Below are the 5 most recent journal entries recorded in sonofdreamlogic's LiveJournal:

Thursday, March 31st, 2005
12:41 am	I never use this journal for anything much so I will use it now to recommend a movie that hasn't gotten much mainstream press. It's called Straight-Jacket, it's about a 50's-era movie star who is forced by his agent to marry to camouflage his not-too-secretr homosexuality, and while it's definitely aimed at a gay audience there's enough cheekiness for everyone to enjoy. Contains the line "I had no idea that was marijuana, or I never would have sold it to those kids!" Also here's another review I wrote awhile back and never posted: ( Battle Royale ) Current Music: "I'm a Cuckoo" -Belle and Sebastian (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 25th, 2004
7:37 pm	thoughts on forgotten/revisited albums Bjork's "Post" - I love how the album art is all neon pinks and oranges because the whole album sounds glittery and candy-coated. I love the transitions, especially between the cheery orchestral crescendo of "It's Oh So Quiet" and the cold, inhuman drone of "Enjoy." Smashing Pumpkins' "Adore" - underrated, but it does get old about halfway through. Very autumnal and melancholy yet serene. His voice sounds better than usual. PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me" - possibly the worst-produced album I own. I'd say about half of the songs are great enough to make the production work, but geez it's bad. You can hear her screw up the guitar parts in some tracks and all the drums sound like crap, and all of the energy comes from her voice rather than any of the instrumentation. Still worth listening to... (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 29th, 2004
1:48 pm	Since I have not seen any good movies to review lately, I will fill the void with a list of my 10 favorite albums, an idea I stole from exactly eight million other people, and most specifically Travis's friend Randy. These are not necessarily my current favorites; I took into account my past and present interests and how much each album has affected me and my musical tastes. So without further ado, we'll start from the bottom. #10: The Bends - Radiohead Thom Yorke has said that he found his lyrical voice while writing "Fake Plastic Trees," and the band as a whole began to stake out their distinctive musical ground with this album. It combines the best elements of early 90's rock (wailing guitars and lots of abrupt shifts in dynamics) with the band's newly emerging, indescribable Radioheadness (lyrics about green plastic wateringcans and Thom Yorke's beautiful howling). They've made 4 great albums since then, but The Bends is still one of their highlights. (Ignore the 22% off, that's what you get for lifting images from amazon.com.) Greatest moment: After singing about the beady eyes of death and rows of blue houses, Thom ends "Street Spirit" and the album with a plea to "Immerse your sooooooooul in looooooooooooooooove/immerse your soul in love." ( Who else will make the list? ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, August 13th, 2004
12:37 am	Elephant Near the beginning of "Elephant" the camera follows an as-then-unidentified high school student from the athletic field, through the hallways of a school building, back outside, past some breakdancers and other assorted students, into another building and finally into the arms of his girlfriend. This sequence probably lasts five minutes and at the time it seems supremely pointless. It doesn't seem so pointless later, when we realize that these are some of the last moments of his life, that two of his classmates are already inside the school laden with explosives and automatic weapons. "Elephant" spends a lot of time just following people around, keeping tabs on them. We begin to realize, with genuine dread, that where these people are standing at any given moment could make the difference between whether they live or die. Yes, "Elephant" is the first fictional film (to my knowledge) to explore a Columbine type situation after the fact. When a movie is based so closely on a real life tragedy, you have to ask yourself, are they trying to say something worthwhile about the events, or just trying to make a quick, sensationalistic buck? "Elephant", though it doesn't necessarily succeed in saying anything, nevertheless definitely falls in the first category. It is pointedly unsensationalistic, extremely slow paced (some would even say dull in places), realistic, and disturbing. Most of "Elephant" takes place in the thirty or so minutes before and immediately after the teenage killers enter the school. It examines these minutes inside and out, introducing us to a dozen or so characters and taking us through the same scenes from multiple points of view. At first the chronology is fuzzy, but slowly a time frame of events emerges and we begin to see how the violence will play out. Taken just as a suspense film, "Elephant" is extremely, extremely effective. The flashbacks and flashforwards keep us disoriented, and the loooong tracking shots lock us