The Golden Compass and Sweeney Todd

How's that for a creative post title? I'll give you two guesses what this post is about; you'll need them both to cover it all. Also, this is a good news/bad news post.

The bad news is that despite how extra cool the promos were for The Golden Compass, that movie really sucks. Whatever else I say, the real reason I wanted to see it was because the girl riding the polar bear in the previews just made me want to ride one. The story looked okay, even though I knew going into it that it was the beginning of an anti-Christian trilogy that ends with the children essentially killing God. Kind of a response to Narnia. I was hoping to take that with the same grain of salt that allowed me to accept Gaia in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (which was surprisingly good). You always have to accept some premise in fiction, and I was willing to detach this world from our world.

First off, there was a PSA at the beginning of the DVD about polar bears being threatened by global warming and that "you are their only armor." Way to go, let's brainwash the children watching this movie that the cute polar bears, whose numbers have quintupled in the past 30 years, will die because their parents drive a Suburban. Shucks and other comments! Still, I kept an open mind.

The story could have been good, but since it was so poorly told it merely seemed derived from The Lord of the Rings and Narnia alternately. Keep in mind, I'm reviewing only the movie, maybe the book is much better. I'll read it eventually. The dialogue most of the time seemed written for a comic book. Every character was a stereotype, with no attempt to give them more depth. Every major character but one had an English accent, even though several of them had cool Scandinavian names and should have had accents to match. The one who didn't was a Texas man, and he was so stereotype western that I could not take him seriously even once. Every time a new character enters the story, they introduce themselves to the hero, ask what her quest is, recite their backstory from start to finish, then join her quest without any resistance because that's what their character is supposed to do. Each subplot is introduced and resolved in short order with few surprises. Major plot points are barely attended to, no doubt in a poor attempt at subtlety. Other than the bear, the animated animals look completely fake, and the big battle scene at the end looks more like a riot at a soccer game than an epic fight for the fate of multiple universes. The scenes look hastily pasted together and as if half a dozen different art teams worked on different bits and never communicated with each other. Also, there's a Star Wars type personal story twist in there at some point.

I can go on but that's enough. Here are the parts I liked: Dakota Blue Richards did a very good job in her first ever movie role as Lyra Belacqua, the hero of the story. The compass looks cool, as does Iorek Byrnison the bear. Iorek's fight with the king of the bears is pretty cool, too. The witches are very cool, and their special effects were done properly and subtly. I liked the idea of the demons, which in this movie are animal companions to every human, which contain their soul (though they should have had a mental link rather than speaking aloud). Also, there was one very effective bit after Iorek gives his obligatory backstory, extremely well delivered by Dakota, and the quote can be applied to my disappointment in this movie:

"Iorek Byrnison, you are the first Ice Bear I ever met. I was ever so excited, and scared, but now I'm just disappointed. I heard that bears lived to hunt, and to fight! Why are you wasting your time here, drinking whiskey?"

I was excited to see this movie, but it was a disappointing waste of time.

Good thing I rented another one....

I'm not a fan of musicals or horror, but I am a fan of cannibals, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, and I've been a major fan of Helena Bonham Carter ever since Fight Club. Sweeney Todd is a Burton film starring Depp and Carter about baking people into pies, so what's not to love? Of course, Stephen Sondheim deserves the real credit for this one, Burton just did an amazing job bringing it to the screen. The movie is rated R for one reason only: buckets and buckets of blood. Rivers of blood, in fact. Draining into the sewer. If blood makes you squeamish, don't see this movie.

I had no idea Johnny Depp was such a good singer! Carter is good, too, but not as good; in fact while I enjoyed her voice, I found her hard to understand. The real surprise, though, was Ed Sanders, a fifteen-year-old kid who's never been in anything before but who for me stole the show from Depp and Carter as he played the role of a server in the pie shop. This kid has an incredible voice, and will go very far in film and theater. As he plays his all-important role in the events at the end of the movie, he was so convincing, and had such intense rage and hatred on his face that I was more afraid of him at that moment than of Sweeney himself the whole film. I listened to the original Broadway soundtrack after seeing this movie, and the singers in the movie overall were much better by far than the original singers.

