Lily of the Valley by Adam Atherton

Last fall/winter, Adam Atherton and his girlfriend Luiza Dragonescu entered a contest at zudacomics. If they won they would have been published by DC. They just missed the cut but haven't lost the desire.

He's been working on his follow up, Lily of the Valley. Take a quick moment or two and go over to zuda. It takes only a couple minutes to sign up, read and vote. It means a lot to him and he's a talented artist/writer.

http://www.zudacomics.com/node/1237

Revival

I will be resurrecting this. In what capacity I am unsure. Possibly do a movie of the week thing. I've watched too many. By the time I finish counting down my list it will have changed. So I'm going to re-do it and post my top 200 alphabetically. Just to give you a list of flicks to watch.

The Death of the Carleton FreePress

It's been a while since I've posted. I have finished university and have been relaxing, reading and writing other things. I would like to share with you my final piece for my degree in journalism.

Check it out here.

#168: Halloween

Halloween (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance and the best slasher killer in the history of slasher films!


When I was a kid I dressed up as a different ninja turtle for halloween three years in a row. Only Donatello never figured into the equation for whatever reason. After my run of portraying mutan turtles turned stale, I did what many a young child did. I became a vampire.

It was sweet. I had a cape, I greased my hair into a pseudo-widow's peak and put some uncomfortable plastic fangs in my mouth and fake blood ran down from the corners of my mouth.

As a kid, I had a love-hate relationship with horror movies and scary stories in general. I would get horror books from the library at school and scare myself senseless in the dark of night. Nightmares were plentiful. Anyone who says the boogeyman can't get you has either forgotten or has never had a bad dream.

Unsolved Mysteries is a pretty lame show in retrospect but when I was 10, it was eerie and creepy. Anything to do with alien abductions and I'd be there to squirm my way through it. It seems masochistic but there is a certain exhiliration and pleasure that comes from being scared or seeing something shocking and unbelievable. If you get to the point where you're vocally trying to convince yourself that it's not real...well you're hooked.

Halloween is the greatest of all childhood holidays. We looked forward to it every year because it's the only day where the scary monsters lose their shadowy mystique and become part of the norm. We as children -- and as adults, who am I kidding? -- entered the world of the darkness for but a night. As a vampire or a werewolf we embraced the horror.

There always is an air of safety surrounding Halloween. So for John Carpenter to make a movie about October 31 where the horror is real and not just make believe he created a new level in the genre. A lumbering, escaped mental patient in a William Shatner mask wielding a knife trying to exact revenge on those who did him wrong on halloween of all days. It packs a punch.

It paved the way for the Friday the 13th movies -- which paved the way for Sleepaway Camp and others -- but it wasn't as campy (sorry about that one). Halloween is still the most effective slasher film maybe because of the double reversal within the holiday from horror to safety and back again or maybe because John Carpenter knows horror better than any other filmmaker.

Halloween is still an annual treasure for my friends and I, although sometimes my creativity takes a backseat to procrastination. The last two years I've worn a suit and attached some accessory to that suit in order to call it a costume.

In 2007 it was a briefcase. Arlo was the devil and I was his attorney.

In 2008 I wrapped a noose around my neck. I was an investment banker. I stole that idea from Traer a few years earlier when he was an Enron executive.

One of these years I'll be more elaborate with my costume. We should all channel that fear and exhiliration at least once a year anyway.

AQ Redux: The inner workings of the movie geek

Being the self-described movie geek that I am, I am conscious of the image us somewhat volatile folk can be. In 2002 I discovered Joblo.com and along with it, the message board.

I thought "hey, a place where I can share my love of movies with others like me? Sign me up!"

Under the moniker of Rated R I posted regularly for six years with only occasional absences. Looking back on my early posts I am embarrassed at what I was willing to print even if it was anonymous. At least here, I am posting as myself and not an alias.

The internet has seriously hurt art critique by giving everyone the option of being their own personal critic. Lost are the days of looking for a well written piece on the depths of cinema or the flashing lights of a masterful action film. Now it's all about the statistics.

If a movie has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, that's all you need to know it's supposed to be great. The problem is a lack of context. By just looking at a number you lose nuance expressed by the writer and instead focus on a an arbitrary number that can not sum up the film properly.

The worst part of the message board is how piss poor the spelling and grammar is. I can understand the occasional typo, but some of these posts are littered with the demolition of language. Like Isaac told me -- which I assume he got from somewhere else -- "the internet is like the world's largest public bathroom. Through the power of anonymity people will write anything they please. Would they ever say these things in their own home or in the face of the person they're insulting? Never." That is, of course, paraphrasing.


The inner workings of the movie geek
by Jason Wilson

The movie geek, like the music aficionado and literary nut, is obsessive and cares way too much about what the layman refers to as 'entertainment.' Films are more than time killers to these people.

I would consider myself a recovering movie geek, although that would indicate that I am no longer am or wish to be one. Neither of which is true.

Films can represent life and reflect values of what is dear and important. If you're watching Meet the Spartans this isn't the case but filmmaking is an art that is so often discarded as mere flashing lights. What's worse is that these bells-and-whistles pictures are the most successful at the box office.

There has to be balance in the media for both art and escapism. Sometimes the two cross over. If every film released was a harrowing look at the ills of humanity, we'd all be refilling Zoloft prescriptions daily.

If every movie was directed by Michael Bay, we would be completely desensitized to senseless violence and we'd lose all comprehension of basic human emotions. Without our physical self changing we would become like Roy Batty and the replicants in Blade Runner. We would look human, maybe even want to be human, but we wouldn't be able to grasp what it means to be human -- although we may not even know what it means anyway, which might be the point of Blade Runner.

If you look at the grand scheme of filmmaking and analyze the whole as its own organism, it makes sense. Our bodies are littered with bacteria. The film world's version of the bowel region is made up of Uwe Boll, Dane Cook and Julia Roberts among many others -- in music, it's the entire Emo genre.

The human body is also resilient, which is way the bacteria are more of a nuisance than anything. Sadly it's a necessary nuisance.

Movie geeks don't always accept this. On movie message boards and the intenet at large people expunge cruelty toward artists(?) they don't like. Why would anyone take the time out of his day to say Tom Cruise should kill himself? What is the point? It's baffling and people who write crap like that should seriously re-examine their lives.

Dane Cook is one of my least favourite "actors." Any time he's on screen I cringe. And yea, I got a kick out of his violent fate in Mr. Brooks. But my solution is to not watch any of his movies on my own dime...simple.

The flip side -- the side most people don't seem to separate from their image of what makes a fanboy -- is that because of the film geek's obsession, a new world is opened. Without watching Goodfellas, The Godfather, Platoon and other classics at a young age, the path to Fellini, Godard and Kurosawa* might never have come.

The expression and communication of ideas is one of the most important parts of life. Film is one of the ways we communicate but film critics have been devolved into grading machines. Chances are if you read a review, it will be apparent how the critic felt about it. Instead, we want everything faster. Immediately.

Give me a rating out of 10 because I can't be bothered to read a few hundred words about it.

Rotten Tomatoes is a good resource in principle. It should be a collection of essays on film and what each individual film means as well as their quality. While links to the full reviews are there, there are only one or two-sentence blurbs summing them up. Next to it is an image indicating whether the film is considered "fresh" or "rotten."

