Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland/Comicopera

In my eyes the major issue of critics is the inability to grasp the present . For example look at the magazine Uncut, rating Arcade Fires debut with 4/5 and later on awarding it best of the year. This really points to how unappreciative they are of the great Robert Wyatt and more precis his last two albums Cuckooland and Comicopera. They aren't weird enough to be instantly recognisable as something properly new, unique and simply brilliant or formulaic enough to be properly recognisable. What they are however is something far more dangerous, subversive.

They key to understanding these two albums lie within one very basic principle, context. The context or more appropriately genre, in this case being 70's folk/psychadelic/jazz music with a disturbingly precise pop edge. What is important note here as well is that its all being filtered through the offbeat mind of Robert Wyatt himself into a single flowing vision.

The sonic landscape of these two albums are very similar and could quite easily be described as the sound of a well recorded jazz group with synthesizer pads and vocals. Interestingly enough, they are so well made that everything simply sounds acoustic, and by a

coustic i mean organic.

I guess a big part of how you in the end feel about the music is how you will hear Wyatts voice. It has been described by Brian Eno something along the lines of sounding like the worlds smallest man. In my ears it would be more accurately described as the antithesis to Louis Armstrong. Which is an interesting comparison for a couple of reasons, but mostly because of the fact that both Wyatt and Armstrong lean heavily on playing Trumpet and singing and because Wyatts music sound very much like a psychadelic version of What A Wonderful World (and yes, that is a very good thing).

You might ask yourself now if this could possibly be relevant in the 21st century? The short answer is yes. The long one that Wyatt has looked back upon the music from the last 40 years and channeled it by picking different bits and pieces from different genres across different decades and then putting them back together according his own aesthetic sensibilities.

What makes it even more resonating are the lyrics which often are at the very heart of Wyatts compositions. Often dealing in quite tough subject matters, Cuckooland definitel

y being a very dark affair with themes such as the holocaust and detonation of the atom bomb over japan. Though this could be easily missed if you didn't pay close attention.

To make a choice between the two albums is in my position impossible, but, if someone held a gun to my head i would go with Cuckooland for two reasons.

1) It contains a guitar solo by the great David Gilmour

2) The track Foreign Accents is staggering in its simplicity and genius

If I would describe Wyatt it would be that of Bilbo after returning to the Shire. After defying the world in a struggling journey he has returned to us to tell us all about it. We sit around the bonfire and listen to him speak of great magic and terrible monsters. However if we listen closely we can detect a hint that something is wrong. That he is here, but not really here at all. That when he came back he had left a part of himself out there.

Mew - No more stories are told today...

Yes it was liked by critics and the audience, yes it was universally hailed as a very good album and yes it is not an unknown ''gem'' BUT, it is far more clever, intelligent and miles better then people are actually giving it credit for.

Upon its release no more stories (as I will call it from now on) was seen as a very good album, more or less scoring strong 3/5 and 4/5. The album in itself is a beautiful masterpiece of musicianship and songwriting, for that is what it actually is, a masterpiece. It works in parts and more importantly it is more than the sum of them. Having listened to the album for quite some time now rather intensely i can confidently conclude that I am still not the least bored with it. It simply keeps giving.

Mew has previously been a case of hit and miss for me. Overboard the quality in their albums have been rather inconsistent with about one third being really good, one third ''just good'' and the final third mediocre, this however is not the case with No more stories. It raises the bar across the board and the weak tracks are ''just very good''.

What is interesting is that there is a very clearly defined point in history where the root for this album was sown, which was the Yes album 90125 and more specifically the track Changes with whom it seems to share DNA. For whatever you may say, No more stories is an album that is the child of the more pop oriented progressive music from the 80's and i say that in the best possible way. By 80's i mean very round and ''fluffy'' production (though wonderfully not synthetic) relying quite heavy on synthesizers while the guitar takes a more comping rhythmic approach rather then leading. What Mew did with no more stories (i don't know if it was intently or not) that i really want to applaud them for is that it rhythmically is created in the same way as the best minimal funk by James Brown. What i mean by that is that it is conceived very much like a jigsaw puzzle where all the parts make a whole rather than simply having bits that exists as pure embellishments.

And that is actually exactly how you could sum up the entire album. Yes it is dense and complex but it isn't for the sake of it. It is like a puzzle of 1000 pieces where all the pieces does create a whole and make sense if you can be bothered to put the effort into it.

