Sunday, October 30, 2011

TEH MEWSIKS, LET ME SHOW U THEM.

Two things to talk about on the docket. CHARTattack & Chill, Bro.

CHARTattack.com just revamped their site in a number of big ways, and if you haven’t heard of this awesome music site, then it’s the perfect chance to get on board. New content, new voices, and new music. It’s a Toronto-based website focusing on independent and alternative music from the local scene and internationally. CHART started as a Canadian music magazine back in the 90’s and has since moved into the Internet to focus on a specific demographic: us. It’s focus has always been campus radio, which meant students, which means that its music that’s important to us that we want to hear about. 

I love music. I’m sure you love music. If you like the music I like, then you should check out this website. The Pitchforks and the SPINs may be the bigger boys, but if you’re from the GTA, and you want some people who show you music like it is, participate as much as you do, and just like to share with others, I’d go with these guys. Rock, hip-hop, electronic—it’s all there. And CHARTattack wants you to be a part of it, Canada or abroad. So like them on Facebook, and check the site.
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Changing topics, there’s also Chill, Bro.

I’ve been doing internet campus radio with SPIRITlive.net for three semesters now, and done a number of shows. Different Levels Productions Co-Founder and buddy of mine Issa Shah tells me:

“You’re like the Orson Welles of SPIRITlive.”

Which I do think I’m going to be using for a while. But I digress, this year, Joey Ferguson and I teamed up to create a show that would have a pretty distinct focus, that would let me share some of my music taste to interested ears, and just plain have some fun. And oh, have we.

Chill, Bro. is a show that we developed for a specific purpose: to calm everyone down. Since this is radio for our fellow Radio & Television Arts students, we want to share music that will have that effect. Calming, collected, soothing—you name it, just as long as it’s chill. If you’re a student and your stressed, this is the show to listen to.

If you want more info, check us out on Facebook, and follow us on Tumblr.

Chill, Bro airs on SPIRITlive.net every Tuesday from 4-5pm. If you can’t catch that, we have archives of every episode. Listen in below.

So, there some new music endeavours to subscribe to! If you want new music, just holler at any of these two places, and your bound to find it. Happy music-ing!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

EPIC(ly shocking) Music Video of the Week

Lights Out at The Daily What usually has some interesting internet tidbits for those who can’t really sleep at one in the morning, and they usually help the insomnia along with videos like the one I’m about the show you.

Apparently, a French animator/director by the name of Jérémie Périn knows his away around the tablet and the timeline, and brings a pretty stellar animation to the table for DyE’s debut single “Fantasy” of his new album. The sounds remind me a lot of M83, really good atmospheric melodies combined with simple, bubbly synths. Matches the video a lot. Until…

Lovecraft approves.

If you ever do watch The Thing, which I endlessly prompt you to do in every other post, you’ll like the similarities. Or Akira. You know what, just anything with mutating flesh and terrifying monster-morphs.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Thing (2011) | Review

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Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead & Joel Egerton

Antarctica, 1982. It’s cold, snowy, and isolated. There’s hardly a soul, and where there are, they’re countless miles away from anyone else in the icy landscape of the loneliest continent. But, they’re less alone than they think. A team of Norwegian researchers find something in the ice, something big. Something not from here.

They dig it up, bring it back, and study it. They find out too late that it probably wasn’t a good idea. And they slowly discover what they’re dealing with; a thing that can hide in plain site, prey on whoever it wants to, and keep coming back without you knowing. It makes you scared. It keeps you on your toes. It pits you against your friends. It feeds off paranoia. And it doesn’t stop until it’s gotten everyone.

In 1982, John Carpenter produced a film that stands as my favourite movie of all time. It made me love science fiction and special effects. It was an inspiration for me to immerse myself in everything I do today, and it sparked my imagination. It was a great movie, and still is. It was digusting, terrifying, heart-pounding, and throught-provoking. It was like no other horror I’d seen.

So this prequel had a lot to live up to.

Purely from a fan’s point of view, did it? Well, yeah.