The percentage rating is not representative of context. For the most part, horror movies are destroyed by critics. Horror movies are made with a specific audience in mind and there is art behind it.

Ask most horror fans, they'll watch pretty much any horror movie but they do not love the films blindly. Horror fans are probably the most honest and to the point about the movies they love, critics be damned.

There needs to be balance. As a movie geek I am willing to admit mindless entertainment has its place and I can enjoy it. All I'm asking is that the rest of you meet us half way so the art gets equal play.

I rate this column 5/10

*Just because it's foreign doesn't mean it's good. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

#169: Grindhouse

Grindhouse (2007)
Written and Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
Special trailers directed by Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright
Starring Kurt Russell, Rose McGowan, Josh Brolin, Freddy Rodriguez, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Naveen Andrews.

Never before have I had so much fun in a movie theatre. Grindhouse was exactly what I was expecting and exactly what I wanted when I went to see it. Sure it didn't offer anything new but that's the point. By lampooning and honoring splatter flicks from yesteryear it reached a somewhat more respectable level.

This is why I like Quentin Tarantino as much as I do. He's almost the equivalent of that one-hit wonder that maintains a crazy fanbase because he's not willing to conform to what their one hit would dictate.

Tarantino could have made Pulp Fiction knock-off after Pulp Fiction knock-off for the rest of his career and coast all the way there. Instead -- and it hasn't exactly been taken so well by critics, not that it matters in any way -- he's chosen to pay further homage to the films he watched as a child. What's wrong with that?

What you can be sure of when you go to a Tarantino movie is that it will be so slick and watchable no matter what the subject matter. And while some will disagree about his segment in Grindhouse, I think it's a wonderful addition to his resumé.

Opening night, I heard a guy shout at the screen "boring!" or "nobody cares!" during a scene where the female protagonists are shooting the shit around a table in a diner. It meandered a bit, I'll give him that but it wasn't out of place. And the slight glimpse of Mr. Kurt Russell in the background made it all worthwhile.

Rodriguez on the other hand seems to alternate making some of the most bloody and violent action movies with kid flicks for his own children. Planet Terror delivers the goods up front and just keeps it coming. Zombies or well mutants I guess but zombies all the same.

I thank Mr. Rodriguez for giving Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn work. Biehn was in some of the best damn action flicks in the 1980s (Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss) and has pretty much disappeared. After Grindhouse, Fahey has popped up on Lost several times, so there's that.

This movie is an experience to behold and it's best in theatres. The way the studios released it on DVD is a slap in the face to fans. Sure, they'll make more money by selling them individually but it really breaks up the flow of it eliminating any real chance of replicating what was seen theatrically.

I can even get behind the release of the two films individually for the reason that not everyone wants a three-hour movie experience with fake movie trailers in the middle. If that's wrong, however, I don't want to be right. So why not release an actual edition? A full blown special edition so that those of us who actually did pay to see it in its full form in theatres can enjoy it at home? Sin City got a big-time special edition treatment! Damn it!

Okay, I am coming off as a whiny fanboy and I apologize, it just doesn't make any sense to me why it hasn't happened. It would sell. And they could probably charge $60 a pop and still sell a bunch of copies to suckers like me who think the "full experience" is more important than eating his next meal.

The rationale, I guess is that the mainstream public couldn't wrap its mind around the fact that there were two movies. Never mind that the poster clearly says it's a double feature or that the trailer does the same. Nope, people still thought it was all over after Planet Terror ended*.

How does that happen? Even if you haven't seen a tv spot or an ad anywhere, or you just glossed over the poster, you would have noticed most everyone else in the theatre staying in their seats when the INTERMISSION screen started. Intermission is not the end...

So the movie was a box office failure and no special edition is in sight.

It was the best time I've ever had at a movie theatre. It was an experience, not just taking time out of your day to get to the next thing. It was exactly what I wanted from the beginning to the fake trailers to the end. Gore, sex and car chases. Really, who doesn't want to see a movie where a stripper loses a leg and replaces it with a machine gun? If you say that's stupid and unrealistic...you're missing the point.




*There were stories on it at the time. Since the internet search function pretty much only works when you need to find out about something that happened now or yesterday, I can't find them. I probably could, but it would take more effort than I'm willing to put forth.

AQ Redux: Elitism at the Oscars

This is one of my failed columns. It was a piece on the Academy Awards in 2008.

I was trying to satirically deconstruct the film geek's obsession with awards. For some reason, they need the validation of seeing their favourite movie gain the accolades of award shows.

Winning or losing an award should not change how one feels about a piece of art. If you don't like the film that wins best picture, so what? I used to care, I used to get outraged until I realized how idiotic it is.

I do believe the Oscars are a farce and it's a damn shame that producers get the credit at the end. Sure without the financial backing a lot of these particular films wouldn't get made but that doesn't mean films would stop. The role of a producer is to make money and play it safe. The best picture award should go collectively to the director, writer, cinematographer, etc. Make it a Stanley Cup like thing where it's on display with names added each year. I sill love the movies, but a lot of movie fans piss me off.




Elitism at the Oscars
by
Jason Wilson


Elitism and entertainment are difficult to separate.

The indie music crowd turns its nose up at anyone who started liking Modest Mouse after 'Good News for People Who Love Bad News.' Similarly, film geeks will chastise those who love Michael Bay action movies.

I fall partially in the latter group.

When Titanic won the Academy Award for best picture I wanted to vomit. All opinions aside, L.A. Confidential is the better film.

The Academy Awards are scrutinized more than any other award show. No one cares who wins a Grammy or a Golden Globe or especially a People's Choice award because what do people know?

The Oscar carries prestige to movie geeks, and we all expect our choice to be the one that takes the cake.

No such luck.

Maybe this year is different. Honestly, I would not be disappointed if any of the best picture nominees won.

Even Juno, a film I found to be quirky for the sake of being quirky with very little substance, would not disappoint due to my adoration of Jason Reitman and his rock-solid cast.

The front runner, No Country for Old Men is a technically sound, visually stunning film chock full of suspense. The Coen Brothers elected to end the film with subtlety. It was purposely vague to provoke a long term effect that would have been absent with a 'wrap up all the loose ends' ending. It also would have been untrue to the Cormac McCarthy novel.

It should win, but it could fall victim to "the Scorsese Effect."

"The Scorsese Effect" applies to a film/director/actor that is clearly deserving but is then passed over.

Martin Scorsese's history at the Awards has been mixed. He has only won the best director prize once, for 2006's The Departed.

In 1981 he lost out to Robert Redford, an actor turned director. In 1991 he should have won for Goodfellas, but again was thwarted by an actor thinking he's better than he is. Kevin Costner won for Dances With Wolves.

The difference is No Country's competition includes There Will Be Blood, an equally deserving picture from Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights).

If either film goes home empty handed, it will be a tragedy.

The situation is rife with peril as other nominees could sneak into contention at the last minute like Crash and Chicago in recent years.

The night will toil through the rhetoric of celebrity as the stars gather to celebrate their wealth and to a lesser extent, the art of cinema.

Teasers of the best picture nominees will be shown as people guess who will win while Jack Nicholson pops another valium and tries to remember where he is.

