wow is pertaining to the fact that i seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to post about. I could be posting about my new old computer or the fact that i just sorta finished another drawing but no. I am about to post about Rambo.
The worst thing about that wow is that Rambo wasn't nearly as cretinous as i expected. Yes there is an awful and i do mean awful amount of blood and no you will not be seeing any oscar caliber anything in here but it is - finally - a completely stripped down version of Rambo no frills and very little patriotic bombast.
Yeah we get this old hero wandering through the forests and jungles of Burma, but he isn't fighting a war on his own for a change. He does not single handedly defeat the evil empire and he is insistent (with precious few words) that everything he does and can do will have absolutely no effect on anything, ever. It's a suitably grim outlook on the burmese genocide and a reflection of a dim opinion of the human race in general.
So what do we have?
We have Rambo doing his best, and failing frankly, to defend a group of woefully idealistic american missionaries trying admirably to do their christian best in a situation way beyond them. We have a character who we have seen over and over again struggle against his own idealism only to finally give in completely to the inner demons of his own nature. We have a Rambo who is irredemably negative and almost nihilistic in the realization of who he is. And we have a disgustingly graphic version of genocide captured gratuitously on film, daring the spectator to turn away.
The movie simply does not believe in dialog. I would contend that had the script been better written there would have been no need at all for speaking and frankly that would have made it a better movie. It hinges entirely on what we already know of Rambo but what has taken four movies for him to figure out. That all he is and all he ever will be is a killer and the only real choice in it is who he kills for. In this simple realization there is a strange sort of mirroring of the Burmese military who have absolutely no regard for life whatsoever in this movie. I don't think this mirroring is intentional at all but it is there nonetheless. In one scene we have Rambo and cohorts slinking into the enemy camp to release the remnants of the mission who are being held prisoner in the midst of a drunken orgy that is an obvious mockery of morality of any kind. I found myself hoping that the whole camp would be wiped out under the capable hands of our intrepid reagan era hero. But no. He stays on task, rescues the missionaries - or whats left of them - and slinks off into the night without any comment on his own thoughts about what he's seen. We get the feeling that none of it suprises him anymore, that all of it is drearily familiar territory in much the same way that genocides and the horror of power washes over us daily without nearly as much notice or outrage as it should.
No. It is not a good movie. No it is not worth seeing. No it was not worth reviving the character for. But at least it takes itself in a different direction and retires itself with some dignity which it fights very very hard for and spills a revolting amount of blood to obtain.
Perfomances of note: Are you kidding?
Direction: Bloody and bloody detailed.
Writing: The less the better.
Anything else? A Silly recap of rambos life delivered in a montage (which sadly has become a parodic trademark of Sylvester Stallone) and a quick and painful recap of the history of Burma even though its completely unneccesary as if to say "we will show you this to justify what our hero is about to do to the burmese military."
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