For fans of music, this is simply put a treat.

Thomas Feiner - The Opiates Revised

I would like to start this by saying that i honestly believe more or less every single release on samadhisound is worth getting. It is without a doubt one of the most consistently interesting contemporary labels out there and one that is carving out a nice niche on its own at that (I also make it no secret that i believe David Sylvian to be a god amongst men, but that is another discussion). One of the things i can do here is that i can make my opinion of stuff public in a nicely arranged way. This is one of those times when that feels very good. What i want to share is the Opiates, an absolutely marvellous piece of work from the worlds most underrated swede, Thomas Feiner.

What it proves in many ways is what a fundamentally powerful thing music can really be.

The style of the album is very much low key, downtempo soft orchestral pop music. The beauty of the strings constantly weighed against the roughness and melancholy of Feiner's own voice simply excels in providing an (what I dare say) important contrast to a lot of todays music. This is a collection of properly written tunes with a lot of heart behind them and even a few standout tracks.

In my eyes you have got two choices if you are going to make a masterpiece. Either you do something new, or you do it better then everyone else. This is the later. The whole thing has got a great sense of that you feel like you have heard it before quality. Take for example one of the standout tracks, Dinah and the beautiful blue. Drowned in nostalgia it feels like you have listened to this somewhere before and that it is all almost so familiar that you can hum it (trust me, the chorus is stupendously gorgeus). This is mainly due to extremely organic songwriting and composing, which is really just a fine way of saying that it all flows damn nicely. It is very much a lost classic.

The closest comparison i could possible give it is the movie Shawshank redemption. They very much share the same qualities and those great big life affirming qualities and both very clearly point out difference between synthetic sentimentality and genuine human emotion.

It is an incredibly easy album to fall in love with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jORyPnUdQ48&feature=related - dinah and the beautiful...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQa6GSIjht4&feature=related - the siren song

Scott Walker - Climate Of Hunter

Scott Walker of Walker brothers fame released this greatly overlooked album in 1984 and it saw him shedding his skin in favour of a more pop oriented style. For many people the 80's is seen as the dark ages of music in terms of quality and artistic integrity. For me this is complete nonsense since my thesis is that a lot of the acts who where good in the 70's got a lot better in the 80's. Personally i believe it to be the big untapped decade of great records since no one is looking for them there. Proof: Scott Walker Climate of hunter.

What he did with Climate of hunter was an anti-pop album of sorts. This is done by using the surface of a mellow pop album and tricking you to go deeper and deeper with him into the rabbit hole. And oh how deep the rabbit hole goes, straight into the heart and mind of Scott Walker. Going with the album, you won't notice how increasingly weird and wonderful it gets, and that is a sign of a true master who has ''perfected'' his craft. What I am trying to say is that you really shouldn't be fooled by the ''dated'' drum sound or eerie pads for this is not some commercial super production, but instead a highly personal expression.

The marvel Walker produces exists, or more importantly coexists within the given framework of pop. The deconstruction of pop is in itself is absolutely essential because it shows us how fragile a genre can be and what happens when you're more interested in art than commodity. By seemingly combining drone notes, 80's pink floyd guitar solos and symphonic arrangements it all melts into a very unique and loveable voice.

Choosing specific tracks or even commenting on parts of the album is hard since i don't really know what is what. You are probably scratching your wondering how I can sit here and recommend it as a forgotten masterpiece without knowing it inside out. It is easy you see, the album is 31min long which is really not that long, and When an album is of this let us call it thoughtful length, there can in no way be any excuse not to sit it through from start until finish. Especially since it is about as complete an experience as you will ever get. That is what happened to me anyway. I can't remember just listening to one song of it.

All the truly good albums can very much be likened to a journey (in many ways much reminiscent of cinema). What makes this particular album unique is how easy it actually is. As long as you just take the time to sit down with it, it will do the job for you. Sure it is experimental, sure it has weird tendencies but it eases you into it so well that if you're not paying a good amount of attention you won't even notice the transition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZCx5HRwDkY

Scott Walker – Climate Of Hunter

Forgotten Masterpieces Prologue

During some upcoming weeks and days i want to spend some time on stuff that's actually really worth it. i will write about 10 albums that i consider to be among the greatest ever done and that i feel have been truly neglected throughout the years. It will mostly be music that is in some way defined as pop music since that is what i consider to be the superior format for proper albums. What you can expect is music from the last 40 years which hopefully helps to show how powerful and genuinely awesome music can be at its absolute finest.

