Detroit (2017) - Flawed Yet Intense and Disturbing

After making two of the most acclaimed films set in the Middle East in recent history (2008's The Hurt Locker and 2012's Zero Dark Thirty), director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal place audiences on the ground of another war zone in this year's Detroit.

As with those previous efforts, Bigelow and Boal waste no time in commenting on a very relevant and fiery issue. Based on the Algiers Motel incident which took place during the Detroit race riots of 1967, the film draws equal inspiration from the more volatile than ever relationship between police and black youths in America today. Detroit is knowingly a very topical film, and one that was inevitably made to stir arguments. As with Zero Dark Thirty's depictions of torturing prisoners of war, the ugly topics of Detroit will undoubtedly garner intense criticism from people on all sides of the issue.

This is precisely what makes Bigelow such an effective director of such heavy films. Both Bigelow and Boal are willing to stir the pot without taking sides, opting instead to focus on dimensional, flawed characters and being completely unafraid to show the pitfalls on all sides of an issue. Unlike the average war movie which makes a clear distinction between good guys and bad guys and writing the script accordingly, Detroit is littered with characters that cover the whole spectrum. There are psychotic cops, decent cops, opportunistic black criminals and innocent black men. There are no caricatures in Bigelow and Boal's sans-filter view.

While the film acknowledges its own limited accuracy, Bigelow's focus is on realism. Despite the specific circumstances and arrangement of the facts, Detroit is completely successful in putting the audience in the domestic war zone that was the Motor City in 1967. Detroit is easily one of the most harrowing depictions of one of the ugliest chapters in recent American history. From the opening raid on an illegal nightclub which kicks off the riots and the film's nightmarish centerpiece at the Algiers Motel, the danger seems all too real. More than once in the film, characters comment that the situation more closely resembles what they expect to see in a foreign war zone like Vietnam, not American soil.

The cast does a remarkable job all around, but the show is clearly stolen by Will Poulter, who portrays the corrupt, psychotic cop that can only be described as the film's villain. Even within the confines of a film where the focus is on the events rather than the unique portrayal of the characters, Poulter brings nuance to his role, knowing that an actor needs to do more than scowl to be threatening. The others, including Algee Smith and The Force Awakens star John Boyega each turn in impressive performances, but Poulter will undoubtedly resonate the most in our minds with his smug, baby-faced take on a racist antagonist which has rarely commanded the screen until now.

The film's grim and realistic feel is due in no small part to Bigelow's shaky multiple-camera approach, which make the action sequences play more like a documentary than a feature film. The film's claustrophobic climax at the Motel plays almost like a horror movie, with a sadistic cop (Poulter) torturing young black men and two white women while making allusions to "helping" them. Taking place in a very confined set and driven almost completely by tension rather than action, the scenes at the Detroit motel are all the more disturbing and frightening considering they were based on true events. When characters are being humiliated, beaten and witnessing their friends being executed and dying on the floor, it's genuinely upsetting.

Detroit is far from being a perfect. More often than not, Boal and Bigelow's most explicit stabs at commentary break the film's "say more with less" approach, which is most noticeable when the characters themselves make explicit commentary on the topics at hand. Bigelow says more with sequencing and her direction of the cast than Boal does in a two minute monologue. The film also suffers from its sprawling ambitions, running at nearly two and a half hours and tackle multiple story lines while attempting to cover (frankly) too much ground for its running time. By the time the events at the motel conclude, the film begs to conclude instead of warranting nearly another full act depicting the aftermath.

Despite its admirable success at underlining difficult and questions and placing the audience directly in the crossfire of an ugliness that continues to sweep this country, Detroit will likely be missed by the movie-going public which propelled Bigelow's previous films. Perhaps the topic is too ugly and hits too close to home for an audience that more intensely craves superhero escapism. While I can't say I blame them - the film wasn't exactly a pleasant experience - it would be a shame if the public missed this film, as it forces us to examine a pressing, horrifying issue with no real solutions.

Arroyo Seco Weekend Review (Alabama Shakes - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)

 This past weekend, I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite classic rock bands as well as one of my favorite newer rock bands at the first "Arroyo Seco Weekend" festival, a Pasadena-based event investors hope to groom into a festival of almost Coachella-like proportions.

Being that this was the event's debut, it was inevitably a humbler affair than that. Over a period of two days, the festival boasted only a handful of A-list headliners and smaller acts that were even more obscure than Coachella, which has essentially become a pop monster monolith that has long outgrown its independent spirit.

I attended the first of two days, where the two biggest headliners were Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and the Alabama Shakes. Both acts seemed to be perfectly tailored to the summer festival setting - with the driving California-tinged rock of the former and the laid back soul-inflected grooves of the latter best suited for the crowd smoking and swaying.

It was nearly perfect concert weather when I left late to beat the traffic at 5:30 PM. The sun was still out but it was relatively shady and beginning to cool in the low eighties. The marketing material made it unclear exactly where one needed to go in the sprawling Rose Bowl property. Indeed, I found myself at the nearest "Drop Off" zone nearly half a mile away from the Rose Bowl entrance, whereupon I found myself walking another good long distance just to find myself at the festival entrance and then the nearest musical tent.

The venue itself was ingenious. Brookside Park is spacey scenically green. The fast-casual style food vendors gave the festival a slightly more elegant, modern atmosphere - a far cry from the smelly bleachers and greasy nacho plates of a say, a sports arena concert. This felt like a $125 experience.

I caught the last five minutes of Roy Ayers performing what was likely his encore piece, a jam-heavy version of his jazz-fusion crossover hit "Running Away". One thing that struck me about seeing Ayers is the increasingly diverse range of jazz fusion fans. Over the past few years, I've noticed more and more college-aged people of varying backgrounds appreciating R&B and Jazz from the seventies onward. If I had to guess, I would attribute its growing popularity to modern artists like Thundercat, Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar, who seem to be ironically introducing virtuoso-based music to the bearded Coachella crowd.

I then made my way over to the main stage dubbed "The Oaks", where both the Shakes and Heartbreakers were due to play within thirty minutes. I spent most of that time being herded into five different spots by festival staff who seemed oblivious and somewhat aloof, a symptom of the festival's need to adapt to the ins and outs of the venue. I staked out a spot behind a VIP section not much bigger than a pitcher's mound, where I could barely see the stage but I was free to turn around and leave without having to navigate a crowd.

Eventually, some slightly muted cheers signaled the arrival of the Alabama Shakes. It's hard not to market Brittany Howard as the heart, soul and face of the band considering her command of the stage. The band turned in an impeccably played yet somewhat muted performance, likely due to the festival's taming the sound as to keep from interfering with its other stages, as well as well as the venue's outspoken neighbors.

No one in the Shakes played particularly bad, in fact they played wonderfully. However, the low volume imposed on their set exposed something of a weakness in their songwriting. As a hard groove-based band, they depend on the slam of the kick drum and Howard's powerhouse vocals to move an audience, and the sound did justice to neither. This meant the band could only excite the crowd with the power of their songs, and the less recognized songs seemed to serve as pointless bookends. Thirty minutes into their set and five songs past "Hang Loose", some of my fellow concertgoers became vocally restless. They also missed a golden opportunity by omitting "Hold On" and "Always Alright".

Still, Howard was a delight to hear and see in the flesh, as she has all of the class and charisma of her classic rock heroes with none of the ego. Within a moment, she could flip the switch between doe-eyed stage banter and the sexy, primal Curtis Mayfield-esque delivery of "Give Me All Your Love". The highlights of the set came from Sound & Color, where the deeper funk-based grooves had the ability penetrate the audience a bit more. After the Shakes' set, there was a surprisingly large exodus of younger concert-goers who were likely less interested in staying for Tom Petty.

By 8:30 PM, the sun had set and the still-massive crowd of thousands surrounding the Oaks stage. If anything, a larger crowd had formulated to replace those who left after the Shakes. I was getting antsy, as I've rarely attended a show that started on time. Then again, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers are nothing if not known for their professionalism. Less than three minutes after proposed their set time, much louder cheers could be heard when a familiar blonde man in sunglasses took the stage.

Being that it was their 40th Anniversary tour, one might think that the Heartbreakers would take greater risks digging into their catalogue but after opening with "Rockin' Around With You" (notable as it's the first song on the band's first album), the show seemed heavy on the hits. It was surprising to see just how many hits the band has accumulated over the years. The general public is aware of "Free Fallin'", "American Girl" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance", but it was also refreshing to see so many younger audience members mouthing along note for note to lesser known gems like "You Don't Know How it Feels" and "Wildflowers".

The Heartbreakers have earned a reputation for being one of the tightest rock bands from the classic rock era, and this was exhibited to a 'T'. It was obvious that these guys have been playing these songs for several decades, to the point where not a single note was missed, even during improvised solo sections. The famously economic band wasn't afraid to stretch out and jam in certain sections, with guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench III and Petty himself each taking extended solos that demonstrated virtuosity while economically serving the song. There were no psychedelic jams that came off as pointless noodling. Even if Tench decided on the fly to use an organ instead of a piano or Petty decided to take a solo normally handled by Campbell, it's clear that the band all operates on the same wavelength and are incapable of throwing each other of their game.

 Well into their sixties, the band was never known to possess the sort of epic intensity for which frontmen like Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger and Prince are known. Petty and the band crafted their mid-key rocking sound forty years ago and have impressively retained that same tempo this whole time. Petty's exudes a different brand of stage presence, one that is distinctly laid-back but not exactly mellow. As he strutted slowly over the stage with his army of guitars while occasionally stopping to groove with the backing singers,  the word "effortless" came to mind.


There was a vibe from the band and their devotees in the audience that this was a special show. Special in that it was a grand opening for Pasadena's latest bid to revive live music outside of their more high profile Rose Bowl concerts and the more intimate venue The Rose (which opened its doors last year) - and because Petty himself has hinted that this tour may be their last. The Heartbreakers has never been a band that abuses the "farewell tour" card, so there was a sense of sadness in the air as well that this might be the last time for many people to sing along to "American Girl", "Refugee", "Free Fallin" and "Learning to Fly" in the flesh.


