Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Exodus Damage
September 11th on your mind?
Forget the movies, and listen to this John Vanderslice song Exodus Damage (free MP3) from the album "Pixel Revolt." It's a message from one doomsdayer to another, with an amazing arrangement and a fatalistic worldview. Plus, you'll never think of Dance Dance Revolution the same way again.
Update: Check out this remix of the song.
Discovered via KEXP's absolutely essential Song of the Day.
Support musicians! Save Net Radio! Call or write your Congressional representative in support of The Internet Radio Equality Act (pdf).
Forget the movies, and listen to this John Vanderslice song Exodus Damage (free MP3) from the album "Pixel Revolt." It's a message from one doomsdayer to another, with an amazing arrangement and a fatalistic worldview. Plus, you'll never think of Dance Dance Revolution the same way again.
Update: Check out this remix of the song.
Discovered via KEXP's absolutely essential Song of the Day.
Support musicians! Save Net Radio! Call or write your Congressional representative in support of The Internet Radio Equality Act (pdf).
The Unspoken 9/11 Approach
Caryn James, film critic for The New York Times, points out a string of allusions to September 11th in recent films. Aside from the reenactment films ("World Trade Center," "United 93"), in "25th Hour," "Civic Duty," "Shooter," "Breach" and "Reign Over Me," James detects "an unspoken 9/11 approach, referring to the events without using the actual words," she writes.
Does the approach preclude commercial success?
But if you wrap the unspoken 9/11 approach in the existing mythology of a popular comic book character, box-office records are still within the realm of possibility.
Link:
No One Says ‘9/11.’ No One Needs To. (NYTimes)
Earlier posts:
Spider-Man 3 and September 11th
Columnist Detects 9/11 Connection in Spider-Man 3
From the archives:
Review of "25th Hour" for Bank Systems & Technology, May 2003 issue
Does the approach preclude commercial success?
It must be more than a coincidence that none of them, not even commercial movies like “Breach” and “Shooter,” were big hits. Works that take an unspoken approach to 9/11 assume that no one needs to be reminded of what happened; that ignores the possibility that maybe no one wants to.Maybe the filmmakers have been willing to sacrifice some measure of commercial potential in order to express themselves on the topic. Or maybe the scripts as originally written were defanged and neutered during the production process, turning the films' messages into dim shadows of what they might have been. Great scripts may have became merely competent movies.
But if you wrap the unspoken 9/11 approach in the existing mythology of a popular comic book character, box-office records are still within the realm of possibility.
Link:
No One Says ‘9/11.’ No One Needs To. (NYTimes)
Earlier posts:
Spider-Man 3 and September 11th
Columnist Detects 9/11 Connection in Spider-Man 3
From the archives:
Review of "25th Hour" for Bank Systems & Technology, May 2003 issue
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