Friday Films: A Flawed Maker Fairy Tale

Last Friday, I saw 9, the new animated film produced by Tim Burton and directed by Shane Acker. A few years ago, I saw the ten-minute short film it was based on and I really liked it, but I found the full-length movie kind of lacking.

Visually, it was really amazing and terrifying, with machines incorporating animal skulls and doll heads chasing the protagonists, and a post-apocalyptic landscape that seemed to imagine what would have happened if the world ended shortly after World War II. I don't know if anyone else got the sense that "the Machine" was this alternate-reality's version of "the Bomb," but that's what I thought every time they showed the blasted landscape.

This feeling of a post-apocalyptic past continued into the design of the characters, a group of little burlap robots, each with a painted number) who wake up as humanity ends. They're pretty old-fashioned, as far as robots go, made of watch parts and zippers and cloth (#6 is made of mattress ticking), and they seem more like Da Vinci-imagined automatons brought to life by some occult magic. Which is kind of true.

The movie is kind of a flawed steampunk maker/DIY fairy tale, in that the creator of the Burlap 9 is also the creator of the evil, humanity-destroying Machine, which is in turn a maker (of other, also evil, machines). Everybody is assembling something, whether it's a hat made of a candle, or a stick with a lightbulb, or a grappling hook made of a bunch of old fishhooks. This was something I actually liked about it, because the images of these little cobbled-together characters cobbling together their own inventions was a really great contrast to the efficient, evil machine, with its flawless assembly and glowing red eye. The last line of dialogue is kind of a testament to the promise of creation, as 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) says that the world is what they make of it.

Unfortunately, the plot doesn't make any sense. It devolves into a bunch of weird, not-exactly explained black magic, another chase with the Machine, and an ending that left me asking what the point was. Are these burlap characters supposed to spend the rest of eternity hanging out, waiting to rust? At least in the short film, 9 went off on his own, bound for something. Or is there more to it, that last line as a comment on the whole movie being about making?

Still, it's hard to end on a hopeful note when all of humanity is wiped out. At least Wall-E had humans still alive, even if they were enormous, lazy, and stupid, so there was more to go on than a hopeful Elijah Wood Burlap-Bot stating that the desolate world is "whatever we make of it." What is the value of that line when it's already a wasteland?

Musical Wednesdays: Bands I Think I Might Like

There are a few bands that have been popping up on my radar (more specifically, on the Sirius/XM-U channel on satellite radio) that I really don't know if I like just yet. I think it's the fact that I've only heard one or two songs by each of these bands, and I'm not quite sold.

The first band is Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, whose new single, "Home" is on a loop in my brain. It's kind of genre-defying, but I guess you could say it falls on the hippie end of the folk spectrum. It's a really upbeat call-and-response love song, with one of the most unabashedly joyful choruses I've heard in a long time. It's about falling in love, and it really sounds like it. They had another song in rotation, "Janglin" that wasn't bad, but after watching some videos of the band performing and the official music video for home, I'm kind of on the fence. I get the sense that they're trying too hard, with the lead singer in a white robe in one performance video and the music video filmed through a surreal, strange lens that distorts the light and the figures:

I like the song, and I want to like the band, but I can't shake the feeling that there's something strange about it, like this group is playing at it. But maybe that's just what being a performer comes down to.

The second band is Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele (is there a trend here with these band names?), and the first song I heard, "Meet Me in the Garden," got insanely overplayed really quickly. It's weird and lounge-inspired. I heard another one a few nights ago, and I liked it a lot more, but I can't for the life of me remember the name. Here's the video for the first single:

So here I'm again wondering if I want to like this band. I mean, I already have a clever and talented ukulele player (ukulelist?) in my musical roster, and I really prefer Beirut because I think Zach Condon is a much better songwriter. He creates a more richly-imagined world in his albums, and he doesn't seem removed from the music, as the Dent May video does. I prefer beauty in music more than cleverness--I'm much more likely to be affected by a song like "Elephant Gun" or "Postcards from Italy" because I think the sentiments they contain are worth writing songs about.

So what do you think? Has anyone heard other songs by these bands? Are they worth my time?

I also want to take this opportunity to promote a friend of mine from college, Julian Lynch. He just came out with an album of 4-track recordings, and what I've heard so far is really dreamy and psychedelic. There are a lot of things I remember about hanging out with him, especially during my freshman year, but one of my favorites was a time my friend Paul and I found him in his room, recording on his computer, using anything he had nearby for percussion. He played back one of the songs for us, and during a quiet part, he turned to us and said, "This is where the chorus of Mexicans comes in." Hearing his record, it suddenly makes sense.

