humanity

On The Shoulders Of Giants (89th Annual Academy Awards)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Last year the two words whitewashing and oscars seemed to be synonymous with each other. I wrote a rather exhaustive post about it, point of fact. To be fair, I am an artist though, so it’s quite difficult not to be a lens for the big issues I find wrapped around my heart. Sigh.

Now, I have written about this theory before, but let me remind you that there is an idea out there which states that creative professional experience the highs and lows of life even more deeply than an average person. I want to posit something different from that.

We all feel things very deeply, and humans are capable of amazing things when we work together. In fact, I think it’s because we should work together that we achieve greatness.

Children start out with the same basic abilities and aptitudes, as we age, personalities come through and environments shape us into complex individuals.

 

The Full List of Nominees

I’ve always been a fan of film. Cinema. The movies. Whatever you want to call it, I’ve celebrated motion pictures in my life.

Sitting here at my desk, I’m watching the trailers for the nine films which have been nominated for Best Picture 2017. La La Land, Moonlight, Manchester By The Sea, Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Hidden Figures, Hell or High Water, Lion, Fences. I’ve seen more than half of these movies already and I cannot wait to watch the remaining ones I’ve missed. Films make my heart ache with joy, fear, sadness, compassion, anger, excitement, achievement and a number of other emotions.

It’s because so many creative people come together to engage our sense that films mean something. And I think that this year in particular, the academy has done an excellent job listening to the public. 4 of the 9 choices are headed by minority actors, and that’s a big deal.

La La Land has the most votes by far, and while it is an excellent film, it is something of a self-congratulatory piece about Hollywood. So I really hope that this movie doesn’t take it, because we’ve been there, and done that. And Arrival is my new favourite first contact film. On the other side of the coin, Hell or High Water is a classic film on all accounts – I reviewed it late last year and I loved it. It perfectly serves as to what film making is all about. It would be an excellent dark horse entry.

But looking more closely at the nominees, I have to notice something. I’ve only seen the 5 films with white actors headlining them, and that’s an important point.

Award Winning

When you give an award you are truly GIVING something as payment, compensation or as prize. Consider that statement for a second. How many billions of people are there in the world? 30? And how many different ethnicities make up that total?

The challenge we face is that for decades the Academy Awards (like many other institutions) have focused on certain types of people, non necessarily because those people were the most deserving, but because they were singled out for compensation. As the global community expands, it makes sense that we continue to honour those who do the best job, but in instances where many are deserving, it’s those who go over and above should be awarded. By default these means minority groups which need more representation. I haven’t seen Moonlight or Fences, but could easily see them taking it.

I hope they do. Hidden Figures and Lion would be fantastic as well, but based on what I’ve read, Moonlight and Fences are better films. Guess we’ll find out in three days though.

theories Summarized

#OscarsSoWhite was a necessary rebellion against disrespectful authority. I think with it came even more artists working together this year to create films that represent life as it is, and even better, the voters now have an opportunity to choose recipients that better depict humanity. We may be standing on the shoulders of giants, but while every statue has a head of gold, the feet are always made of clay, and liable to crumble towards the end. It’s time to choose a different champion, and that’s my theory.

Tim!

Thankless, Think More (Thanksgiving)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Don’t get me wrong folks, I enjoy spending time with my family as much as the next Canadian, but I feel obligated to inform and remind you that just like many other holidays we enjoy and take for granted, this creative ritual is not one so simple as simply moving into a land of plenty and prospering.

Thanksgiving just might be akin to celebrating the Holocaust. Well, if you’re an American especially.

Yeah, I went a little dark with this one dear readers.

But for so many reasons that I cannot even begin to name, Thanksgiving is effectively an American holiday and we Canadians decided to ride the gravy train (read: intentional bad pun) right along with them in 1879, a mere 12 years after Canadians became self-governing.

Americans have been celebrating this event for over 200 years now, and yet the more time passes the less people realize how incredibly fucked up it is to partake in this event.

Now I know that we have the holiday because we are hoping to share in the harvest, count our blessings, and thank others for what they bring to the table (read: another intentional bad pun), it’s dangerous for us to forget what preceded this state. Because humanity is about caring for and supporting the collective, not just picking and choosing what makes sense in a particular moment.

Of course I’m not so naive as to admit that I understand the complete scope and scale of what happened in North America in previous centuries, however, I do know this – when we celebrate the holiday, we should focus on participating in Thanksgiving as a way to honour community and the lives of Native peoples who welcomed immigrants into their lands. However individuals and governments chose to exploit individuals, we cannot know that all European immigrants were evil, nor can we proclaim that all Native peoples were innocent in how things shook out, because of our lack of context. But, we can be thankful in Canada that many people continue to immigrate into this country and our government is always working towards a future that is rather multi-cultural, a celebration of humanity.