I apologise beforehand for the heavy focus on white men 40+ with slight narcissistic tendencies, it just happens to be that way. Still, i hope that the staggering amount of sheer quality of what i will present will refute any accusation in the vein of feminism and chauvinism.

This was simply the best i could come up with and whatever you take away from these albums, i hope you get the sensation of something musical in the same way all the best movies are cinematic.

Long live the oddballs

What they don't want you to know

The state of music today is simply put chaos. Economically and artistically it is all going down the drain. I don't know if that is the reason for it, or if there is something else going on but the decline of musical quality have been severely lacking for some time. Personally i believe it has to do with a fixation with image and a dull crowd. The problem that rises from all of this is a concerning loss of identity. Naturally i am not speaking about the really commercial stuff because that is simply put without any sort of merit orquality per definition. What i am talking about are the little smaller acts that play at festivals etc... I am talking about all the fleet foxes, Arcade Fires of the world. All those acts that have been praised about their smarts, social conscious and just general ''cleverness''. Problem is, it is not proper art, or rather it is not music as an art form. There is too much from the brain and too little from the heart and soul. Maybe they're just afraid?

If you have listened (not heard) to a bit of music, what you start feeling is the decline of real honesty in the craft and art. Just because you have a nice melody line to go with those chords doesn't mean you should. Music is a language and what you feel today is that you have already heard all the arguments, or rather, no one is actually willing t

o have an argument. People are only interested in having nice discussions about the general beauty of nature or something along those lines. Listening to the wonderful Michael Gira, what i feel is that personal expression is dead. No one is willing to take a risk and do something different. It is a bit like movies, all the best ones are about humans and ideas. Without those, you would just get an empty shell.

I think most good artists hear a lot of stuff they love, and all the good ones pick from a lot of varied places and spaces. Take all your influences and ask yourself what do I want to do? How can i make noise that sounds distinctly me? And most importantly, w

hat do i want to say?

If you listen to a lot of music you should naturally feel pretty much at home in a number of different genres. Take all those and ask yourself how you can combine the different parts you like into something interesting. What is it that you enjoy about metal and what is that you enjoy about dubstep? Distill those down to their essence and you will be able build something.

What I am looking for when i hear an album. Three easy points:

1. What are you trying to tell me about?

2. How are you telling/showing it to me?

3. Why are you trying to tell/show me?

These three points show clearly how a popular group like The Police had moments where they could genuinely transcend into something far greater than just pop music. It combined genres and was actually about something. Sting once upon a time actually wr

ote tunes with really interesting content and mood and all the members of Police brought it their personal touch. It was genuinely about music as a means of communication.

The explanation to why almost all of the good music is a bit odd is quite simple. We are all human beings and therefore we are all different. We all have a unique identity and personality and if you are truthful in the music you make, that will be reflected. Hence to a start, people will see it as sort of weird because it is you. The beauty of other people lie in their personality and you can't truly love another human being until you've spent a considerable amount of time with them.

See what I am getting at?

People

The spotify playlist above have bands that are connected and sound sort of similar, but the more you listen to it the more you feel that they are all truly individuals. It may sound weird at first, but that is because you are listening to the stuff of people, not accountants.

then again, guys like Richard D. James can get a bit overkill...

More human than human

Splice Review

Vincenzo Natali is definitely one of the most interesting directors working in ''mainstream'' cinema today. With pictures such as Cube, Cypher and Nothing he has proved himself to be a proper original who's at the end of the day simply put is extremely interesting. This is for me an important point to make with splice for whatever you may call it, it is just not dull.
Splice is basically about two young and sort of perfect hollywood scientists who go a wee bit too far by splicing animal and human dna they manage to create an entire new species. Of course the creature isn't just going to stay put and be nice, or is it? The two protagonists are played by Sarah Polley and Adrian Brody, who also just happen to be a couple. Adrian Brody in my opinion is a wonderful actor and Predators was in some ways the last piece of a puzzle that really did show that he can pull off any sort of role effortlessly. Point being: name me three actors that believably would be able to do both Szpilman from the wonderful Polanski movie the Pianist and Royce from Predators. Sarah Polley is someone i really haven't seen before and i felt she didn't really manage this piece. It is probably because there are some quite striking problems with the script concerning the characters and partly because of the fact that she didn't made me buy into everything her character felt, and that is very much the main flaw the movie. Some parts didn't feel properly written and i thought the motivation and explanation for what the characters feels etc... weren't really shown. at all. Secondly, and it's very simple, they should have went with the strength of their convictions and gone all the way with the story because unfortunately, the final 10-15min of the film are just klisché horror movie stuff, and it had until then been too interesting and too gripping to justify bailing out.
What really worked with the movie though was the mood and story. Simply put it is actually quite good and more of a psychological and twisted drama/thriller than a dull slasher or horror film. What the movie has at it's best is a sort of twisted Polanski and Cronenberg vibe going on, you know, bits of psychosexual and bits organic horror.
In any creature sci-fi/fantasy type of film an important part are the creatures. Looking at both the design and the technical elements Splice definitely excels. The cgi is very good (and not overdone), the props look very ''nice'' but where the actual magic happens is in the design department. The main creature (which they name dreN) which is something they created by splicing both human and animal dna. It is a wonderfully weird affair, never knowing which animals they used you are constantly a bit nervous about which properties and abilities it has.