Fiction Mondays: In Defense of Plot

Since Rainy September has been delayed a week, I will wait until next Monday to start throwing around Gravity's Rainbow thoughts. This week, I'd like to talk about an essay by Lev Grossman from the Wall Street Journal, asking why novels must be hard (the short answers is the modernists). What the essay is, to me at least, is a defense of plot, of narrative unobscured by knowingly difficult literary tricks (yes, completely opposite of Gravity's Rainbow). I like this essay, especially the bits about YA. I just ordered The Hunger Games, and there are a lot of YA books I've read in the past few years which have really great stories, and yes, really great characters. And in the best of them, there are bold stylistic moves, from The Invention of Hugo Cabret and its frame-by-frame animation over the course of several pages, to Feed, which mauls vocabulary and language to make a point about the intellect of the narrator.

I found out about this essay through Alexander Chee's Koreanish blog. He makes a lot of really interesting points there about connecting with excitement, and I feel like his advice--develop the character by telling the story--is totally valid, and does point to a problem within certain literary circles. In my undergraduate creative writing classes, I read a lot of stories that were so concerned with developing characters at the expense of plot that I don't remember them at all. Strangely enough, I do remember the ones that were maybe not as good, but that had interesting stories behind them. They seemed to at least be written with heart and excitement. I feel like I'd rather read ten stories that love telling stories than one concerned with showing off its cleverness.

I am unabashedly the same reader who could remember every detail from Treasure Island after I read it in second grade--a little smarter, and a little more capable of criticism--and that reader loves plot. I watched Star Wars only a few weeks ago because I missed it. It's pure plot. But I don't think anyone would say that we don't know everything we need to know about Han Solo as the movie progresses: when he comes back to save Luke's ass, we are thrilled, but we always knew he would.

The "literary" books that have a foot in genre know that people love plot, and I think it's something that is, like Grossman argues, changing the face of literature. Since there are a ton of books coming out in the next few weeks, there's a pretty large sample group to back this up:

Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry: Ghost Story

Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City: Sci-Fi

Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood: Sci-Fi

Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice: Detective

I think it's fair to say that 21st-century literature is going to be about plot, about borrowing from genres to change what "literary fiction" means. I mean, the idea of cobbling together existing genres to form a new form is not new: when I think of taking two disparate genres and successfully joining them to create a whole better than the sum of its parts, my mind always goes to Blade Runner. And I don't really believe, considering most of the authors I read, that genre and literary fiction are so incompatible.

Friday Films: On Network Short-Sightedness

Since this will be another "Friday Films" about television, I'm just going to announce that "Films," for the purpose of these posts, might also include TV shows. I guess this is also timely, as the new season of most television shows is currently getting started.

As you might know, one of the shows that is not returning is ABC's Pushing Daisies. I watched the first and second season DVDs this summer, and I think the network really made a mistake in pulling the plug on the show. Of course, it has all the marks of a show that would fail early and be missed: clever and quick dialogue, well-developed characters, no laugh track, and more nerdy allusions than even I can pick up on. The show centers around a piemaker who can bring people and objects back to life for one minute--any longer, and something nearby has to die--who brings his childhood sweetheart back to life and decides not to send her back. They work with a detective, Emerson Cod, solving murders--an easy task if you can temporarily bring back the dead and ask who killed them.

The biggest problem it ran into was, surprisingly, not its strangeness or its originality--those traits actually gained it a lot of viewers--but the writer's strike. The first season was cut short, to nine episodes, and the second season was allowed to die quietly over the course of thirteen episodes. That's roughly one full season. Toward the end, it was subject to the network shuffle, the fastest way to shake off those few viewers who were still hanging on, and the producer was forced to come up with an ending to somehow wrap things up. Every plot thread they laced through the seasons was abruptly cut off.

Somehow I ended up watching the second-to-last episode on a Saturday night (I didn't find out that it was the second-to-last episode until later) and I was lost, but completely hooked. The episode had a ton of Chinatown references, and a plot like an episode of CSI put through a blender with a fairy tale. I wanted to find out the rest of the story. And I did, and then I, too, was disappointed that this show was taken away.

Which brings me to my point: if I saw one episode and was hooked, enough to seek out the rest of the show and catch up on what was going on, I'm willing to bet that many other people who see just one episode will want to see more. And then, if the network actually, I don't know, keeps it in the same time slot for more than a week at a time, those viewers who saw that one episode would watch more. And then the show would build a following. It seems to me to be a problem of short-sightedness and chasing after fast profit. Now, look at a show like HBO's True Blood: HBO partnered with Blockbuster to rent out the first episode, for free, the week before the premiere. One episode, enough to get people coming back. Now, it's a huge hit. And it's been allowed to build and grow and gain an audience without its time slot being switched without notice.

I think the only network who seems to have any idea of the value of doing this is Fox--although their previous sins against Arrested Development make it difficult to forgive them--by premiering Glee after American Idol several months ago, they created anticipation and buzz. I'm not sure what the ratings were last night, but I'd imagine they were pretty great. And it's a weird show, an hour-long scripted musical in the middle of primetime, and I think it's a smart idea to help it along. Because there is an audience. But the network needs to put some work into it. And they need to leave its time slot alone.

