I Hate Twitter

Here's something I'm shocked that I haven't written about yet: my intense hatred for Twitter.  Over the summer I wrote about how I have long harbored a distaste for Facebook, but this is worse.  As vapid as Facebook often is, I can still understand its usefulness as a tool.  I also have to say that Facebook, unlike Twitter, has provided me with some entertainment and worthwhile distraction in the past.  Granted I pretty much lost interest in in Facebook two or three years ago, but at least there was a period in my life when it did have relevance.  On the other hand Twitter has never had any relevance in my life.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to understand Twitter.  It's something that a large number of people find compelling and enjoyable and I would love to share in their joy.  But I've tried and I ultimately just can't get into it.  Not only do I find the website dull, but there are a lot of elements to its design/popular use that I find actively irritating.

Firstly, and most obviously, I hate the 140-character limit.  Yes you can consume thoughts more quickly when they are packaged in tweet form, but more often than not I find that such writing sacrifices depth for brevity.  Much of the pleasure of reading for me comes from getting comfortable with the author's voice and becoming absorbed in their words and ideas.  I find this type of enjoyment missing from the world of tweets.  Before I can get really absorbed into the author's argument, they've already switched to a new topic.  While some might argue that such writing allows for a larger scope of topics to be covered, I rarely see Twitter users take advantage of the medium in this way.

Also I despise people who use Twitter to broadcast their "witty" thoughts and observations about the people and events occurring around them.  Even worse are the users who attempt to compose snarky commentary about the people around them.  I have seen way too many people post inane tweets about "fashion don'ts" and the like that they observe in the world around them.  The passive aggressive sarcasm contained within these posts pisses me off.  It's so pathetic to write judgmental comments about someone from behind your computer screen instead of saying something to that person's face.  In this way I hate how Twitter acts as an enabler  for the mindless negativity of society's cowards.  On a less severe note I'm also bored with all the fake Twitter accounts that chronicle the lives of fictional characters.  They were amusing a year or so ago, but the joke's been done before and now they're simply tedious.

A rather small component of Twitter that absolutely drives me nuts are the short biographies that users write about themselves on their Twitter page.  I hate them because more often than not they are hellishly pretentious.  You know the type of thing I'm talking about, "student.  artist.  writer."  (I made that bio up, but the format and content is very closely based off many real user biographies I have seen on Twitter).  If I have to describe to you why such self-indulgent self description is loathsome then you'll never get it.

Lest I be too negative (oops, too late) I would like to close my post with a mention of the one thing I love about Twitter, the infamous Fail Whale.  I love it because it's ridiculously cute.  I love the serene expression on its face as the multitude of birds strain to lift its massive whale body.  It's a fantastic image.

Kinji Fukasaku's Graveyard of Honor

This afternoon I took the time to watch Kinji Fukasaku's 1975 yakuza film Graveyard of Honor. Fukasaku is perhaps most famous amongst youngsters as the director of Battle Royale (2000), the film in which schoolchildren are pitted against each other on an island and forced to fight to the death. Before Battle Royale went into production, though, Fukasaku had already had a lengthy and productive directorial career. Fukasaku was particularly well-versed in the crime genre. His five film series The Yakuza Papers (1973-74), in particular, stands as a landmark moment in the yakuza genre for many film historians and critics.

All that being said, I was pretty unawre of Kinji Fukasaku's pre-Battle Royale output before this year. I first became interested in his sixties and seventies films after watching the relatively obscure Blackmail Is My Life (1968) on Netflix. Though I watched it on a mere whim, I walked away impressed with the incredibly stylish and amoral world presented in the film. Despite being over forty years old, Blackmail still felt fresh and hip and I became interested in seeking out similar fare.

Which leads me, of course, to Graveyard of Honor. I viewed Graveyard today with moderate expectations that were exceeded by the wild and frenetic ride that the movie presented. Regarding plot Graveyard of Honor is basically your standard rise and fall story, though the movie places considerably greater emphasis on the protagonist's fall from power than his ascent. But with a descent this spectacular, bloody, and dramatic, such a choice is difficult to argue with.