The story is cool, and presented as a horrific horror movie and a hilarious comedy at the same time. It's about a man so consumed by revenge that by the time he gets it he's lost everything through his actions. The end plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy where very few survive. The art is very surreal, and it's nice to see Tim Burton back on his game after that awful Willy Wonka garbage. Did I mention pies made of people and buckets of blood?

Since the story is told in music, let's talk about the music, with lots of lyrics quotes. I absolutely love the creepy orchestrations as well, but I can't quote those. Right at the beginning we're introduced to Sweeney's very optimistic opinion of London:

"There's a hole in the world, like a great black pit

And the vermin of the world inhabit it

And its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit

And it goes by the name of London"

Later, as his first chance at real revenge is snatched from him, his cheery attitude gains an extra lift:

"There's a hole in the world, like a great black pit

And it's filled with people who are filled with shit

And the vermin of the world inhabit it

But not for long....

They all deserve to die!"

"We all deserve to die

Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.

Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief

For the rest of us death will be a relief

We all deserve to die."

So after Sweeney kills Sacha Baron Cohen (yes, Borat is his first victim), Mrs. Lovett (Carter) comes up with a great way to dispose of the body and give a boost to her business at the same time: cook them into her pies! This inspires a song where they discuss what type of person would taste best:

"Have a little Priest!"

"Is it really good?"

"Sir, it's too good, at least!

Then again, they don't commit sins of the flesh,

So it's pretty fresh."

"Awful lot of fat."

"Only where it sat."

"Haven't you got poet, or something like that?"

"No, y'see, the trouble with poet is

How do you know it's deceased?

Try the Priest!"

I wasn't impressed by the looks or voice of Jayne Wisener, who played Todd's kidnapped daughter, and her love interest and Todd's friend is sure an ugly fellow. But for icing on the cake, Alan Rickman is the villain (of course), and his assistant is none other than Timothy Spall, who was Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter. He's just as greasy and rodent-like in this movie.

This is now my favorite musical after The Nightmare Before Christmas (ironically another Burton film), and I highly recommend it. Just don't watch it during dinner, like Kate and I did. Also, it'll be an interesting experience next time I get my hair cut....

That's not beef....

Also, take a look at my friend's Sweeny Todd fan art. I'm jealous of the sketching ability. There're also great sketches of Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean characters as well.

Aaarrgh!

Ok, so I was all excited because I'd found such a cool solution to two problems with the playlist on my blog. The biggest problem is that every so often a link to a song will go bad, and give an error message.  The other problem is that not every song I want is on Project Playlist.

The other day I accidentally stumbled on File Den, a site that offers not only free file sharing, but direct html links to each file.  So I set up a free account, passing up about a dozen offers for stuff (I'm not annoyed that there were so many ads, a free site has to make money somehow, right?), and I uploaded 100 of my favorite songs from my iTunes playlist.  The only tricky part was renaming a few files for my Icelandic music, since the Windows File Den server doesn't like odd characters in file names (while my Mac doesn't care what it's called).  Then I cut and pasted each link into Project Playlist, and had the perfect blog playlist.

It worked, too, for two days.  Apparently the monthly bandwidth limit of 5gb at File Den isn't nearly as much as it sounds.  In the middle of listening to the music, and chatting with a friend who was also enjoying the music, every song in the playlist simultaneously went red with an error message.  Since I'm not going to pay $4.95/month just so you guys can listen to my superior music, I'm going to have to find another solution.  Meanwhile, sadly, I'm putting my old playlist back.

So Scott, Rebekah, forget that thing I told you about yesterday, that I was so excited about, that I got a cool playlist going and you can, too.  You can't after all, dammit, but I'm looking into a new way to do it.

