Archive for January, 2009

Forgive Durden – Razia’s Shadow: A Musical Review

January 25, 2009 at 2:46 am · Filed under Music Reviews ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Forgive Durden - Razia's Shadow

Note: Max here. Not sure how I let this get so long. Please read it anyway. It’ll crack you up. I think it’ll be more enjoyable if you are listening while you read it, so try to make that happen.

I never got around to making a top albums of 2008 list. I think it has quite a large sum to do with personal laziness, but I’m going to take the time to write a couple short reviews for some albums from last year that I think deserve mentioning.

Let’s start with Razia’s Shadow: A Musical, by Forgive Durden, which is easily the dorkiest record I heard last year, and unabashedly so. It’s an album inspired by immense theatre geekery, but also a good heap of fantasy. Razia’s Shadow is a concept album to the extreme. It’s essentially the soundtrack to a musical too elaborate and dorky for anyone to ever put on, and it’s awesome. It’s by a band called Forgive Durden, whose previous work I’m completely unfamiliar with. I heard of the project because of the many guest vocalists on the album, a myriad of emo/pop-punk stars, all of whom play a certain character in the story. Aaron Weiss of mewithoutYou (whose upcoming album is eagerly anticipated by this critic) narrates with a brilliant, croaky charisma.

The plot is difficult to decipher without a little effort– Thomas Dutton, who wrote the thing and plays the main character in both halves of the story, spared us the exposition– but wikipedians came to my rescue, and a quick read of that page made the listening experience much better, once I figured out what was going on. Most of this review is plot summary, because I think it’s kind of needed in order to parse this album and appreciate its awesomeness or its silliness.

Like I mentioned, there are two halves of the story. In the first, a God-like character named O The Scientist (Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter), creates the world. An angel named Ahrima (Thomas Dutton) feels like he’s not given enough credit for his skillz (which are never really made clear) and gets pissed off. Then, a spider called Barayas (Max Bemis of Say Anything, altogether cool raspy-voiced guy who pulled a similar emo-guest-party on his album In Defense of the Genre) lands on his shoulder, and I guess he’s some kind of would-be terrorist, because he convinces Ahrima to “bring those lamps back to me, don’t leave them in one piece” to gain everyone’s respect. The thing is, destroying “those lamps” for some reason pretty much destroys the world. It doesn’t make sense to me either, but it works, and this is one of the best songs on the album.

Despite the world being burned down, everyone’s okay. They just move somewhere else. I don’t know, whatever. But Ahrima must be punished, so Toba The Tura (Chris Conley of Saves The Day) arrives to fuck him up. Conley rocks the song, starting out as a sort of understanding, sweet-voiced guy, and building to a frenzied condemnation. Everyone moves to a new, “light” world, separated from his “dark” one by a mountainous wall of stone.

And then the plot skips ahead a century. Now the world is split in two, and this is symptomatic of the lack of love in the world or something. It’s silly. It’s fun. Let’s go with it.

The two songs that mark the jump are The Oracle, in which it’s prophecized that someday there will be two people whose “true love will be strong enough to erase the wrong we’ve done, the dark and light will become one” and “A Hundred-Year, Minute-Long Intermission” whose title I kind of adore. Both feature Danny Stevens of The Audition, who I’ve never heard but have me sold on the strength of their singer.

When the plot picks up, both the light and dark sides of the world have developed their own societies of people. The new main character is Adakias, again played by Thomas Dutton, who grew up on the dark side, which is later described as “forever shaded, where the jaded are never wrong.” He wants to be the one to fulfill the prophecy and restore the world via his ability to love. Other people who live on the dark side laugh at him, because obviously they’re dicks, they live on the dark side. When his brother Pallis (Brendon Urie of Panic At The Disco, who I submit to be underrated) learns of his plan to leave and search for love, he sings, “You are so foolish. The Dark has been your home. If you elope, I’ll hunt you down, through suffering you’ll atone.” Fucking yikes.

So he leaves for the Light side to search for love, and in the next song he finds it in Princess Anhura (Greta Salpeter of The Hush Sound). This song, “It’s True Love” is so silly and schmaltzy. She sings, presumably not long after meeting him, “I never would guess your touch could fill me with such thoughts to marry you, have your babies, too.” I love it. The duet builds to a powerful and, somehow, believable height. Salpeter here deserves loads of commendation for being committed to singing these lines with the conviction she does, especially when she needs to sing the name “Adakias” with affection.

The couple meet with Anhura’s father, the king (Nic Newsham of Gatsby’s American Dream, who I saw open for Bear Vs. Shark years ago), who is suspicious of Adakias and seems to suspect that he’s from the dark side (oh yeah, he’s hiding that fact). The king opens with one of my favorite lines, the absurd, “So you’re the boy I’ve heard so much about from my daughter’s open mouth.” He doesn’t approve. Adakias probably doesn’t help things when he sings, “I just want your daughter’s heart, you fool.” Dutton and Salpeter’s voices are really wonderful together here again, when his simple plea of “I love your daughter and she, well, she loves me back” builds to “All we have is love, my King, so let’s sing ‘la-da-da-da!’ You probably have to hear it to believe it, but it’s a magical moment.