The film's self-destructive protagonist is Rikio Ishikawa (played by Tetsuya Watari, who might be most recognizable to American audiences as the lead in 1966's Tokyo Drifter), a hyper-violent yakuza with a severe lack of impulse control. Ishikawa sees himself as a balloon, which continuously rises through the air until it inevitably pops. The balloon metaphor is echoed multiple times in the film's visuals. At various points in the movie there are shots in which a singular red balloon is prominently displayed on screen. Far from being cheesy, I found the balloon motif to be an effective way of creating a visual link between all the different various events in the film. Shots of the balloon serenely floating in the air also made for a chilling and effective juxtaposition against the chaotic violence of the rest of the movie.

Speaking of the violence, I was impressed with how disorienting and frenetic the film's moments of violence were. Blood flows freely here, in shockingly vibrant shades of red. True, the blood on display in Graveyard of Honor looks very garish and 1970's, but to me that only adds to the brashness of the action and the retro appeal of the film.

Rikio Ishikawa, the film's aforementioned lead, is the most frequent and unpredictable perpetrator of the bloodshed. As such he's a difficult character to sympathize with fully, but he's a thrilling figure to watch. Ishikawa moves with an animalistic intensity, cutting and gutting anyone who dares get in his way. From the outset it is clear that Ishikawa is on the fast track to complete self-destruction, but one might be surprised at the havoc he will cause and the trials he must endure before getting there.

Those in the market for bold films with style to spare should give Graveyard of Honor a go.  Watching this film fueled my desire to further explore Japanese crime movies, and, as always, I look forward to learning more.

The Kid Whisperer

The book I'm currently reading is entitled The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence and is written by authors Henry A. Giroux and Grace Pollock. Mouse That Roared is a rather dry academic diatribe against Disney's corporate ills. Academic ramblings aside, I did find one interesting bit of trivia regarding Disney's corporate research team in my reading. In the authors' words, "On way in which Disney discovers 'emotional hooks' that lure boys into the 'wonderful world of Disney' is to hire child psychologists, anthropologists, and other researchers, such as Kelly Peña, also known as the 'Kid Whisperer'".

First off, what an awesome nickname. Second, I love that somewhere in the world there exists a group of full grown adults whose job it is to observe and study children, all for the sake of Disney's bottom line. I was intrigued by this sentence in Mouse That Roared, so I decided to do a quick bit of supplementary research on my own online. After a speedy online search I came up with this awesome New York Times article on the aforementioned Kid Whisperer.

A quick summary of the article for those not interested in reading it: basically in an effort to try to seize the attentions of the lucrative 6-14 year-old boy market, Disney hires researchers to study young male test subjects. These researchers assemble notes on their encounters and hand these notes to Disney, who uses the research in the creation and marketing of their media properties. The investigative work these teams do, according to the New York Times article, involves researchers going through the boys' closets, watching them shop, and conducting one-on-one interviews.

I found this story fascinating. It provides a tantalizing look behind the scenes at the marketing machine that is Disney. It also sheds a bit of light on some interesting individuals I'd love to know more about. I want to know what makes the members of this research team tick. I mean, how surreal would it be to get paid to go through a 12-year-old's sock drawer?

2011: A Year of Nostalgia

Last month my dear friend El Lobo wrote a post titled "2011 Has Been Boring". Besides having a fantastic title (simple, straight forward and charmingly negative), he made a rather convincing argument that 2011 pretty much sucked in terms of pop cultural output. And while I'm not one to disagree with him, there was one trend in 2011 that I absolutely bought into, and that was the way in which numerous Hollywood films capitalized on our collective nostalgia.

I'm not going to produce a comprehensive list of every nostalgia inducing theatrical release, but here are a few I can think of off the top of my head: Super 8, Winnie the Pooh, The Muppets, Hugo, and the re-release of The Lion King. These titles used different strategies to capitalize on nostalgia. Pooh and The Muppets promised to reunite audiences with beloved characters, but in the context of all new storylines. Super 8 and Hugo expressed nostalgia for bygone eras and, more generally, the emotions and relationships of childhood. And as for the 3-D re-release of The Lion King? Well, that was pretty much a straight up cash in, but it was one I bought into and thoroughly enjoyed nonetheless.

