The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Review

By Spence Blazak

I knew it was coming. I read up to the part where it happened in the book. I saw the Swedish version of the movie. Wookiee Wednesday statistician Dave Piccolella warned me. And yet once it happened, my head was put into a French press coffee maker. The rape scene. Oh my god.

Very few movie watching experiences have made me physically distraught. In fact I think I can name all three:

1. The Passion of the Christ: Jesus getting poked with a spear

2. The Human Centipede 2: That dude getting his teeth knocked out with a hammer

3. Spiderman 3: The jazz club dance scene

Now a new addition has been placed on the odd list. Twisted as it may be, there is a certain art to crafting a scene that causes this reaction from an audience, as well as taking it so far that there is a risk the movie will be boycotted. This pretty much encapsulates the experience you get while watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In your face, pushing the limits, and as disturbing as it is really good.

Directed by David Fincher of The Social Network and Fight Club fame, Dragon Tattoo is mostly drawn from the vein of his neo noir mystery Se7en. Many journalists in the watchdog media criticized this movie before a single frame of it was shot because it was a remake of a movie that had come out in just 2009, but having seen both versions, it is clear that Fincher made the movie his own, adapting from the book instead of the other movie…..and Fincher's version is just way better.

Barbaric and brutish, yet ethical and moral, Dragon Tattoo follows journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) in the months following his conviction in a case of libel involving one of his articles about a financial wrongdoer in the business world. After taking a leave of absence from his position at his magazine, Blomkvist is lured into a new case by former business tycoon Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). The case is to figure out which member of the wicked Vanger family murdered Henrik's beloved great-niece 40 years ago. With help from the master hacking and tracking skills of the Aspergers afflicted goth Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), Blomkvist goes down the Vanger family rabbit hole.

Most mystery stories fall into two categories: they suck, or they are as predictable as a Scooby Doo! episode. Think about it…okay. See what I mean? Keeping this in mind, the achievement of Dragon Tattoo is that much greater. Nazis, evil rapists getting what is coming to them, justice being served in a way that isn't heavy handed, peril, motorcycle chases, Professor Gerald Lambeau from Good WIll Hunting, a depiction of feminism that doesn't force an eye roll, and one of the only necessary series of topless scenes ever put on film (honestly, this is the only one i can think of…).

As far as the performances, Daniel Craig does the unthinkable with his acting: he made me forget about Cowboys and Aliens. His depiction of Blomkvist is exquisite because he understands it is an understated part that plays second fiddle to Salander and he also doesn't just do a replication of James Bond. Yeah…he still bangs everything with a pulse, but he doesn't have that same kind of Ryan Goesling swag. He is more realistic and vulnerable.

The side line performers accomplish what their part requires of them, filling out the cracks nicely, but the focal point of the film is the titular Girl herself. You may recognize Rooney Mara as Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend in The Social Network, and she makes a complete 180 degree turn in a performance that couldn't be more worthy of an Oscar statue. She loses herself in the part of Salander in the same way that Heath Ledger did as the Joker. Detached yet sympathetic, the performance is done on a tight rope, walking fine lines with every emotion conveyed.

While geared towards a somewhat specific type of audience, Dragon Tattoo is one of the year's most rewarding films. If Along Came a Spider is a two star offering and The Silence of the Lambs is a four star one, then I will gladly give The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 3-and-a-half stars.

War Horse: Review

By Spence Blazak

Stephen Spielberg, the closest thing America has to royalty in the realm of entertainment, released two new movies this week. Im assuming this was to make up for the depressing piece of awful that was Indiana Jones 4. One of those movies is War Horse, based on the play that is Broadway's hottest non-Book of Mormon/Wicked ticket. War Horse is as old fashioned as it gets: boy gets horse, boy loses horse, horse becomes main character of the movie! Between cinematography that makes an Ansel Adams photograph look like a picture of the back of my head, a horse so lovable that it makes Lassie look like an evil ex-girlfriend, and Irish brogues so charming that they make Frank McCourt seem as homely as an IRA member, War Horse is not too shabby.

