Film Review: "The Tree of Life"

Terrence Malick is often cited as an example of the classic Hollywood auteur, and he does his best to cultivate his eccentric image accordingly. So he does things like listen to Green Day in the editing room, crow about the merits of Zoolander, and, most nostably, disappear for decades at a time. So when it was announced that The Tree of Life, a movie that Malick had been purportedly working on since the 70s, was finally being shot, film buffs reacted with anticipation and the remarkable patience that is required for any Malick endeavor.

Now the director's possible magnum opus is slowly wending its way to a hippie arthouse theater near you, with a marketing campaign by Fox Searchlight stressing how trippy the whole experience is. If you're wondering what this movie is about, you're already asking the wrong question. It's not really "about" anything, but in the same way that a painting or a symphony is not "about" anything - the movie prefers to dwell on themes and recurring images, rather than going through the standard narrative motions.

 

But, briefly, The Tree of Life spends the bulk of its time showing the lives of three young boys growing up in Waco, Texas in the 1960s. Their father is strict; not abusive, but terrifying to the young boys all the same. Their mother is quiet, submissive, and loving. In between these dreamlike sketches of growing up, we see one of the boys living the modern day, coping with the death of his brother and his relationship with his parents. Oh, and there's the creation of the universe. And dinosaurs. And a bunch of barefoot people on a beach hugging. And a wavy thing of light that may or may not be God. This ain't your standard coming of age story.

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I Climbed The Holy Mountain And All I Got Was This Stupid Blog Post

Growing up I had a friend, let's call him "Max Y." No, too obvious: "M. Yue". M. Yue and I formed what could probably only be described as some sort of buddy comedy, Odd Couple set up: I was the button-down, mild-mannered, all-American good kid and he the wild child, the guy who listened to punk rock and went to Perkins at midnight on weekdays. The kid who got himself and his friends into trouble but never Got In Trouble.

Besides the time I almost got into a fight with a guy at a college hockey game, M. Yue was probably responsible for introducing me to most of the cool things I've ever experienced. It was he who put Kyuss on a mixtape for me (probably the most romantic thing another human being has ever done for me), it was at his house that I first saw Akira. So basically, I take M. Yue's recommendations pretty highly.

He was also the one who forced me to watch Cannibal Holocaust.

This Memorial Day weekend, M. Yue was back in town on leave from the Army, and he asked me, nay he challenged me to watch a film in anticipation of his return. His challenge? The first class mindfuck that is Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain.

Seriously, watch the trailer.

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Inspiration, Infinity and Spirituality – A Talk with Jason Rohrer

We’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we’re big fans of indie game designer Jason Rohrer. We like his curiosity, his unique aesthetic, and his candidness. We were even so taken with his last effort, Sleep is Death, that we called him up and had a big long chat about everything from Roger Ebert to Nintendo.

Since then, Rohrer’s been busy. This February, he released his fifteenth game, an “infinite, recursive, tactical shooter” called Inside A Star-Filled Sky. At the Game Developer’s Conference in March, he participated in and won the Game Design Challenge on religion with Chain World. Though it started as a mere Minecraft mod on a USB stick, Chain World quickly became a topic of hot debate when auctions were started and angry blog rants posted.

I contacted Rohrer about Chain World, and he generously shared his thoughts on the challenge, the controversy, and the merits of winning of a competition with a Minecraft mod. We also touched on the infinite possibilities of Inside A Star-Filled Sky, spirituality on a Minecraft server, and whether or not “gameification” is getting us anywhere.

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The Rarity of Rarities: My Journey Through The Internet

A few weeks ago, after reading a book about one of my favorite bands, Kraftwerk, I became aware of the existence of a bootleg recording. Kraftwerk had done an American tour in 1975, and it turns out that there was a recording of their concert in Denver floating out there somewhere. The fact that this concert was supposedly not very good only intrigued me more; Kraftwerk is known for their pristine studio productions, so I wanted to hear what the group sounded like in its early stages, when they had to haul bulky, primitive analog synthesizers across the United States. 