 (photo credit: Chad Ellis)

 Still, Pasadena and Petty were a perfect match - one that took decades to finally materialize. There was no better setting for
 the band than such a venue in the middle of the suburbs not unlike those that characterized some of his most well-known songs. The city was even name-checked in "Jammin' Me". It was clear that much of the local crowd had grown up listening to these songs which mixed the best innate qualities of the American South with a distinctly Southern California voice.

Considering the chaotic and divided state of the world, there was a sense that the sort of uplifting and from-the-heart rock and roll Petty and the band are known for was what the world needed, more than ever.

Alien Covenant: How Did We Come This Far? (SPOILERS)

It's been nearly forty years since Ridley Scott gave us Alien (1979), the innovative bridge between Horror and Sci-Fi which still haunts the public consciousness with its unforgettable body horror and rundown take on futuristic space travel. Thirty odd years ago, James Cameron did the unthinkable - create a sequel that equaled (some say surpassed) such an iconic film with his own masterpiece, the action classic Aliens (1986). From that point on, Fox decided to rub out the series' integrity as they milked its cash potential with sequels of gradually denigrating quality, eventually culminating in the much-maligned Alien vs. Predator crossover. The second of those films was a C-grade movie so forgettable it felt like a sophomore film project.

Scott decided to follow up on the original film (ignoring the franchise as a whole) in a sense with 2012's Prometheus, which was marketed not so much as a prequel but simply a film that preceded the original Alien within the same shared universe. While it shared many deep connections with Alien, it was indeed an entirely different sort of film. While Alien has taken a life of its own as a cinematic masterpiece, its ambitions were small. It wasn't much more than an expertly crafted slasher film, with the theme of corporate evil simply serving as an intriguing plot twist to add to the film's tension. Prometheus on the other hand is a film entirely about deep themes such as creation and faith. It didn't result in a better film. In fact, one of the major complaints about Prometheus was that its ambitions far exceeded its grasp.

Alien: Covenant serves as a sequel to Prometheus, albeit one that is intended to point toward the direction of the original Alien film. This means that it shares the grand, epic scale of Prometheus while providing more beloved creatures and features viewers have come to demand from an Alien film, evident in some of the Prometheus' criticism. As a result, Alien: Covenant is an odd, mixed bag of a film experience. Like Prometheus, its epic themes of creation tend to be at odds with its sometimes surprisingly workmanlike action and creature effects. It's almost as if Scott is attempting to pepper his vision of the Prometheus tangent with elements from the first two Alien films. While it's a delight to see chestburster, facehugger and the xenomorph creatures as we know and love them, they're also so familiar that we applaud their appearance rather than recoil in horror.

Covenenant's premise is predictable, but not to a fault. A colony ship receives a distress signal from the planet where the survivors of Prometheus crashed. You can guess the rest to a T. A group of explorers from the colony ship discovers what appears to be an uninhabited planet only to find that it's essentially a testing ground for David (Michael Fassbender), the sinister android from Prometheus who is strongly implied to be the principal creator of the Xenomorph creatures.

These further explanations to unravel the mysterious origin of the creatures is the best feature of this film, and Prometheus. If anything, Covenenant heighten one's appreciation of Prometheus. At this point, it's clear that Scott is attempting to answer many questions from the original Alien film within the span of several films. So far, Scott has shed light on the origin of the Xenomorphs, the "Space Jockey" creature from the first film, the often untrustworthy Weyland-Yutani androids and how they are connected, providing a surprisingly satisfying story of creation in the process. It's a story that will require a familiarity with the original Alien films and one or two more films to complete, but it's a direction worthy the franchise's deep and mysterious back story.

Unfortunately, these aspects fall at odds with the film's tendency to be gaudy, if not outright silly at times with its visual effects. Even in the worst of the Alien films, it's clear that the magic of the Xenomorph creatures and their enduring menace lies in practical designs. Thus it's surprising that the director of the first masterpiece of subtlety would green-light some of the most laughable creature designs seen in the franchise so far. There are at least two "chestburster" scenes in the film which are properly built up with the right amount of tension and horror only to be completely deflated with monsters who could have easily fit into a video game film adaptation from twenty years ago.

The first two Alien films were revolutionary in their dystopian, stripped down approach to a distant future set in space, from Scott's cast of "truck drivers" to the dark, haunting industrial designs courtesy of James Cameron in Aliens. Like Prometheus, Covenant takes advantage of modern designs, from pseudo-smartphones to holograms that look like they were designed at least thirty years after the future depicted in Alien. One can excuse Covenant for its gloss as its a prequel, and the Alien timeline could simply depict a timeline in which those technologies have degraded. This isn't to say Covenant isn't a sightly experience. With its sprawling, gorgeous scenery and impeccable set designs, it holds up with the best of any contemporary sci-fi blockbuster. As a visual auteur by nature, one can't blame Scott for having fun flexing his craft.

The cast is mostly forgettable, with Katherine Waterston filling in the requisite Ellen Ripley-like role, Billy Crudup as a bumbling recently-promoted captain and Danny McBride as a tough-as-grits pilot. While everyone turns in a fine performance, there's unfortunately little that can be done with these necessary yet completely unoriginal caricatures. The glaring exception is Michael Fassbender, who plays dual roles to great aplomb as the helpful android Walter and the shady David, who has grown into a villainous role since his introduction in Prometheus. David is a character who intrigued us (thanks to Fassbender's icy, unnerving portrayal) in that film and is revealed as an important component of the entire Alien universe. If anything, Fassbender distracts from the film's creature antagonists as an android who has independently harvested some of the worst habits of humanity.

It doesn't seem fair to dub Alien: Covenant a bad film by any means, but it's wildly uneven, buoyed only by Scott's peerless talents. It does suffer the unfortunate fate of being tied to one of the most beloved sci fi franchises of all time. Comparisons to the original films are unavoidable, despite Scott's endeavor to make a completely different type of film with his new series. Alien: Covenant seems to be the first step towards bringing us the creatures we all love from those first films, but it's also a hurried step. Even within the span of a very long two hours, it seems that Scott could have saved a thing or two for the next sequel. Even with all of its bumps and mishaps, Covenant is still very competently made, and it's always a joy to see another entry in this franchise, whether it's horrible or merely okay. It is at the very least, a worthy continuation of the franchise's return to form made with Prometheus.

T2: Trainspotting Hits the Mark

The original Trainspotting has endured as a cultural touchstone of the late 1990's, a piece of art that spoke to latter-day Generation X'ers in a way equaled only by Fight Club. Like that film, it was something of an irreverent fluke. Like many viewers, I was taken aback by Trainspotting's blunt portrayal of heroin addiction and dark, sometimes crass humor. It wasn't a film that seemed tailor-made for the Oscars in terms of tone. Yet despite its few off-putting scenes and overall gritty tone, there was something undeniably magnetic to it, a quality that called for repeated viewings. And that's the strength in a film like Trainspotting, it only gets better with every view.

Sequels to such films are tricky endeavors. Today's Hollywood has a market secured for big sequel-friendly franchises, with mammoths like Marvel and Disney seemingly pumping out multiple entries per month. It's more of a rare occurrence when filmmakers decide to continue the story of an independent film grounded in reality, even one as beloved and successful as Trainspotting. T2 was announced several years before its release and lumbered in development hell to a point where it seemed to be both unlikely and perhaps unwise. Would it truly be a good film with a statement of its own, or merely a trip down nostalgia lane?

Despite the return of most of the original cast, director Danny Boyle and writer John Hodge, it's mostly the former. T2 proves that a sequel made decades after the original will inevitably fail to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle of the original, even if it's a film of superb quality in its own right. T2 is indeed unlikely to amount to the same cultural significance and widespread popularity as its predecessor, but it's about as good a film as one could ask for. Based very loosely on the plot of Porno, writer Irvine Welsh's sequel to Trainspotting, T2 follows the heroin addicts of the first film through their passage into middle age.

Even with a number of cheeky in-jokes and nods to the original film, T2 isn't a cheap nostalgia piece. Ironically, it's a film that is very much about nostalgia, making no qualms about the fact that it's a reunion of players coming together after twenty years spent apart. The film takes the best advantage of this fact, making nostalgia and the futile attempt to recapture the excitement of youth one of its main statements. The original Trainspotting was a coming of age story about wasting one's youth and going nowhere in the ghetto, thinly disguised as a study of heroin addicts. T2 is about wasting one's adulthood and going nowhere at the steps of age fifty. In many ways, the film essentially catches up with the core audience of Trainspotting, seemingly tailor made for aging Gen-X'ers lost in the age defined by social media.

While it makes its own unique statements and has a heart of its own, T2 doesn't reinvent or change the agenda of Trainspotting so much as it updates it. There are familiar devices, such as the conniving younger female lead, who serves to point out the foolish nostalgia of the aging protagonists, similar to Diane from the first film. Though leading man Mark Renton (Ewan MacGregor) has presumably left behind his petty criminal past, he resumes his old shenanigans when he reveals his new life has fallen apart and he hooks up with the same crew. "Spud" Murphy is still good-natured and still hooked on heroin. Simon (formerly "Sick Boy") Williamson is a blackmailer and low-level pimp, and the newly-escaped Franco Begbie is still the uncontrollably violent psychopath we all love from the first film.

While their lives as junkies were portrayed with sometimes chilling realism in the first film, the characters still had a youthful, Rock 'N Roll rebel charm. This time around, there is no luster in their portrayal. None of them have "made it" in later life, so to speak. All are on the brink of financial and domestic failure, and all feel completely consumed in today's world driven by Snapchat filters and an obsession with fitness. Each character is given an emotional monologue about their own insecurities, each of which are surprisingly relevant and hit close to the heart. If there is a message, it isn't completely bleak. The film has a hopeful heart in "Spud", who begins to turn his nearly-aborted life around when he learns about exercise from Mark and discovers a way to turn nostalgia into engaging storytelling.

The plot of T2 is merely a vessel for its grander statements about life. If anything, the required familiarity with the first film is the film's lone weakness. There really isn't much to the story unless viewers are invested in seeing where the characters of the first film ended up. Like the original, the charm of T2 is in Boyle's stylish direction, Hodge's surprisingly emotional script and the familiar energy brought on by the original crew that flows like a shot in the vein. The film's onscreen texts, flashbacks and moments of surrealism almost recall Boyle's 2008 masterpiece Slumdog Millionaire more than Trainspotting.