Everyone will smile as the producers of the winning film jump on stage to accept an award for something they had little or no part in creating. The biggest award of the entire ceremony goes to those who deserve it the least...such is the folly of being an artist.

Oh sure, Anderson or the Coens could have a moment in the sun a few commercial breaks earlier, but it's the producers who stand victorius at the end of the evening. It's a parable of life and the working class. The bosses celebrate the spoils of the hard work done by those beneath them.

Celebrate the writers, actors and directors...the producers don't need our applause and they don't deserve it either. They already have our money.

Reluctantly I predict the outcomes and analyze where I went wrong. I labour over the idea of who truly deserves it and who should have stayed at home.

All opinions aside, No Country for Old Men was the best movie nominated, but I'm no elitist.

#170: Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead (1978 & 2004)
Written and directed by George A. Romero (78)
2004 edition directed by Zack Snyder
Starring zombies


Purists will hate me. As you can plainly see, both Dawns are mentioned and this will piss off a lot of hardcore zombie movie fans. Thankfully for me, no one reads this except people that barely care and don't let trivial things like remakes of a movie ruin their day.

Remakes are a maligned creature and I can understand that to a degree. It's a proponent of the lack of creativity in Hollywood. Why think of a new and original idea when you can remake one from the past and cash in on its name?

Some people think this is a new phenomenon. A few years ago The Ring came out with Naomi Watts. It was a North American rendition of a popular Japanese horror flick called Ringu. Since then the USA has imported several from the terrible The Eye to improving over the original with Scorsese's The Departed (was Infernal Affairs).

This is not new.

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai was released in 1954 and then remade in the States as The Magnificent Seven in 1960. The Magnificent Seven is one of the most recognizable titles in the western genre. Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars was also a remake of a Kurosawa film called Yojimbo. Cue the 1990's and Bruce Willis' Last Man Standing and you have a remake of a remake.

Kurosawa though adapted a couple of Shakespeare's plays into loose translations into a samurai motif. Throne of Blood (Macbeth) and Ran (King Lear) were essentially remakes but of plays instead of other movies. Is there any difference between an adaptation and a remake?

If no then the remake trend is certainly nothing new and you could argue Hollywood and cinema in general has never been very original and I wouldn't exactly dispute this.

Consider the following films: There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Zodiac, All the President's Men, L.A. Confidential, Goodfellas, The Godfather, and The Shawshank Redemption.

Each of those movies appeared in the printed medium first. And each of those movies are more or less celebrated. Even this year's best picture darling Slumdog Millionaire is based on a novel. Oh and captain fanboy, your beloved Star Wars? Yeah, Lucas was heavily influenced by none other than Akira Kurosawa. Lucas borrowed heavily from Hidden Fortress so there you have it.

The Dawn of the Dead's are so vastly different, and really the only similarity is they feature groups of people stuck in a mall fending off zombies. They both have the anti-consumerism message. Some have argued that it's more subdued and subtle in the original and I disagree. It's pretty obvious through the entire movie. The biggest difference is in the action.

The 70s version focuses more on character interaction while the remake is all about creating anxiety and tension with as many quick scares as possible. The zombies run and I have no problem with that.

Both films are fantastic in their own way. And even if you hate the remake as a whole I can't see how you can dislike the opening sequence and overall set up unless you just hate horror movies in general.

A lot of remakes are trash but so are the originals. Anyone who complains about the new Friday the 13th sullying the originals is on some crazy drugs. The originals hold no real integrity, for proof just watch part 8 again. Jason takes Manhattan is the worst horror movie I've ever watched and I saw Hellraiser: Bloodline.

It's infuriating to read message boards where movie fans bitch and complain about the lack of originality in the film industry. It's not a new thing and it will always be like this. Like any movie, watch it before you judge it and if it still doesn't cut the mustard well move on to the next movie. A remake isn't inherently a bad thing and remember a new idea committed to celluloid is not inherently a good one either.

The Auteurs + Criterion = Film-lover's heaven

Just thought I'd run this by ya'll. If you like movies and like them for free then this is for you. If you know me, then you know I am a movie geek/fan/guy/maniac. You would also know that I collect DVD's from the Criterion Collection - or if you didn't, you do now.

The above image is from the Criterion website from the month of January. They have formed a partnership with The Auteurs, a blog-ish/networking site for film buffs. There has been a facebook application for some time now but when Criterion joined hands with them last fall it was indeed a fantastic union.

Now, every month, The Auteurs host a film festival of sorts. They select five or six films that fit a theme and screen them for free on their website. It's live streaming but it's high quality. This month they're showing all the Criterion titles that won Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. I watched Black Orpheus tonight and it was great.

So give it a go, just start an account at The Auteurs and you're good to go.

The others screening this month:

La Strada directed by Federico Fellini
Closely Watched Trains directed by Jiri Menzel
The Virgin Spring directed by Ingmar Bergman
Mon Oncle directed by Jacques Tati
The Shop on Main Street directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos

#171: Army of Darkness

Army of Darkness (1992)
Written and directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Bruce Campbell, boomstick.


Okay, one more for the road.

If you haven't read Bruce Campbell's book If Chins Could Kill do yourself a favour and pick it up. It's a funny book above all else and if you haven't already fallen victim to the great chin's persona, you will after reading it.

The first couple entries of the Evil Dead series are closer to straight up horror than anything. The second one -- and probably the most balanced -- mixes horror with wit and slapstick very well. In the third, this one, it's pretty much a full-blown comedy. Raimi and company must have realized how ridiculous this plot was and decided to play it for laughs instead of scares.

The beauty of that decision is that Campbell was given the opportunity to really shine as the smart ass who has had enough. He's a buffoon but is given the task of leading a military outfit in ancient times against armies of the dead.

"Clatto Verata N... Necktie... Neckturn... Nickel... It's an "N" word, it's definitely an "N" word! Clatto... Verata... N- "

He's such an imbecile that he basically ruins it for everyone before using his trusty high school chemistry book to learn how to make gunpowder for his shotgun and a metal hand so he doesn't have to wear a chainsaw constantly.

My friend Arlo hated this movie because of how unrealistic it was. He has since recanted his distaste for it but I don't entirely believe him. I suspect he says this so I don't berate him about it.

Seriously, this is a movie about a guy who travels back in time to become a slave and defeat a bunch of pseudo-zombies. This guy worked in a department store. Those are his credentials. If you try to take this movie seriously you are not going to like it. Shut off your mind and laugh along with the people who made it because you can tell they weren't trying to win awards. They were in it to have a good time and you gotta respect them for that.

Sure Raimi went on to direct the Spider-Man series and has built a relatively respectable resume. Campbell remains in obscurity for the most part. Some people out there would recognize him only as the sleazy guy from those Old Spice commercials. While amusing, they don't really showcase his greatness.

Movies like this and Bubba Ho-Tep where he plays a geriatric Elvis in an old age home fighting a Mummy with a penchant for cowboy attire may be silly but they are entertaining and endlessly re-watchable. He's got a wonderful screen presence and it's amazing that he never broke through into the mainstream. Sure he was on Xena and he had his own show in that vein Jack of All Trades, but he is barely on the periphery of Hollywood.