So I did what anyone my age would do - I immediately jumped on the Internet and began to search. But I soon faced something that I have rarely had to deal with in the past decade or so - the bootleg was not immediately available. Searching the standard torrent sites revealed nothing, and even the Kraftwerk fansites only offered old cassette tapes of the event for hundreds of dollars. No one, it seemed, had put this 1975 concert on Internet for general consumption. This was not exactly a surprise - most of Kraftwerk's hits came later, and this concert was considered of pretty poor quality in any case. But it still came as something of a shock - some kind of media that exists, but is not available online? There weren't even any burned CDs for sale on Amazon. If I wanted this, I would have to cough up hundreds of dollars to sketchy record collectors for what may or may not be a legit recording of the concert in question. 

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Insidious: A Scary-o-typical Horror Flick

Some horror movies try to surprise you. Not just that they make use of frighteningly surprising images, what with the demons and the things jumping out of closets and the scary LADIES! But a clever horror movie will play with the conventions, take you somewhere unexpected, and generally catch you off guard. Other horror movies will play into the most well-traveled conventions, but draw agonizing attention to just that fact in an effort to appear witty and "meta".

There is a third class of horror movies not characterized by convoluted plot devices, tricky twists and turns, or painful self-reference - they just present you with good, clean, old-fashioned horror situations, and challenge you not to be scared by them. I find these types of movies to be the most effective if done right. Such was the case with Insidious.

The movie is not overly clever or subtle or thought-provoking. It doesn't ask the big questions or make you question everything you thought you knew about horror movies. What it does do is make you jump out of your seat and prevents you from sleeping for nights on end.

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Artists and Critics - How Much Contact Do We Want?

There have always been publishing companies that charge a writer to publish their own work. The rise of the Kindle and other markets for ebooks have made this even easier to do. Most people refer to these companies as "vanity presses," though some of the more optimistic writers refer to themselves as "indie authors." This method is either a great way to build a fanbase, or a total scam, depending on whom you ask.

Few of these authors ever achieve anything close to mainstream success. But sometimes they stumble into fame in other ways. Most recently, self-described "author, poet and artist" Jacqueline Howett managed to create quite a bit of a stir online when she took to responding to reviews of her book, The Greek Seaman. 

A small, humble blog titled "Big Al's Books and Pals," which dedicates itself to reviewing independently published ebooks, published a review of The Greek Seaman on March 16th. Big Al gave the book two stars, but he was not necessarily mean-spirited. The review acknowledged that the book had an interesting plot that was marred by a large number of grammatical and spelling errors, rendering the story almost incomprehensible. 

You can read what happened yourself - Howett appeared in the comments section, apparently incensed that Big Al had dared to give her book two stars. She posted copies of other, more favorable reviews, and then started to attack Big Al personally, with a grasp of the English language that did nothing to combat Big Al's criticisms ("...if their were any spelling mistakes they were corrected" reads one typical Howett response). By March 28th, Howett was calling Big Al "a big rat and a snake with poisenous venom [sic]", before leaving with the final, exquisitely professional, request to "Fuck off!"

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Mad Men and the Tarot

While investigating a recent phenomenon regarding the positions of the stars and the planets and how they influence our lives - which I have confirmed is in fact nothing but a Scam, as suspected - I suddenly got an unexplainable urge to explore the precepts of Mysticism (that is to say, nonsense). And I was recently presented with an outlet to pursue this urge through an episode of the hit scripted AMC drama Mad Men. In one episode, which I'm sure one of our esteemed writers remembers, Don Draper (that is to say, John Hamm), gets a Tarot card reading.

Even though this happened a full two seasons ago, I won't give away the circumstances under which this happens, as I'd like this post to stay spoiler-free until after the jump. Remember, I'm watching this on Netflix (a fact I'm sure the Nielsen boys would love to get their hands on), so while I'm rather far behind, I'm still going in sequence, so I'd like to stay as spoiler-free as possible myself. So back to focusing on the mysticism.

I had picked up a Tarot deck back in my days of living like an indie-hipster-druid in Portland OR, so I decided to freeze-frame on Don's tarot reading and analyze it a little. Turns out it's a pretty accurate description of his character in the show. Which is interesting, because I've always thought the Tarot had more weight in its descriptive powers rather than its predictive powers.