I've read before that nostalgia for the past is indicative of a deep dissatisfaction with the present and a fear for the future. Perhaps then the current interest in nostalgia-inducing movies stems from the economic hardships many face in today's weak economy. Another possible reason for the plethora of nostalgia pictures is that they appeal to a broad range of people. Not only does Pooh bring in the kiddies, but it also appeals to childless twentysomethings like me who grew up with the franchise and would love an opportunity to revisit the Hundred Acre Wood. And obviously a larger Pooh-watching demographic means more cash for Disney.

And that brings me to another point, that from a spectator's standpoint I'm really loving these films. I suspect I'm not the only one. During screenings for both The Lion King and The Muppets I have watched the audience spontaneously burst into applause as the final credits rolled. This is something I don't see everyday, so I always find it touching to witness collective applause when it happens.

Good news for the nostalgia fans is that the such releases show no signs of stopping as we approach the new year. The first half of 2012 alone will see 3-D theatrical re-releases for the late nineties blockbusters Titanic and Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. While it's scary to me that the we've come far enough away from the 1990's that the decade can now carry nostalgic clout, I have to otherwise reiterate that I'm kind of loving this trend. Granted studios can, and probably will, end up taking this trend too far and run it into the ground, but for now let's all bask in the warm nostalgic glow of clever marketing.

Links I Loved: Madonna's Acting Career and More

As I've written about in a number of my previous posts, I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet. On one hand, it can be a glorious treasure trove of knowledge, but on the other hand it can be a mind-numbing time suck. During my late teenage years I could spend every waking minute on the web without incurring any sort of boredom. But as I have aged I've grown considerably more picky about how and where I spend my time online. I wouldn't call myself an information connoisseur, but recently I've found myself getting bored with a lot of the miscellaneous crap that floats about on the Internet.

Instead of contributing to the problem, though, I thought I'd try to contribute to a solution. I wanted to start sharing more links on my blog of random Internet shit that I think is actually worth your time. Now not everybody's going to be interested in every link I post, so feel free to browse them at your leisure. Depending on how this post turns out and how you, dear reader, respond to it, I might make these types of posts a regular part of my blog. So please leave me feedback.

So without further ado, stuff on the Internet that I have recently enjoyed, along with my own personal commentary on each item:

The Conversations: Wong Kar Wai - I recently used this article as a source for a final paper for school, but don't let that turn you off. Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard's comprehensive discussion of five films (Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and My Blueberry Nights) from director Wong Kar-wai is an entertaining and engaging read. While the article is intelligent and critical, the back and forth dynamic of the conversation keeps it from drifting into dry or boring territory. Yes, the article is lengthy, but that's part of the charm for me. In a world of "tl;dr", it's nice to read something online that's got a bit of heft to it. In regards to the article I was particularly amused by their descriptions of the (over)acting within My Blueberry Nights, "...no one is working harder than [Rachel] Wiesz, who by the time she runs out of ways of portray drunken rage and despair is only halfway there", and I enjoyed their debate over the merits of Chungking Express. Overall this article makes for an entertaining and accessible companion piece to the films it discusses.

Madonna's 5 Best Moments on the Big Screen - As it says, this is a quick and timely rundown of the greatest moments in Madonna's acting career. Yes I am well aware that many will find the last sentence to be an impossible contradiction. Still I am of the opinion that Madonna's film career tends to be a bit unfairly criticized simply because people see her as an easy target (I have had this conversation on more than one occasion with my good friend El Lobo!) I also love how this article craftily builds upon and capitalizes off the hype for W.E. That said my only problem with the article is this, where's Evita?

Crestwood House Monster Books - I ran into this article a few months back and loved it, but I couldn't quite find a good place to mention it on my blog so I'm sticking it here. This is a fantastic rundown of a popular children's book series by author Ian Thorne (real name Julian May). Each title in the Crestwood monster series was dedicated to the films of a different monster. Personally I have a nostalgic fondness for this series as its where I was first introduced to Godzilla. While the series was published in the 1970's and '80's, my elementary school library was terribly antiquated so I grew up reading this series even if it was technically before my time. Reading this article and gazing at the accompanying photos brought back so many fantastic memories for me that I just had to link to this one.