Two of my favourite performances he gave were as guest spots in Homicide: Life on the Street and The X-Files. In the former he plays a cop who takes matters into his own hands when the law doesn't work to his favour. It's a two-parter aptly called Justice.

In the latter he's a demon burying his newborn children in his back yard. To give any more detail would be huge spoilers. It's in the sixth season and I suggest you check it out. Incidentally, Campbell was considered as Duchovny's successor in season 8 but the part of John Doggett eventually went to Robert Patrick (T-1000) instead possibly due to Campbell's memorable appearance a couple seasons earlier.

Army of Darkness is a fine flick. It's a perfect matinee or midnight movie. I think I've seen it more at midnight in theatres than I have at home. No matter where I see midnight movies advertised, this is always in the circulation. It's well worth it and it's always packed.

A few years ago, a girl I knew was throwing a costume party based on heroes. It was short notice or I put it off to the last second, either scenario is plausible. My roommate at the time had a plastic toy chainsaw and my friend DP had a toy shotgun. I put two and two together, gelled my hair and donned a blue shirt, jeans and work boots. It wasn't spot on, but it was pretty good for two hours of work.

Judge for yourself:
The movie is a crowd pleaser. You can't go wrong by showing to any group of people unless they're scientifically oriented like ole Arlo. Suspension of disbelief is not a dirty concept. Some movies are meant to be true-to-life experiences. This one is pure unabashed escapist fun.

It's also one of the most quotable movies ever. That sounds like hyperbole, but man it's up there.

Time to channel our inner vagabonds!

This may be the final entry in February. The only writing I plan on doing over the next couple days is my long form piece on the Carleton FreePress. It's my final assignment before my university career at long last is over.

So why does this spell the end of the month so soon?

I'm glad you asked!

Horatio and I, who have been planning a trip of some sort for a while now, are going to be heading down the dusty trail to the United States. With a stop in Pittsburgh to see Ben Folds we will then continue to Nashville, Tennessee for a couple days before returning north. It should be a week-long odyssey.

Upon my return I will need to finish the final copy of my long form and then I will be whisked away to Montreal to see the Canadiens host the Sharks.

It's a whirlwind of activity that is needed because isolation and staying in one place adhering to a strict schedule of repetition is extremely inane and unfulfilling. So read a book. Watch some movies. Write a song. Fill the time in whatever productive way you can.

Cheers,

JCW

#172: Election

Election (1999)
Written and directed by Alexander Payne
Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta
Starring Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick, Chris Klein and terrifying high school memories.

High school for some reason has garnered the reputation as being the best part of our lives. If that's true then we should all commit mass suicide now. If it doesn't get any better than the rumour-filled, status-oriented, filtered information session of secondary education then the world is a much worse place than imaginable.

For some high school is legendary. Hanging championship sports banners or performing in a musical or play are cathartic experiences. But en masse, high school is training wheels for life, or at least it should be. High School is not inherently better or worse than any other part of life, it just is a part of life.

High school politics though serve very little purpose. When elected to student council you aren't given any real responsibility just the image that you do. You see, when you get chosen to lead your fellow students it's nothing more than a status symbol.

In the tenth grade I ran for the position of second vice president. Yeah, that actually existed. Every grade had to be represented in the student council, except the freshmen. A friend of mine was running unopposed until I decided on a whim to have a go at it. My platform was to bring paper towels back to the bathrooms instead of those awful blow-dryers that do not dry your hands at all.

I won, not sure why, but I won. My promise went unfulfilled and the meetings were boring as hell. The VP2 didn't actually do anything except attend a weekly noon-hour meeting. Since I didn't want to resign -- I am far too stubborn for that -- I beat the system.

During these dreadful meetings where my position was to sit there quietly and not disrupt the proceedings I read the charter of the school government. What I discovered allowed me to keep my position and only occasionally attend the meetings where all I did was occupy space in a chair.

The charter stated that you could only be removed from your position if you missed three consecutive meetings. Since the Clinton scandal was in full swing at the time, it would have been embarrassing to be impeached for anything less than fellatio. Considering our faculty advisor, this was not exactly a pleasing option. She likely would have feasted on my soul instead. Instead I would skip two meetings and attend the third. This infuriated the advisor and my soul shrank deep within my person out of a great and rational fear of consumption. Bravely I pointed out the loophole and she could do nothing more.

This rule has likely changed and if there's any justice in this world, the amendment would be named after me.

We didn't have a Tracy Flick at our helm. No one really cared because there was nothing at stake. There were no real real responsibilities. It's just another effort at sheltering the youth before letting them figure out all the troublesome things on their own once they go to university. For years, university was peddled without even any coaching about why. Just go to the U of your choice and you'll figure it out. Great advice. Because our hopes and dreams are of no real substance supposedly.

No, this is not a rant against teachers. They have a thankless position for the most part and much of what they try to do is greeted with apathy and sometimes hostility. How can we expand the youthful minds if books like Catcher in the Rye and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are banned or requested to be banned? The whole protectionist attitude when it comes to our children does more harm than good. It's time someone actually thought of the children instead of shouting "won't someone think of the children"?

Give kids responsibility. Give them a voice. Sure, they'll screw up but that's the point. Failure is not the end of the world, and in many ways it's very beneficial.

I just realized I merely speculated for the most part here. I grew up in the system and only now recognize the flaws I encountered. So if it's a bit disorganized and lacking references then I think that kind of proves my point in a way...

AQ REDUX: Top 10 Movies of 2007

I don't know why I make top ten lists. Hell it's a mystery to me why I made the top 200 movies list. Boredom is likely. Obsession is also a possibility. But it's flawed because my opinions are fleeting. My list below of the top 10 movies of 2007 has certainly changed, notably at the top.

Zodiac (pictured above) is my top film from that year. I can watch it over and over again even though it clocks in at around 3 hours. David Fincher is a movie making maven. While Benjamin Button is getting awards attention this year, it was Zodiac that really woke me up to his genius puppetmaster skills. His early flicks like Seven, The Game and Fight Club all worked as entertaining exercises of style and suspense. What he achieved with Zodiac was a more mature and engaging story. He took a tale set in reality and through meticulous attention to detail was able to essentially reproduce San Francisco in the late 60s and early 70s.

Don't get me wrong, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood deserve the praise they received and continue to be showered it. And when I wrote the following piece, I hadn't yet seen the PT Anderson epic of power and greed or a couple others. My revised list is as follows:

1. Zodiac
2. No Country for Old Men
3. There Will Be Blood
4. Grindhouse
5. Into the Wild
6. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
7. Once
8. Hot Fuzz
9. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
10. Superbad

Some changes...some the same...


Top 10 movies of 2007
by Jason Wilson


1. No Country for Old Men
2. Zodiac
3. Grindhouse
4. Into the Wild
5. Once
6. 3:10 to Yuma
7. Charlie Wilson's War
8. Hot Fuzz
9. American Gangster
10. Superbad


Once again I am embarrassed to submit my top ten list of films from the previous calendar year. Why? I live in Fredericton, New Brunswick or as I like to refer to it: the cinema sewer.

I feel cheated as a fan of artistic film I was unable to see Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. A friend of mine caught it on a whim on his way through Presque Isle, Maine. Yes, some rinky-dink theatre in small town Maine has a leg up on Fredericton when it comes to independent releases.