into the character's worlds - no quick cutaways to relieve the tension. Molding such a story into a pure suspense film, however, would seem to be in poor taste. Fortunately for our PC sensibilities, I think "Elephant" has two higher aims: one, to make us feel the story on a personal level, not to become desensitized to it, and two, to offer some reason why such a thing could happen. On the first count, it succeeds unnervingly well. By the time anything happens, we feel like we're in a real high school, watching real people. These are not expendable, slasher-movie teenagers. They are people that we really, really don't want to see get hurt. When one of the most sympathetic characters became the shooters' first victim, I felt a sick, sinking feeling in my stomach. No desensitization here. When it comes to offering explanations for the violence, though, "Elephant" comes up short. I think this was part of the point - no one really knows why such things happen. But the movie offered a few suggestions that I thought were rather lame and cliched - the killers played violent video games; they got picked on in class; they were gay. Maybe they were just crazy. (In a completely amoral sidenote, they were some of the hottest psychos I've ever seen. I have to find a movie where Alex Frost plays a non-despicable character!) The lack of any substantial motives, and the abrupt and open ending may leave you feeling unsatisfied. But you will feel shaken. And you won't be able to push that feeling aside like yesterday's bloody headlines. Should you see it? Yes, if you have no pressing need to feel cheerful for the next few hours. Sidenote: What was up with the homoerotic motifs in this movie? We have: a student council meeting apparently called to discuss if gayness is obvious to the untrained eye. We have: a male-on-male shower scene complete with kiss. (oh my god that was hot) We have: interminable tracking shots of the hot male characters throughout the entire movie, while the female characters are all but ignored. I don't really know what to make of this. But I guess thanks are in order. The End (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 12th, 2004
2:01 am	Unbreakable The key to M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable" is something that Samuel L. Jackson's character says midway through: "Life doesn't fit into little boxes that were drawn for it." This story of comic book heroes and villains is notable for its un-comic-like approach. Instead of rapid, kinetic visuals, it uses long, graceful shots and dialogue-heavy scenes. Instead of clipped, pragmatic exposition, we get lots of backstory, character development, and extraneous detail. Shyamalan doesn't box his story in. The story begins as Joseph Dunn (Bruce Willis) survives a train wreck in which all the other passengers are killed. Not only does he survive, he walks away without a scratch. His doctors are amazed, the media is fascinated, and his wife and child seem strangely unsurprised. Soon after this, Joseph finds a strange note under his windshield, which causes him to think back on his life. He realizes he has never been sick. He has never been injured in any way. He traces the note to a comic art gallery run by Elijah Price, AKA Mr. Glass. (Samuel L. Jackson). Glass has a kooky theory that comic book heroes and villains are based on certain types of real people, and that Joseph may be one of these. The rest of the movie follows Joseph as he tries to dismiss Glass's claims as the ravings of a lunatic, but finds the idea more and more plausible as he discovers things about himself he didn't know, and reveals things he had long kept secret. Even though the truth seems pretty obvious to the viewer from the outset, Shyamalan provides enough interesting clues and red herrings to keep us from feeling too certain. He also provides interesting backstories for Dunn, Glass and their families. (My favorite character was probably Glass's mother, and she was only in a couple of scenes.) There are times when the "supernatural" elements start to feel silly and out of place in the middle of the human drama. (Joseph's supposed "superhero weakness" is ridiculous, plus it was also used by Shyamalan in another film!) However, the movie saves itself from ridiculousness by never revealing too much and always leaving a little wiggle room for a "normal" explanation. My biggest complaint about "Unbreakable" is that it is a little too subdued. As I said before, it intentionally avoids being too colorful and hyperactive, but it could have used a jolt of adrenaline in places. The train wreck sequence builds up some suspense - and then cuts away to some photos on the evening news. A climactic rescue sequence grabs the viewer's attention, but the movie just hasn't built up the momentum to make it truly thrilling. Only the well-prepared jolt of the last five minutes really got my heart pounding. (The last line is the best line of the movie.) Despite its caveats, "Unbreakable" is highly entertaining and rarely entirely predictable. Should you see it? Yes. (Comment on this)