Book Review: Film Music

Somewhere between Thanksgiving break and the always hellish and homework saturated final weeks of fall semester, I was able to squeeze in a reading of this slim 160 page text.  Film Music: A Very Short Introduction is, exactly as the title says, a short guide to and history of the use of music in movies.  The title is part of a massive series of books put out by the Oxford University Press.  The Very Short Intro series covers a whole range of topics from the massively broad (history, drugs, the meaning of life, etc.) to the slightly more defined (Aztecs, Kabbalah, The Tudors, etc.).  Prior to picking up this title I had some slight knowledge of the series, as I had read Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction for a class.  Truthfully I found Postmodernism to be pretty dry, but I took a gamble and picked this title up because the subject sounded interesting to me.

Like Madonna, I find movie soundtracks compelling.  I am interested in how image and sound intersect to create meaning and feeling.  I love those moments when the image and music work together to create the "perfect storm" of glorious emotional manipulation.  But while I am interested in how music works in narrative film, I had read very little on the subject before I picked up this title.

Kathryn Kalinak's Film Music is primarily comprised of theory regarding how and why music works in conjunction with film and a history of how music has been used in film.  My favorite part of Kalinak's text was actually the theoretical stuff.  As a movie fan I love to hear people muse about the effects of film, even if such theorizing is abstract in nature.  I know this sort of musing is an acquired taste, and some people straight up just don't like it, but those who are interested in film analysis should find Film Music's first few chapters to be full of compelling ideas to mull over.  I also appreciated that Kalinak steered clear of hardcore academic speak in her chapters on theory.  While her writing carries an air of formality she keeps pretensions at a minimum and is upfront about the limits and sometimes contradictory nature of film theory.  I also thoroughly enjoyed her analysis of the infamous use of "Stuck in the Middle With You" during the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs.  It almost makes me wish she'd included more specific case studies of music in film, though I realize this would have invalidated the "very short" part of the title.

I wasn't as enthusiastic about the history side of the book, though I did think it was solid enough.  Kalinak covers the history of film sound from its inception as live accompaniment to silent film all the way up to Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman's 2009 dual Oscar wins.  I appreciate the large swath of time Kalinak covers, as well as the global range of history that the book covers.  My only problems with the historical aspects of the book were that the text in this section tended to be a bit dry and, again, I was left wanting to know more.  Perhaps this latter criticism isn't valid, as this book is intended to be solely a simple introduction.  Still I couldn't help but be a tad frustrated at the book's brevity.

Overall though, I think there's plenty to recommend in this text.  Film studies students or those with an interest in the field are the ones who are most likely to enjoy this title, but the writing is accessible enough that casual readers should be able to walk away with something as well.

Why I Dread the New Lorax

Now look, I'm not normally the type to bitch about remakes, redos, and reboots.  I find such behavior to be generally dull and pointless.  I mean we live in a capitalist society, it's obvious and completely understandable that people are going to want to capitalize on established brand names rather than take a risk on new properties.  That being said, the new Lorax movie kind of pisses me off.

Like most nerds with misdirected anger my annoyance stems from an intense personal identification with an aged piece of pop culture.  I was first gripped by the story of the Lorax through the 1972 animated TV special which used the original Dr. Seuss text to tell a story through dialogue, song, narration, and hand-drawn animation.  What has always intrigued me about The Lorax is the darkness of the story in comparison with other children's fare.  The audience is left with hope at the end of the tale, but there is no guarantee that everything will be okay.  It is encouraging to see a children's property that has enough faith in the intelligence of its audience not to hold their hands all the way through the end.