Like the original Trainspotting, one of the main stars of T2 is undoubtedly its soundtrack. The original was a memorable collection of 90's Britpop and Alternative Electronic Music that perfectly encapsulated the punk attitude and snobby music fandom of the characters in their twenties. In an era where Rock as we know it seems to be on its deathbed, T2 brings together more hard-edged and forward thinking electronic artists like Scottish Alternative Hip-Hop group Young Fathers, making them sound almost as exciting and Rock & Roll as Blur or Iggy Pop. As nostalgia is at the center of the film, there are also a few appearances of classic Rock artists more mainstream than what was heard in the original. One of the film's most touching scenes is a pseudo-fantastical montage of Renton and Simon singing along ritualistically with an over-capacity club patronage to Queen's "Radio Ga Ga".

T2 won't join the annals of great sequel history as those with the luxury of being made almost in tandem with the original film, from The Empire Strikes Back to The Godfather, Part II. It does however manage to bring great relevance to twenty-year old themes and characters, which is in some ways more impressive. It also manages to make some deep observations about this turbulent day and age and how we can feel directionless in its wake. At the heart of the film lies an updated version of Renton's infamous "Choose Life" monologue from the original. After he delves into the familiar pitfalls of social media - "hoping that someone, somewhere cares", he characterizes human interaction as having been "reduced to data". Renton essentially voices the familiar criticisms we've all aimed at the age of vanity and personal branding, and it's refreshing to see them finally displayed on the silver screen.

Kong: Skull Island - First Impressions

Though Peter Jackson's ambitious yet exhausting remake of King Kong was released nearly twelve years ago, Kong: Skull Island still seemed to be something of an abrupt reboot when it was announced. Then again, Hollywood seems to grow increasingly unable wait when it comes to recycling ideas or rushing out sequels. This usually results in a plethora of pretentious superhero films or blindingly overblown science fiction cash cows. In the case of Skull Island however, Hollywood finally got it right.

Released mainly to embed Kong into the same Legendary Pictures shared universe beginning with the studio's 2014 reboot of Godzilla, Skull Island bears none of that film's attempt at scope or nuance. It is a lean, mean piece of action-adventure that rarely, if ever feigns to be anything else. At a relatively condensed run time of almost two hours (perhaps in response to the Peter Jackson entry), the plot moves along at a satisfyingly fast pace yet so much is told to a point where it feels like a solid two hours. Within the first thirty minutes, the human cast is well stranded on the namesake island setting and the big star is revealed in the flesh.

The film is that rare epic science fiction monolith which proves that there is an art to making a good big, dumb monster movie. Some, like Legendary's Godzilla fall prey to their own pretensions and fail to entertain while the average Marvel film is so overblown with unbelievably blinding action to a point where it all becomes numbing. The monster sequences in Skull Island actually demonstrate touches of nuance and craft, often verging on being truly intense. There's a particular scene where Kong spins a helicopter in the air and we catch a flash of his face through the door, which proves to be impressively frightening. Skull Island doesn't attempt to up the ante in terms of its CGI creativity, and is a better film for it. When characters are eaten by an island monster or a helicopter crashes, it's genuinely exciting.

The human characters of Skull Island are mostly uninteresting and serve mainly as props to further the plot, but no one goes to Kong: Skull Island expecting unforgettable humans. Still, the cast makes the most of their garden variety roles. John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson in particular turn in routinely strong performances as the typical government man and an unhinged military colonel bent on revenge, respectively. Kong himself is the only character audiences will care to rate, and he looks better than ever standing at over 100 ft. tall. In terms of design, Kong still bears the more realistically ape-like visage of Jackson's CGI imagining while bringing back some of the more monstrous features seen in earlier Kong films, including King Kong vs. Godzilla.

Atmosphere is one of the film's strongest virtues. Set at the end of the Vietnam War in 1973, Skull Island features the expected period references and a rich soundtrack featuring some standards of the era in addition to a few surprises (David Bowie and the Stooges in particular). The filmmakers take full advantage of the Vietnam-era time period, fitting the film's humid jungle setting like a glove. There are times when Skull Island bears the obvious visual influence of Platoon and Apocalypse Now, and it really works with Kong and his home.


Overall, Kong: Skull Island will probably not endure as a noteworthy classic or even come close to touching the magic of the original film, but is easily one of the most thoroughly entertaining, well made sci-fi popcorn flicks I've seen since Cloverfield, and it has a better sense of humor to boot. It wastes not a minute on pointless sociological diatribes, nor does it flex its CGI for the sake of exhibition.

I spent every minute of the film enjoying Kong stomp on people, brawling with giant bugs and even chuckling at corny jokes courtesy of John C. Reilly's character. Never once did I find myself wondering about my Instagram or rolling my eyes at something silly on screen. It was a well spent $18.95. Go see it, and see it in a theater.

8/10

Introducing Big Star - America's Greatest Forgotten Band

Big Star is nothing if not the most ironically-named group in Rock history. Similar to the Velvet Underground, their influence on several subsequent musical movements is immeasurable despite garnering virtually no commercial success throughout their existence in the 1970's. While they are still unknown to the general public, they have been frequently hailed as favorites of both Rock journalists and bands like R.E.M. Since the late 1990's, Big Star has slowly begun to permeate mainstream culture with the use of their songs in films like Adventureland and That '70s Show - the theme of which featured Big Star's "In the Street" as covered by Cheap Trick.

Led by singer songwriters Chris Bell and Alex Chilton (former vocalist of the Box Tops), Big Star are often credited as being the definitive "Power-Pop" band, a sub-genre characterized by Beatles-inspired pop songs and heavy Who-like power chords. While a handful of their songs certainly fit the bill, Big Star's sound was more diverse, with diminutive songs rooted more in Folk and Soul. Right out of the gate, their 1972 debut #1 Record stood in contrast to the progressive-tinged mainstream Rock of the time. Big Star's guitars were crunchy, but not heavy. Their harmonies were pretty, but not operatic. Chilton and Bell crafted earthy Pop / Rock anthems like an American Lennon and McCartney. Catchy rockers like "My Life is Right" and the acoustic ballad "Thirteen" lyrically (and musically) captured the fleeting innocence of teen culture, from school dances to driving around looking for a joint - essentially the spirit of Dazed & Confused in a 3 minute song.

After the release #1 Record began Big Star's critically acclaimed yet commercially disastrous legacy, Chris Bell left the group, turning the creative duties over to Chilton. Like their debut, the sophomoric effort Radio City was centered around simple Pop / Rock, but with often cryptic lyrics and an audible weariness due to Chilton's growing cynicism surrounding the group's financial misfortune. Songs like "Back of a Car" and their signature song "September Gurls" (featured in Rolling Stone's Top 500 Songs of All Time) were still rooted in crunchy guitars and sweet melodies, but they also had a dreamy air to them which reflected a shift from the sunny optimism of the debut.

Their most notorious record Third / Sister Lovers is one of Rock's most shambolic and bizarre experiences. Often considered an Alex Chilton solo effort, Third is a thrown together collection of acoustic demos and half-finished demos augmented with maudlin strings and noisy textural treatments courtesy of producer Jim Dickinson. Dark ballads like "Kangaroo" and "Holocaust" viscerally detailed Chilton's descent into complete despair while sardonic rockers like "You Can't Have Me" saw him wounded and contemptuous at an industry which virtually ignored Big Star's acclaimed existence, leaving them in dire straits. Third was never even properly released until 1978, four years after its recording and the band's dissolution.

It was this tragic saga that made Big Star's story one of Rock's most mythic and Chilton a hero to underground rockers. Like the Velvet Underground, Big Star's influence was widespread and diverse, with bands like Cheap Trick and R.E.M. adapting their crunchy guitars and pop simplicity. Moody Alternative rockers like Nirvana would emulate the doomed pop sound of Third on subdued records like MTV Unplugged. Paul Westerberg of '80s Indie Rock kings The Replacements paid perhaps the deepest tribute, writing the classic "Alex Chilton" in tribute to one of his songwriting heroes.

Top 10 Influential Proto-Punk Bands (Part 2)

5. T. Rex

Along with Bowie, T. Rex front man Marc Bolan was Glam Rock's chief pioneer, single-handedly giving birth to the genre's visual and musical trademarks. Bolan merged a trashy, groovy take on early Rock & Roll with mystical lyricism that bordered on pretentious if not for a kitschy sense of humor. In many ways, Bolan was the definitive Rock star, effortlessly commanding the stage with a vibrant swagger and a love for the limelight. Like Bowie and Slade, T. Rex enjoyed a short-lived but enormous sweep of popularity among youths in the U.K. known as "T-Rextasy". In the U.S., their most well-known songs are the sleazy "Bang a Gong (Get it On)" and the roaring "20th Century Boy", the latter of which was featured in a Levi's commercial in the '90s.

Beginning as a folk-oriented duo featuring Mickey Finn on hand percussion, T. Rex later upgraded to a full lineup featuring bass and drums on their magnum opus Electric Warrior. Driven by Finn's almost tribal percussion and Bolan's fat, reverb-drenched guitar, T. Rex balanced their catchy dance-able rockers with mock-epic ballads often augmented by a string section. While Bolan's lyrics and Rock star exuberance would seem to put him at odds with Punk, his joyously pure sound and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor endeared him with the street kids. Indeed, Bolan was one of the few old guard rockers who fully embraced the Punk movement, inviting the Damned as a support act for his late '70s comeback tour.

T. Rex's influence stretched far beyond Punk, inspiring a legion of Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and Alternative Rock artists to follow. Like many of the artists on this list, T. Rex had a a strong crossover appeal, serving as an inspiration for both out-there Punk bands and mainstream Hard Rock bands. The Black Keys continue to carry his legacy into the modern era with Bolan-inspired songs like "Lonely Boy", and even Pop wunderkind Prince wrote his own take on T.Rex's sound with the No. 1 hit "Cream" in 1991.

Recommended songs: "Bang a Gong (Get it On)", "20th Century Boy", "Jeepster", "Telegram Sam", "Ride a White Swan".