A young boy named Albie on the English country side raises a horse named Joey on his parent's farm. His father is the town drunk, and his wicked landlord is constantly trying to pluck the land out from under his nose. Albie's only chance to save the farm is to teach Joey how to plow, plant seed in the new field, and save the day! One thing leads to another, and everything goes wrong, causing Albie's father to sell Joey to the war effort. Joey's adventure takes him through all of the war, showing both sides of the battlefield as well as the bourgeoisie of the French countryside.

I'll break this down piece by piece. The first 25 minutes, for me, were just short of unwatchable. The sweeping vistas of the farm land are beautiful, but watching Albie try to feed an apple to that freaking horse for 5 minutes made me wish that I was in the trenches of World War I. On top of that, you know you're in trouble when the comic relief comes in the form of a squawking goose. I felt like I was watching Charlotte's Web…..the version with Julia Roberts as Charlotte. Also, the unbearably long sequence of Albie falling in the mud because he can't get the plow to work was only saved by Spielberg adding a "plow cam." Its pretty awesome.

Then everything changes when Joey goes to war. Just after his father has sold Joey, Albie cries and begs the military officer to let him keep his horse. The officer puts his hand on Albie's shoulder, telling him he will take Joey as his personal horse. He promises Albie that he will see his friend again. I lost it. As utterly stupid as the beginning is, after that moment I was completely sold.

The war scenes are shot with precision that is short of the excellence that Saving Private Ryan achieved, but ahead of the scope that the majority of war movies reside in. Breathtaking cinematography, performances from the old fashioned school of acting, and camera shots in the style of the old John Ford movies keep Spielberg standing tall with the best directors around.

Is it too corny at parts? Without a doubt. As distracting as it is, at a certain point it won't matter anymore, and all you will care about is seeing Joey get home. If a two star movie like this is Flags of Our Fathers and a four starer is Saving Private Ryan, then War Horse gets an admirable three stars.

Wookiee Wednesday's Picks for 2011's Best Albums

By Spence Blazak

HONORABLE MENTIONS

17. Adele-21

16. Foster the People- Torches

15. Wild Flag-Wild Flag

14. Drake-Take Care

13. Panda Bear-Tom Boy

12. The Cults-The Cults

11. The Front Bottoms- The Front Bottoms

_______________________________________

10. Taylor Swift- Speak Now: World Tour (I'm sorry, I had to)

9. She & Him-A Very She & Him Christmas

8. Wilco- The Whole Love

7. P.J. Harvey-Let England Shake

6. Fleet Foxes-Helplessness Blues

5. Gaby Moreno-Illustrated Songs

4. James Blake-James Blake

3. The Black Keys-El Camino

2. M83- Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

1. Bon Iver- Bon Iver

-------I've spared you any nonsensical ramblings on my other picks, but I have a brief yarn I'd like to spin about my pick for album of the year. I had an epiphany a few weeks ago. One of those weird moments where everything is different from then on. No lie. I've told this story at 5 out of the last 7 parties I've been at. Please bear with me.

So, I was having an odd week. Nothing seemed to make much sense. I'd been reading the Tao, looking for some kind of explanation to…..I don't know, maybe life, the universe, and everything. Then one night, I was listening to Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" and realized that I didn't know what it meant much more than "a girl made him sad." I looked it up and couldn't believe how incredible it was. I felt like Robert Frost had come back from the dead to write a few more poems and these were….better than his old stuff. I kept looking up song lyrics one by one and getting floored by them.