I want to conclude by saying this: Splice is not a a flawless affair, but it has a properly interesting mood and the ideas within are very interesting and gripping. It is something different and that is always worth celebrating.

And all that could have been

Inception Review

After all the hype, Nolan's latest picture has finally arrived, but what has me scratching my head is as to what it actually is. Speaking from a pure technical view it is more or less perfect. It has been gorgeously shot by Nolan Regular Wally Pfister who once again proves he is an excellent craftsman by giving the most intense scenes space to breath and framing the shots in cool poster ways. The special effects are nothing short of a triumph, proving beyond any doubt that less cgi is more. In choosing to make the most of the special effects mechanical i.e putting something physical in front of the actual camera and shooting it, Nolan shows us that cgi will probably never look; or feel as real as something that is actually real. Sure towards the end there is a fair bit of cgi but it is never there just for the sake of it or because they have an awesome special effect that can do this or that. From an objective view, the worst thing about the movie is the soundtrack. I honestly found that it was outright pretty bad and very uninspired and that Hans Zimmer could very well have fundamentally been the wrong choice. This critique is grounded in the fact that the soundtrack is just too common and lacks any distinct or specific ideas. For me there are two important things to say about this. First of all i come from the view point of David Lynch in this regard, this is not meant in a stuck up way, but i will let him speak for himself; for what he said was this: ''Cinema is sound and picture moving in time''. What he is saying here is that sound is a very important and an integrated part of a film. Now considering this is true, what happens when the soundtrack is truly subpar? It effects the movie greatly and that becomes a quite important problem of Inception for it is scored in such a way that you would be hard pressed to find a single second without something in the music department going on and it is truly suffocating.

In the acting department Nolan has once again brought together a great ensemble of actors (see, i avoided the word characters because this movie is seriously lacking in that department, but more on that later) with Leonardo Di Caprio, Ellen Page, Ket Watanabe, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy Joseph-Levitt Gordon, Marion Cotillard and the wonderful Tom Berenger.

Di Caprio is for me not the prominent actor he has been made out to be and here it becomes fairly obvious when he (despite being the lead and so called emotional core of the story) is the least interesting character in the movie. Ken Watanabe basically does what he can with the little he has and so does the rest of the cast. This is where the movie stopped working for me, we have no characters. I didn't feel like i truly got to know anyone which becomes a problem when the movie is drowned in action sequences. In all the great action movies you've had great characters, that is what makes them work. In The Rock we had Cage and Connery, Die Hard has Bruce Willis and so on... What a great character gives you is sympathy, whatever they do you care and you want to be in their company. Mind you, these could be anti heroes or villains that you are fascinated by, but at the end of th day they are great characters. In Inception all the characters are more or less only the sum of their parts, which in the Joseph-Levitt character means he protects other people, and that's it.

What is faultless however (i believe) is Christopher Nolans direction. He takes us into this world and shows us this world of ideas and makes us believe that the impossible is possible. He directs the action sequences very well and truly makes us feel the large set pieces. Also, despite the script being fairly complex, for example when they start being in a dream within a dream etc..., Nolans direction makes it crystal what is going on and where we are so that we never become lost. The big issue with the movie however is that sort of classic parental mood. ''Chris, i'm not angry at you, i'm disappointed''. What Nolan has set out to do is a massive intelligent action blockbuster, in which regard he succeeds. This is where my disappointment originates from. Inception has been made out to be more than just a very well made action picture and it was certainly time for Nolan to show us that he could combine the cinematic and expansive vision of Dark Knight with the substance of Memento or Insomnia. In other words the movies faults doesn't lie in the execution but rather in what is actually executed. Inception is full of wonderful sequences, but these are only sequences and scenes that are awesome in their own right, but they don't really add anything to the whole.