Prince Caspian and Rexburg Audiences, Children of Men

Kate and I went to "The Rex" (what a lame name) last Friday with the intent of seeing the new Indiana Jones.  Fortunately, it was sold out.  I say fortunately, because it meant we saw Prince Caspian instead.  I wasn't exactly anticipating this movie, since the first one was good but not awesome, but this sequel is simply incredible.  If you haven't seen it yet, seriously, stop reading this and go see it right now.  Then come back and read this.  I was all set to give it a good, long review, but Orson Scott Card already did.  Now and then Card and I have opposing views on movies (he thought Napoleon Dynamite and Shrek 2 were actually worth watching), but this is one of those times where I see my own thoughts printed in his column, and have to wonder if he plagiarized me then emailed himself in the past so he could voice his opinion before I do.

Here's my brief review:  Prince Caspian is better than the book.  It's been years since I read it, so I'll leave Card to explain why.  They took a major risk with this movie, which is that they strayed significantly from the book by adding major scenes that did not exist in the source material.  Most notably, there is a major, huge battle scene that is completely absent from the book, but fits seamlessly into the story and adds an amazing amount of depth and character development.  Now I'm going to do something daring:  I will dare to say that I enjoyed this battle scene better than I enjoyed Helm's Deep from The Two Towers, and even the Battle of the Pelennor Fields from Return of the king.  The battle is more dynamic than Helm's Deep (and doesn't feature an elf surfing on a shield), and the action doesn't take up as much of the movie as Pelennor, and isn't bailed out conveniently by an invincible army of ghosts.  It's close, though, they're all great battles.

SPOILER ALERT!!

Scroll past this if you haven't seen the movie yet.  I'll let you know when it's safe again!

My favorite parts:  The buildup to the castle raid is very cool, but the part where Peter realizes that the battle is lost and calls retreat is very moving.  The shot where he is torn between leaving behind captured allies and saving those that he can is particularly powerful.

I also really liked when Lucy finally meets with Aslan, and he asks why she let the disbelief of her siblings keep her from coming to him before.  The duel between Peter and Miraz really effectively shows why in real life you can't negotiate with an enemy whose stated goal is your destruction.  Very good scene applicable to modern politics.

OK, NO MORE SPOILERS HERE!

I have another comment about my experience watching Prince Caspian.  What is wrong with people in Rexburg?  I have never been to a place with ruder audience behavior.  In this case, until I gave them a look, the people behind me were talking quite loudly through the first few minutes of the movie.  Others were talking, too, but were out of glare range.  Even more annoying was that every single time Prince Caspian made an entrance, there was applause, and whooping.  As soon as one person would give a whoop, dozens would decide it's cool and they should do it, too.  At one point there was a mouse on a stretcher carried by other mice, and people started laughing because it was "cute," and a guy in the front yelled, "stop laughing, it's not funny!"  He sounded genuinely offended.

I'd let it go if this were a unique experience.  However, it has been a problem at nearly every event I have been to in Rexburg, and very few I've been to in other places.  The worst was last semester, when I was at a Trombone recital.  The couple next to me were a few seats down, and the entire time they were listening to their iPod, which could be faintly heard by half the audience between performances.  I actually told them afterward that it was the rudest thing I'd ever seen at a concert.  Part of the problem is FA100, which I think does more harm than good.  That doesn't explain Prince Caspian, though.  Why does Rexburg applaud at the end of every movie?  No one involved in the movie is there, so I don't get it.  I've heard similar complaints from a couple friends, who are annoyed at Rexburg audiences.  Ok, rant over!

Now, on to Children of Men.  I had seen previews for this and it looked interesting, but it was Bro. Ben Jordan who recommended it to me.  I now have a new movie tied with my previous favorite movies:  Serenity and Fight Club.  This is better than Fight Club, but tied with Serenity, I think.

The concept is this:  The year is 2027, and for the past 18 years, for unknown reasons, no woman in the world has become pregnant.  The movie opens with a news report in a café that says that the world's youngest person had been stabbed to death at 18 years old.  It's a really dismal picture of the future, rampant terrorism, huge influxes of illegal immigrants fleeing countries that have fallen into total chaos as everyone loses hope and sees the end of humanity looming.