Coming into this film, when I first heard about it I was incredibly cautious. I didn’t know what to make of it through the early news releases and the rumours that it was a remake, that it would be all CGI, that it was actually a sequel. It was scary at first preparing for the worst, that your favourite movie would be tainted by modern day horror sensibilities and the filtration of quality through the lens of mass appeal.

Initially, I was on the fence, and the closer it got to the release date, I was getting more optimistic. Would it be a film for the fan? Or simply an exploitation of cult value? Would it be an honest take? Or take everything away from the original?

I’ll say right now, if you’re like me, you’ll like this prequel. It does its job. Does it do more? Not really, no. But that’s really the crux, if you expect more than John Carpenter’s version, you’re pretty naive as a fan. The producers, I highly doubt, wanted to achieve the same status and fame. More so, I think, they were fans first and moviemakers second. It’s a love letter to the original. That I could get on board with.

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That status of the horror genre in contemporary cinema is a daunting one to examine. Franchises dominate box offices, the same tropes and formulas are rehashed under new attractive casts and big-name directors. Scare factors come in the form of cheap thrills and superficial shock value. The horror that thinks is long over. The time of The Thing, the original, seemed over too.

But, this prequel supersedes those tropes, if not only for the reliance on its parent film to guide its every move. It brought back a lot of what The Thing from 1982 gave to the sci-fi and horror genres. It was a competent effort, devoid of those resemblances to current contemporaries. It was a stand-alone film in its genre, it was tunnel vision from the producers, ignoring the surroundings and getting straight down to the gory, paranoid business.

Things like a strong female lead, in Winstead who does a superb job of not being like any other female protagonist in recent horrors, to the atmosphere that it tries to match as closely as it can to the original, to the lack of useless sub-plotting and a swift script. For that, it gets some points.

But as much as it tries to achieve that validation from the original, like a little kid looking for a compliment from his dad, it tries a bit too hard. It does go over the top a bit, and it suffers.

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It’s easy to determine where a fan might pick out the downfalls, which says a lot about the film as a whole. For the average movie goer unfamiliar with the legacy this film tries to live up to, chances are it might be more tolerable and enjoyable—it’s a fresh take (or reminder) on horror nowadays. It’ll be different from other ones.

But for the fan, the list is pretty substantial. Won’t spoil anything, but there’s definitely more presence to the antagonist, if you catch my drift. The original was built on staggering suspense and tension between characters and the environment—here it was sacrificed for the more immediate and shocking. The problem here is the original had the equal amount, but still had those former elements framed around it. Another big pointer is obviously the special effects. There’s a huge dichotomy between processes and the subsequent impact. For both the 80’s version and this one, they have a central importance.

The question is, will the average movie-goer or the fan like or dislike this movie more? Some argue that it’s a bland re-hash, following the exact same footsteps of the original providing no variation or interest. Others say its a faithful, respectful companion piece meant to be just that, an add-on for an already established universe.

The impossibility of examining it as a film by itself poses concerns, since I have a bias already to begin with. The detracting qualities don’t overwhelm the necessary elements to make it a “Thing” film. The real concern was, did The Thing need another one at all? That’s where some predispositions might be up in arms.

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Breaking it down into a T-chart of what worked and what didn’t work, what it maintained and what it was missing, I think is beside the point. Personally, I think the special effects were tastefully (if it can be called that for these effects) done—they respected the process and look for the original creature design. The CGI is in inescapable truth, it’s the environment movies are made in now, like it or not. Again, taking the viewpoint of a newcomer, I’d say it’s the same reaction whether it was prosthetics or not—even with that, datedness doesn’t work well in today’s audiences. It’s an argument about this film that will be a big one, but I think it’s taken without a context, which takes away from its worth.

As a whole, the film acts like a blend. A mixture of modern day horror and a big bag of cues from the original. It’s easy to go down for some, tough for others. I liked it, because of the Easter eggs it gave me, and the competence I can live with from the production. It was decent, to say the least, but I’ve said much more than that.