I had personally hoped for a more provocative and mysterious experience but Nolan's dream world is anything but.

As a popcorn flick it is about as good as it gets this summer and it beats its contenders to dust. Only problem is that the movie it rivals are Prince of Persia, Twilight, Predators... while i was hoping for something along the lines of a new Blade Runner.

Pirates lost in the Caribbean, obviously without a highway

Följande inlägg baseras på detta påstående: Lost Highway är mer lättförståelig och logisk än Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Till alla David Lynch fans därute som tar illa upp vid att jag jämför Pirates och Lost Highway, förlåt, det är inte min mening att såra er men detta är ett alldeles för tydligt exempel för att undvika. Till alla Pirates fans som tror att det är ett provocerande skämt, jag är dödsallvarlig.

Lost Highway ÄR MER LÄTTFÖRSTÅELIG ÄN PotC, och det här är varför.

När du ska etablera ett film universum/verklighet och berätta en historia i det universumet så är det väldigt att du hela tiden är konsekvent med lagar och regler som du sätter upp. T ex, säger du i en film att alla kan flyga och att alla gul färg är grön så är det helt okej, jag har inga som helst problem med det. Jag skulle dock reagera om man plötsligt knuffade ner någon från ett tak och dom dog av fallet och om någon sedan skulle få för sig att den gula färgen just är gul. Allt detta hävdar jag är fullständigt logiskt men vad har det Lost Highway och Pirates att göra? Very simple. Jag vill börja med att förklara varför Lost Highway är relativt logisk och lättförståelig. Viktigt att nämna med Lost Highway är att mannen bakom den är David Lynch, vilket genast skapar en hel hop med viktiga förutsättningar för hur Lost Highways verklighet kommer fungera. Filmen i sig är en klassisk Lynch historia, vilket betyder väldigt surrealistisk och bitvis abstrakt i form av mardrömslik. Nu, surrealistisk och mardrömslik är dom två stora definierande kvalitéerna för den verklighet Lynch skapat och det hjälper oss även att förstå på vilket sett vi ska se på filmen och hur den ska bedömas. Vad som återkommer i Lost Highway är även många andra starka Lynch tendenser, så som hans användande av metaforer och symbolik (så som att ena karaktären kan vara där bara för att symbolisera skuld och samvete, han är alltså ingen riktigt människa och ska inte ses som en sådan). Viktigt att säga med många av Lynch är deras budskap och stora delar av deras handling inte är spikade i sten. Med detta menar jag filmen är uppbygd på så sätt att det är meningen att du ska göra din egen tolkning, vilket mer ofta än sällan är något som kommer ta dig mer än ett eller två försök. Detta får en stark effekt hos oss som tittare för det betyder att filmen ändrar sig ner vi ser om den och försöker pussla ihop delarna till en sammansättning som för oss som varje enskild individ fungerar. Filmen är alltså som en gåta utan någon riktig klar lösning, utan det är upp till dig att hålla upp dom olika bitarna och se hur dom resonerar gentemot varandra.

Det kanske låter invecklat och väldigt krävande av en filmskapare att göra något sådant men när en film vill mer än att ''bara'' underhålla (vilket den iofs gör , så tro inte det är en tråkig film) så borde vi välkomna chansen att bli intellektuellt utmanade och provocerade.

Även om spelreglerna är förklarade så vill jag ta chansen att förenkla det hela:Hur mycket du förstår och hur logisk en film är beror på universumet/verkligheten den skapat och vad syftet med filmen är.

