Back on Jan 11 (which seems about a decade ago), I posted still photos from the then-forthcoming movie Clash of the Titans and suggested how those images could represent different kinds of extreme metal bands. You can see that here. The movie is now out, and seems to be drawing hoards of viewers. I haven’t seen it yet, though I intend to — despite a review I read by the always wicked Anthony Lane in the April 12 issue of that famous metal zine, The New Yorker. It’s just too funny not to share a few excerpts:

There is an awful lot of clashing in “Clash of the Titans,” but no Titans. A pity, for the real Titans were early-model deities, born of Uranus and Gaea; she, peeved by her husband, took the unusual step of forging what one ancient text describes as “a saw-toothed scimitar,” with which her son Cronos then “harvested his father’s genitals.” All of which would have made the perfect Lars von Trier film.

Instead, we have to be content with late-period gods and monsters, plus efficient head removal and the odd winged horse, but not a single act of castration. How do these people hope to earn our respect?

(more after the jump . . .)

More from Anthony Lane’s review:

Louis Leterrier’s film stars Sam Worthington, but you will have guessed that already. These days, no major production is allowed to embark without him. He is the strapping Australian lad who, without warning, has found himself cast as a cyborg, in “Terminator Salvation,” as a would-be alien, in “Avatar,” and now as the demigod Perseus, in “Clash of the Titans,” while retaining the look of someone who cheerfully expects to be returning to a steady job on a building site. Sometime, if his luck holds, he could actually play a purebred human being and stay that way till the end of the movie; for now, though, he must be content with fifty per cent.

As a man, Perseus can march up hills and down into the mouth of hell with warrior friends like Draco (Mads Mikkelsen), who teaches him swordsmanship—“Stay focussed,” he says, in a phrase that scholars have long sought, yet never found, in the pages of the Iliad. Where is the fun, by contrast, in the lives of those who dwell on Mt. Olympus? They stand around on individual floating platforms like bored, middle-aged sunseekers waiting to do pool aerobics.

Danny Huston, in the role of Poseidon, gets about a line and a half of dialogue and then drops out of the movie, while [Liam] Neeson, as team leader [Zeus], comes wrapped in so much aluminum foil that, if I were an attendant mortal, I wouldn’t quite know whether to worship him or take him out every hour and baste him.

There’s more in this vein, and you can go here to read all of it.

But I’m gonna see the movie anyway. As a rule, I never let middling reviews stop me from seeing movies with giant scorpions, winged horses, krakens, people being turned to stone, and characters and creatures that remind me of metal bands.

Have you seen the movie?  What did you think?

A couple of your NCS Co-Authors saw the movie Crazy Heart this weekend, to find out what the hubbub was all about, and we thought it was amazingly good. The story and the acting are compelling, and the music is stunning. So although it’s got nothing (much) to do with metal, we need to write about it.

In a widely (and rightly) praised performance, Jeff Bridges plays a legendary country music performer named Bad Blake who has slid far down the back side of his career. He tours the Southwest out of the back of a rusting SUV, playing bowling alleys and bars with pickup bands, suffusing himself on a daily basis with clouds of cigarette smoke and a flood of whiskey, and satisfying his meager need for companionship with the occasional, pointless one-night stand.

Broke, alcoholic, overweight, nearing 60, with four failed marriages behind him and a grown son with whom he’s had no contact in 20 years, Bad Blake has nearly succeeded in flushing his career and his life down the toilet. He’s not very likable and seems stuck on a dead-end road to oblivion that he has mapped for himself.

On the other hand, though resentments and frustrations surface, Blake doesn’t wallow in self-pity, nor do we see much of the narcissism that seems to survive in many celebrities when all legitimate reason for self-regard has long since left the house. For Blake, this is simply his life, as it has become. It is what it is, and he simply wants to get on with it.

Beyond those meager saving graces of his personality, we see something else admirable: Even when stumbling in an alcoholic haze, he can still bring it on stage — with allowances for the occasional mid-set rush into an alleyway to puke his guts out in the nearest garbage can.  (more after the jump, including some music to stream . . .)

We see that once, and maybe still again, he could write compelling songs, and that even when he sings and plays his old standards for the 1000th time, he’s doing more than just going through the motions. The songs seem as fresh to him as they are to us. He sings with knowing conviction, “I used to be somebody/But now I am somebody else/Who I’ll be tomorrow is anybody’s guess/What was thought to be the right way turned out the wrong way after all . . . .”  

A chance encounter with a reporter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her young son awaken a spark of life in Blake, and their ensuing relationship brings out a sweetness and self-reflection that we hadn’t seen before. We begin to like Blake more, though even the wholesomeness of this relationship isn’t enough to cause him to throw off the shackles of booze and hard living for very long.

All that changes with a traumatic event — but we won’t spoil the movie by telling you about that or what happens next.