A few days later, I found myself in the corner of Kappa Sigma frat house. I was on a couch, there were the guts of a dozen Dutches on the table, and my friend was learning how to make his own dubstep music. As the sounds and smells flooded the room, I saw everything in the world all at once. It was like in 2001: A Space Odyssey when the main guy flies through the fabric of the universe and all the colors change. I got my questions, answers, and a sense of perspective. It wasn't actually tangible, but just a weird…feeling of security. I won't go much more into it than that, or the first person to read this will have taken away by the "Funny Farm", but there you have it. Everything was everything, nothing was everything. The world just sucks, the world is beautiful, the world is. Life's meaning. I was riding on these ideas the next few days, and I was wondering if I was the only one who had one of these experiences and was cursed to keep these ideas to myself. Then I went back to Bon Iver and dissected "Holocene," and then read an interview about what it meant. Here is the interview:

JV: Yeah, yeah. Holocene. Holocene is a bar in Portland, Ore., but it's also the name of a geologic era, an epoch if you will. It's a good example of how the songs [on the album] are all meant to come together as this idea that places are times and people are places and times are... people? [Laughs.] They can all be different and the same at the same time. Most of our lives feel like these epochs. That's kind of what that song's about. "Once I knew I was not magnificent." Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind. But I think there's a significance in that insignificance that I was trying to look at in that song.

That was it. Bon Iver saw things the same way I did. Now thats what I call a fucking album of the year.

Top 15 Taylor Swift Songs (Top 15 Best Songs of All Time)

By Spence Blazak

I love Taylor. That's that. Here are my all time favorite TSwizzle songs. I command you to enjoy.

15. "Two Is Better Than One"

- "I remember every look upon your face, the way you roll your eyes, the way you taste." For a moment it takes me back to my relationship her. The little details flood through my eyes like a sepia toned play back on a camcorder. Then….I remember that I've never actually been closer than 250 feet away from her. THATS how you know a 7 second cameo on a song is good.

14. "The Outside"

- "How can I ever try to be better, nobody ever lets me in." Im assuming this one was written back before she was really really really beautiful and awesome and perfect and stuff. Long before Taylor knew the treachery that filled young boys' hearts. Oh Tay, so so much to warn you about, but the tragedy is that I cannot.

13. "Superman"

-A bonus cut on the Target Edition of Speak Now. "Tall dark and….Superman he puts papers in his briefcase and drives away to save the day or go to work ITS THE SAME THING TO ME." I personally like this cut because I always hope it was written about…….me *rocks back forth while in fetal position*.

12. "Mean"

-I remember the night well. Taylor performed a song with Stevie Nicks. I had hyped this up for weeks, and it was right as Taylor was about to become a super-superstar. The lights dimmed, they came on, and she was flat. I knew I would never hear the end of it. Everyone tore my sweet Tay apart, especially one D-bag critic who said things I won't repeat (because I don't remember them). Taylor wrote a song about it, this little gem. Its got banjo, Taylor being scorned, and the word "football" being said in the sexiest diction of all time. Well…..except for maybe Hank Williams Jr. in the Monday Night Football theme...

11. "Speak Now"

-Taylor barges into the wedding of the man she loves, wrecks shit up cuz he is totally marrying a tramp, walks out with her man, andmiddle finger extended to the world. #likeaboss

10. "Tell Me Why"

-Classic Tay. Classic.

9. "Mine"

-"Flash forward and we're taking on the world together, and theres a drawer of my things at your place." Its simply "wunderbar", as a German teacher would say.

8. "Sparks Fly"

-"The way you move is like a full on rain storm, and I'm a house of cards." The opening song of Taylor's concert. I didn't hear much of it because I was screaming too loud. One of my life's greatest moments. Right behind when I visited the Ninth Ward of New Orleans to help build houses, and I yelled "LOOK ITS BRAD PITT!" when a random guy on his bicycle rode by. 200 people looked. One girl screamed.