4. New York Dolls

Though the Ramones or Patti Smith may have officially kicked off the late '70s New York movement at CBGB's, the New York Dolls may have been the first true Punk band in sound and spirit. Often classified as a Glam Rock band due to their androgynous, flashy sense of fashion, their sound was anything but glamorous. Mixing their back-to-basics Rock & Roll with Lou Reed-esque tales of urban decay, the Dolls stood in direct contrast to the excess of early '70s mainstream Rock with their ugly, noisy take on pure Rock & Roll. Thanks to front man David Johansen's dead-on Mick Jagger impression and guitarist Johnny Thunders' reputation for substance abuse worthy of Keith Richards, the Dolls were often maligned as a poor man's Rolling Stones.

Though they only released two classic albums in their early '70s heyday, both were massively influential for capturing the harrowing, irreverent and bizarre spirit of New York "street" music before it officially found a home at CBGB's just a few years later. The Dolls' nasty grind and completely off-the-wall fashion made them enormously influential on subsequent bands in all forms of Rock, most notably on both Punk bands who adopted their primitive sound and even Hair Metal bands, all of whom owe something to the Dolls' kinky dress sense.

Unlike once-edgy Rock bands from the Rolling Stones to Guns 'N Roses, the New York Dolls' sound remains too dangerous and bizarre to ever truly permeate the mainstream. While their bitchy "Looking For a Kiss" made a cameo appearance in 2009's Adventureland, you're not likely to hear one of their songs at a football game or a car commercial anytime soon. The Dolls will always be too edgy, regardless of how culture changes.

Recommended songs: "Personality Crisis", "Looking For a Kiss", "Trash", "Jet Boy", "Human Being".

3. David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars)

Though it seemingly bordered on cheating to add a solo artist, David Bowie's influence on Punk Rock (and popular music in general) cannot be overstated. Oddly enough, only a handful of Bowie's songs truly sound like Punk, but he was the definitive Rock star for musicians who came of age during his early '70s commercial heyday. An early adopter of shifting musical conventions and a champion of the bizarre, Bowie's string of albums throughout the '70s showed constant musical growth and have influenced hundreds of artists across all genres. Few artists have shared a stage with artists as diverse as Bing Crosby, John Lennon, Sonic Youth and Trent Reznor.

Bowie was arguably most influential on Punk Rock bands during his time as "Ziggy Stardust", a fictional stage persona created by Bowie and backed by his real-life touring and recording group at the time, the Spiders From Mars. Bowie's fearless swagger and Mick Ronson's brash, roaring guitar tone elevated Bowie's songs to epic proportions. Along with friend and professional rival Marc Bolan, Bowie was one of the few artists from the Glam Rock movement to truly create a massive public hysteria, captivating youths and frightening elders.

Not only did Bowie influence every three-chord driven Punk band with bitchy rockers like "Suffragette City" and "Hang on To Yourself", he also acted as the chief inspiration behind many Punk-associated genres with his late '70s albums referred to as his "Berlin Trilogy". Their experimental, electronic nature presaged gloomy Post-Punk artists like Joy Division and New Wave bands like Duran Duran. It would be easier to find artists who haven't been influenced by Bowie in one way or another, especially in the Punk world.

Recommended songs: "Hang on to Yourself", "Suffragette City", "Rebel Rebel", "Queen Bitch", "The Jean Genie".

2. The Stooges

Rock rebel Iggy Pop is often dubbed as the "Godfather of Punk" thanks in part to wild, shocking antics that continue on till this day but also due to his tenure fronting Detroit's the Stooges, one of the wildest and most confrontational Rock & Roll bands in history. Releasing their debut in 1969, the Stooges stood in wild contrast with the hippies with their rough, streetwise swagger and anarchic sound. Few Rock bands can be described as truly chaotic compared to the Stooges. Pop and his band were among the first Rock bands to take an axe to Rock conventions, frequently employing heavy machinery and vacuum cleaners as instruments, creating a metallic blast reflective of their Motor-City upbringing. Only the Velvet Underground presaged their use of dissonant noise in music. The Stooges took it to another level, playing blisteringly intense Rock which was then considered too menacing to be classified as Garage Rock and too primitive to be Heavy Metal.

Like Mott the Hoople, the Stooges were all but disbanded in 1973 before David Bowie took it upon himself to bring Pop and the band to England, rejuvenating them for what turned out to be the aptly-titled Raw Power. Though the band was always loud, menacing and aggressive, the album took that intensity to new heights. Little to no Rock music was as confrontational as Raw Power in 1973, which was classified as the "loudest album ever recorded" in a late 1990's reissue. With rampaging songs like "Search & Destroy" and the Chuck Berry-on-steroids title track, the Stooges essentially wrote the blueprint for Punk Rock.

Like many of the bands on this list, the Stooges were equally influential on Hard Rock and Heavy Metal as they were on Punk and Alternative artists. Virtually every major band from either side of the equation has cited the Stooges' wild, unhinged sound as vital to their sound. Guns 'N Roses included their own version of "Raw Power" on their covers album The Spaghetti Incident, and the album itself has been touted as a favorite of both Kurt Cobain and Cee Lo Green. There have been bands who have outdone the Stooges in terms of volume, speed and heaviness, but few have matched the "raw power" of Pop and his band in their heyday.

Recommended songs: "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "No Fun", "Loose", "Gimme Danger", "Cock in My Pocket".

1. The Velvet Underground

An obvious choice for top pick, the Velvet Underground is undoubtedly the most iconic and renown cult band in Rock history. Few other groups can claim such a massively widespread influence, spanning virtually every off-beat musical movement to spring in their wake. Forming in mid 1960's New York, the Velvets stood in stark opposition to the flower power movement with their bleak, harrowing tales of sadomasochism, drug addiction and urban horror. Led by one of Rock's most treasured poets Lou Reed, the Velvets instead fell in with Andy Warhol and his troupe of "superstars"- a collection of poets, visual artists and drag queens.

The Velvets were the original "Alternative" Rock band before the phrase even existed. Their edgy, avant-garde informed sound appealed to artistic outsiders and their primitive approach inspired young musicians who realized that they too could play guitar. On their first two records, the Velvets pushed rock beyond conventional boundaries into dissonant, noisy and often ethereal territory on the two-chord ode "Heroin" or "Sister Ray, a grisly seventeen minute jam ruminating on drag queens and murder. On their last two records however, the group began to explore more palatable territory beginning with hushed electric folk on The Velvet Underground and conventional Pop / Rock on Loaded.

A common colloquialism attributed to the group is that they sold very few records in their heyday, but everyone who bought one subsequently started a well-known band. They were the first band in popular music to become well known more through word of mouth than record sales or radio play. To this day, the Velvet Underground continues to influence bands with Reed's left-of-center take on Pop, Rock and Folk. When Lou Reed died in 2013, he was honored by a diverse set of stars from Martin Scorcese and David Bowie to Samuel L. Jackson and Metallica - a testament to the Velvet Underground's silent but monumental impact not only on Punk, but on the art world as a whole.

Recommended songs: "I'm Waiting For the Man", "Heroin", "White Light / White Heat", "Pale Blue Eyes", "Sweet Jane".

Afterward

While I tried to focus on relatively lesser-known artists, there's no denying that Punk Rock was also indebted to plenty of mainstream music. The seeds of Punk were sown as early as the 1950's with Chuck Berry's three chord teen mischief anthems and in the mid 1960's, when bands like the Kinks and the Who played songs that would have been considered Punk if released a decade later. One must also recognize the importance 1960's Garage Rock, as many of the groundbreaking singles on the Nuggets Garage compilation undoubtedly informed the earliest Punk bands.

Top 10 Influential Proto-Punk Bands (Part 1)

Within the realm of Rock journalism, there is a loose classification known as Proto-Punk, less a true musical movement and more a way to identify artists who served as the primary influence on the first wave of Punk Rock in the late 1970's. These bands spanned across their own diverse sub-genres from mid '60s British Mod Rock to the early Glam Rock bands who would reign the charts nearly a decade later. Despite their scattered origins, they are all unified in their towering influence over the Punk and New Wave revolution of the late '70s due to their simplistic, aggressive brand of Rock or utter defiance of excesses in the mainstream Rock world.

10. Roxy Music

The first entry on this list is a band whose "Punk" elements may not be as immediate as the others. Roxy Music is often summarized as a Glam Rock band that was obsessed with fashion, art and the avant-garde. While that is ostensibly true, their (even now) ahead of the times Rock blended traditional song structures with freakishly dissonant textures, with or without founding member and experimental music pioneer Brian Eno. Debuting in 1972 with a self-titled effort, Roxy Music distinguished themselves from the rest of the Rock world, retaining none of the traditional Blues influences found in contemporaries like the Rolling Stones or even the boundary-pushing David Bowie.

Toying with traces of Cabaret, early Electronic Music, Beatlesque Pop and an avant-garde approach borrowed from the Velvet Underground, Roxy forged a completely original sound from this raw material. Leader Bryan Ferry was capable of writing nearly traditional Pop songs before twisting them with dissonant and often jarring chord changes. Paul Thompson pounded his drums with a primal insistence that was aggressive yet infectious. Longtime guitarist Phil Manzanera is one of the most overlooked guitar heroes in Rock, capping off melodically challenging compositions with soaring, appropriately noisy solos. Roxy sounded unlike any other band before them and very few artists have even attempted to tread down the edgy, sometimes frightening paths they paved.

Along with many other artists from England's early '70's Glam Rock movement, Roxy served as the early influence for British bands to come from the Punk movement later in the decade, including straight-ahead rockers like the Sex Pistols, gloomy Post-Punk pioneers Joy Division and even pop-oriented synth artists like ABC. This extended even further, with artists as disparate as disco symbols Chic and early Alternative Rockers Faith No More citing their impact. Whether it was due to their own relatively simplistic rockers ("Virginia Plain"), their menacingly sophisticated epics ("In Every Dream Home a Heartache") or their twisted pop songs ("Love is the Drug"), Roxy Music shaped the sound of a surprising number of musical movements to come without the worldwide A-list popularity they deserve.