That is what we should give thanks for. That opportunity for those who come into this country exists, and my hope is that the next generation is even less tolerant of disparity amongst new citizens.

And God do I ever hope that’s not just a theory.

Tim!

Sweet Release (July Talk, Touch review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Ever wanted to dial back the clock, dear readers?

Once we learn that time is the most precious commodity we’ll ever have, it becomes something that a lot of people beg and plead over. When really they should just appreciate the time they have and make the most of it. And sometimes when we are good little boys and girls, we get rewarded with things like July in the month of September.

 

 

 

July Talk – Touch
released September 9, 2016
********** 9/10

ckmuqnlxaaeu65t

July Talk is a Canadian alt rock band, and one of the hardest working acts in town. Well not necessarily in my town, but across Canada, the United States, Europe, and even Australia, they’ve been touring almost relentlessly since they first got traction with their debut self-titled album in late 2012.

Then in 2013 they released a deluxe version of the album with four additional tracks, and I bought that album. A couple years after that point, July Talk were gaining the attention of the US market so they released another version of their album with another three additional tracks.

But they just kept touring and touring. And it’s probably why they were able to keep releasing singles from that first album, and to help us Canucks fall in love with them.

Then July Talk decided to release their follow up album this month, it’s called Touch, and quite frankly, I can’t get enough. Previously Dreimanis and Fay would play their voices off of each other, but they are starting to grow into their sound all the more, and exploring more collaboration and synchronicity between them. If the first album was about trying things and experimenting with who the leader should be, Touch is a recognition of the old adage that playing together is more fun than alone.

And that’s what this album is even stronger than the first one. There is a unity to it’s overall message, what happens when we lose connection with one another? Opener Picturing love has a wonderful piano lead-in and gets our minds out of the old July Talk mechanisms right-quick. The following track Beck + Call confirms that this is not a one man or one woman show, or even a him VS her kinda album – Fay does her part to guide us in, and Dreimanis keeps us boxed in with his howls.

The energy between the two lead singers is tight throughout, and I personally think best demonstrated in Push + Pull, whether that is obvious and cliche can be your call.

There are of course some softer songs like Strange Habit, Jesus Said So, and the title track (which is also the end track). My second favourite track is Lola + Joseph, which fits snuggly between their new material and what we know of their past, and the pacing falls somewhere in the middle too. This is disco-blues after all folks, so we are going to get a wide range of emotions and sounds, but those waves of building sounds are represented well here.

I fully expect July Talk to continue to grow as a band, and if I’m being honest with myself, they’ll probably round out my top 20 bands within the next year or two.

 

 

 

I was almost at the point of emotional overload when I found out that July Talk was releasing a new album in September friends. I might have mentioned this already, but they were my first ever Melodic Monday entry almost exactly a year ago (October 5, 2015). And while I think they deserved that 8 I gave their deluxe album, this one is a 9 all on it’s own, without the benefit of time and rereleases.

If you want to travel back a couple of months, you should probably listen to to July Talk. But that’s just a theory.

Tim!

 

Jockstrap-on (Everybody Wants Some!! review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

I kind of hated dating when I was a younger buck. Mostly because of all the hormones, the uncertainty of identity, and dealing with the scores of other impressionable youth who were in the same boat as I.

It was messy and unclear, but giving myself and others roles made it easier to navigate, and in hindsight it probably was the most mature way to deal with the situation.

But hey, I wanted some, and everybody else did too.

 

 

 

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Cast: Blake Jenner, Tyler Hoechlin, Ryan Guzman, Juston Street, Wyatt Russell, Glen Powell, Temple Baker
Director: Richard Linklater
released on blu-ray July 12, 2016
******** 8/10

everybodysmall

IMDB: 7.3
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%, Audience Score 76%
The Guardian: ****/*****

Richard Linklater is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor. He is also one of my favourite directors of all-time. To quote Wikipedia:

Linklater is mostly known for his natural humanist films which mainly revolve around personal relationships, suburban culture, and the effects of the passage of time.

Linklater is responsible for Dazed and Confused (the spiritual predecessor to Everybody Wants Some!!), Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Waking Life, Boyhood, A Scanner Darkly, Fast Food Nation, School of Rock, and Bernie.

And those are just the movies of his that I’ve seen. I STILL haven’t seen Slacker, SubUrbia, The Newton Boys, Tape, nor Me and Orson Welles. But let’s not talk about The Bad News Bears remake. *shudders*

Influenced by the film Raging Bull, Linklater has always made movies about travelling, whether literal or a metaphor. Never focusing in on one theme or end goal, his movies resolve themselves in a loose way, much like life itself.