7. "Our Song"

-I used to be the captain of my high school's Quiz Bowl team many moons ago. One day, the question was "name the song by a certain blue eyed singer that is a slamming screen door, sneaking out late, tapping on your window-" then I chimed in with "WHEN WE'RE ON THE PHOOOOONE AND WE TALK REAL SLOW…..CUZ ITS LATE AND YOUR MOMMA DONT KNOW. OUR SONG IS THE WAY WE LAUGH, FIRST DATE 'MAN I DIDNT KISS HER BUT I SHOULD HAVE'". I didn't get any points because I never answered the question……totally worth it.

6. "Mary's Song (Oh My My My)"

- Taylor goes through the stages of her love with her childhood friend from the playground to the nursing home. Adorable.

5. "Last Kiss/Long Live"

-The tandem of songs that made me tear up when I heard them live. I texted Wookiee Wednesday historian Matt Piccolella:"This is the saddest moment of my whole life. Trying. Not. To. Cry."

4. "Love Story"

-I chose this song for my slow dance at Senior Ball. Partly because I missed the real slow dance as I was out on the golf course looking for a wild gopher (true story). We danced in a parking lot, the "door ajar" beeper went off the whole time, my date didn't give a shit, and I almost locked my keys in the car. Now thats what I call romantic!

3. "I'd Lie"

-Unreleased deep cut from when Taylor was a youngin'. She has a crush on a boy and doesn't know how to win him over. Beautiful, catchy, pulse pounding. God only knows why this was never released.

2. "You Belong With Me"

-I always say that "Love Story" got me infatuated with Tay, but "You Belong with Me" made me fall in love. The first time I listened to it, it wasn't a single yet. I was confused, I just….didn't know how to react. It changed everything. No song was ever quite as sweet after it. I once sang it accapella when I notoriously hosted the 2010 Fall Pep Rally. My history teacher called it "the worst pep rally I've seen in my 45 years of teaching. The song wasn't awful though." The rest of the student body just didn't go.

1. "Enchanted"

-Her most beautifulest song around. They named her perfume after it. Need I say more? I will. Apparently she met the Owl City guy at a party and was smitten by him. Nothing ever happened, but the song is about the what if……*breathy sigh*. Also, Speak Now was originally supposed to be called Enchanted, but since this is like 12,000 minutes long, they didn't think it would be radio friendly. Fun little fact. I'll stop talking now….

The Dark Knight Rises Prologue: Brian Long Reports

By Brian Long

Growing up I had always been a comic book fan. In fact, I sometimes felt as though I was the only one. I had friends who enjoyed the Spider-Man and X-Men films, but I kept up with their monthly exploits and pointed out inconsistencies between the comics and their cinematic equivalents. In my sophomore year of high school, I first saw Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. That film changed the way I looked at not just comics and comic book movies, but film in general. I saw the power of a storyteller who took the escapist fantasy of a man donning a garish costume to avenge his parent’s death into a meditation of justice which evolved into the morality play that is The Dark Knight. Tonight, after scouring the press section for the Wookiee Wednesday reserved seating, I saw what is being labeled as the prologue to The Dark Knight Rises. The footage was essentially the first 6 minutes of the film. In describing the footage I will try to be as vague as possible to avoid spoilers but I will give details to the trailer-like footage that followed the prologue. If you want to remain completely spoiler-free then get off this site and frankly the internet in general.

Nolan repeats his formula from The Dark Knight by introducing the film’s main villain in the most “holy crap that was nuts” way possible. While some may consider this a rehash, I thought it highlighted the fundamental differences between the Joker and the newest threat to Gotham City Bane. In The Dark Knight, the Joker used his cunning mind and his faith in the worst of humanity to pick apart his bank robbery crew person-by-person, while Bane uses the brute force of the League of Shadows at his command to literally take apart his enemies. This one scene shows us a villain that we rarely get to see Batman go against: one who is both his physical and mental equal.

Now, the quick trailer scenes:

-Bane walking across the steps of Gotham City Hall: This is one of the moments of the film I’m most excited for, simply because we get to see Batman fight in the daytime…that seems dumb, BUT THAT NEVER HAPPENS.