Recommended songs: "Virginia Plain", "In Every Dream Home a Heartache", "The Thrill of it All", "Street Life", "Both Ends Burning".

9. Faces

 It's hard to imagine Rod Stewart having any sort of influence on Punk Rock, but before the "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" singer became a symbol of anything but Punk, he lent his powerfully ragged voice to some of the toughest Rock music ever recorded. Most of that music was recorded with the Faces, an iteration of the Small Faces featuring Stewart on vocals and future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood on guitar. Together, they created a sloppy, joyous and frequently intoxicated brand of Rock and Roll rivaled only by the Stones in swagger.

Their minor chart hit "Stay With Me" says it all - direct and borderline misogynistic lyrics about a one-night stand, a hoarsely belted vocal from Stewart, a chugging rhythm guitar part from Wood and a rhythm section that sounds like it's falling victim to that last shot of whiskey. While their excessive lifestyle put them in league with the Rock star culture from which Punk defected, their pure sound and party-animal image inspired the first wave of British Punks who endeavored to bring Rock back to its basics. Outside of Punk, the Faces' hard groove-driven Rock also inspired Hard Rock icons Guns 'N Roses and early Alternative Rockers The Replacements.

Recommended songs: "Stay With Me", "Bad 'N Ruin", "Had Me a Real Good Time", "Pool Hall Richard", "(I Know) I'm Losing You".


8. Slade

Slade was one of England's definitive Glam Rock bands, famed for their outlandish costumes and deliberately trashy singles. Along with T. Rex and David Bowie, they exemplified the essence of the genre. Unfortunately, their focus on making immediate and sometimes gimmicky tunes meant they were denied the same critical acclaim as those artists. Slade never had the same grand artistic ambitions. Apart from the occasional ballad, Slade specialized in campy, sleazy and deafeningly loud Rock singles with distinctly misspelled titles like "Mama We're All Crazee Now" and "Cum On Feel the Noize".

Like the Faces, Slade's sound was pure, unadulterated Rock and Roll turned up to 11, complete with roaring guitars and primal beats fit for a stadium. Lead singer Noddy Holder possessed a shrill, glass-shattering howl worthy of Robert Plant at his height. Their songs were infectiously simple and specifically written to bait the audience into participating. Late '70s rock band Cheap Trick famously derived their name after seeing a Slade show, noting that they used "every cheap trick" in the book.

While they are primarily remembered in the U.S. for providing Glam Metal band Twisted Sister with a pair of hit covers, Slade was a commercial behemoth in their homeland during the early '70s. Their unhinged, pure and over the top take on Rock & Roll proved to be massively influential not only on Punk but on Heavy Metal and Alternative Rock bands from The Replacements to Nirvana. Kurt Cobain summed it up best, describing Slade as the one band that "didn't give a fuck".

Recommended songs: "Mama We're All Crazee Now", "Gudbuy T'Jane", "Get Down Get With It", "Take Me Bak 'Ome", "Cum On Feel the Noize". 

7. Mott the Hoople

While they are mostly known for their definitive take on Bowie's Glam anthem "All the Young Dudes", Mott the Hoople was enormously influential in their own right, blending leader Ian Hunter's deadpan Lou Reed-style vocals with a tough Rock sound reminiscent of The Rolling Stones at their height. Mott had three albums under their belt and were on the verge of disbanding in 1972 before Bowie swooped in and offered his assistance as a producer.

While they had a similarly primal and kitschy sound - complete with barrelhouse piano and epic guitars courtesy of future Bad Company axeman Mick Ralphs - Mott lacked the commercial ambitions of Slade. Mott was never quite as catchy as T. Rex nor did they have the androgynous sex appeal of David Bowie, but their take on Glam Rock was the weirdest and among the most enduring. Hunter's lyrics were more poetic and cryptic, spinning tales of dead-end losers and revealing a strong Dylan influence.

It was this empathetic passion for the downtrodden street kids which appealed greatly to English Punk bands who identified with Mott's down-to-earth contrast to the pretensions of the era's Progressive Rock bands. Mott did indeed pave the way for the streetwise Punk bands that followed, with the Clash even writing a tribute entitled "All the Young Punks".

Recommended songs: "All the Young Dudes", "One of the Boys", "All the Way From Memphis", "Roll Away the Stone", "The Moon Upstairs".

6. MC5

The first American entry on this list, Detroit's MC5 defined the city's chaotic sound at the end of the 1960's, a symptom of the era's fiery sociopolitical climate, but in a louder and more aggressive manner than the average hippie band. Managed by political activist and founding member of the anti-racist "White Panther" party, MC5 played some of what is still the most aggressively decibel-breaking Rock & Roll ever recorded. Lead vocalist Rob Tyner had a menacing, baritone capable of leading the cacophonous dual-guitar attack from Fred "Sonic" Smith and Wayne Kramer, capped off by the pummeling rhythm section of Michael Davis and Dennis Thompson. 

Though they only released three albums in their heyday, their live debut Kick Out the Jams was heavier, more chaotic and volatile than anything else released in 1969, outdoing even Led Zeppelin and The Who. The title track's now-infamously shouted introduction "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" and its monstrously anarchic sound essentially served as the blueprint for countless heavy Rock bands including the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned Motorhead and Black Flag.

While the MC5's music was rooted in a crushingly loud take on Blues-based Rock music (with later albums showing more of a Chuck Berry influence) Kick Out the Jams featured passages of dissonant, metallic noise which reflected their Motor City roots and a free jazz influence learned from genre icons John Coltrane and Sun Ra. This extended their influence beyond more traditional Rock and Roll with noise-driven experimental band Sonic Youth in particular citing them as an inspiration.

Recommended songs: "Kick Out the Jams", "Ramblin' Rose", "Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)", "Looking at You", "Shakin' Street".

"Rogue One" Goes Rogue...and Emerges Victorious

The biggest ripple in the Star Wars universe since The Phantom Menace first kicked off the much-maligned prequel series in 1999 came over a year ago when Disney released The Force Awakens, the first official sequel to the original trilogy. Its announcement and release reawakened a pop culture behemoth so great it was a bit puzzling to hear that Disney would be releasing a spinoff prequel to the original series entitled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Its announcement provoked a mix of reactions from fans, many of whom saw it as little more than a fevered attempt to cash in on the buzz created by The Force Awakens. I was one of those fans. Was the studio actually trying to do artistic justice to the series legacy or were they trying to set and meet a very lucrative one-film-a-year quota?

Not only does Rogue One do more justice to the series than The Force Awakens, it also expands upon it in a satisfying, intriguing manner. Where the latter essentially cloned the structure of the first film of the original trilogy and colored it with aesthetics borrowed from the other two, Rogue One is bold enough to make a Star Wars film unlike any other in the series. This was evident from an intro that lacked the series' signature opening crawl to onscreen texts to keep track of the film's shifting locales.

Apart from a few quips courtesy of a droid more sardonic than C-3PO and R2-D2 combined, the film largely lacks the playful humor found in all of the Star Wars entries to date. At times, its  tone verges on dark and even touching. Where The Force Awakens hashed out a rewrite of a New Hope, Rogue One spins out a more tragic, military-oriented interpretation of the underdogs vs. the machine story. As a result, it's the first Star Wars film that really feels more like a war film than an epic adventure. There are even scenes While the battle scenes hardly outdo the original series in terms of violence or gore, onscreen deaths of even new supporting characters warrant more emotion than ever before.

 Like the other films, it's centered around a ragtag team of misfits who band together for the greater cause. Unlike the starry-eyed Luke Skywalker, the spunky royal Princess Leia and the lovable rebel Han Solo, however Rogue One's cast consists mainly of beaten-down warriors finding redemption in the greater good despite scheming corruption from both sides of the battle. In that sense, it's somewhat timely considering the currently volatile political world. Where the line between heroic and villainous factions were clear cut in previous films, Rogue One is the first to portray dark agendas within the Rebel Alliance.

While the two leads portrayed by Felicity Huffman and Diego Luna lack the same star power and charisma of Harrison Ford or even The Force Awakens' Daisy Ridley, they portray much more earthly characters with interesting moral dilemmas. The supporting cast follows this approach, straying from the template that endured throughout the series. While there are a few familiar archetypes present from the wise force-sensitive mystic to a trigger-happy sideman with the biggest gun, there are no definitive parallels to the Star Wars universe's most beloved characters. While it's unlikely that any of the characters will have the enduring impact of say Han Solo or Emperor Palpatine, they are entertaining and charming as an ensemble, not unlike a sci-fi version of The Untouchables.

Like The Force Awakens, the appeal of a film like Rogue One is built on the legacy of possibly the most popular franchise of all time. It's almost a basic requisite in today's backwards-looking industry to pepper a box office juggernaut like this with inside jokes and cheeky nods to the series' centerpiece films. The Force Awakens was built almost entirely on them. Rogue One displays its fan service more subtly, to its great benefit. The film's shift in tone and structure might make you forget that you're watching a Star Wars film, but there are some well-earned cameos from beloved characters that serve the plot as well as they illicit applause.

On that note, Rogue One isn't perfect. There are a few moments where director Gareth Edwards chooses to resurrect characters as we knew them in 1977 via Computer Generated Imagery and while the method is impressive, it is ultimately distracting and unconvincing. The film also lacks the same epic scope of the average Star Wars film which makes its relatively long run time (at roughly 2 hours and 15 minutes) questionable in terms of pacing.

Ultimately however, Rogue One succeeds where The Force Awakens disappointed. Though it's obviously best appreciated as an entry in the Star Wars saga, it is notably one of the few films in the franchise that plays well as a solid and scenic piece of sci-fi action in its own right. It boldly strayed from the series' familiar devices and was successful in that gamble. Though it doesn't make you think or add anything truly important to the series in terms of story, it does make for an entertaining and gloomily beautiful two hours of entertainment.

Ziggy Played Guitar...Remembering Bowie

Happy New Year! We've officially said goodbye to a year filled with seemingly nonstop worldwide violence, divisive political upheaval and a surprising number of celebrity deaths. The latter especially led many on social media to demonize 2016 as a particularly horrible year. As a fan of many of the Baby Boomer era icons to leave us this year, I'd be inclined to agree. One of the heaviest losses from my perspective was someone I consider to be my all time favorite musician; David Robert Jones, known more widely as David Bowie.