We’ve seen this kind of cautionary tale before, in art and in life. Part of what makes this telling so powerful is Jeff Bridge’s performance. In a role like this, many actors and directors might have overdone it, but Bridges’ acting is understated and absolutely believable. He inhabits this character completely, warts and all. We don’t feel emotionally manipulated by the contrivances of filmmaking, but instead we are drawn in by the truth of what we see.

The other part of what makes this movie so exceptional is the music. All the original songs except one were written by T Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton, and they are wonderful, both lyrically and musically. From the rockers to the ballads, they tell you almost all you need to know about Bad Blake, and they have a way of sticking to your mind like glue.

Wouldn’t you know that the one exception to the Burnett/Bruton tandem is the song that’s been nominated for an Oscar — “The Weary Kind.” That one was principally written by Ryan Bingham, a young musician from New Mexico who had landed a bit part as a member of Bad Blake’s pickup band and played the partially completed song for Burnett (who is listed as co-writer). Bingham sings the song himself as the credits roll at the end, and it’s an emotional powerhouse.

Speaking of singing, Jeff Bridges can really do it well! And Colin Farrell isn’t bad either. Yes, you read that correctly. I don’t know who first imagined that Colin Farrell would be a good choice as the younger country star and former touring partner of Bad Blake who has risen to stardom, in part through his recording of a Blake song. But like just about everything else in this movie, it was a good call.

I had country music all around me growing up, but I’ve intentionally steered clear of it for a long time. Even if you were interested, I couldn’t begin to tell you who on the current country scene is worth a shit. These days, I much prefer death metal. But I can tell you this: Those of us here at NCS sure as hell liked the music in Crazy Heart. As one of my Co-Authors said, “if all country music sounded like this, I’d actually listen to it.”

One of my favorites (among many) is “Fallin’ and Flyin’” — in part because the tune is so damned infectious, and in part because the lyrics are inspired. Here’s an excerpt:

I never meant to hurt no one
I just had to have my way
if there is such a thing as too much fun
this must be the price you pay

funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
for a little while
funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
for a little while

you never see it comin’ till it’s gone
it all happens for a reason
even when it’s wrong
especially when it’s wrong

And now here are Jeff Bridges and Colin Ferrell singing that song as a duet, followed by Ryan Bingham’s rendition of “The Weary Kind.” Hope you like em:

Jeff Bridges and Colin Farrell: Fallin\’ & Flyin\’

Ryan Bingham: The Weary Kind

Spastic headbangers rejoice! Meshuggah‘s live performance DVD/CD Alive is out and available for purchase.

We’re guessing the odds that (a) you care enough about extreme metal to visit sites like ours, but (b) have never listened to Meshuggah, are (c) pretty fucking small. If by some tiny chance you haven’t given Meshuggah a serious listen, then this would be a very good time to do it. If, as is likely, you already know the music, you’re going to have a meshuggasm watching and listening to Alive.

[From the NCS Dictionary: meshuggasm: intense or paroxysmal excitement; especially: an explosive discharge of neuromuscular tensions at the height of arousal produced by listening to Meshuggah.]

The Alive DVD includes live performance footage from Meshuggah concerts during 2009 in Montreal, Toronto, and New York City, and from a 2008 festival performance in Tokyo. The decision to compile and alternate performance cuts from different venues rather than show one concert from start to finish keeps the video visually interesting, and presumably allowed the band and the director to pick the best live performances of each song.

The video includes 12 songs performed live, 5 from the latest full-length ObZen (“Pravus”, “Bleed”, “Electric Red”, “Lethargica”, and “Combustion”), 4 from Nothing (“Perpetual Black Second”, “Stengah”, “Rational Gaze”, and “Straws Pulled At Random”), 2 from Chaosphere (“New Millenium Cyanide Christ” and “The Mouth Licking What You’ve Bled”), and 1 from Contradictions Collapse (“Humiliative”). (more after the jump, including a track from the CD . . .)

The shows were filmed from multiple camera angles, and the live cinematography is extremely high-quality. We really liked the editing work, too. Don’t know about you, but we get tired of performance videos that constantly break from shot to shot so fast you can barely see what’s going on; after all, that’s not how you actually watch a live show in person (unless you’re on meth). Alive makes good decisions on when to let the camera linger, and when to move on, and includes split-screen shots that allow you to see more than one perspective at the same time.

The crowd scenes are sufficient to give you the feel of “being there” without distracting too long from what you really want to see.

And what you really want to see is a joy to behold: drummer Tomas Haake, off in his own world, eyes closed, pummeling complex syncopated rhythms; guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström hammering out intricate riffs while headbanging from the waist in conterpoint or in unison; Dick Lövgren precisely crushing the bass notes; and of course Jens Kidman, grimacing, scowling, rasping, howling, eyes rolling back in his head, delivering those signature headbanging moves in time to one of the many coexistent rhythms woven by his bandmates.