Everybody Wants Some!! is a perfect example of this play on suburbia, timing, and relationships. Set in Texas in the fall semester of 1980 and taking place over the first few days of college, we meet freshman Jake (Blake Jenner) as he moves into the house he’ll share with college baseball teammates over the period of his college education.

Sharing the screen time with Jake are his roommate Billy AKA “Beuter” (Will Brittain), teammates Finnegan (Glen Powell), Roper (Ryan Guzman), Dale (Quinton Johnson), Plummer (Temple Baker) and several others.

Over the course of the movie Jake and his new friends cruise the streets to meet women, get competitive over ping pong, basketball, drinking, and other games, and host a couple of parties. Not to mention attending a disco, a country bar, a punk show, AND a theatre house party.

We watch the group dynamic quickly evolves over the weekend, and Jake develops a relationship with Beverly (Zoey Deutch) (one of the women he met while cruising the streets at the outset of the film), it isn’t long before the film closes out with Jake and Plummer in their first class, sound asleep.

Pros: Linklater has a delicate touch, and he’s able to inject us into the lives of his characters without giving us a villain to best or a heart to win. He manages to articulate brotherhood and time in such a venerable way, that becomes quite sad when you see the credits roll and realize it’s time to go.

Cons: You do feel tested at times in this experience, wondering if all of this competition really is necessary and if the characters wouldn’t benefit from some breaks in their self-imposed roles.

Runtime: 1 hour 57 minutes

Points of Interest: Linklater has said that Everybody Wants Some!! is a continuation of Boyhood as it picks up right where that movie left off, conceptually. The original title of the film “That’s What I’m Talking About” is a line from Dazed and Confused, and often quote in this film.

The major takeaway of this movie is that dialogue is at the centre of it. It’s a coming of age tale in a time when masculinity was overtly tied to direct competition. And it demonstrates rather well the challenges that young men face in their conquest of meeting young women, whether that means putting on bell bottoms, adorning a cowboy hat, ripping up a white t-shirt with blood and ash or ultimately (and cleverly on Linklater’s part) putting on a costume to cozy up to the artistic. And he manages to make interest in sports way more nuanced than it’s ever been on film before.

The attitudes these young men hold for themselves, their peers, and women are rather basic at the root, but underneath the costume of jock wearing costume to get a woman, they reveal they are complex and just as lost as the rest of us dumb nerds.

Tim!

Knight Time (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Sometimes a person falls out of favour with their circle of friends, and sometimes they find a way back into social graces. Timing, humility, and quality of interaction all play into this result.

If you were to travel back in time to the mid-nineteen eighties, you wouldn’t have though much of The Batman. He wasn’t particularly cool and people weren’t that interested in what he was doing.

But today’s Theatrical Tuesday entry tells the story that got him back at the cool kids table? That’s right, you guessed it, we’re reviewing…

 

 

 

The Dark Knight Returns (2013)

Cast: Peter Weller, Ariel Winter, David Selby, Wade Williams, Michael Emerson, Mark Valley
Director: Jay Oliva
re-released on blu-ray w/graphic novel on February 24, 2016
********** 10/10

Dark_knight_returns

IMDB: 8.4
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, Audience Score 94%
The Guardian: N/A

Jay Oliva is a Filipino-American artist, producer and animated film director; one who happens to work for Warner Brothers Animation.

He got his start on the FOX Spider-man series of the 1990s, and has been involved in animated versions of Ghostbusters, Godzilla, Starship Troopers, and He-Man. Since then he has worked on numerous animations for both DC and Marvel and numerous years before he was assigned the task of creating the two-part animated movie The Dark Knight Returns.

If it it isn’t clear by now, Oliva has a good track record when it comes to creating comic book inspired worlds or adapting already written stories like The Dark Knight Returns mini-series.

For the sake of the review, let’s go over the story, if somewhat briefly.

Taken from Wikipedia and edited,

Set in a dystopian near-future version of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne, at 55, has retired  for ten years after the death of Jason Todd. Wayne has a breakdown and assumes the role of Batman again. He first confronts Harvey Dent, who was thought to be cured after therapy and plastic surgery (which Wayne financed).

Batman saves 13-year-old Carrie Kelley from an attack by a gang called the Mutants. Kelley buys herself an imitation Robin costume and searches for Batman, seeking to help him. She finds Batman at the city dump, where he fights an army of Mutants. Though Batman defeats the Mutant army with his weaponry, the Mutant leader beats him in combat. With the help of retiring Commissioner James Gordon and the new Robin, Batman defeats the Mutant leader on his own terms. The Mutants disband and some rename themselves the Sons of Batman.

