Bay, the Killer of Dreams

When the first Transformers film was released in 2007, it seemed that critics were split down the middle- on metacritic.com, the film amassed a grade of 61 based on 35 critical reviews. It seemed that critics praised the film as much it was panned. US$700 million later, the same film-makers and studio give us its sequel- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and here's the first problem- the same website has a grade for the film of 35 based on the same amount of reviews. Seems the scales have fallen from the eyes of the very same reviewers who were duped into believing that the first film was anything near good...
Building on the little-boy fantasy of cars coming to life and turning into giant talking robots from outer space, director Michael Bay proves once again why he might possibly be the worst director operating today.
The story resumes by sending Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf yelling every line of dialogue he speaks) off to college, leaving behind his mechanic girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox). He also leaves behind his first love, Bumblebee, the yellow Camaro who morphs into Sam's robot guardian angel when needed. He's letting his friends the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), work out their differences with the feds. Suffice it to say, the mess of a plot devolves into a chase story in Egypt and the destruction of the pyramids (a spit in the face of sacred world history). Time won't be wasted here in trying to explain what happens in between, this reviewer still does not have a clue. Although the movie goes all over the world to tell a rudimentary tale of good humans and good robots, or Autobots, uniting against the bad robots, or Decepticons, its frenetic and often pointless action induces a weird claustrophobia.
One mind-boggling aspect of the film is that it never actually starts. Beginning with a scene in China, it is said that "the Fallen" is coming. After that, it is one big explosion after another, each trying to out-do the one preceeding it.
Anyway, the Autobots and the Army are looking for rogue Decepticons, and keeping the world safe. But not for long: The ancient origins of the Autobots and evil Decepticons -- including a literally satanic mastermind (the Fallen) will come to the fore, with Earth, the sun, the pyramids and Sam's fledgling academic career at what as well might be called Nymphomaniac Supermodel University all on the line. As with so many sequels, anything that worked in the first film is ratcheted up to overkill. To say the film is too loud or relentlessly violent misses the point: We watch movies like this for noise and violence. But what's wrong here is that there's so much swirling, relentless action, indistinct robot characterizations and over-caffeinated techies loose on the special-effects machines that the movie, in mere seconds, achieves incoherence. As with the last Transformers, we can't see any of the action that happens; it seems no one was interested in holding the camera steady while filming.
LaBeouf and Fox are back, of course reprising their roles, although Sam is off to college, while Fox's Mikaela stays home to rehabilitate her ex-con father. Sam's inability to tell Mikaela that he loves her provides the romantic tension. But let's talk about Fox's character for a moment. We first see her on the back of a parked motorcycle, ass clad in shorts, pointed sky-ward, an indication of how she will be used through-out this movie. And used is exactly what she is. Lips, boobs, legs, ass, you name it, each sexual body part of hers is in full-glory here. One can almost hear Bay like a porn director, shouting from behind his camera "Push that butt out, Megan!"
Then there are the sophomoric sex jokes, mostly spewed by the mother character. At one point, she was even eating weed cakes. Weed. In a PG-13 movie. There's even another mega-hottie brought in for this film, the ever-glossed Isabel Lucas, always looking as if she's on the verge of orgasm. Her character's purpose is to kill Witwicky, I suppose, but like so many characters in the film, she's shoved in the plot then shoved out.
You know the stakes are life or death for the planet because the characters tell you so, and because the stakes always are mortal and global in this kind of movie. But the filmmakers don't keep their eye on the ball. They stuff the film with shtick -- in fact, the whole movie is built with tons of shtick and gallons of sap. In this film's attempt at symmetry. There is never any real tension, never any balance, everything is one long monotonous three hours (yes, THREE hours) of things blowing up.
Sam's brain is imprinted with a series of runic symbols that he obsessively paints on his dorm room walls. There's something that he's meant to do, something that involves helping the goody-goody robot Optimus Prime put down a rebellion led by his ancient rival, the Fallen (voiced by Tony Todd). The deep mythology of their enmity is amply revisited in multiple expository flashbacks, but the simplest thing Bay could have done to clarify the stakes of the robot wars WOULD BE TO VISUALLY DISTINGUISH THE ROBOTS FROM ONE ANOTHER IN SOME WAY. An arm-band, a t-shirt, a COLOUR, anything! As such, you don't know who is good or who is bad, adding even more to your frustration. Let's not even talk about the shard. It turns regular household appliances into robots, causes Witwicky to see rune-like symbols in his brain and to solve great mathematical formulae. But what is its point, really?