Med dessa reglar vill jag nu analysera PotC. Det är oerhört viktigt att fastställa att Pirates har en mycket stor press på sig att hålla ihop från början till slut då syftet är att göra ett spikrakt matiné äventyr. Detta borde iofs inte vara något större problem då handling och karaktär inte behöver vara alls lika avancerad eller komplex som i en ''seriös'' film. Problemet är att i Pirates så är både karaktärerna och handlingen totalt inkonsekvent (egentligen påminner handlingen i del två och tre mest om fan fiction skriven av någon 13årig tjej som tycker att Twilight är milleniumets viktigaste bok, men det är en annan diskussion). Karaktärer börjar byta sida och eftersom det är ungefär 5miljoner stycken av dom så blir det ett mindre problem, för när deras motivationer är så höjda i dunkel så blir allt bara en stor soppa. Jag menar, tänk tillbaka på del 3, vad in i h*****e var det egentligen som försiggick, jag menar, jag har alltid varit lite stolt för jag är duktig på att komma stories, skådespelare, karaktärer etc... men At Worlds End (pirates) ser mer ut som ett enigma när jag tänker tillbaka på det. Massa saker hände, men varför, mot vem och när dom hände har jag inte den blekaste om.

Detta resulterar i att Pirates upplevs som totalt ofokuserad men framför allt att den inte håller ihop hela vägen. Att försöka skapa ordning i den röra som är Pirates är rent ut sagt omöjlig för det hände ungefär 500miljoner saker under första 1h i del två, och värre blir det. Med en film som har som syfte att skapa ren och skär linjär underhållning förvandlas detta till seriösa och dödliga brister. Vad som hade kunnat bli ett roligt och spännande äventyr i en genre vi inte sett på alltför länge förvandlas till en cgi böld som vägrar ta slut.

Detta handlar inte om att Lost Highway är en bättre film, då dom två faktiskt inte kan jämföras, utan om att Lost Highway, med sitt etablerade syfte och verklighet spelar troget till sina egna regler. Lost Highway är inte menad att vara lättförståd med en tydlig handlingen, själva poängen är att just du ska skapa dina egna tankar om vad som händer och varför och vad det betyder. Det gör du, det är inte en fråga om intellekt eller filmkunskap utan om attityd.

Visst, mer i Pirates kanske är tydligt men karaktärerna saknar tydligen någon form av konsekvens eller dylikt, så Pirates 3 är mindre lättförstådd då dess syfte är att vara ett rakt upp och ner matinée äventyr med karaktärerna vi ska fästa oss vid och sympatisera med och vem vet, jag hade kanske just detta om jag fattat vad dom var ute efter och varför.

Science (un)Fiction

Det är viktigt att få följande klart för sig, jag älskar sci fi och tycker att james cameron från mitten av 80-talet fram till mitten av 90-talet gjorde en mängd av fantastisk underhållning. Terminator 1 och 2, Aliens, True Lies, The Abyss... Ja, jag tillhör minoriteten som verkligen diggar True Lies och jag hävdar att det är skön action pärla. The Abyss, vilket är en film många inte hört talas om är på många sätt en lika monumental upplevelse som t ex just Terminator. Att filmens historia väljer att köra utför en klippa 200km/h i tredje akten är tragiskt, men det minskar styrkan i visionen du kan finna i dom två första tredjedelarna.

Vad jag vill ha etablerat med ovanstående information är att alla förutsättningar fanns där för att jag skulle älska Avatar. Visserligen var filmen innan (jag vet att han gjort massa dokumentärer etc... och det ena med det andra men detta är ändå Camerons återkomst till duken) Titanic men ändå. han skulle äntligen återvända till sina science fiction rötter visa alla muppar en gång för alla var skåpet ska stå. George Lucas terror välde över mediokra uppföljare skulle få sig en redig omgång. Tyvärr blev detta inte vad som hände, profetian slog fel och ut biografen gick bitter & besviken. Märkväl att följande kommer verka se ut som snobberi och ett desperat försök att intellektualisera en film som ''bara'' är menad som underhållning. Vad jag vill ska vara glasklart är att detta bara är orsaker till varför jag inte fann Avatar vidare underhållande eller gripande.

Okej, let's get this show on the road. För det första, storyn suger. Det är i praktiken Pocahontas in space fast med blå jätte smurfar istället för indianer. Fast, även om storyn är usel så är det ingenting gentemot dialogen, den är, utan tvekan, sämre än dom nya star wars filmerna (bortsett från Sigourney Weaver som får ett par kvalificerade one-liners). Det finns ett klyschigt uttryck som passar in väldigt på vad som händer i Avatar, vilket är att det finns bättre film begravd någonstans i det vi ser. Jag hade hellre sett en film utan ''Jake Sully'' och haft en film som fokuserade på Sigourney Weavers och Giovani Ribisis karaktärer, men det är en annan historia.