Without his approval, they decide to elope in secret. However, Anhura begins to fall sick. Adakias knows this is because he’s from the dark side. Uh oh. His love is gonna get her dead! We learn this from the narrator, and the next song is poorly sequenced, as it takes a detour from the revelation we just learned, but it’s a visit to the Bawaba Brothers (John Gourley of Portugal. The Man, lending his new found Alaskan soul vocals and Kris Anaya of An Angle, AKA the most transparent rip off I’ve ever heard; he sounds just like Conor Oberst). I’m not really sure who the Bawaba Brothers are, but they tell Adakias that he’s a descendent of the guy that separated the world, and that story is more than mythical lore, which gives him confidence that he’s destined to fulfill the prophecy and restore the world. This song is one of my favorite musically, it’s just gorgeous, but probably should have happened a couple tracks sooner.

Back to our dying princess. They go see the doctor (Shawn Harris, The Matches, who are a kickass band), who is probably my favorite character here. Harris is just absurd here, he has so much fun. His Dr. Dumaya is absolutely insane. He starts out laughing maniacally and then starts coughing… maniacally, obviously. He informs them “Now what you got ain’t no quick fix, it ain’t no common cold. What you need’s a bona fide doctor’s miracle.”

What follows is so ridiculously dumb and ridiculous that I don’t know what to do besides laugh and love it. He tells her he’ll heal her on the condition that she stay with him forever. “I promise to take care of her, well rather, she’ll take care of me for the rest of her life in the Dark, fulfilling Doctor’s fantasies.” I can imagine that, but not what follows. Anhura resists, but Adakias makes her! He says “it’s the only way.” So she consents. Jesus.

So the doctor heals her…. and just then, Pallis bursts in! In the likely case that you forgot who that is, it’s Adakias’s brother who promised to hunt him down if he eloped.

This is the final song, and it is fairly epic. There is some kind of hilarious but well-written wordplay in this encounter. I just gotta quote it.

Adakias: Casanovas have charmed with chiffons, so chichi. Chased her with conceited coteries.
Anhura: Maharajahs have magniloquently mouthed their love for me through their menageries.
Adakias: She’s been propositioned, propounded by every pompous prince. Given panniers of peerless pears and plums, polished.
Anhura: I’ve been seduced with shimmering, sparkling stones. Squired by suitors to sizable chateaus.
Adakias: And I’m the one she chose.

These tongue twisters are belted out confidently to a jazzy bounce. Pallis, however, sees fit to reveal that Adakias has been lying about being from the Dark, and he’s the reason she’s dying. Of course it comes out like this. It’s kind of a tired plot contrivance, but we’ll let it go for now, because right after Pallis reveals this, he sings, “But I suppose it’s in vain, since her life is ending, when I thrust this blade into her heart-a-thumping.” Ahh!! And then comes the most gloriously, theatrically emo moment on the album, as Adakias sing-screams, “Brother no!!!” and, as we soon realize, dives in front of the blade.

This sacrifice demonstrates his true love, and the two parts of the world reunite in a showstopping, cheesy fucking display as we’re reminded that love and sacrifice conquer all. The narrator takes us out, and the curtains drop.

It’s hard to say what we just experienced. What’s great is that the melodramatic theatrics of the emo genre match perfectly with, well, melodramatic theatre. It’s a surprisingly perfect fit.

-Max Jacobson

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Jews on Christmas; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button review

January 8, 2009 at 4:52 am · Filed under Movie Reviews ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve already had one heated argument over this movie, which seems to do that to people as only really long movies and really short ones can.  I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Christmas, in a packed theater of Jews (or people who thought it would be fun to act like Jews), and I was stuck all the way to the side in the second row.  So my neck was craned awkwardly and most of my views of the characters were a bit skewed – and I STILL loved this movie.  I don’t think it’s good enough to crack my top three movies of the year, because those three (The Fall, The Dark Knight, WALL*E) are pretty impervious.  But still, it was an absolutely wrenching tale for me – a fully realized document of a life.  And that sounds kind of trite when I read it back, actually.  But dammit! It’s fucking true.

Benjamin Button, played subtly and stoically (too much so for any real shot at Mickey Rourke or Sean Penn’s Oscar) by Brad Pitt, ages backward, and grows up in an old folks home where he is left by his horrified father immediately after birth.  Though his body ages backwards, his mind is where his real age lies (a radical departure from the source material which at least one person I know thinks is awful).  His unique situation leads inexorably to an interesting life – people tend to be drawn to him at all stages of his life except for the radical edges, when they are repulsed.  When his body’s old but his mind is that of a preteen, people like my favorite character, Captain Mike, are charmed by his youthful enthusiasm despite his (apparent) advanced age.  Captain Mike helms a tugboat with a ragtag (of course) bunch of sailors that eventually sails to Russia, taking the mentally-teenaged Benjamin with them.