Word of mouth in Fredericton, or rumours, informed me that the reason Empire Theatres didn't bring The Assassination of Jesse James is because the powers that be figured it wouldn't be a draw. The reasoning makes sense, but not for this particular film. Beyond starring Brad Pitt, it was touted as an award front-runner well before it was released anywhere (didn't win much but ah well).

The theatre can't use genre as an excuse either because both 3:10 to Yuma and No Country for Old Men can be slotted next to it as a western. Jesse James is a beautifully filmed picture with subtle performances and a nuanced story. It's not a classic duster. It's more like a thinking man's western*, something that may scare theatre bosses. Complexities equal fewer ticket sales, or so they think. Balls.

Chances of seeing Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood are slim**. Daniel Day-Lewis gives another wonderful performance in a long line of powerhouse acting and Anderson is quickly climbing the ladder of film auteurs. This is not enough for Empire. Instead the same old re-hash like One Missed Call gets a slot. Kudos.

New Brunswick has never been a great place for film lovers. DVD and downloading are the only avenues for most indies. The Monday Night Film Series at Tilley Hall is a good shot, but many of the selections shown are available on DVD soon after or even before a screening. We get the shaft and every year it's the same old story.

What Fredericton needs is an independent movie house that mirrors the Empire-owned Oxford Theatre in Halifax. It's a one-screen theatre hosting indie releases through the week and midnight showings of classics and obscure foreign films on the weekends. Imagine, instead of going to the bars, you have the option to see a night of kung-fu movies for five or ten bucks! Variety, after all is the spice of life.

Chances of this happening are next to nil because there is no real area accesible to a large number of people that's big enough for a theatre. Who has the money to fund such a project and who can get the rights from film companies to screen the movies? Certainly not this semi-student raped by poverty and loan payments.

It's a pipe dream and the only way to keep me in Fredericton for any considerable time after graduation (even then). The routine in the city is the same week in and out. The music scene goes in phases of one style or another and the same bands seem to drop in on their war elsewehere. As nice as the art gallery is it's not going to warrant weekly visits. It's a once in a while thing.

Film can offer more than a night of entertainment. It can be a prelude to in depth conversations regarding the themes of what was viewed. Give it time, and no longer is the film the subject of the conversation but what it represents is.

My top film of the year, the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men left an odd taste in many viewers' mouths. For much of the film it is a straightforward chase story that suddenly evolves into much more. The intricate nature of the film's final moments are easy to construe as ambiguous, but instead they reveal more about the nature of life, acceptance and choice. It also sheds light on the meaning of the title of the film.

At least Empire had the sense to screen it although a few weeks later than expected. No film came close all year (d'oh!). It is perfection on film and possibly the Coens' best film***.

2008 begins and it will likely go a similar path in our Capital city. Empire will screen a loud, obnoxious series of action movies while neglecting the artistic and innovative. Who can really blame them though? Movies are all about escaping, not thinking...

Balls.



* Edited phrasing to be direct because my hypotheses about Jesse James were correct.

** There Will Be Blood came to Fredericton about a week before the Oscars so I was wrong. I saw it in theatres and it did not disappoint.

*** Okay, so I jumped the gun. It's a great film but it's not perfection on celluloid. It's not the Coens' best but it is one of them. Love the film, one of the few to improve on the source material but it doesn't keep me as engaged on repeat viewings like Zodiac does.

#173: F for Fake

F For Fake (1974)
Written and directed by Orson Welles
Starring Orson Welles and abundant mind-fuckery

"Illusion Michael! A trick is something a whore does for money...or cocaine."


Guys like David Blaine and that hair metal wannabe Criss Angel have it wrong. Magicians or illusionists need a little more charisma than the rock of Gibraltar, though what a charming rock it was. They are forcibly serious and always have a look of smug constipation on their faces. Who cares if they fool you? They're dicks.

Okay, so Orson Welles seems like a codger. A fat, bloated, drunken coot of a man whose final screen credits included the voice of Unicron in the Transformers movie. But he was responsible for one of the biggest and most successful illusions of all time.

Imagine a time when radio was the pinnacle of home entertainment. One day you're minding your own business and you've never even heard of H.G. Wells (no relation) before. Then a report comes flying in saying the world is being attacked by invaders from another planet. Hoo boy, yeah, that happened. He adapted War of the Worlds to the radio in a much more effective manner than Spielberg did to film. Spielberg is a master of cinema, but that movie was awful.

F for Fake was the last film Welles directed. It's a pseudo-documentary about liars and the lies they tell. Within the film, one of the subjects he tackles is a complete lie itself. So even the documentary is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. It's absorbing.

Never before this film had I heard of Elmyr de Hory, a Hungarian born art forger. It's said in the film that at any given time in some of the most prestigious art galleries in the world, his forgeries -- many of which were Picasso reproductions -- were on display instead of the original. He would don a disguise and an alias to peddle his forgery, selling it to the gallery for a dishonest buck.

The sad part is he was never able to make it as an original artist despite attempting to quit the forgery racket to make an honest living. These attempts were unsuccessful.

Clifford Irving, another liar of a different colour, wrote a biography on Hory. Funny because his fakery centered on the biography he wrote on Howard Hughes...except the billionaire never spoke with him. This was chronicled in the film The Hoax with Richard Gere.

Welles plays with the smoke and mirrors and asks the audience to reflect about what it has witnessed. Do you believe everything you're told? Do you believe everything you see? How trusting are you that the truth is being presented at all times?

The most ballsy thing Welles did was admit that he was lying to the audience. This movie is an illusion masked as a documentary as much as it is a documentary about illusion. It's a head scratcher and probably my favourite work in Welles' directorial catalogue. Even moreso than Citizen Kane.

Ordered it over a year ago. The premise was intriguing even though at first I thought it was a work of fiction told in modern abstract style. When the documentary aspect was revealed the further I read on it, I knew it had to be mine.

Watched it for the first time with good ole Arlo at his parents' place on a cold December afternoon. Despite the lack of alcohol or other mind-altering substances this was the type of film that makes the room spin into surreality. When the smoke clears, what was real and what was fake? Is the film itself a forgery?

Check it out for yourself. Revealing the mystery to be another mystery is half the fun.

Procrastination...

...is a devilish thing.

The book is coming along. We've surpassed 110 pages now and part one should be finished this week. We will then edit the hell out of it and send it to the agent. Regardless of how that goes, we'll finish the book as quickly as possible after that. Soon I will get my hands on the video from November when we did the reading of the prologue and I'll post it here for your enjoyment.

Trying to figure out the future. Applying for internships because jobs are hard to come by. Might flee the country in a couple months.

Pittsburgh and Tennessee in under 2 weeks.

That is all for now. Time to stop procrastinating. A full entry will be posted tomorrow.

Folly at a midnight movie

At the midnight showing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last night in Fredericton, embarrassment seemed inevitable. Obviously, like most others in attendance, I was a bit shy from interaction unlike my normal self and this played into my brief and slightly humourous downfall.

95.7 FM employs bastards. They organized this wonderful event and invited 10 people from the packed crowd to stand at the front like a firing squad execution to answer trivia questions about the film. I was the final contestant on the stage after much prodding from Horatio, Veda, et al.