-Shot of the Bat-copter aka Money Shot pt. 1: Seriously. Everyone in the audience flipped out.

-Shot of Catwoman followed by a shot of Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I honestly keep forgetting these two are in the movie.

-Shot of Batman about to deck Bane on the steps of Gotham City Hall: HE’S FIGHTING IN THE DAY LIGHT YOU GUYS!

-A giant crowd of people charging down a Gotham City street: Holy crap, I love the way this shot mirrors the Commissioner Loeb funeral procession from the previous film. And for some reason there are three Tumblers littered across the street. THREE.

-Shot of Bane carrying half of a broken Batman mask: Money shot number 2. For those of you who don’t know, one time, Bane did this...so...yeah.

rEVOLVEr by T-Pain: Review

By Peter Long

When T-Pain first came on the scene in 2005, both him and his sound was fresh. No one had ever heard anything like it. Some asked, “did this come from another planet? What is this?” Keep in mind, auto-tune was rarely used prior to the release of T-Pain’s first full length Epiphany. The music of T-Pain turned out to be the sound of a culture that was changing in many ways.

It was the sound of a fast paced, bionic world where anyone could record an albums-worth of studio-quality music and release it themselves without the support of a major label. It was the sound of the second-wave of club culture and techno, another genre music that was beginning to break out of the underground. In other words, T-Pain’s music was somewhat a precursor to fist-pumping.

Today however, the use of this suddenly decade-old technology has turned into over-processed garbage used by almost every artist from Kanye West to Cher. Auto-tune has gone from being creative to controversial with most musicians denouncing it as being inorganic and a tool, not a musical instrument.

T-Pain has become a caricature of himself (i.e. “I’m On a Boat”) and evidently he hasn’t gotten the message that: A. auto-tune isn’t cool anymore and B. 14 songs worth of auto-tuney goodness (his latest release entitled Revolver) is almost as un-cool as auto-tune itself.

The results came back from the test: auto-tune is on life support and Revolver is trash.
Speaking of unoriginality, how about a Lil’ Wayne guest spot? Weezy is featured on the first track titled “Boom Boom Pow Pow” where he spits stoic lines referring to the way he does things which, in case you were wondering, was “big, hippopotamus.” While Lil’ Wayne is becoming more unoriginal than auto-tune itself, I’m almost thankful for him making a guest spot on this album because…well…at least he’s more talented than T-Pain.

After the song entirely devoted to his favorite George Costanza quote (“It’s Not You, It’s Me”…oh come on, no one watches Seinfeld anymore? Oh, you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm now…that’s cool, it’s fine), T-Pain moves on to “Default Picture,” which tells the story of a guy completely transfixed on woman’s default picture on Twitter. I wish I was kidding. This is the kind of song that would make the listener ask him or herself, “is this real?” or “where’s my pistol?”

Without a doubt the best track on the album is “5 O’Clock” featuring Lily Allen and Wiz Khalifa. The presence of these two are integral to the song because they are far more superior artists than the man whose album they’re singing on, specifically Khalifa who covers up the weak skills of T-Pain as an MC. Allen does a superb job of giving the track its flavor and she blends with T-Pain surprisingly well.

In conclusion, T-Pain’s art has become banal and has run its course. What he should continue to do is produce and add character to other artists songs, that is what he is good at. The movement that he helped create has ended synonymously with Revolver.
Final Verdict: If your parents buy you this for Christmas, find new parents.

Arthur Christmas: Review (and a W.W. Christmas message)

By Spence Blazak

I just came out of one of the hardest weeks of my life. I had two debates with people about whether life had a meaning. I dealt with what might have been a life or death situation. I said goodbye to a very good friend. A girl who used to sit at my table every once in a blue moon during 6th period lunch passed away. I visited a friend in the hospital and shared an elevator with a little Hispanic baby, and his mom's worried face broke my heart. I decided to go home for the weekend to grab my bearings.