The point of the movie, though, is not to say that the future is hopeless, but that there can be hope no matter how bad things are.  Theo (Clive Owen) is charged with the task of smuggling the only pregnant girl, Kee, out of England and into the hands of an independent group that will protect her.  If any of half a dozen warring factions realize she exists, she is in danger of being killed or used as political leverage.

The story is amazing, the acting is incredible (I absolutely love Michael Caine as the hippie hermit), and I have a new favorite director:  Alfonso Cuarón.  He replaced the incompetent Chris Columbus in directing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the first good Harry Potter movie after two horrible ones.  In Children of Men, he has created a genuine masterpiece.  There's quite a lot of CGI, but 99% of it is completely unnoticeable.  There are two very long action sequences that are done perfectly with a single shot.  One of these involves Theo making his way on foot through an intense battle zone to find Kee, who has been kidnapped.  The art direction is superb.  The effects aren't distracting, and future technology doesn't take over the show.

The film is rated R, and definitely earns it with very realistic violence and language.  It's not senseless violence and language like you'd expect in a movie who's intent is to offend, this movie's intent is to depict as realistic a world as possible, and it succeeds.  There is brief nudity for about two seconds as Kee reveals that she's pregnant, but it is not intended to be at all sexual or provocative.  The movie would work without this scene, but it's there and is appropriate to the situation.  This is a movie that is not rated R to say "this is going to be a fun offensive film!" but to say "children won't get anything out of this, don't bring them; but it is a very powerful film for those who are ready for a deep, important story."

This movie is a powerful message of hope in the face of despair.  Every single thing goes wrong at every point, and Theo doesn't even want to be a hero, but he goes on anyway because he's all there is.  It is also a warning about radical views taking power.  The message is intended to criticize conservative views such as anti-immigration, but as usually happens when a liberal who is very smart makes a movie, they accidentally hit on real truth and only think they've criticized conservatism.  The world shown in this film is supposed to be what happens if Bush/Blair-types ruin everything, but is in reality what will happen if no one takes a stand against evil.  The politics of the movie are complex.  This is one of the most moving films I've ever seen, and is now tied with Serenity at the top of the list of movies I think everyone should see.  I may in the future make an edited version without the brief nudity for anyone who would otherwise watch it except for that.

Whew, a long post!  Got through it.

Iceland

Ok, so it's been over a month since I've posted, and there have been about a dozen things I've thought "I should type that up and post it," but it never happened.  For one thing, I want to review the movie "Children of Men," which might be my new favorite of all time.  That'll come later.  For now I want to share these pictures I found of Iceland.  For a long time now, Iceland has been on the top of my list of places to visit (and not just because of Emilíana Torrini, Björk or Sígur Ros, but for the scenery), and seeing these pictures just makes me want to pack my bags right now and never come back.  The photographer is Arnar Valdimarsson.  First, some pictures of the Aurora Borealis in Iceland:

And here is some amazing columnar jointing in basalt:

And some other pictures of Iceland:

These small versions don't nearly do it justice.  Check out the full-size version at here, along with other great photos.

Too Many Poos, We All Lose; Hold It In, We All Win!

My friends Rebekah and Scott get to go on field trips to collect fossils.  I’m jealous; I should have taken paleontology.  Instead I took hydrology, so I got to go on a field trip to the Wastewater Treatment Plant here in Rexburg, which actually was fun, too.  This is the place where they take the water that came from all the toilets in Rexburg and a couple neighboring towns (as well as other waste) and turn it into fertilizer and drinking water.  The place smelled like… and the guy that was supposed to give us the tour wasn’t there so we got the bargain tour.  This meant we would go into a room, hear him say “this is where we check the water for metals,” and then go to the next place where you “monkey with these valves over here to control where the sludge goes.”  Fortunately, we learned more afterwards, so you get, not a better tour since it’s just my photos, but a better explanation.  So sit back and hold your nose.