Okay, I just caught myself at really stupid plot summary.  Instead of continuing that, I’m going to give a list of people who affect Benjamin’s life in a meaningful way.

  • Queenie – Benjamin’s mother for all intensive purposes.  She raises him, gives him guidance rooted in a deep, deep faith and a seemingly endless well of kindness.  Although this kind of down-home, southern black TLC female character has gotten plenty clichéd by now, that doesn’t mean the role is just in the bank no matter what actress you pick.  Taraji P. Henson owns this role.
  • Ngunda Oti – Probably the most minor of these roles, but one of my favorites.  He’s the African pygmy who (based on a true story) lived in a zoo after being taken from his home in Africa.  He lived for a time in the old folks’ home with Benjamin, and taught him about self-confidence.  Rampai Mohadi was incredible here, he stole his scenes as a person who has that special light around him, the kind that makes any audience want to know him, and want him to have what he desires – to be home.
  • Thomas Button – Benjamin’s father who abandons him at birth, he’s the head of Button’s Buttons, a successful button company, and after running into (mentally) young Benjamin, decides to keep tabs on him and invite him out for the occasional drink.  The sheer emotional anguish of these encounters from Thomas’s side is fascinating, since he’s not really a monster – he just made a bad decision.  That doesn’t mean he’s a good person either (we never really can tell), but he has plenty of humanity.  Thomas does care about Benjamin, leaving his button factory to him at death, and (SPOILER) though Benjamin resents him after the reveal for abandonment and subsequent deceit, he can see what we see. (END SPOILER)
  • Captain Mike – Don’t we all wish we knew a Captain Mike? He’s radically free-spirited and independent, but with a killer sense of nobility.  When called upon at the outset of World War II, he knows what he (and members of his crew) must do. (SPOILER) Mike’s death slams home like a hammer, the hardest death of the movie, mostly because he was the only one that died before his time.  Up until this point, Benjamin’s only knowledge of death was the old folks who came through the home at which he grew up.  There, death was natural and expected.  But here, Benjamin learns that death can be surprising, and can be tragic.  Mike’s last words were my first almost-cry of the movie.  The hummingbird bit, though, seemed a bit much.(END SPOILER)
  • Elizabeth Abbott – I’m split about this one.  She’s the wife of a British spy in Russia, played with sort of a cold warmth that only British ladies like Tilda Swinton can master.  There are some lines in her sequence that are the most realist of the whole movie – natural, as opposed to literary, like the rest of the movie.  But there are some lines that are also stilted, shoehorned in to give context.  Really watchable, but not as profound as the rest.
  • Daisy – Where to begin.  As a child, she was okay – the well-known curious girl that a boy her age can’t help but like.  But once Cate Blanchette takes over, she is devastating.  Maybe my favorite narrative function of this movie was due to the framing of the piece as being told to Daisy from Benjamin’s journal on her deathbed while Hurricane Katrina was closing in on New Orleans by her daughter.  What this allows for is the completely realized perspective of both main characters.  Although some have criticized this part as director David Fincher and writer Eric Roth talking down to the audience, I really appreciate knowing character’s motivations instead of being forced to assume, sometimes without enough information and sometimes incorrectly.  Daisy’s narrative presence as the grounding force (that is, the perspective of someone aging forwards) is a crucial part of this story, and makes it feel as whole as it does.  And the fact that she gets so damaged, so affected by Benjamin’s condition might be my favorite part of the movie.

As you can tell, not a perfect movie, but an extremely good one, completely filled with huge, huge emotions.  Of course, there’s a lot more to this movie, like the painful, wrenching limits of time – but I can’t really say it in any more profound a way than AintitCool’s Moriarty did in his swan song review for the site.  This is really the best I can do.

And there’s also this old guy who talks about getting struck by lightning a bunch of times that provides some classic comic relief stuff.  This movie, until the real heart of the Daisy love sequence, isn’t tragic – it has some wry moments.  But these little lightning scenes took the audience by such surprise that a little soundless clip got huge, HUGE laughs.  And the last bit, even in the midst of some of the heaviest moments, made the audience laugh just as hard, but through their tears.

It seems we finally have our theme for comparing 2007 and 2008 as years in movies.  Although no one would begin to argue that 2008 rivals ’07 as far as the quality of their movies (I hope), what ’08 does provide that ’07 didn’t (except for in a couple of instances) were movies about big emotions, big feelings, as opposed to big concepts, big thoughts like in There Will Be Blood.  And as far as the magnum opus of each year, that movie really fits into my comparison when against, say, The Fall, which I’ll deal with in my year-end list, and against this movie.  I look forward to seeing this again when I don’t have to crane my neck.

Okay, I realize I did this character list twice in a row.  But they were far apart, the reviews both took a long, long time to finish each, so cut me a break.  Reviews of Milk and Let The Right One In will be my last before the year-end list.  After that, this blog will hit a crossroads that might need a full post in itself to discuss.

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