The first Transformers movie was also assaultive to the senses, but at least it had a place in pop culture- in Hollywood's insatiable need for bringing everything to life, it brought together the world's kids (now adults) who grew up on these toys. It was still an awful film, but at least the fans seemed to have been satisfied. Now, with his new film, Bay takes his infantile fantasies of smashing things up, ultimately leaching the film of any creativity or imagination. This reviewer refuses to believe that action films have to be dumb. One need not look further than The Matrix, The Terminator, Alien or Star Wars for proof of this. In creating believable premises, these films presented us with images that challenged everything we came to expect from movies- they provided great action, an engaging plot, iconic heroes and villains and have stood the test of time. Why is it that Michael Bay, an unabashed action film-maker, can only give us big explosions? His films are noisy and T:ROTF is his loudest, stupidest and most callous yet. In a time of economic recession, seeing a film of this nature, one that unapologetically wastes money and resources, is a huge affront to the intelligence of discerning film-goers. It's understandable that in times like these, people will flock to the multi-plexes in search of reality-relief, wanting to escape their own lives, even momentarily. But the world that Bay creates here isn't even believabe. So what purpose does the film serve? Why do we need this film? If the viewer has no sense of what or where anything is, then he or she has no physical investment in the chaos that Bay and exec producer Steven Spielberg are trying to impose. Hence, no thrills. It's a paradoxical movie, ultimately: there's too much of everything, and too little of anything. Nothing can build in a Bay film, because he dials up everything to the same intensity.
The film opens with some line or other that some thousands of years ago, the Transformers came to Earth for the first-time. Now, how can a sequel start with a line of that nature? Think about it- there was an entire first movie whose whole point was to have built up a story that would continue here. It's understandable that they tried to make a stand-alone film, but there has to be some connection to the two films for the series to be effective. By destroying that connection, the film seems to have lost all effectiveness as a sequel, and seems to be even more confused as to what its purpose is.
Here's another good question- what is the purpose of Tyrese in the film? It's understood that he is a part of the US army, however, he speaks less than ten lines through-out the film, and whenever he does, it's supposed to be some witty one-liner. How stereotypical.
Disguised as a human director, Bay is more like a destroyer of dreams. When Hasbro invented those Transformers toys, the intention was really for kids to use their imagination about what those bots would morph into, kinda like Power Rangers. Bay, however, crushes that imagination with his own crude interpretations that seem untouched by human hands and spirit. Maybe he really isn't human...
The series is remarkably popular- already, this one has grossed over US$600 million in the North America alone. Still, junk food is also popular, and we all know the health benefits from eating that. T:ROTF proves that popularity does not always mean greatness. Long, racist (there are two jive-talkin' robots, who act like they were born in the hood), incoherent, leering, and rife with product tie-in's (in one scene, Bay's camera clearly shows a poster of Bad Boys 2, another one of his repugnant creations) the film's biggest aim is to bludgeon audiences into submission. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen begs our attention, but never awards it, not even for one scene.

You Give Me Fever!

Who is Fever Ray? What is his/her claim to fame? And why should we, discerning listeners, care? To answer the first question- Karin Dreijer Andersson. To answer the second- she's one half of Swedish group, The Knife. To answer the latter: please read below.
Listing such disparate elements as David Lynch, Doom, and Donnie Darko as inspiration, The Knife was formed silently in 1999. Releasing their self-titled debut in 2001, they didn't attract much attention till 2003 and the release of their sophomore project, Deep Cuts, and namely single, "Heartbeats". Garnering note-worthy reviews from Pitchforkmedia and other such uber-cool indie publications, the duo was praised for its vocal experimentation, and Bjork-esque attention to synths. But it wasn't until 2006 that the band really broke out. With the release of Silent Shout, Pitchfork again showered the duo with great praises, awarding it "Best New Music" status in February, before naming it Album of the Year in December of that year. Against such a rich background of accomplishments and acclaim, Karin releases her highly anticipated debut album, named Best New Music by Pitchfork for the month of March. When news broke of the record in October, one would have been forgiven for wondering if the duo hadn't secretly made good on their threats to call it quits. After listening to the album, it still isn't sure, as Andersson gives no clues here, and that's exactly the point.
Album-opener and lead single, "If I Had a Heart", seems like a straight-forward pop song about romantic longing. "If I had a heart I could love you / If I had a voice I would sing / After the night when I wake up / I'll see what tomorrow brings", Dreijer Andersson sings, but what gives the songs its depth and complexity is the way her vocal is pushed into a grim baritone range that works with the equally distorted, bottomed-out melodic line that turns the song's refrain into a fascinating bit of self-reflection. From its opening notes, the album proves that Andersson and her producers (Christopher Berg, who has mixed much of the Knife's output, and the duo Van Rivers & the Subliminal Kid) understand how to use these choices to define a distinct, purposeful aesthetic, rather than simply use them as gimmicks.