You know how it all begins:  You eat at Hard Hat, a big juicy steak with mashed potatoes and corn on the side.  Unfortunately, it’s not the good cook but the one that when I said “give it to me as rare as it comes” gives you a cold slab of raw meat straight from the fridge.  And you eat it. (True story, except that I sent it back for a bit more time on the grill and got back the same steak, slightly more cooked.)  Naturally, it doesn’t agree with you, and doesn’t stay in your system very long.  So you pull the lever, end up having to use your plunger, pull the lever again, and off goes that steak and corn, never to be seen again.  Not quite; it’ll actually end up as fertilizer, which might feed grain, that might feed a cow who might end up as your next steak.  First it ends up at the Wastewater Treatment Plant.  If it’s a big enough chunk, it’ll be stopped by this filter:

And end up in this bin:

The liquid moves on, and is moved to the Willy Wonka Chocolate River:

Here, bacteria are added to break down the organic waste in the water.  These channels are 20 feet deep, and constantly churned so they can be aerated.  This allows more oxygen into the system, which assists the biological agents digest their delicious meal (which used to be your delicious meal).  Sadly, I don’t have a picture of this; but it is at this point (according to our guide) that the corn (not kidding) floats to the top and is eaten by ducks.  If you fall in (like someone did the other day, apparently), don’t worry because there are life preservers to save you:

This is particularly good news, because if you die from drowning in poo, you don’t get to go to Heaven because you’d smell really bad.

As new chocolatey water enters the system, processed water leaves, diverted by these valves:

The processed water enters these “clarifiers” (also known as sedimentation tanks):

Inside, the water is still.  The heavy “stuff” sinks to the bottom and is scraped into a hopper at the bottom.  The light stuff floats to the top and is skimmed off by these:

It’s not entirely clear on the picture, but that’s moss growing on the skimmer; human waste is very rich in nutrients.  The material that is removed becomes sludge, and is treated separately.  It moves through these pipes:

Then is processed on these conveyor belts (notice the piece of sludge):

As it moves across the belt, it is agitated to increase the surface area as chemicals are added to thicken the sludge.  Then it can be made into fertilizer and sold to farmers.  It is loaded into a hopper and then onto a truck (notice the splatter):

 The water is filtered, then tested for heavy metals (sorry, no pictures of that room).  Once it is clean, it is discharged back into the river, and is cleaner than what comes out of your tap.  All along the way there are hazards:

And after you’ve seen all this, you smell like human waste and feel like it’s in a layer all over you and in your throat.  Fun!

 

St. Patrick's Day in Rexburg; or, "Oh my goodness! A post on this blog!"

This is a long post, just to tell you ahead of time.  It will likely always be like this, a long drought then a flood.  So here it goes:

Yesterday, in addition to St. Patrick’s Day, Kate and I celebrated our third anniversary.  The story behind that is that we were thinking of getting married around March, and those of our friends who didn’t think April Fools’ Day would be a hilarious day to get married were trying to persuade us to choose Valentine’s Day.  Since we both think Valentine’s Day is incredibly lame (and doesn’t have much to do with St. Valentine anymore), we settled very quickly on St. Patrick’s Day as a good choice.

This is especially significant because in the town where we met, Rolla, Missouri, St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal (see the picture of the mayor of Rolla giving "St. Pat" a key to the city).  A significant amount of money is made in winter on St. Patrick’s Day sweatshirts, etc., and on March 18^th of every year everyone at the university starts stockpiling alcohol for next year’s celebration.  Having been in that environment it’s kind of a depressing bit of culture shock to be in a place where it’s almost a forgotten holiday.  So here are my thoughts on what I did see of St. Patrick’s Day in Rexburg.  I’m saving what I liked for last (always end on a good note), so even though it’s a very mixed good, know that I’m not being totally critical.