Okay, so rant about short-sighted networks over. Go watch "Pushing Daisies" and make ABC wish they had kept it going. We would have been its audience. Instead, they give us "Crash Course" and "Dating in the Dark." But wouldn't you much rather have this?

Musical Wednesdays: What I'm Listening to Now

Sometimes I like to imagine mix tapes, for days, for themes, for seasons. Sometimes I assemble them into playlists, but more often the collection of songs only exists in my head. Last winter, I started a "White Winter Mix," and as the temperatures start to drop, I'm coming up with an Autumn mix. I don't think the songs necessarily have to be about fall, only about the feelings associated with the season. I really love fall, but you can't have an all-out happy fall mix because you have to consider that winter is coming. So here's what I have so far:

1. The Avett Brothers, "I and Love and You"
2. The Decemberists, "Annan Water"
3. The Mountain Goats, "Psalms 40:2"
4. Monsters of Folk, "Say Please"

As you can see, I need some suggestions for what else should go on the playlist. I'm sure something by the Beatles, since...

Today is the big day, 9/9/09--the day the Beatles' entire catalog is reissued, and the day Beatles Rock Band drops into my lap. I'm sure I'll have more on this for next week, when I've had a chance to start playing it (and by the way, everyone is invited to come by and play. I won't even force anyone to play as Ringo), but for now, I'd like to share with you all the opening: it is psychedelic, beautiful, and...well, just watch:




Enjoy, and (even though I don't really like the song):

Number 9

Number 9

Number 9

Fiction Mondays: Rainy September

Well, since I took Friday off, I think I'm required to post on this, a holiday. There's a lot to report in today's Fiction Monday, not the least of which is that I have finished a second draft of my novel! I tightened it where it needed to be tightened and added sentences and whole chapters where things were not as complete as I wanted them. It was messy, but I got it done, and now I'm excited for the next step.

I finished another book this week, Neil Gaiman's excellent Neverwhere: A Novel. It's about a young man, Richard Mayhew, who gets pulled into an alternate-London underneath the regular one. It's a city of danger and magic, and an enormous beast that stalks a labyrinth deep beneath the city. Highly recommended.

And today, I started another novel, and it's a big one:Gravity's Rainbow. This is part of the recent trend of starting reading groups to get through difficult books, like this summer's Infinite Summer. Thanks to Moonrat over at Editorial Ass for coming up with "Rainy September." This is a book I have tried (and failed) to get through before, so I'm excited to get through it with a group. This has also inspired me to start one for next spring: Augie March (The month it starts is built in to the title!) I liked what I read of Augie March, but it's one of those books that I couldn't get through because I started school. Let me know if you have any interest in joining me on that undertaking.

Well, I'm off to the book. I have a lot of rockets, psychics, and scientific experiments to get to. Enjoy your Labor Day, everyone!

Musical Wednesdays: "Our Noise"

Happy September, everyone! I hope you're all reading/listening to/watching something fantastic. I just found out that John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) is playing a show Pennsylvania in November on the tour for the new album, "The Life of the World to Come." You can check out an mp3 of one of the songs here, and I've heard the whole album has leaked if you know where to look. I will definitely be heading down to Philadelphia for this show, in the constant hope that I will hear "No Children" live once more in my life.

But now the real purpose of this post: a review! A few months ago, I won a book on Twitter from Algonquin Books and I've been waiting since July to post about it. The book is Our Noise, a history of Merge records by the founders and the bands involved. Merge is a fantastic record label, with bands as diverse as Spoon, Neutral Milk Hotel, and the Magnetic Fields, and this book is an oral history of indie rock in the post-grunge era. My favorite part, by far, was the Neutral Milk Hotel section, which sheds some light on the mythical figure that Jeff Mangum became, following a circus and doing field recordings. There's also a short essay in that section by Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End, where he just raves about the album. It's a surprising moment, a well-known author letting his inner fanboy out, and I loved it.

The Spoon section of the book was really interesting because I had no idea how long it took them to really become a band. When I first heard "The Way We Get By," I had no idea they had been working for years, releasing lesser-know albums and shifting their line-up.

The Magnetic Fields section had one of my favorite explanations for what they sound like: pop music from the future, as imagined in 1960. There's a lot there about how insane you would have to be to release "69 Love Songs," and how Merge, in spite of that, released it anyway. It worked out well, with the album still popular.

The book as a whole is a celebration of the DIY aesthetic, and an exploration of how passion married with a business sense can make a small company into a major force. By treating their artists well--Merge does not require multiple-record contracts and shares profits with the bands--they have carved more than a niche for themselves. I don't know if you could say they've become a mainstream record company, but at the very least they're a small label that the big guys have noticed, the underdogs that Spoon, on their 2007 album "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga," predict will outlast the big players.

Final Note: Mountain Goats and Algonquin in one post? I have a feeling North Carolina is taking over. I, for one, welcome our new Appalachian overlords.