I can remember hearing his name and seeing Jimmy Fallon doing an appropriately off-kilter impression of this strange, almost devilish yet charismatic character on Saturday Night Live as a child. Even as a proponent of the bizarre, I was more frightened than interested in this vampire of a musician. Many years later as a teenager, I was finally swayed to buy his albums after reading about his unequaled role in the development of glam rock, punk rock and countless other musical sub-genres. Almost all of his albums from the '70s earned perfect or near-perfect ratings on allmusic.com. Musicians from all across the board from Madonna to the Pixies cited him as a major influence. I was properly intrigued.

The fact that everyone has a different favorite album or phase in Bowie's career is a true testament to his boundless creativity and versatility. Bowie's massive oeuvre was marked by wildly different musical excursions ranging from his beginnings as a hippie-ish folk songwriter in the '60s to his dabbles in Industrial music three decades later. He managed to touch upon just about every disparate musical movement in between including glam rock (which he pioneered), English music hall, early heavy metal, progressive rock, soul, German-influenced electronic music and synth-pop. Only fellow 2016 departed Prince can claim a musical resume so diverse.

Not only did Bowie influence countless musical movements, but he was also a lightning rod for the latest trends, often taking great influence from another artist while influencing them. He had such a dynamic of respect with younger artists who looked up to him and ended up touching him with their own music. The most notable examples include the Pixies, Trent Reznor and Sonic Youth. In the '70s, Bowie also found time to revive the then-dormant careers of his own heroes, producing and writing albums for Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Mott the Hoople in addition to his own fledgling career as a superstar. Even shortly before his death, Bowie was still gleaning inspiration from this generation of music in Kendrick Lamar for his swan song Blackstar.

Bowie is perhaps remembered most widely as not one but several visual icons. Lady Gaga and Lana del Rey toy with these concepts in today's pop culture landscape, but Bowie was the first rock star to successfully create and live out his own creations with their own complex backstories. The most notable is Ziggy Stardust, the alien rock star who brings rock music to save Earth from death. Then there was the Thin White Duke, a cocaine-driven white soul singer who managed to blend a steely personality with the most lively and vivacious music known to man. Sometimes he was just "David Bowie", but was this the David Bowie who donned a dress and played what would soon be known as heavy metal or the David Bowie who lived in Berlin and made among the first widely known electronic music?

His music itself was rich and too diverse to describe in one thought. Interestingly enough, there is a widely supported critical consensus that his work had a certain depth to it, even if he was dabbling in a genre as consciously trashy as glam rock or in the excesses of '70s music in general. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bowie could augment one of his songs with a five minute guitar solo from the great Mick Ronson or sing of monsters and aliens doing the boogie without having it sound kitschy or pretentious. It was all art from his pen.

While he continued to make critically well-received music even years after retiring from live performances in the last decade, his commercial peak was 1983's Let's Dance, which is how most casual fans became familiar with him. Artistically however, he created his most memorable and lasting works in the 1970's, including his glam rock masterpieces Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. He closed out the era with a trio of forward-thinking electronic albums known as his Berlin Trilogy after dabbling in his own strain of R&B music he would dub "plastic soul". Most amazingly however, seemingly wandered from one genre from the next, bridging the most disparate styles in the previously unimaginable ways.

He was always a personal hero of mine as a musician and an artist in general, as he refused to be defined or characterized by one single thought. He's a musician who requires a complicated description, and in the process he consciously forged out a large output of art which will be dissected and honored decades after his death. Upon his passing, musicians as diverse and young as Lorde, Kanye West and Justin Timberlake all flocked to sing their praises. One word that fans and foes (if they exist) alike seem to agree upon as an appropriate one-word description would be "weird". David Bowie was anything but normal and the world will be notably less interesting without him.

Hee-Haw! It's a Wonderful Life, 70 Years Later

Much like my review of The Stooges' Raw Power, I would suggest that if you haven't seen this film, stop reading, set aside two and a half hours and watch the film all the way through.

When I first watched Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life in its entirety ten years ago, I was a nineteen year old recent high school graduate in a state of transition. I was about to shake free from the confusion of high school and enter the most carefree, joyous times I'd enjoyed up that point. The film's jubilant mood and inspiring message of appreciating life itself will always carry that association with me. I'll always remember the first time I saw the film just after Thanksgiving and shedding real tears of joy by its conclusion. The next day, I declared it to be my new favorite film of all time. Ten years later, it has not only retained but also strengthened that position. 

Simply put, It's A Wonderful Life is more than a great film. It's a spiritual experience, one that transcends the purpose of art and entertainment. It utilizes the storytelling aspect of film to deliver a message that is simple, yet noble. No other film in history has so effectively communicated both the humbling pain and unexpected glory of the human experience.

Most people would balk at the idea of calling an almost universally acknowledged classic "underrated", but I will say that there's a certain stigma surrounding the film, which diminishes its depth. Skeptics (who usually haven't seen the film) tend to critique its ubiquitous, unrealistically "happy" ending or dismiss it as simply that black and white Christmas movie that plays every December on NBC. It's a classic example of a message losing its meaning when removed from its context. Yes, the premise of an entire town chipping in to donate thousands of dollars to the downtrodden protagonist seems to be a ending out of a typical holiday fairy tale, especially in today's world of greed run amok. But is it really that inconceivable? Or are we entirely missing the point?

Apart from its relieving conclusion, It's a Wonderful Life is actually quite bleak in nature. It spends its first half exploring the life of George Bailey, a man whose grand dreams of exploration and glorious innovation are slowly taken from him by fate. Whether it's the call of work, family or simply his morality, George's plans to attend college and become a worldly architect are crushed when he's a teenager, in his mid twenties and his late twenties. As I watch this film every year, I find something newly relevant in George's story. One of the most subtle, yet heartbreaking moments in the film is when he realizes that he's reached his mid twenties and will likely never have a chance to see the exotic countries he'd been dreaming of since childhood. He tosses his brochures to the ground after holding onto them for almost twenty years. This frustration reaches a climax when his business loses an irreplaceable $8000, leading him to contemplate suicide.

As he makes suffers throughout the film, he also makes numerous sacrifices on behalf of his family and the townspeople, often beyond his knowledge. The film makes this important distinction to suggest the probability of all of us having a similar impact on the world around us. Some critics have also pointed out that not everyone can relate to George if they haven't lived life in a similarly altruistic fashion, performing good deeds left and right. The point Capra makes is that even a "saint" like George is completely unaware of the purpose he serves in life. From his perspective, he believes he has very little to show for his life and concludes that life would be better if he were never born.

Capra's message was ultimately for us to appreciate our unlikely purpose in life. Despite our outlook in the worst of times, we're never fully aware of how much we impact others with even the most minute gestures. Whether he's saving his brother from drowning or speaking on behalf of a friend in need of a loan, George spends the film giving to others as often as he laments his own unexpectedly sad life. Through a masterful performance by James Stewart, the audience feels every ounce of pain experienced by George Bailey. While the ending conjures up tears of joy and relief, Stewart also makes it impossible for us not to cry along with more than a few moments of despair more dramatically visceral than one would expect from a "family friendly" film. While it may have earned that classification over the years, It's Wonderful Life is also unequaled in its heavier moments.

While it has deservedly become a ritualistic holiday classic, the emotional sweep of It's a Wonderful Life bears a universal appeal which only becomes more relevant as millennials begin to face a harsh reality not unlike George Bailey. It's not a Christmas story or even an American story, despite its very American character. It's a film which extols the sometimes unrecognized yet increasingly scarce glory of goodwill toward others. Art often attempts to communicate this message, but very little of it succeeds in reigning us in as well as It's a Wonderful Life.

As society in general grows ever distant and resolves to build walls of separation, this film should become required viewing. If I had to describe just one piece of art as truly life-changing in a positive way, this would be it. Watch it. If you've already seen it, start watching it every year and find something new to love about it each time.

Fra-gee-lay....Must be Italian! Remembering "A Christmas Story"

Whenever the subject of quintessential holiday films is raised, A Christmas Story is undoubtedly one of the first choices that comes to mind. In many ways, it is the definitive Christmas film. More than a story set around the titular season, A Christmas Story is one of the few films to be about little more than the holiday itself. Even though the traditions and culture of the December season explored in the film's 1940's Indiana setting may not apply worldwide, audiences still continue to find something familiar in its idyllic depiction of a childhood Christmas.

There's not much of a story to A Christmas Story. Ralphie wants a Red Ryder b.b. gun for Christmas, and he'll stop at nothing to convince someone in buying him one for Christmas. The story is little more than an excuse to explore all of the facets of a typical white Christmas in America. Everything from snowball fights to a somewhat disillusioning visit with a department store Santa Claus is explored. Some of the most memorable moments are standalone vignettes that are only loosely tied to the main plot, such as the unforgettable tongue-frozen-to-a-pole scene or Ralphie's friends dealing with a local bully. Each explores a different aspect of the Christmas season, one the audience may not have personally experienced yet still strikes a chord within everyone.

That's really what drives the legacy of A Christmas Story. Though holiday customs have changed in the decades since the film's setting and vary in different parts of the world, the film still manages to tell a universally familiar story, namely one of innocence. Few other films have equaled its portrait of the innocence of childhood, a time in one's life where nothing else matters but the acquisition of that one toy. Everyone can relate to Ralphie's drastic, elaborate fantasies or his never-ending schemes to manipulate different adults into helping him get his prize.

Though it's a family-friendly film with an accordingly light-hearted touch, it never feels overly saccharine or toned down. There are overtones of satire and an irreverent sense of humor at its core. Ralphie doesn't always win, and film finds more to laugh at in his blunders. The adults in Ralphie's world are depicted in a warts-and-all fashion, from his stern but understanding father to his sweet but overbearing mother. His parents have no names, as they aren't meant to be unique characters. They're universal stand-ins which function as reflections of our own parents, or at least our impression of them when we were young.