First, if you’re going to do something public for another culture’s national holiday, you need to do your research.  While Kate and I were eating lunch in the Manwaring Center, a group of bagpipers and a drummer came in and performed.  The performance itself wasn’t terrible (though it wasn’t great either), there was a major problem with it.  The pipe band was dressed in full Scottish traditional outfits, kilts and all, playing Scottish tunes on Scottish highland bagpipes.  During the short time we were there, we heard “Scotland the Brave,” the unofficial anthem of Scotland, no less than three times.  This wouldn’t be a problem if St. Patrick’s Day were Scotland’s national holiday, not Ireland’s.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Scottish pipes, but considering that last year was the first time there was ever a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Scotland, it’s really not a big deal in Scotland.

On the other hand, there was a more official St. Patrick’s Day themed event that was actually very entertaining.  On Saturday night we went to go see Celtic Tales at the Snow Black Box Theatre.  We had no idea what to expect, but it fulfilled an FA100 event for me so we went.  It was a really mixed experience.  It dealt with Celtic culture in general, not just Irish, but was up-front about it.  Essentially, there were about half a dozen acts, most of which involved someone coming on-stage and telling a Celtic story.  (As a side-note, Celtic is always pronounced with a hard “c,” like a “k,” never like an “s.”)  The stories themselves, sadly, were not very good.  One was very well performed, but not terribly interesting.  There was one funny song, that I bet if it was in context would have been hilarious because we’d have gotten the joke, but instead was hilarious because it was bizarre and didn’t make any sense.

After the first, comedic half, it took a more serious turn, which was not a good choice.  Three girls came out and sang two Celtic tunes:  Danny Boy and Loch Lomond.  They didn’t share the story behind Danny Boy, so they either didn’t know there was one or didn’t want to share it, since the song is really supposed to be a father singing to his son as he sends him off to war.  Most people think it’s a simple love song, which is why so often you hear women singing it.  If you can, listen to Harry Connick Jr.’s rendition of the song, it is amazing.  They did share the story of Loch Lomond, which is a dying soldier asking another soldier to carry news of his death to his family in Scotland.  Since he was dying, he’d be taking the “low road,” while the messenger would take the “high road,” but his spirit would be in Scotland before the messenger would get there.  This act was a real missed opportunity, since there are so many lesser-known Celtic tunes with great stories, such as “Silent, O’Moyle,” one of my favorites.  Also, though the girls had good voices, they weren’t very confident; so the singing, and especially the guitar accompaniment, were very quiet.

Then they did a very short play, “Riders to the Sea.”  Even if the acting had been good, I still don’t think it would have been any good.  Though very authentically Irish, the play was very depressing.  Basically, a mother has had about six sons drown in the sea, and during the play her last son leaves and gets thrown from his horse into the sea and drowns.  So the point of the play is that she has no sons left.  That’s it.  For a tragedy to work, you need to like the characters first.  You don’t get that chance in this play; it starts right away with the crying and complaining.

The good note I promised:  The MC’s were hilarious!  They were three guys, one Welsh (if I recall correctly), one Irish and one Scottish.  Mostly they would argue whether Scots or Irish were better, and the third guy would play Scottish bagpipes as the three of them marched onto the set between each act.  The best part was when the tune on the pipes was none other than the theme to Star Wars.  They came up and did a quick summary of “A New Hope:”  “Luke Lad, I’m yer father!”  “No!  It cannae be true!”  Good stuff.  Also, when they kicked off the evening, they announced that it welcomed us to the set of this ancient Irish castle.  Only, the Rashomon set was still up.  So they faltered (deliberately), looked behind them and interpreted the sign to say “Guinness Sold Here.”  During each act, the audience was eagerly awaiting the MCs, who were the real show and made the whole thing very much worthwhile.

Even though St. Patrick’s Day is over, I recommend the movie Michael Collins for a bit of Irish history (1916-1922).  Perhaps in my next post I’ll review that, it’s an amazing movie.

Updated:  I added Harry Connick, Jr.'s version of Danny Boy to my playlist.  It should show up at the bottom.