It’s a recommendation definitely for the fans, because the temptation is probably already too much. And for a horror fan, this is a breath of fresh air in the current situation for horrors, it’s a unique entry for the theatres (despite its nature).  For sci-fi, it’s a jumpstarter I hope for more originals to come along and debunk those tropes that keep the genre in a stand still at the moment.

Walk into it with open, tolerant, unassuming arms, and you’ll exit with a good taste in your mouth.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

DC Comics New 52 | September Pull List

A month later, and the first phase is over. Would you call it a success? Well, every single issue one has been sold out of first printings and gotten back to the presses, and Justice League #1, released August 31 to kick it all off, is going back to a fifth printing. All fifty-two new comic books are going back to second printings.

May not be amazing to you, but it is to me considering the controversy, criticisms and scepticism that dominated online forums, blogs, and comic book websites. How about that DC Comics boycott (pretty sure this isn’t the real campaign, but it’s funny and sad nonetheless)?

Wonder how that’s working out for them.

Just maybe, DC Comics gets the upper hand on Marvel for monthly sales returns. Wouldn’t that be something. In following this entire re-launch from day one, examining all the discussion and dialogue exchanged between retailers, publisher, and audience, it’s a really interesting case study into the sociological and cultural workings of fanbases, and the industry of comics as a whole, both creator and consumer end.

This is just trying to make things relevant. Because I know so many of you care about it. In all honesty though, studying the response on a weekly basis—more than just pulling my books of the shelf and reading them—actually participating in how the audience reaction is taught me a lot about how a niche market operates and how, in turn, are affected by a very specific, loyal, and incredibly passionate consumer base.

Going into detail is for another post. Here’s what I’ve picked up since last time:

September Pull List - DC Comics

Up from 12 to a lovely round number like 20, I’ve added a few ones that have won me over. As well, ones I was eyeing from the beginning for Week 4 of this first month. Specifically:

The Flash #1 – Written by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato, art by Manapul.

Superman #1 – Written by George Perez, art by Jesus Merino.

Aquaman #1 – Written by Geoff Johns, art by Ivan Reis & Joe Prado.

Green Lantern: New Guardians #1 – Written by Tony Bedard, art by Tyler Kirkham & BATT (Matt Banning)

Justice League Dark #1 – Written by Peter Milligan, art by Mikel Janin.

I, Vampire #1 – Written by Joshua Hale Fiakov, art by Andrea Sorrentino.

All-Star Western #1 – Written by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, art by Moritat.

All-Star Western I just picked up today, because there were literally three of DC’s new ones left on the shelves at Silver Snail in Toronto today. Sad to see Aquaman sitting lonely in a corner, but what can you do, slow and steady wins the hearts of haters, I hope?

Speaking of Aquaman, that one I will definitely be talking about soon. All-Star Western was a gem, can’t believe I passed on it till now. Sleeper hits like I, Vampire, and earlier released ones like Batwing deserve some praise (considering the controversy surrounding Batwing’s author for his other book).

There’s still 32 more, but unfortunately I’ll have to cut it here for the month. The three issue ones I never got a hold off cause I was late to the game—or rather the comic book shop, were DC Universe Presents, Wonder Woman, and Detective Comics.

The others I’ll still read, but necessarily in the most supportive of methods.

Big pile of comics on my desk makes me a happy fanboy. Reviews to come when I muster up the energy. Really, these are all just really good issue ones.

Oh and, Francis Manapul signed my Flash #1, and drew me a sketch. I bet you’ll want to see that.

Stay tuned. And read comic books!

Saturday, October 1, 2011

EPIC Illustrative Art of the Week

Fuck essays, look at art!

Not looking forward to Monday.

In the meantime: Caitlin Hackett.

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There’s a certain calming quality to high Victorian portraits melded into morose detailing of scalped animal heads. Brava!

Straight off the Tumblr dashboard presses. It does have its uses.

Check out fuckyeahillustrativeart, some neat shit over there.

[via fuckyeahillustrativeart]

Back to Terra Nova.

School sucks guys, don’t go to it.