My mom was feeling a little bit glum and felt like "it doesn't feel like Christmas this year." Honestly, I had completely forgotten it was Christmas. I became distraught when I realized that maybe this is what the real world is liked. I decided to take her out on a mom-date to the movies to maybe cheer us both up. The Descendants is apparently dismally depressing, so despite its potential to be huge Oscar bait, I thought that would only further the anti (dare I say it) Christmas spirit. So we went to see Arthur Christmas. Yeah. That. That movie that had a shitty trailer before Moneyball. That movie that looked idiotic. That movie I've spent a month mocking. Yet, it has a high "fresh" rating on Rottentomatoes.com, so I said what the heck. Regardless of my reluctancy, we decided to go, and also regardless of my reluctancy, it was the surprise of the century. As Steve Holt once said on Arrested Development, I didn't like Arthur Christmas at all. "No………………………I LOVED IT."

The plot is simple. The "Santa" is like a crown that is handed down through generations of Clauses. The current "Santa" is on his 70th mission (Christmas Eve), which is typically when the crown is handed down to the next in line. The next generation consists of Steve (Hugh Laurie) who runs the high-tech Christmas operation and Arthur (James McAvoy) who handles the letters to Santa. The presents are delivered, the current "Santa" retains his crown, and everyone goes to bed, but it is discovered that one present has been missed. An English girl will wake up Christmas morning with nothing under the tree. While no one else cares, the distraught Arthur sticks to his principles by heading for England before the sun rises with nothing more than an old fashioned sleigh, Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), and the present.

Crafted by Aardman Animation, the masters behind the hilarious Wallace and Grommit series, Arthur Christmas nails it as a Christmas movie. The English have a different brand of comedy stylings than weYanks do, and its application to a Christmas movie is brilliant. For instance, Grandsanta wants to summon the reindeer so he blows his "reindeer horn". It sounds broken. He flips it over and taps it to see if something is stuck inside. A dead rat falls down. I laughed so hard that I almost hurt myself. Also, there are several Harry Potter actors in the cast (Hagrid, Rufus Scrimgeour, and Professor Umbridge to name a few). Really, whats not to love?

Arthur Christmas is also a social and political commentary in the best way: it doesn't boast. Christmas is run by the Clauses as a military operation with extreme precision. Everyone at the North Pole is married to their job. It is brilliant because it is a parody of the cliched Christmas movie Dad who forgets its Christmas because he is so busy. Applying this stereotype to Santa himself is golden. It applies a fresh take on the "beating a dead horse" theme of the corporatization of Christmas with a new angle. For instance, the running joke where none of the Clauses remember the names of all the reindeer is too good.

As for the movie's charm, I feel it deserves a paragraph of its own. The character of Arthur rivals that of Buddy the Elf for cheeriest person captured on celluloid, yet there is something about Arthur that is a little more believable. Ironically, he is less of a cartoon character and more of a believable guy. With his tacky Christmas sweater, awkward swag, and light up moose slippers, he is a bashful adult. I'm not bashing Elf, I'm saying that there is something…endearing about Arthur. In a scene where a disillusioned Santa reads all of the letters that Arthur wrote back to children, McAvoy's narration brought tears to my eyes. No lie. And in the end when all of the Clauses finally deliver the pink bike to the little girl? I couldn't believe myself. A movie I had no faith in melted my cold, cold heart.

My point is this. What is the point of a Christmas movie? To make you forget about how bad your break up was and how stressful exams are. Its point is to bring you back to when you were a kid shivering in fear when the Bumble kidnapped Rudolph or when Frosty melted in a greenhouse. Maybe I've gotten soft in my old age. Maybe I'm more sentimental than I used to be. Maybe I won't like it as much when I see it again. Regardless, Arthur Christmas was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had at the movies in a very long time.

Merry Christmas!

4 stars.