It’s one thing to listen to Meshuggah play their intricate music with such precision and technical flair, but it’s a whole different thing to see and hear them pull off such feats of skill live, without the safety net of a recording studio. And the superb quality of the sound on Alive delivers a remarkably crisp listening experience without sacrificing any of the power and energy of the live show.

Interspersed among the songs on the DVD are black-and-white, behind-the-scenes vignettes that are mostly interesting and happily brief. The video also includes some other bonus material, but of course the DVD rises or falls on the concert scenes — and it rises very high.

One of our favorite songs on the DVD is the Tokyo performance of “Perpetual Black Second.” The stage is huge, the crowd is massive, and the band is bathed in shifting colors of otherworldly light. Wish we had a way to show you the song, but we can at least let you listen to that track from the CD. So, do that, and then go get Alive:

Meshuggah: Perpetual Black Second (Tokyo)

I saw Avatar this weekend. Amazing movie that lives up to its hype. But that’s not what this post is about. Before the movie there was a trailer for a forthcoming movie called Clash of the Titans, which is a remake of a 1981 fantasy classic and happens to feature the same Sam Worthington who was the male lead in Avatar. The movie is based on the Greek myth of Perseus. Based on the trailer, the new movie looks like it will kick ass.

I’ve obviously got metal on the brain, because as I watched all the gods and weird creatures flashing across the screen in the trailer, I was thinking they’d fit right into different types of metal bands. I’m probably losing my mind, but see what you think. Here are some still photos from the trailer and what flew through my addled head when I saw them.

(more after the jump . . . .)

James Hetfield in about 5 more years

Help me out on this one . . .

]]> http://www.nocleansinging.com/2010/01/11/clash-of-the-metal-titans/feed/ 7 http://www.nocleansinging.com/2009/12/20/the-messenger-the-most-unknown-and-best-film-of-2009/ http://www.nocleansinging.com/2009/12/20/the-messenger-the-most-unknown-and-best-film-of-2009/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 07:51:32 +0000 IntoTheDarkness http://www.nocleansinging.com/?p=1120

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of death metal. As many of you don’t know, I also have a passion for film and I just saw what I believe to be the best film of 2009: The Messenger. I know, I know, this is a blog about death metal, so you might ask: “what the fuck does The Messenger have to do with death metal?” If you’d like to find out, continue reading after the jump.

In his directorial debut, Oren Moverman has created a masterpiece. That alone is metal as fuck. The Messenger chronicles two soldiers and their jobs as casualty notification serviceman. It is their duty to bring the news of a casualty of war to the NOK (the next of kin). Essentially, they act as angels of death, burdened with the task of delivering death to an unsuspecting family’s doorstep as if they were messengers sent from hell. Now to me, that is about as brutal and death metal as it gets.

Woody Harrelson plays Capt. Tony Stone, who took the position of casualty notification serviceman off a dare and continued after he began to receive commission. Ben Foster plays Staff Sergent Will Montgomery, who is ordered to become Stone’s partner shortly after returning from battle in Iraq. They are tasked with going door to door delivering the news of soldiers’ deaths. It is interesting to see how Stone and Montgomery each deal with grief. Stone hides behind protocol, refusing to provide any physical or emotional comfort for the soldiers’ families, while Montgomery is a walking portrait of grief, quietly overcome by his new position.

It has been quite a year for Harrelson. He gives an astounding performance as a soldier who is tough and rugged on the outside, yet on the inside stricken by the grief he sees, and unsure about how to cope. But it is Foster who shines.

Foster has had only small parts, perhaps most notably in 3:10 To Yuma, but this is his breakout role. This is the kind of role that propels an actor to stardom. Foster is given a delicate character who is battle-torn and overwhelmed with sorrow even before he takes the job, and he plays it beautifully. Montgomery is like a watch that works but doesn’t have all it’s gears in the right place and therefore, is off by the smallest of margins. Foster shows this with a precision that is unmatched. Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of movies, and I can safely say, this is the best performance by an actor I have ever seen. Foster is as near to perfection as one can get.

The Messenger is packed chock-full of dramatic moments, all handled exquisitely by Moverman, but one scene in particular toward the end of the film will grip you like nothing you’ve seen before, and it’s worth the price of admission alone. It is a scene in which Montgomery shares his experiences in Iraq with Stone, who eventually breaks down in tears. Foster is astonishing here and in my opinion, this scene alone should net him an Oscar.

The Messenger is a grim and crushing film. It packs such a punch that it will leave you staring blankly at the screen until the credits finish rolling. The Messenger is one of the most powerful anti-war films I have ever seen, made all the more impressive by the fact that it doesn’t take sides and it doesn’t have to preach. It simply examines the cost of war through the tragedy of a human death — and The Messenger shows that even one death is a price too high.