Another reason that I love the original Lorax story is the universality of its characters and themes.  On the surface The Lorax is a cautionary tale that urges the viewer to care for the environment, but the story isn't some mere public service announcement.  On a broader level the film also speaks about fatal human weaknesses such as greed and arrogance.  While the character of the Once-ler causes tragic environmental destruction on a massive scale, he is a sympathetic individual.  One of my favorite moments in the original cartoon occurs when the Once-ler experiences moments of self-doubt while sitting alone amongst his riches.  The guilt and denial that the character expresses in this scene illustrate the impressive complexity of the character, as well as his universality (after all, we are all flawed individuals).  The Once-ler is not a super villain who gets joy from destruction, but rather a well-intentioned but fatally flawed guy.  I also love how we never get to see the Once-ler's face.  The Once-ler's anonymity allows the viewer to project themselves onto the character.  Giving the Once-ler a face and identity (as the new Lorax film does) allows the viewer to disassociate with the character.  I wouldn't be surprised if this left the viewer with a less emotionally powerful experience as a result.

Another giant problem I have with the new Lorax film is that they seem to have molded the original's touching story of greed run amok into a trite "boy meets girl" tale.  According to Wikipedia, "The film follows Ted, an idealistic young boy, who tries to find the one thing that will win him affection of Audrey the girl of his dreams. To do so, he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world".  Really?  If this synopsis proves accurate it will mean that the moral themes of the original film have devolved into a story of some guy trying to get into some girl's pants through a feigned interest in environmental issues.  I weep for the future.

Junji Ito's Gyo

About two or three years back I read a manga titled Uzumaki and I loved it. Uzumaki is a surreal horror tale about a small Japanese town that becomes overrun with spirals (one of the most memorable moments in the book occurs when a schoolboy slowly transforms into a snail). Uzumaki was my gateway into the world of horror manga and, in turn, the works of the horror manga maestro Junji Ito. Eager to reenter the surreal, grotesque and wildly imaginative world of Uzumaki, I've picked up and read a number of manga horror titles since, including Ito's Gyo. And while nothing has matched the nerdy high of discovering Uzumaki, Gyo is a solid title and is worth a read for any English speaking Ito admirers clamoring to read more of his work. I recently revisited Gyo during the downtime in my holiday break and I thought I'd use my blog to show this relatively obscure title a bit of love.

Gyo tells the tale of Tadashi, a rather ordinary guy who discovers a monster fish whilst vacationing with his girlfriend Kaori. This fish is attached to a bizarre metal contraption with "legs" that allow it to walk on land and, unfortunately for our heroes, is only one of many sea creatures of its ilk. Soon all sorts of sea creatures, including a shark and a whale, are rising out of the water on mechanical legs and coming ashore to wreck havoc on human civilization. The image of the whale is visually stunning - its body is so massive that its legs bend and collapse under its weight. The origin of the creatures is unknown. What is known is that they carry with them disease and an overpowering stench, a smell which one character compares to that of a human corpse on a hot summer day. After awhile humans catch the disease and become infected. Eventually the bodies of the infected humans attach themselves to the same contraptions that allowed the fish to walk on land (see the picture for a particularly awesome and grotesque example) and humanity is pretty much screwed.

Gyo, like Uzumaki, excels at darkly imaginative and witty imagery. The bloated and diseased human corpses riding on mechanical legs form a great visual juxtaposition between organic fragility and cold mechanized efficiency, while also spectacularly capitalizing on humanity's innate fear of disease and decay. Fish walking on land is another great horror image because it violates the divide between land and sea in ways that are both grotesque and fascinating. In other words, Gyo thrives on contradictions and juxtapositions, like fish that live on land and dead bodies that move. Along this same line one of my favorite moments in the manga occurs when the hero comes upon a circus in which diseased animals and people perform for a non-existent audience. A circus held during the end of the world...what an awesome concept!

But lest I sound like a drooling fangirl, let me point out that I still think this work is inferior to Ito's Uzumaki. The narrative here is less developed and less strong than that in Uzumaki and the characters are pretty underdeveloped. In particular, Tadashi's mad scientist uncle came across as silly and B-movie-ish (and not in a good way).

That said, Gyo's still a solid work, and I highly recommend it to fans of Uzumaki or the horror genre in general. The complete story stretches two volumes and is available in English courtesy of Viz Media. Volume two contains two bonus short stories by Ito, which are unrelated to the plot of Gyo, but nonetheless make for decent capstones to this wonderfully weird work.