Mitt i princip största problem med filmen är att den verkar ta sig själv gravallvarligt och att den saknar glimten i ögat och någon form av egentlig lättsinnighet. Resultatet blir att all drivande energi sugs ut ur filmen och du sitter och tittar på något gigantiskt spektakel som väldigt sakta vecklar ut sig själv framför dig. Hela filmen förvandlas till en transportsträcka där du bara väntar på att filmen ska ta dig från punkt A till punkt B utan att du egentligen känner dig delaktig. Personligen tror jag detta beror på att Cameron regisserar filmen på samma tunga mastodont sätt som Terminator och Aliens, skillnaden är den att Terminator och Aliens historier är väldigt mörka action ''äventyr'' fast med tydliga horror element så den tunga och långsamma regin passar känslan dom filmerna skapar. Det betyder att när T1000 jagar John Connor så får du verkligen känslan av att han aldrig ger upp, att han är den ultimata maskinen. I Aliens så får du känslan av att protagonisterna är omringade och att deras situationen är hopplös. Så det tunga och långsamma skapar på många sätt spänningen.

Grundmaterialet i Avatar passar inte för det här utan hade behövt en ''lätt och fluffig'' regi för att få driv och nerv i historien.

Vad som slog mig när jag tittade på Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves är bra allt fungerar. Filmen har visserligen en relativt mörk ton för att vara en äventyrs film, men den har schyst dialog och regisseras helt rätt. Kevin Raynolds förstår sitt grundmaterial och ger oss inte bara många minnesvärda karaktärer som vi kan bry oss om men även en skurk (Alan Rickman fick efter att ha tackat nej tre gånger till rollen carte blanche att göra precis vad han ville med sin roll) i absolut världsklass, utan tvekan en av dom mest minnesvärda i filmhistorien.

Jag tror tyvärr detta är dom största orsakerna till varför Avatar misslyckas att fånga mitt intresse (gudarna ska veta att jag var pumpad till max för att se den). Effekter kan aldrig ersätta story och karaktärer, för det är inte desto mindre givet att Avatar ur ren effekt syn är det mest extrema som gjorts och att världen han och hans team målar (bokstavligt talat) upp är oändligt rik. Problemet är ''karaktärerna'' som lever i den, eller snarare brist på. Kontentan blir att minus special effekterna så är det på många sätt en en äldre och mossigare film än Star Wars, Aliens, Terminator etc... Det stora provet var att 2009 släpptes det fem stora sci fi filmer. District 9, Surrogates, Moon, Star Trek och Avatar och av alla dom så var det endast Avatar jag blev smått uttråkad av och kände inte höll hela vägen. Jag ser hellre om både Surrogates och Star Trek (och det kommer från en som avskydde tv-serien) än Avatar och det borde faktiskt säga något om vilket monumentalt misslyckande Avatar är. För Avatar är ett monumentalt misslyckande, inte för att det är en dålig film eller en kalkon utan för att den som film underhåller mig medelmåttigt och inte är Camerons bästa.

totalt otillfredsställande och misantropiskt osentimental är kontentan av det regerande hollywood mantrat (uppenbarligen). någonstans, i en galax långt, långt borta sket det sig totalt. historier och sagor är en enormt viktig del av våran kultur och vi kan säkert vara överens om att dom på ett väldigt undermedvetet men samtidigt fundamentalt plan hjälper oss definiera identitet, moral, etik etc...
självfallet kan dom även ''bara'' vara rent ut sagt förbannat underhållande.
med ovanstående i åtanke så vill jag hävda att det enda du kan få ut av film branschen idag är i praktiken en dolkstöt i ryggen. jag ser inte mig själv som en expert utan bara som en genuin entusiast.
filmerna som rullar ut i år är utan tvekan odrägliga, sönder mjölkiga tvångs idisslade sociopatiska kossor och damer & herrar, jag är trött på att suga på den utnärda spenen som i ultra rapid äns slutat tillfredsställa äns dom minimalt arbetande hjärtan & hjärnor.
jag tror man skulle kunna dra ene parallell mellan antal miljoner en film kostar och hur ointressant dess historia och karaktärer har blivit.
jag sitter nu och tittar på capricorn one, en liten konspirations pärla från 70-talet som mer eller mindre bara är en fotnot i denna minst sagt episka film historien.
tragiskt nog så pekar denna film på något lika monumentalt som egentligt uppenbart. jag spenderar hellre 2h med en mumlande, kvalificerat onykter charmör än jävla jätte smurfar.