One of the film's most notable achievements is itself pitch-perfect, sweetly evocative direction. There's hardly a more appropriate setting for the vision of a classic American Christmas than a Midwestern suburb in the 1940's. The film plays like a film version of a Thomas Kinkade painting, complete with organically vintage toys and visuals that are colorful, but never flashy. Though Ralphie's fantasy sequences are shot with an exaggeratedly blurred effect, the entire film has a similarly muted, dreamy look to it.

When I first saw A Christmas Story in 2006, it had already been classified as a classic holiday film for more than two decades. I'd never seen it before, but it somehow seemed extremely familiar to me, as if I'd grown up watching it as much as the next person. There's a timeless, universal quality to the film that transcends typical "family" fare, to the point where it could be considered a true work of art. As its audience grows with every year and its broad fan base continues to wear out its most memorable quotes, A Christmas Story continues to be essential holiday viewing.

Top 10 Christmas Films (Part 2)

5.  The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Though it technically deals with Halloween in equal measure, no list of great Christmas films would be complete without Tim Burton and Henry Selick's iconic, imaginative stop motion masterpiece. On a visual level alone, Nightmare introduced memorable characters like Jack Skellington, Oogie Boogie and Sally the Rag Doll, the likes of who have been featured in endless merchandising since the film's 1993 release.

Though the animation and visuals are unforgettable, so is the story and characterization. Drawing inspiration from fairy tale television specials like How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Burton expands the format into feature length and includes more than a hint of satire, but an equal amount of affection for such holiday tales.

One of the most enduring elements of Nightmare is its music, composed by frequent Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, who also provides the singing voice of Jack Skellington. Many of the songs have seeped their way into the mainstream, including "This is Halloween" and "Making Christmas". So enduring is Nightmare that it has been revisited as a stage show and a feature of Disneyland. Truly a modern classic that can be enjoyed twice a year.

4. Die Hard

Though it's not a necessarily a film about Christmas, there's enough tongue in cheek references to eggnog, reindeer and miserable family get-togethers to qualify Die Hard as a genuine Christmas film. Best known as one of the films that launched the action craze of the late '80s. It's also one of the best. Directed by genre heavyweight John McTiernan (Predator, The Hunt For Red October), it's as silly as it is violent. Nearly every instance of the scruffy, reluctant hero John McClane killing a conniving terrorist is accompanied by a perfectly timed, crude wisecrack.

One of the reasons Die Hard stands tall above other action movies is its ability not to take itself seriously. Even with all of the executions and on-screen neck breaking, there's not a glum or grim moment to be found. Much of this results from the almost cartoonish characterizations; McClane is almost an archetypal beer-bellied American Joe who happens to be a resourceful cop and his rival Hans Gruber is a worldly, clever terrorist straight out of a superhero comic.

While it has a very different character from say, the next entry on this list, Die Hard nevertheless deserves a spot due to its break-neck (no pun intended), non-stop fun and for taking a very different spin on a Christmas film. Set in L.A., it's the only one of these films that doesn't feature a touch of snow!

2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947) 

Miracle on 34th Street isn't so much a film about Christmas as it is a film about the loss of whimsy that comes with being an adult. Centered around a department store Santa Claus who believes he is the real 'Kris Kringle', the entire film is a parry between the innocence of fantasy and the cynicism of commercialism around Christmas. It isn't necessarily a tale of youth vs. adulthood, as one of the most initially jaded characters is a young child from a single parent family, and one of the most whimsical characters is a capable adult attorney. The film follows Kringle as he gradually makes "believers" out of the skeptics around him.

It's such a time-honored message that has grown beyond the film's humbler 1947 settings, as commercialism has only tightened its reign on the world and innocence in a lifetime is seemingly more fleeting than ever. Though the film has undergone a few more dramatic remakes, the original version is the most moving and the best-made film of them all, due in no small part to Edmund Gwenn's definitive, Academy Award winning performance. One may not expect it from a "family" film, but its story holds up in terms of depth compared to just about anything out there today.

2. A Christmas Story  (1983)

In many ways, A Christmas Story is the definitive Christmas film, as one may guess from its straightforward title. Unlike almost every other film, A Christmas Story really is a film about Christmas itself, with no particular focus but the general scope and feeling of the weeks leading up to December 25. There really isn't much a significant plot, as the film is loosely framed around the story of a kid doing everything in his power to receive a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Everything about the direction perfectly lends itself to the definitive "Christmas" feeling, from author Jean Shepherd's folksy narration to film's setting in 1940's Indiana. It's a picturesque coming of age tale that perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being a young child excited for the holidays, fit for the warmest of greeting cards.


1. It's a Wonderful Life  (1946)

And here it is. This is an obvious pick for anyone who knows me, as it's my all time favorite film, regardless of holiday affiliation. There never was and hasn't been such a powerful statement on the human experience as the one detailed in Frank Capra's 1946 magnum opus. In the years before I'd actually seen the film, I was familiar with critiques of its fantastical outcome and status as that old black and white movie that plays in every house on Christmas Eve. When I'd finally taken the time to watch it from beginning to end, I was moved to tears which has NEVER happened to me while watching a film, even Titanic. It's almost as if everyone who disparages the film as light family fodder only watched the last fives minutes.

It's a Wonderful Life is far beyond just a Christmas film, or even the tale of a man who plans to commit suicide only to be deterred by a vision of life without him. With each repeated viewing, I took more notice of the part of the film that leads up to its famous conclusion. It's really a tragic story of how one's dreams evades them and they subsequently end up feeling trapped by a life much humbler than they'd imagined. Yet the film's parting message is that even the most insignificant of lives can have the most profound impact on the world around them. It manages to impart that message with overtones of both the Great Depression and post-war optimism.

There's really too much I could write about this movie. All I can say is that everyone needs to watch this film all the way through at least once. I've seen very few films that are this moving, and it only grows more relevant as life becomes ever more complicated. It's one of a very few films I could say has had a profound impact on my outlook. It was an easy choice for no. 1.

Top 10 Christmas Films (Part 1)

In continuing the lightheartedness of my last post, I'm going to share my top ten favorite films and  to watch around this time of year. Once Thanksgiving passes, it's open game on all things Christmas.
Before I begin, I should note that I'm evaluating these films based on nostalgic factors and their adherence to the "holiday spirit" rather than artistic merit. You will see some complete cheese-fests on here, but to my estimation, they're very enjoyable cheese fests. Also, the entire film has to revolve around Christmas, so The Godfather and L.A. Confidential won't appear on account of their brief but memorable Christmas scenes. Lastly, this is a list of films not TV specials, so you won't see Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas or Beavis & Butthead Do Christmas here, as much as I love both.

So turn on the Charlie Brown Christmas album and take warm trip with me down nostalgia lane...

 10. Reindeer Games (2000)

Do you love Christmas movies and cheesy 1990's action films in equal measure? Reindeer Games may already be one of your favorites, if you've seen it. It wouldn't be surprising if you haven't seen famed director John Frankenheimer's last film, because it was a bomb then and still incites Grinch-like jeers when it's brought up today, due to its ludicrous plot scenarios which feature more unbelievable twists than a peppermint.

Rudy (Ben Affleck), a car thief is released from prison and poses as his cellmate, who was murdered the day before. He begins an affair with his cellmate's pen pal girlfriend (Charlize Theron), whose criminal brother enlists him to help him rob a casino.

Though it's a completely silly film, it earns its spot on this list due to its insistent humor and odd replay value. I'd taken this film out "for the hell of it" at least ten times before I realized it had become something of a de facto custom around the Christmas season. There's plenty of dark humor involving people being beaten or tortured, yet there's enough references to the holiday to give it almost a lighthearted touch. No matter how much blood is being shed, its insistent humor makes it more similar in spirit to Home Alone than The Boondock Saints. If you can stomach a little violence, don't miss this one.

9. The Santa Clause (1994)

Definitely one of the titles which found its way on the list due to nostalgic factors, The Santa Clause was funnyman Tim Allen's turn as Father Christmas after playing the quintessential American father on Home Improvement. The film concerns a father who witnesses Santa fall from his roof on Christmas Eve, and finds himself literally donning the big man's beard as he becomes the new Santa.

As is the case with many Christmas films, The Santa Clause was very much intended to be a family-friendly film. At times, the fantasy elements and saccharine "Christmas spirit" monologues can upset the stomach of even the most obnoxiously gung-ho holiday nut, but the film's colorful direction and funny, natural performance from Tim Allen make it all worthwhile. The scenes at Santa's workshop are gaudy,

Allen really is the film's greatest asset, and the best jokes revolve around his wisecracking or complete disbelief in the face of magic taking place before his eyes. One of the funniest scenes revolves around his first night as Santa, in which he chides a young girl for leaving him milk when he's lactose intolerant. It may have the same effect on someone who didn't first watch it as a child, but it's still one of the better Christmas comedies.

8. Love Actually (2003)

Set around the intertwining lives of multiple people in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Love Actually is the most recent addition on the list. Thanks to more than a few memorable moments which resonated with audiences almost as deeply as Home Alone, the film has become a staple on TV rotations during the holiday season.

Billed as a "romantic comedy" and featuring an ensemble of the U.K.'s premier actors in that genre (including Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley and others) - one might mistake Love Actually as a garden variety chick flick, with the same basic plot redressed in a new context. While there's certainly some of that to be found, Love Actually takes a different approach, compiling many different subplots which each tell a story about love from a different perspective. There's the dissolution of a marriage, reinforced familial bonds, newfound romance between people foreign to each other and unrequited love. It borders on an overabundance of plot at times, but all of the stories coalesce together to remind us that nothing is stronger than love. Is there a more appropriate message to share at Christmas?

The film is aging very well, and one of the most fun aspects of watching it every year is seeing just how much of the supporting cast has gone on to international stardom. It was already bubbling with A-listers upon release, but now we can go back and recognize The Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln as the guy who held up confessional cue cards to his romantic interest to the sound of "Silent Night".

7. Elf (2003)

 I find Will Ferrell to be a bit much at times, and he was at his most obnoxious in Elf. The idea of casting him as a man-child raised by elves who goes to New York in search of his biological father sounds like the kind of idea spawned from an all night eggnog bender. Ferrell's basic "if it's gay or childish, it's funny" mantra is played out to the extreme in this film, and James Caan phones in a completely wooden performance as Ferrell's earthbound father. To add insult to injury, my least favorite actress Zooey Deschanel is cast as the love interest. On paper, it sounds like a horrible film.