At the White House, Superman and the president discuss the events in Gotham, with the latter suggesting that Superman may have to arrest Batman. Superman is then deployed by Washington to the Latin American country of Corto Maltese where he fights Soviet combat forces in a conflict that may ignite WWIII.

Batman’s return stimulates The Joker to awaken from catatonia at Arkham Asylum. With renewed purpose, The Joker manipulates his caretakers to allow him onto a television talk show, where he murders everyone with gas and escapes. Batman and Robin track him to a county fair, where he is already killing people. Batman defeats The Joker in a violent confrontation, nearly killing him. To incriminate Batman for murder, The Joker seemingly commits suicide by breaking his own neck. A citywide manhunt for Batman begins.

Superman diverts a Soviet nuclear warhead which detonates in a desert. The United States is hit by an electromagnetic pulse, and descends into chaos during the resulting blackout. In Gotham, Batman realizes what has happened, and he and Robin turn the remaining Mutants and Sons of the Batman into a non-lethal vigilante gang. He leads them against looters and ensures the flow of essential supplies. In the midst of electromagnetic pulse, Gotham becomes the safest city in the country. The U.S. government sees this as an embarrassment, and orders Superman to remove Batman. Superman demands to meet Batman.

Superman tries to reason with Batman, but Batman uses his technological inventions and mastery of hand-to-hand combat to fight him. During the battle, Superman compromises Batman’s exoframe, while Green Arrow shoots a kryptonite-tipped arrow to greatly weaken Superman. Batman reveals that he intentionally spared Superman’s life by not using a more powerful kryptonite mix; before he can finish his monologue, Batman suddenly has a heart attack, apparently dying. Alfred destroys the Batcave and Wayne Manor before dying of a stroke, exposing Batman as Bruce Wayne, whose fortune has disappeared. After Wayne’s funeral, it is revealed that his death was staged. Clark Kent attends the funeral and winks at Robin after hearing Wayne’s heartbeat resume. Some time afterward, Bruce Wayne leads Robin, Green Arrow, and the rest of his followers into the caverns beyond the Batcave and prepares to continue his war on crime.

I tried to edit that down as much as I could folks, but it was important to include all of those details for the next part of the review.

I will start by saying this, if you like animated films, but don’t know a lot about the Batman mythology, start here. The Dark Knight Returns is a great Batman story and because it is set in an alternate future, it won’t screw up or confuse you with subsequent readings of other books. The animation is well done, and echoes the source material as well.

That being said, it is an incredibly long story which includes what seems like almost every single detail of the original mini-series. So be prepared for a narrative which expects you to pay close attention.

Pros: As is the case with most of the DC line of animated films, it’s faithful to it’s source material and very entertaining. Peter Weller does a great job as Batman, as does Michael Emerson as The Joker. You have to follow the entire story through to appreciate everything, but it’s well worth it.

Cons: It is difficult to sit through 2 hours and 30 odd minutes of an animated feature. TBH, I blame Disney for conditioning us to expect animated films to wrap up in 90 minutes or less.

Runtime: 2 hours 32 minutes

Points of Interest: The Joker visits the David Endochrine Show which is based off the David Letterman Show. However the David of the animated movie is voiced by Conan O’Brien and as such resembles him. Though not explicitly stated, the POTUS in the film looks like and sounds like Ronald Reagan.

What I find  most interesting about this story is not that we get to see how Batman would act if he returned to crimefighting after a hiatus, but that he is clearly themed around a fascist messiah, and most people who read the book, watched the animated film or went to see Batman v Superman didn’t really care to recognize that. Which says something about humanity even now in the wake of Batman v Superman.

This Batman is one who “realizes” the world is broken and that only he can judge it properly, so after cleaning up his city, he fakes his death, and builds an underground army while he waits for an opportunity. Almost 20 years later, Frank Miller wrote a follow up to this story titled The Dark Knight Strikes Again which details how Batman goes about “savining” the United States from rule by Lex Luthor. A third mini-series, The Dark Knight: The Master Race is also currently in the works, and makes me wonder about the conclusion of this Batman story.

You should definitely watch and/or read The Dark Knight Returns, IF you want to better understand how easily fascism can crop up in society; because we all want a hero to save us, but maybe that’s not the best solution. This story definitely helped drive Batman back into pop culture, and incidentally, tomorrow’s post has some wisdom about Buzzworthy content. I’m out of theories for now, please comment, subscribe, and share this post if you liked it!

Tim!