The Muppets: Review

By Spence Blazak

Up until last week, only three things in this world intimidated me: spiders, looking into a blue eyed woman's eyes, and Kermit the Frog. I'll explain. I had a stuffed Kermit the Frog as a boy that would talk when you squeezed him. The doll held a camera for some reason. Also, he said 3 different sayings, with the most memorable being "ITS PICTURE TIME, PIGGY". One day, his voice box broke. That was when, as Abraham Lincoln once said, "Shit got real." At all hours of the night, his hellish wires would touch, causing me to wake up from a deep sleep for "PICTURE TIME."

This made me hate Kermit and his friends.

I lived a life of emptiness. The lack of Muppets in my heart left a void like a black hole. I tried to fill it in with different things: love, vices, the world itself. In the end, nothing could ever truly compare to the Muppets. This is why I was so excited when The Muppets was released. It gave me a chance to be….a whole man again.

I'm sorry, I have to keep my streak up of starting off my film reviews with introductions that have a flare for the dramatic. Anyway, The Third Man is generally considered one of the best movies of all time, and in one of my favorite quotes from it, a character describes his friend by saying, "He never grew up. The world grew up around him." The Muppets is made for people like that. People like me. I'm not going to lie, if you're in a bad mood, there is a very good chance you will hate everything about it. On the other hand, it just might be your most enjoyable movie experience of the year.

The story follows Walter, a muppet who lives in Kansas. Being raised by humans, he has had a tough life. While growing up with his brother Gary (Jason Segel), he took solace in the Muppets. In the present, he has an obsession with Kermit the Frog that can be compared only to my obsession with Taylor Swift. Yeah. That's right. HE EVEN HAS A WATCH WITH HIS FACE ON IT. But anyway, he goes for an adventure out to the Muppets studio with Gary and his lady friend (Amy Adams). Once in Hollywood, they discover that the studio is going to be bought and destroyed by a Texas oil tycoon, and Walter must help Kermit round up the Muppets, raise 10 million dollars, and save the day! This shit cray!

Here's the lowdown. Jason Segel wrote the script, which is his first since Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it plays exactly like a G-rated version of the movie that made him a star. The mark of many great comedians is to be able to succeed at several different types of comedy, and with The Muppets, Segel has made a case for being one of the former by mastering the latter. Its exactly what you want from a Muppet movie: a mix of clever and absurd. Little moments like Kermit wearing a black turtleneck for his Paris date with Ms. Piggy or Fozzie getting on the Muppets shoulders, putting on an over coat and mustache, then waltzing his way into a meeting as "Muppet Man" had me rolling in the aisles. The soundtrack, written by Brett McKenzie (the one from Flight of the Conchords who doesn't look like me) is a little bit lacking, but "Am I a Muppet or a Man?" is glorious, and will give Captain America's "The Star Spangled Man" a run for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Well……its not that good, but still….Also, the slew of celebrity cameos are almost all hilarious. My favorite being political dynamo James Carvile as a telephone operator for the Muppet telethon.

All in all, The Muppets is charming and filled with that Muppet-humor you are expecting. If Muppets in Space is a 2 star movie, and The Muppet Movie is a 4 star one, then The Muppets is a solid 3 stars.

Inevitable EP-Trey Songz: Review

By Spence Blazak

That’s right. Oh-oh-oh-oh it’s Mr. Stealyogirl. The man who revitalized the double entendre rap song with cuts like “Say Ah,” “Bottoms Up,” and “LOL :-)” is back…whether anyone wants him or not. Like his last few albums, Songz has used his new EP Inevitable to cause the listener to ask many philosophical questions as well as sociological revelations, primarily “What did I do to deserve this?” and “So this is why Europe hates us…,” respectively.

Songz is a different, revitalized kind of rapper compared to his previous endeavors. He has traded in his extremely modern, made-for-pop voice for a flow that just sounds like a bad Drake impression. It also appears that he has drawn a lot of influence from R & B for this album, but this merely translates into a stream of songs that all kind of sound like R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet…and not in a good way.