However they asked each of us randomly after appearing to start chronologically from left to right. Imagine the stress of knowing the death blow is imminent but it could strike all around you first. This was the trivia - and mind altered - equivalent.

Question 1: Who directed the film?

Easy answer. Terry Gilliam. The contestant didn't know and was given a consolation prize.

Question 2: What hotel was the police convention at?

Little trickier. But I knew it was the Flamingo. Contestant numero dos also swung and missed and got sent packing.

The woman from 95.7 FM looked down the row at me and said "it's looking pretty good for you on the end now isn't it?"

Being the idiot that I am I decided to wade in this great fortune by smiling and giving her the thumbs up. Had I stood still, ignored her attention perhaps they would have continued along the beaten path. But no, instead I got cocky.

So the big bald bastard she works with got the idea, and it was clear in his eyes that his intentions were to eliminate me swiftly. He wanted to wipe the smug look off my face. It was as though he were thinking "oh so you think you know Fear and Loathing huh? You gonzo wannabe hack? Well you get question number 3 then since you think you're so good."

Question 3: What kind of dessert does Dr. Gonzo order at the diner?

Shit.

"Oh man," I said.

"Oh man," the bald bastard replied in a mocking tone.

After an asinine back and forth where I felt like a lobotomy patient being encouraged by equally stupid individuals, I said "pie."

"Yes, but what kind of pie?"

Fucker.

"Um, banana cream?"

"Oh so sorry," he said. He wasn't.

It was lemon pie...lemon. The smug Mr. Clean with tats handed me a card from Jumbo video promising a free rental with a paid rental. Great. An offer to save money if only I actively spend some first. That makes sense.

Question 4: Who wrote the book?

Somehow, the person on stage didn't know and received a resounding chorus of boos. She deserved it. It's not a bad thing to go see the movie in theatres if you have never heard of Thompson, that's fine. But why take part in a trivia contest about Fear and Loathing if you have no proper frame of reference to what the hell is going on? That person probably would have said lemon...

Semi-joking, I started complaining about the coupon Butterbean gave me when I said "yeah, and it's only good until...six days ago." They gave me an expired coupon.

"Why not just punch you in the stomach?" Isaac said.

I'll have my revenge on this one. The hosts from the radio station said next month they'd be showing Ghostbusters on March 20*. First of all, next month is February so there's that. Second, I know Ghostbusters like the back of my hand. I'm going to step up to the plate and show Stay Puft who to call when it comes to film trivia...

...lame? Yes. Somewhat pathetic? Sure. But hey, pride is a silly thing in general anyway.

*Horatio has updated me on the status of the next midnight movie. Apparently, they did intend to say February 20. It is next month and good old Faustus and I are going to be somewhere between Tennessee and Pennsylvania on our return trip. You've cornered me again world!

AQ REDUX: The boys of $ummer

<-- Me enjoying a Fenway Frank

Baseball is a huge part of my life. The following column was first published in the Aquinian in September 2007. I was supposed to write a pop culture column for the arts section but this is what my brain churned out. So instead of picking up where I left off, a sports wrench was thrown into the spokes of my arts column.

It had to be this way, it was in my head and it needed to be put on paper. So I did what anyone would do...I wrote it at work. My history of finding ways to kill time while working at a call center would fill a book -- a mostly uninteresting book, but a book nonetheless. That summer I had ordered MLB.TV, which allows you to watch every out of market baseball game live on the internet.

The call center scheduled me for a series of 5pm to 2am shifts. Around 10, all the authority figures left the asylum to the inmates. Probably because anyone of importance wouldn't agree to work such insane hours, but us mere peons grateful for their generosity of employment had no choice.

Being a nightowl as is, it wasn't a big deal to me especially since I had a corner cubicle where I could twist my monitor to face the wall. Facebook was blocked by the server but mlb.tv wasn't. So my late night shifts consisted of watching west coast teams like Oakland, LA, San Francisco, etc. Other than that I usually read at my desk once I realized I wasn't going to stay much longer. As long as the job was done -- and done right -- then what's the big deal?

Call centers and most menial jobs put the fear into the employees mostly because they'll hire anyone and anyone they hire is completely expendable. It's much more stressful an atmosphere than playing baseball for a living. Sure, the media scrutiny is insane but so is the payroll. So the amount you get paid should be somewhat relative to the interest the media pays to you, I guess. However, if the media didn't care about baseball, or sports in general, would the players make less? It's spiraled so far out of control now that my column probably seems a bit dated... judge for yourself.


The boys of $ummer
by Jason Wilson





















The crack of the bat; the pop of the mit; the smell of the grass blades kicked up in the air. The elements of baseball fill me with self-awareness and the uncanny realization it is summer.

Since I was young this game has represented a peace of mind that drifts to the outer reaches of consciousness for most of the year. Watching Joe Carter hit that fabled home run for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1993 World Series -- TOUCH EM ALL JOE! -- remains one of the most pleasant memories of my childhood. Baseball represents more than a simple sport or a game. It represents joy, purity and innocence...or at least it used to.

"If you build it, he will come". Ray Kinsella heard these words whisper through the wind to his ear while walking through his corn field on his Iowa farm. An image of a baseball diamond appeared in the middle of the field. While Kinsella didn't know why, or who exactly was speaking, he needed to build it, he needed to follow the voice's advice.

When the field was built, the "ghost" of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson appeared in the field and was soon followed by others from baseball's yesteryear. Most notably along with Jackson were the other eight members from the 1919 Chicago Black Sox banned for life for cheating.

This is fantasy. Field of Dreams is not a testament of reality, but of what baseball has meant to North Americans for over a century. "Shoeless" Joe tells Kinsella when he first appears that he would have "played the game for food money" and even "for free" after hitting a few more balls for the first time since being banned for life. How many of today's (living) sports stars would do the same?

Somewhere along the line power and greed took hold of the sports world. Owners care more about winning than what the total is in their bank accounts. Most owners have come to the point where money is no object so they can afford the best players at whatever the cost. Free agency has put the ball in the players and agents courts to demand wages and the owners giddily pay whatever price is asked if they think a championship will soon follow.

More and more, players will hold out to demand better pay. It's painful to watch superstars like Alex Rodriguez play the game like it's a job. Yes he is getting paid the big bucks, but there is no joy in him on the field; he is all business. When Ken Griffey debuted with the Seattle Mariners in the late 80s, he was a kid and played with the verve of a boy his age. His smile represented everything baseball should. Since signing with Cincinnati (and a trade in 08 to the White Sox) before the 2000 season, his smile has faded as injuries have plagued him. The disappearance of joy is accompanied by the tainted purity of America's National pastime.

Steroids and big contracts have damaged the connection between the game and the die-hard fans. Sure, Barry Bonds has never tested positive for steroids, but his career is one of the most sscrutinized in the "steroid era" by those in the media and fans alike. Bonds breaking the home run record in 2007 should have been dramatic and celebrated. Instead it will forever be thought of hand in hand with speculation. Many label Bonds a cheater, having tainted a once-pure game -- I think Roger Clemens has done more to damage the game. Watching the allegations pile up, and the controversies mount, the innocence is gone.