However, all these elements ties together to make up something greater than the sum of its parts. Elf isn't just a fluke, it's an extremely memorable fluke. To have a character answer the phone with "Hi I'm Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?" isn't exactly sharp comedic writing, yet it's somehow entered the public consciousness as an enduring catch phase. Most of the fish out of water jokes in Elf are completely on the nose and somewhat predictable, yet the film is chock full of memorable lines and scenes tied together with Ferrell's controversial but undeniable charisma.

It's one of the sillier entries, but along with Love Actually, it's a relatively newer film which has become arguably the classic Christmas comedy for younger millennials.

6. Jingle All the Way (1997)

In some ways, this is the most personal pick for an entry on this list. It's the bottom of the barrel of silliness, a film which either incites cold criticism or the warmest memories of being a kid in the '90s. Jingle All the Way is the most critically derided film here along with Reindeer Games, and understandably so. It's a comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger about a inattentive father who attempts to hunt down the hottest toy of the year on Christmas Eve, brought to you by the director of Problem Child 2 and The Spy Next Door, the Jackie Chan family film from 2010. Remember? No, me neither.

In spite of all its artlessness, Jingle manages to be an extremely fun and likable film for its manic humor, but also for the unintended hilarity of Schwarzenegger's interpretation of the script. Many of the film's innocuous lines have become comedic gold ripe for endless imitations due to the action star's thick Austrian accent. As a lightweight slapstick comedy, it also elicits many genuine laughs thanks to the performances of Schwarzenegger, Sinbad as an antagonistic mailman and Phil Hartman as a sleazy neighbor. The latter two are completely in their element and Schwarzenegger gives a perfectly credible comedic performance, although he sneaks in a few chances to kick some ass in Jingle All the Way.

If anything, Jingle All the Way stands as one of the last Christmas films for toy-obsessed youths before the smartphone generation stepped in. Any child who grew up in the '80s and '90s can recall mass marketed, must-have toys which inspired the kind of insanity portrayed in the film every Christmas season. For my older brother's generation, it was Cabbage Patch Kids. I was a child of the Power Rangers generation. Though action figures and dolls have lost the power to incite such obsession among children, Jingle All the Way has become all the more relevant now that Black Friday has nearly become a holiday in its own right. 

THOSE AREN'T PILLOWS! Remembering Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Given the chaotic nature of this year and the social discord that resulted in the wake of this month's presidential election, it seems that what we all need is a bit of levity and humor. In my house, this film was a staple of every Thanksgiving dinner. My family would wear out the same old quotes and repeat genuine laughs for the thirtieth time together.  So here's a review of the greatest Thanksgiving comedy of all time, just one year short of its thirtieth anniversary..

Planes, Trains & Automobiles was teen drama bard John Hughes' attempt to break his own mold of making films focused on the lives of outsider teens, a niche he'd carved with '80s staples such as Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. With Planes, Trains & Automobiles, he refocused his absurdist deadpan talents to adults. Instead of high school kings, queens and peasants however, Planes pairs uptight yuppie Neal Page (Steve Martin) with the lower-middle class lovable goofball Del Griffith (John Candy). Like his earlier teen films, the film reveals some genuine social commentary beneath a basic Murphy's Law buddy comedy about two people trying to get home for the holidays without killing each other.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles doesn't aspire to be a deep film by any means, instead straddling a fine line between low and high-brow comedy. There aren't many lewd sex jokes or gross-out moments, yet a man can be seen being lifted by his testicles and an entire conversation is carried out about whether or not one of the characters "plays with his balls" a lot. There's a good amount of slapstick humor, but much of the film's humor is derived from the tension between straight-man Neal and the clumsy antics of Del, who is the main source of Neal's catastrophes over their journey together. It's one of those rare films that manages to balance a silly tone with sharp writing.

While it's a goofy comedy at heart, the film also has a surprisingly touching side that tames the funniest moments with a sobriety made all the more tragic with the loss of John Candy less than a decade after the film's release. The audience comes to sympathize with Del Griffith as much as Neal Page grew to resent him in the first half of the film. Nevertheless, the chemistry of Martin and Candy makes their friendship all the more genuine and warranted by the film's end. Like Hughes' earlier films, upper class characters like Neal are portrayed as stiff, cold and pretentious. Blue collar everyman Del is accordingly uncultured, oafish and easygoing. Yet each character learns from the other by the film's end, with Neal learning to be more easygoing and open-minded, and Del learning to mind his overbearing nature.

It feels silly to write so much about a film with no inherent message. This endearing piece of Thanksgiving popcorn fodder was meant for little more than pure entertainment. I do wonder if it will have the same effect on people who didn't experience it at a young age. A large part of the film's charm is undoubtedly its legacy as the ultimate Thanksgiving comedy. Its relatively mild, slow-paced humor seems like it would be completely lost on the smartphone generation. For those who were lucky enough to grow up watching this film as I did, it serves as a nostalgic reminder of a more innocent time. Can you imagine a comedy today earning an R-Rating due to just one (very memorable) F-word laden scene? Still, I can think of few films which prelude the Home Alone season better. Everyone should watch this film at least once.

Some Thoughts on 11/9

When Donald Trump started to win a majority of the electoral votes only two hours into the night of the election, I was nervous. As the wins began to pile in, it became apparent that Hillary Clinton needed to win all of the five or six remaining states to pull off a tight victory. But it was not meant to be. By 9:00 PM, my French class had ended for the night and everyone was shell shocked. Within 24 hours, the world had responded. Social media was a firestorm where nasty political discussions degenerated into people publicly denouncing their own friends online. News piled in about attacks on minorities and anti-Trump protests mobilized a mere hours after he'd officially won. This only further solidified right wing skeptics, with many using the liberal outcry as an excuse to further distance themselves. In other words, all of the differences people had on a political level suddenly ballooned into borderline hateful arguments.

It's easy for one to dismiss his followers as gullible hate-mongers, but there's more to it than that. Many of the people he reached are well-meaning, good citizens who simply feel marginalized by a mainstream culture that alienated them with the cultural changes that came with Obama's presidency. When Obama won in 2008, there was much rejoicing but also a significant amount of backlash. The far-right didn't take it to the streets as the left is doing now. They let it brew, voicing their frustrations at political correctness at every turn and doing everything in their power to oppose the president out of sheer resentment. Their intentions and ideals may be misguided, but their feelings are as real as the rest of us.

Trump did not create this, he merely took advantage and exploited it. He gave fuel to this disenfranchised portion of Americans and made them feel passionate about reclaiming what is rightfully theirs. He gave the simplest solutions to the most complicated issues facing the world today, regardless of whether or not his solutions were even logical. It didn't matter in the end, because he set fire to the underdogs. While the specific messages and overall tone of the campaign is the diametric opposite of Obama's more unified theme of change after eight years of George W. Bush, the dynamic between the two campaigns feels extremely similar. They both worked because they successfully capitalized on the voice of the most passionate, and generally the underdog's voice rings more passionate than that of the establishment.

Why would any of this make a mostly liberal independent optimistic? I'm not at all optimistic about the policies Trump has detailed or the normalization of negativity he will instill from his position. They're irrelevant, as he's begun to renege on many of his more outlandish campaign promises, as I'd expected. I'm optimistic because a more positive message of unity now has a chance to prevail in response to the establishment, similar to the way negative concepts propelled him to win.

When I first started seeing footage of protests, my first reaction was one of apathy. I've seen a similar (though not as impressive) outcry directed at George W. Bush and we endured eight years of him. The movements to Occupy Wall Street similarly resulted in very little policy change, and Wall Street remains just as corrupt today as it did then. I thought protestors were simply wasting their energy and were going to feel disappointed when absolutely nothing happened as a result of their demonstration.

I was completely missing the point. What have we learned from Trump's rise to prominence in the first place? While I completely disagree with his messages, I think we can all agree that he was right about corruption in Washington. He beat the odds, a broken political system and won not due to his political connections, but the support of everyday citizens, even if he earned their trust with nefarious methods. If anything, Trump showed us that power does indeed lie within the people.

Ultimately, I don't view the battle as liberal vs. conservative or right vs. left. The fact that the strife between the two schools of thought has reached such a peak is the real issue. No positive changes can be made when our national identity is so fractured. The idea of having political parties is not to contest which will reign supreme. Parties are formed to offer multiple perspectives, all of which should contribute ideas in a healthy debate. They exist to work together. Unfortunately, we've reached a peak in American history where political debates are merely a facade, an excuse for people to lash out at each other for no good reason. Indeed, I've noticed when my friends engage in "debates" on social media, discussions degenerate into petty insults very quickly.

How can we even pretend to be a liberal or conservative with the country's ideals in mind when we're all equally contributing to this poisonous division? I'm constantly surprised at how people from all ends of the spectrum from common citizens to the politicians themselves seem to forget a very important yet fundamental fact about this country. We're all in this together; liberal, conservative, moderate, etc. We're spending all of our time blaming the other team for what's wrong with this country, but we need each other, whether we like it or not.

I believe this division has only so far left to go before the trend starts to buckle and reverse itself. Despite what the more radical thinkers say, we are not going to engage in a secession or a civil war. It's a fun idea, but this isn't the nineteenth century. As upset as people are, we're more ingrained within each other than we'd like to admit. There will certainly be shocking unrest and violence, but no one has the resources or power to organize half the country against the other half. It's a logistical impossibility.

Social trends come and go in this volatile time. We wear out ideals as quickly as memes these days. Although I'm perplexed at how stubborn people can be in the political arena, I'm confident that we will eventually stop questioning each other and turn that inquisition inward. Eventually, we'll be forced to question ourselves; what are we doing and why? Mulling over the same tired arguments with people of the staunchly opposing view will not prevail and make our lives better. Eventually, we're going to have to try something new.

While I do fear the changes Donald Trump brings with him through policy and cultural influence, I know that it's simply an Empire Strikes Back dynamic at play. The tide will turn again in due time, thanks to the people. Unless he miraculously changes the country and our lives for the better, he will become the target of our collective frustration, not unlike Obama. People will be ready to try something new. Let's just hope we don't lose too much before then.