“Top of the World” is the only song off album worth mentioning in detail. Songz raps about how much fun it is to be rich. Its pretty standard, bad song fare until about :45 when he spits the rhyme “I’m Trey, I came to play.” Not going to lie, he lost me after that one. It didn’t even take him a minute into the album. Also, be sure to check out “Sex Ain’t Better than Love” for the humorous title alone.

Despite all the album’s shortcomings, Inevitable is not without its strong points. Sadly for Mr. Songz, the album’s chief savior is its short runtime. Yet, anyone who listens to modern rap knows that for every My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy there are a hundred Inevitables, and one must grow an appreciation for “so-bad-it-is-funny” rap to keep from losing interest in the genre completely. In this respect, it almost succeeds, but Songz doesn’t even make an attempt. The end result is an album that will soon find its way to the bargain bin at K-Mart. Not even Walmart.

Hugo: Review

This review can also be found in the December first edition of the Daily Targum: http://www.dailytargum.com/inside_beat/film/hugo-a/article_4a205b12-1bcf-11e1-8f0e-001a4bcf6878.html

By Spence Blazak

With his latest endeavor, director Martin Scorcese takes the audience into a world far from his usual, a crime filled town on the Eastern Seaboard. In Hugo, he tells his story in a Paris train station during the 1930's, a world of mist, machines, movies, and mustaches. From its performances to its cinematography and from its storytelling to its charm, Hugo is the reason that people still go to the movies.

Hugo Cabret is a young orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station tirelessly climbing through the catacombs and winding the station’s clocks. As his late uncle told him, "Time is everything." Hugo also steals to survive, whether a croissant from a pastry cart or cogs and gears from a station toy merchant (Ben Kingsley). To keep himself going, the boy devotes his life to fixing a mechanical man powered by clockwork and unlocking the automaton’s secrets, hoping that they contain a message from his father.

Adapted from the children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the film is a perfect example of how to do an adaptation right. Scorcese took the enchanting children's book and expanded it, fleshing out characters, adding in real world themes, and accentuating the immense weight of the world that every character carries on their shoulders. Hugo is not just about the adventure of a young boy, but also the internal struggle of coming to terms with the past that unites all people. For instance, the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) is more than the one dimensional villain of the graphic novel and is now a man who feels that his war injury has demasculinized him. He in turn tries to compensate by relentlessly capturing all the orphans who run through the station and sending them to the vile orphanage. Truly excellent character background for what is, ostensibly, a kid’s movie.

As for the performances, they are exactly what the movie requires. Each character says their lines like they are savoring a piece of delicious candy, cherishing every single bite. Jude Law as Hugo's father and Christopher Lee as a bookshop merchant particularly excel at this. But as good as the adults are, the children are astounding. Asa Butterfield looks like he has been at it for decades while portraying Hugo, always keeping a sense of innocence, hope, and wonder about him. Chloe Grace Moretz plays Hugo's friend Isabelle with the same competent understanding of the craft.

This is a great testament to the prowess of Martin Scorcese's directing, because giving children direction is generally considered one of the most unrewarding and difficult parts of filmmaking. On top of this, he uses the camera beautifully, constructing streams of long running tracking shots that glide through the train station so delicately that it looks like choreography. He also gives the film a beautiful look by filling the frames with mist and smoke, the same technique that the Old Masters used to give paintings the feeling that something is hidden underneath their surface.

Hugo's strength lies in the fact that it succeeds as both an actual story as well as the way in which it is told. When 3D was first getting big a year or two ago, Avatar was considered the perfect use of the technology and the trailblazer for the potential the new medium had. There is one problem with this: Avatar wasn't really that good a story. Cool, but not worthy of all the hype. Hugo should be considered that trendsetter when the history books come out, because it just might be truly flawless.

If a one star movie about a child’s quest for self discovery (....I'm trying here...) is Unaccompanied Minors and a 3 and a half star one is Home Alone, then Hugo is a solid 4 star masterwork.