There is no salary cap in baseball and there never will be. The player's association wouldn't allow it. They stand to make a killing, and why not? They retort that they travel so much and are away from their families over half the year and deserve those contracts. They have been consumed by their own celebrity and the fans and media are partially to blame along with the bottomless walleted owners. Would anyone in Major League Baseball play just to get by? The fun is lost. I love baseball, it means more to me than a sport should and yet it will potentially carry a cloud of corruption for all time.

Cue to four years ago. My dad and I sitting in the front row on the right field foul line in Fenway Park. A Fenway Frank in one hand and a beer in the other, sitting with my dad at Fenway experiencing my first Major League baseball game. A Canadian kid falling in love again with America's game seems almost blasphemous but to me it was joyful, pure and innocent. Hearing the crack of the bat, the pop of the mit and smelling the freshly cut grass brought back the magic of the game that to me at least represents the character of us.

Baseball, along with everything else now, is under a constant microscope calle the public eye. Sometimes we see beyond the looking glass into the harsh reality proving we are all human, even the baseball players we as children idolized. Even with this harsh reality it is comforting to know it can all disappear for an afternoon sitting in the stands chowing down on overpriced food and warm beer cherishing the game that has not changed much on the field in a hundred years.

On rare occasions, the magic is still there.

#174: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)
Written and Directed by Terry Gilliam
Based on the book by Hunter S. Thompson
Starring Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Christina Ricci, Gary Busey, Tobey Maguire, a trunk full of narcotics.

As a student journalist it's no surprise that I am a follower and fan of Hunter S. Thompson. His fame is almost stereotypical among twenty-somethings who have a vested interest in writing, especially journalism. He represents the ideals of both creativity and telling a true-to-life story. His work is also very self-indulgent by traditional journalistic standards but that's the point. Dr. Gonzo and his specific brand of writing (GONZO!) ignores tradition and no one has or ever will do it better.

Even if the good doctor hadn't blown his brain out with a shotgun, he wouldn't be the same guy or writer as he was in the past. In fact, his columns for Page 2 on ESPN -- while amusing -- didn't quite meet the standards of his old writing.

I don't want to be an elitist. I hate it when fans of a musician or a director or a writer arbitrarily dismiss new material. The line "I liked [insert artist name here] before he/she/they were famous" is the most arrogant and self-serving line that can be uttered, especially because it is rarely followed up with any concrete argument. I was never a fan of Sugar Ray, but I'll tell you one thing, the song Fly prevented them from ever being respectable. Every single they released from there on out was exactly the same light and fluffy style. Considering Sugar Ray started with songs like Mean Machine, this change makes sense when you don't like how they progressed. Back up your arguments.

Thompson's downfall in his writing isn't as easily pinpointed and I don't even really dislike his Hey Rube columns. I discovered Thompson after his glory years because I wasn't exactly alive when he was pounding back every drug known to man. Like Mr. Lahey was the liquor, Thompson was the drugs (oversimplified...well aware).

No, I'm not a historian of his legacy and I haven't read all his work but I recognize what he represents in the world of journalism and in a way he has hurt it as well as helped. He is a cartoon character as characterized in Gilliam's film. He was a drug-addled freak who could have paved the way for a new style of writing. Instead, anyone who tries to write a stream of consciousness style is dubbed a Hunter Thompson wannabe.

Especially in school.

STU has taught us the fundamentals of writing for a newspaper. From writing leads to nut-graphs to pyramid style, etc. we have learned it. One thing the school never encouraged and likely never will is breaking convention. Or if we tried to break convention our professors cringed or started to tell us to try to write the story by the formula we had been trained with. Creativity has very little place in the news medium, or so our professors would have us believe.

But what gets attention? What is praised? Take a look at This American Life from NPR. These stories are long format, one per hour-long episode in fact. Compare that with a network newscast where every story is around the standard length of two minutes or less and you have differences. Sure, most people have wavering attention spans but the more time you have to tell a story the more in depth you can go with it.

Hunter S. Thompson wasn't quite the print equivalent to This American Life but he wasn't a run of the mill reporter either. He broke boundaries, supposedly but how many journalists have applied his style?

Robin Esrock writes a column called Gonzo Travel for Brave New Traveler. It's pretty decent especially if you like reading about adventure. It's not quite the same and I think using the word gonzo in the title is a cheap contrivance to draw in Hunter Thompson enthusiasts. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to bring in readers, so I don't really hold that against him. (His website is called modern gonzo as well...so hey, he loves HST as well. Glad the legacy didn't go to waste)

Stream of consciousness journalism is definitely a valid form of reporting but it can't be called gonzo if it's going to exist in mainstream publications (which it likely won't anyway, so it may be silly to even throw this out there). The connotations with prolific drug use and the word gonzo prevents it from being taken seriously.

And whether you agree with recreational drug use or you abhor it, Hunter S. Thompson told some amazing stories and wrote with a tenacity and enthusiasm that isn't present in the world of journalism today. Now that is something we do need more of. Stop trying to fit the mould and write the way that feels right to you. It will only help the global journalistic community.

If anyone has a link to an archive of all his work that would be great. Also if you have examples of writers that do take the unconventional approach and do it well...let me know, I would greatly appreciate it.

* Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is playing in Fredericton, NB at Empire Theatres on Friday January 23 at midnight.
** I recommend the following: The Rum Diary, Great Shark Hunt, Screwjack and Hell's Angels.

AQ REDUX: Kid A changed my life

This is kind of a cheat on the whole AQ Redux idea and it's only the second posting of my history as an Aquinian columnist. I pitched the idea for my column, essentially a hodge-podge of pop-culture musings and rantings at the end of my second year at St. Thomas. We ran the one on image and coolness in the last issue of the year.

A week or so later I wrote the following piece on a whim but it couldn't really wait until the following semester to be printed. My editor, the wonderful Hiedi Irvine, helped me get in touch with Here magazine. I emailed the column to them along with my image column to give them an idea of my style. After weeks of waiting, I finally hear back with a message saying Here has enough columnists as is.

With great haste I shoot back a reply asking what they would be looking for as far as a freelancer would be concerned so I could figure out some story ideas. After an even longer wait, I finally get an email back re-iterating the fact that they don't want a columnist even though I specifically indicated that I was fine with doing straight up features. Their editor gave me a vague idea of what Here was looking for but I was so disgusted with how long it took to get a reply that I decided to work at a call center for the summer instead of write.

Anyway, for the first time ever, here is my column about Kid A by Radiohead. It's a bit self-serving, I'll admit that but hey it was a fun one to write.



Kid A changed my life
by Jason Wilson



Outside my apartment, I stood smoking a cigarette and thinking about life. More accurately I was thinking about my music collection and the limits within it. It consists of albums I have either heard too frequently and have become bored of or those that I tolerated once and have no interest in repeating.

For the first time ever -- at least since it was released -- I was compelled to listen to Radiohead's Kid A. This is not a record that is or has ever been in my possession. When it was released, people treated it as the second coming of rock music and this critical fellating it received turned me off. Why should I feel obligated to listen to (and love) an album because music critics have labeled it as the best of its kind?

Nearly seven years ago I avoided Kid A and tonight I needed to listen to it. NEEDED TO.

Luckily, I found a copu in a pile of my roommateès discs beside his stereo. Funny, I have never seen him play it.