Sounding like a lost track from Silent Shout, current single, "When I Grow Up" is simply gorgeous. The song’s oddly sensual interplay between its guitar-and-keyboard melody and the compellingly off-kilter beat are matched to lyrics that not only reimagine youthful ambitions but also take us somewhere rather disturbing: “I put my soul in what I do / Last night I drew a funny man with dark eyes and a hanging tongue / It goes way back.”
One of Fever Ray's most remarkable aspects comes from how Dreijer Andersson funnels little moments of humor, banality, remembrance, mania, and anxiety through her deadpan affect to create a central character worthy of any psychological horror. You might even reasonably suggest this record is about psychosis. In "Seven", she tells the story of "a friend who I've known since I was seven/ We used to talk on the phone/ If we have time/ If it's the right time." Backdropped by pattering drums and faintly tropical synths, the album maintains an air of childlike unreality, vaguely monstrous desire and hidden knowledge, all themes and templates pitched to perfection by The Knife.
The foreboding tropicalia continues with next track, "Triangle Walks", and five songs in Dreijer Andersson has not mis-stepped once, a rare feat in these iPod-shuffle times. "Concrete Walls" shifts things up a bit with a dark and moody, back beat that sounds almost melted, and vocals that are so distorted, not one word being sung is heard. This being Dreijer Andersson, that's beside the point- it isn't so much what is being sung, but how everything feels. The record provides enough lyrical insight, but definitive meanings are always left blurry, vague and amorphous enough to keep you guessing. "Now's The Only Time I Know" makes for a great song title, and to be honest, it's the album's first dull track. Please note, this is a dullness that would sound rather ground-breaking if artistes half Dreijer Andersson's talent approached. Still, the song sounds too same-y in comparison to what has gone before it, not necessarily adding anything to the album's aesthetics.
The title of next track, "I'm Not Done" is a bit ironic, considering the track before it, as maybe we start to question if she has run out of ideas, while "Keep the Streets Empty For Me" answers with a resounding 'no'.
Almost introducing each sound indivdually as the song progresses, the track is a duet with Swedish pop singer Cecilia Nordlund of Cilihili, and explores an even deeper escape route from the adult world by entering the refuge of zoomorphism, a surreal state of wanting to return to an idealised natural world by becoming an animal. “I learned not to eat the snow/My fur is hot, my tongue is cold/On a bed of spider web/I think about to change myself”, the pair sing. It’s some kind of sweet-and-innocent version of lycanthropy; the narrator turning into a cuddly soft toy rather than say, a blood-crazed werewolf. What makes the track awesome isn't exactly evident, maybe it's the bamboo flute that flutters through-out, maybe it's the track's minimalistic edge, but that in itself is indicative of the rest of the album; in addition to many of the same plasticky percussions and goofy synth sounds that the Knife made their stock-in-trade, Fever Ray also brims with fragile, more finely articulated sounds. Spread over 10 tracks and near 50 minutes, the way Karin draws out each word in a catlike manner could have begun to grate. But that potential pitfall is nicely sidestepped though liberal use of the vocoder, stretching her vocals to eerie and equally playful depths.
But, the album doesn't end there, dear reader, oh no. It ends with quite possibly the album's best track, "Coconut". At 7 minutes long, the song rumbles on a pattern of synths and staccato drums before a ceremonious wall of voices arrive at the midpoint to march it to a close. Except, "close" implies it was written; the more time you spend with Fever Ray, the more you become convinced that these songs aren't written so much as they're temporarily let out.
Thematically, and for the quality of songwriting, Fever Ray fully deserves to be considered a follow-up to Silent Shout; nonetheless, it’s also a line-in-the-sand for The Knife-as-pop-entity, a Kid A-like demand to be respected on the artist’s own terms, or left alone. You can’t dance to any of it, whatever the remixers may do, but you can certainly inhabit it. Instead, the focus here is on Andersson's oblique narratives and the startling, stark electronic distortions she uses on her vocal tracks. These dramatic, often inhuman-sounding shifts in range only heighten the palpable sense of dread on the Knife's macabre songs, but here the same production trick serves a different but no less effective purpose: to draw attention to the minimalism and surprising pop bent of the songs. Sure, there's nothing on here as immediate as "We Share Our Mother's Health" or "Marble House", instead, she's recorded something far denser and more challenging; an unshakeable and unforgettable album.