I first encountered the realm of Prince on the shelves of the record
department at our local Venture, Venture having been somewhere on the
department store spectrum between Woolworth's and Kmart. They suddenly
had a Prince section, and his first three LPs. The cover of "For You"
struck me as pretty cheesy and basically generic, the cover of "Prince"
looked super cheesy but also sorta uncommonly fearless, and the cover of
"Dirty Mind" looked dark and serious and obviously revealing & made
me think - wow, this guy does whatever he wants.
A week or so later,
right after my twelfth birthday (I know this now because it was
released on my twelfth birthday, and as much as I loved going to Venture
I would almost certainly have not gone on my birthday) they also had
his fourth LP. That was it; the cover of "Controversy" made me certain:
this guy has got to be great. I still wasn't ready to drop my scant
allowance on someone who I had only heard of by way of seeing his album
art for first time in past few days (I recall I bought nothing on either
of those, nor on most, of my very frequent trips to that record
department) but soon I heard "Controversy" and knew the record cover
gave me the right impression, the music was amazing.
I'll admit a
year later I was annoyed when kids at my junior high who I didn't
particularly think were cool or had good taste were into Little Red
Corvette, but what the hell. There was that preteen year there where I
had learned of this mysterious, funky, vastly talented recording artist.
My musical taste and recognition of artistry were just forming, and I
think highly informed by just how incredible the title track to that
album was. Thanks, dead fellow I never met. I mean it.
Friday, April 22, 2016
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Wayne v Kent: an unlikely & reserved defense of the latest meta spectacle
Sorry, kids - another "not a poem" entry from your poet-in-exile:
I find critical consensus on pop culture as suspicious as, or maybe even more suspicious than, commercial consensus – so I watched Batman v Superman. Some common critiques are spot-on; many of same are exaggerated relative to general treatment of the genre; and some are peculiarly lazy. It's not nearly as bad as Man of Steel nor is it as utterly negligible (nor as dismissive of real source material) as Age of Ultron.
In context of action adventures featuring the supernaturally powerful, I’m leaning toward the film’s few successes outweighing its many failures. It’s shocking that I'm even remotely defending Synder. Revealingly, the most damning criticism accuses him not of being a hack filmmaker or lacking own vision (however hyper masculine, objectionably Objectivist, juvenile, or primarily visual it maybe be) but of taking too much of a dark &/or personal risk with supposedly surefire corporate intellectual property. His latest movie's most interminable sequence is apparently obligatory in this sort of endeavor; the frequent daftness is in no way unique; the collisions of big spectacle and mawkish sentimentality may feel intuitively irreconcilable but are actually such standard issue as to perhaps be unavoidable (maybe even emotionally honest) at this scale; and the Luthor character needed some (why so?) serious reconsideration. But for biting off so much, the director chews a fair amount of it down to fairly digestible, and he benefits from having Affleck as the most buyable Bruce Wayne the big screen has had. (Opening credits validation for creators & comic fans: Bill Finger finally gets his name onscreen - even if it really oughta go before Bob Kane’s.)
To Snyder’s surprising credit he does make a movie that, more so than the titular costumed conflict (and yes, their fight scene does deliver) is Wayne v Kent. As much as he’s been knocked for not getting the big blue Boy Scout, Snyder grasps these characters enough to focus on the core conflict. The issue isn’t how a bitter billionaire with just wits and fists can power up enough to take on a nearly omnipotent alien. The real battle pits a traumatized rich orphan from the shitty part of town, grown so damaged that his grand deduction skills are manipulated by the most vain and transparent of villains, against the working class farm boy made good in the shiniest side of the city, whose idealism has been nearly terminally taxed. It’s no great accomplishment, and it’s all handled at a surface level, as the director is known for. So, fine, they both love their mothers. I’ve seen shallower messages delivered in far less maligned pictures with nary a cape nor glowing pair of eyes in sight.
I find critical consensus on pop culture as suspicious as, or maybe even more suspicious than, commercial consensus – so I watched Batman v Superman. Some common critiques are spot-on; many of same are exaggerated relative to general treatment of the genre; and some are peculiarly lazy. It's not nearly as bad as Man of Steel nor is it as utterly negligible (nor as dismissive of real source material) as Age of Ultron.
In context of action adventures featuring the supernaturally powerful, I’m leaning toward the film’s few successes outweighing its many failures. It’s shocking that I'm even remotely defending Synder. Revealingly, the most damning criticism accuses him not of being a hack filmmaker or lacking own vision (however hyper masculine, objectionably Objectivist, juvenile, or primarily visual it maybe be) but of taking too much of a dark &/or personal risk with supposedly surefire corporate intellectual property. His latest movie's most interminable sequence is apparently obligatory in this sort of endeavor; the frequent daftness is in no way unique; the collisions of big spectacle and mawkish sentimentality may feel intuitively irreconcilable but are actually such standard issue as to perhaps be unavoidable (maybe even emotionally honest) at this scale; and the Luthor character needed some (why so?) serious reconsideration. But for biting off so much, the director chews a fair amount of it down to fairly digestible, and he benefits from having Affleck as the most buyable Bruce Wayne the big screen has had. (Opening credits validation for creators & comic fans: Bill Finger finally gets his name onscreen - even if it really oughta go before Bob Kane’s.)
To Snyder’s surprising credit he does make a movie that, more so than the titular costumed conflict (and yes, their fight scene does deliver) is Wayne v Kent. As much as he’s been knocked for not getting the big blue Boy Scout, Snyder grasps these characters enough to focus on the core conflict. The issue isn’t how a bitter billionaire with just wits and fists can power up enough to take on a nearly omnipotent alien. The real battle pits a traumatized rich orphan from the shitty part of town, grown so damaged that his grand deduction skills are manipulated by the most vain and transparent of villains, against the working class farm boy made good in the shiniest side of the city, whose idealism has been nearly terminally taxed. It’s no great accomplishment, and it’s all handled at a surface level, as the director is known for. So, fine, they both love their mothers. I’ve seen shallower messages delivered in far less maligned pictures with nary a cape nor glowing pair of eyes in sight.
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