My compulsive list-making has shielded me from many bands because I have pigeon-holed myself into my particular taste. I refused to like Radiohead -- except The Bends -- because they had been built up far too much. Radiohead seemed like a trendy choice in the late 90s spilling over to the new millenium and I never wanted to jump on that train. Now it seems safe to finally give in and objectively analyze the music.

On track three The National Anthem I realize that I am absorbed. It is a visceral experience. The tracks blend into one another unapologetically, telling a story. As the listener I have inserted myself into a Kubrickian reality where past, present and future have collided in a dreamy haze. I am not on drugs; at least not of the narcotic variety because this album -- and most good music -- is like a drug itself.

This, I realize, is why Kid A is important. It takes you on a journey. Without sounding too much like an elitist snob it needs to be said that this is a rare quality in popular music these days.

Singles drive the industry while the album offers little more than empty hooks surrounding them. An album does not need a storyline to be good, but some coherent idea of the content is welcome. The concept album is almost an archaic form of media (or is it?).

The tracks on Kid A flow together but do not imitate the rest of the record. Pop stars try to find a signature sound that sells and then create an entire album consisting of essentially one song on twelve tracks. It's a formula appealing to the lowest common denominator. Why make something that requires effort to appreciate when A Simple Plan makes "music" that is both easy to listen to and ignore?

Artists that transcend popularity from generation to generation like Bob Dylan also have a signature sound. The difference -- besides talent -- is artists like Dylan never stay in that comfort zone for very long and always push the boundaries of their art, or in other words they take risks (see: Neil Young, 1980s).

While I am not a fan of her sound, Pink portrays the image that she is not a mindless diva controlled by her producers. She seems to break the mould or at least tries to convince you she is an individual in control of her creative process. Whether this is a further ploy by the studios or an honest depiction of her is up for debate, but it is a much better image than the boy band era of the late 90s.

The music industry is safe; and by safe I also mean boring. MuchMusic and MTV no longer play uninterrupted music videos, at least not at great length. These stations employ robotic yes men and women with no personality to shill their wares. They tell people what is "cool" and what should be popular and every high-schooler in North America who wants to have a social life listens. How else can the popularity of Avril Lavigne** be explained?

People do not buy music for the music, but for the image that lies in the perception of peers. The only way to truly appreciate the music is to wait for the hype to die and then give it a go. Maybe waiting seven years to listen to Kid A is extreme, but it has provided the opportunity for the music to sink in.

The paradox this creates is by finally breaking down, it may be perceived that you were, in the long run affected by the hype machine. Maybe even more than anyone else who listened to it and discarded it within a month of the initial release. This is a valid argument.

Both angles are stubborn when all that really matters is the music, not the image. Ignoring or buying into it because of what the album represents socially amounts to nothing, and I learned this the hard way.

My Kubrickian fantasy of a dream-world where time overlaps continues through the second half of Kid A and I can't help but wonder what my thoughts would have been had I listened to it in 2000. The important thing is my record collection needs some diversity and my own copy of Kid A will soon make an appearance.


* It is still not in my collection but I do have my old roommate's copy of it, though I'm not sure if he's aware of it. I have however seen Radiohead in concert. This past summer with a few friends I travelled to Montreal for a beautiful show with the opening act Grizzly Bear.

** Walking through the Regent Mall a little while back, I think it was the end of summer just before school, I couldn't help but laugh at a poster in the store. There was this cautionary poster about staying in school. Of all people to be on the poster was Avril Lavigne.

I said to the clerk, "it's a bit ironic when a millionaire high school dropout is telling kids to stay in school."

The clerk kind of chuckled probably wishing the customers would all just go away quietly without sharing their inane observations. I remember those days well.

#175: Say Anything...

Say Anything... (1989)
Written and directed by Cameron Crowe
Starring John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney, Lili Taylor


John Cusack is the man. This is an indisputable fact. He is a legend in 80's culture and not only from Cameron Crowe's directorial debut either. Sure, his Lloyd Dobler singlehandedly made every woman under 30 swoon in 1989 -- and most men too, though most won't admit it. He continued through the 90s and while his awesomeness has somewhat cooled in the last couple years, don't be surprised if Cusack happened to rebound.

While he had already developed a reputation from films like Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing and Eight Men Out it was Say Anything that cemented his status as not only a hearthrob but something more than a one-dimensional character in a film. Women wanted him, men wanted to be him and whatever other cliche about lust and envy you can think of. Lloyd Dobler was a unique character.

Dobler represents the best and worst of us at all times. He's a hopeless romantic and he breaks convention -- kickboxing is his biggest ambition -- and yet he's a bit too much at times. Why he works so well is because he isn't perfect, he's trying to find his way just as we all are both romantically and in our own individual life's purpose. He's almost like Ferris Bueller only less cartoony and less Broderick.

I didn't grow up in the 1980's so my hyperbole about the Dobler effect stems mostly from contact with women in more recent years. It's a popular choice of a film among the circle of female friends I have obtained in solely platonic fashion over the years. Like Dobler, I have a vague idea of what I want to accomplish in life but I can't quite figure it out 100 per cent.

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that. "

Admirable, but what does that really say? Is it a stance against capitalism in general or is it just the infantile musings of an immature and naive man? My own opinion changes by the day. Some days I don't think pursuing any kind of career is in my best interest. Who wants to be bogged down to do one thing every day or every week for the rest of his or her days? Obviously there are few days where every day is exactly the same but the mundane nature of office work isn't my cup of tea. In a sea of bureaucratic jobs, this way of thinking limits one in terms of financial stability.

My friend CT says he has seen the light. He has done the anti-establishment thing for years. He grew the mohawk, spiked it in the air, wore torn clothes and wrapped a dog collar around his neck. He was what many would refer to as a freak, he broke the mold.

Now he wants to sell out. His words, not mine.

In his point of view, the life he's led hasn't been the most comfortable. Living from paycheck to paycheck and taking the jobs that will hire someone who would scare most everyone above the age of 40 not named Iggy Pop just got tiring.

He hasn't quite discovered where he wants to go, but he knows he doesn't want to be broke for the rest of his life and compromise seems to be his only choice. But at the same time his goal and my own is vague, just like Dobler's.

I don't need the biggest television possible and I don't need a fancy car. I don't need a big house or a house of any kind. All I need is a method to pay for food, pay off my student loan debt and have fun with my friends. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

Sadly, most jobs starting out of university don't exactly light up the old bank account. I'd be shocked if any journalist fresh out of university is making any more than $15/hour. That might seem like a lot, but it would be difficult to pay off debt, eat properly and still have a social life on those wages while paying rent. I don't know about most of you but living with my parents until I'm 30 is not an option.

So as a journalist I might be forced to either freelance or take an internship to work my way up in the writing world. I understand climbing the ladder but starving yourself to do that is unreasonable. You likely have to work a second job and even then it might not be enough.

No, money doesn't buy happiness but it's not quite the root of all evil either. Falling in love would be wonderful and so would having enough money to live happily ever after. To cap it all off is it all that selfish to want to like what I end up doing to make ends meet? Is that just too much of a pipe dream? I sure hope not.

I might have no choice but to sell out...problem is, like the affable Lloyd Dobler and my friend CT I have no idea who to sell out to.