So if you've watched up through Season 2 of Mad Men and/or you're interested in the divinatory arts, press on to find out what all this means for us.

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This is the Dawning of the Age of ... Capricorn???

Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer

Have you ever read your horoscope in hopes of gaining some supernatural preparation for what the future holds? Or have you ever looked at a breakdown of your astrological sign, latching on to all the vague tidbits that accurately represent your personality type (or rather the personality type you wish you had), and conveniently ignoring the ones that aren't so insightful? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you might have already heard that the astrological sign you always used to define yourself could be wrong.

Last Monday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported a claim made by astronomer Parke Kunkle that, thanks to a gravitational shift, the Earth is no longer aligned with the zodiac signs the way it used to be. That means that on your next birthday the sun (or moon or whatever) might not be "in" the same constellation it was in on the day you were born. The news took a few days to go viral over the Tweeters, and the Diggits, and the FaceUnions, and it's been a few more days until my scheduled post where I can tell you all about it.

Many astrology buffs have reacted with feelings ranging from annoyance to rage at finding out that their favorite pseudo-science has suddenly proved unreliable. And I can't say I blame them. I didn't read my horoscope before the big change, and I don't plan to now. But do I have to start identifying myself with a whole new portion of the population? And what's with this crazy 13th sign, Ophiuchus? And Scorpio only lasts a week now!? There's plenty to read about after the jump.

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A Wallet is a Wallet is a Wallet...

Last week, while traveling for work, I lost my wallet. It must have happened while getting out of a taxi cab - something I've done many dozens of time for work and/or pleasure - because the next morning I noticed that my wallet was nowhere to be found. If there's a silver lining, it's that I literally took the last remaining bills out of my wallet to pay the taximan, so I didn't lose any cash in the affair. But, as you can imagine, the hassle and anxiety are ongoing.

How could I have failed so epically at such a simple every day task as keeping track of perhaps my most important possession? Some might argue there are cosmic reasons. Last week, on this website, I talked bad about a good thing. That Wikipedia Guy is a total genius and a national treasure, so what business do I have voicing my opinion on the way he chooses to fund his enterprise? Sure he looks like a goof in those banners, but everybody needs bandwidth, do you know what I am saying?

So let this post act as an humble supplication to the Great Awesome Power of the Internet and an apology for publishing harsh words against one of its favorite sons. As will be evident, my contrition is genuine, although the punishment was just and fair in thine eyes. And who knows: if some of my fortune was somehow mystically reversed, I might find it in my heart to make a donation.

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A Spiritual Pause

In honor of the Jewish High Holy days (which began with the celebration of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, last Thursday, and continue on to Yom Kippur, the day of repentance, starting Friday at sundown), please find two musings below.  Both were written during the incredibly important time between these two holidays. We take these 10 days, as I was taught at a young age, as an opportunity to ponder the larger questions…these, the "Days of Awe," enable us to see our world and lives from a new and enlightened perspective.

Sitting in services on Thursday, I, like many others in the congregation, took the opportunity to contemplate the bigger questions in life. Focusing my thoughts, I came to the familiar revelation that the universe is pretty darn big.

Pretty big is an understatement. The universe is massive. Listening to and participating in prayers that praise Hashem (the creator of life, the universe and everything) and exclaim the joy of a fruitful relationship with it, has always struck me as strange.

How could something so large and powerful as to create the universe be concerned with my relatively insignificant life (yes, I know, I granted the premise that there is an all powerful being, let's keep the Cartesian arguments to a minimum though)? Now I don't want this post to become a discussion of the existence of an all powerful being and religion, so I think the point I'm trying (albeit quite clumsily) to make is that we, as humans, must confront the dichotomy between the limitlessness of the universe and our own inflated egos.

Yes, we are minuscule in relation to the size of the universe, our galaxy, our solar system, but we can still appreciate that we are part of a whole. That's really what this whole thing is about, being part of a whole. Understanding that we are individual parts of many wholes is, to me, a calming source of wisdom and strength.

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