The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 5
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday ianuaryl3,2009-5
The subjective
bliss of listening
Dead from the start
In new horror, David
Goyer's directing can't
match his screenwriting
By BLAKE GOBLE
Daily Arts Writer
David Goyer is a fantastic screenwriter
when it comes to dark action,
spectacle and the occult. An
Ann Arbor native, Goyer is
an avid sci-fi and comic geek
who brandishes tattoos and is
noted for his brooding writ-
ing. He helped write the last
two "Batman" films, made
the "Blade" movies ' supe-
rior schlock and has written
The Unborn
At Quality 16
and Showcase
Rogue
example that creative stories can be poorly
told.
"The Unborn" is the story of Casey Beldon
(Odette Yustman, "Cloverfield"), an undergrad
student living in and around Chicago. She's
starting to see things: creepy kids, blinking
fetuses and insects everywhere. And, because
this is a supernatural thriller and obviously
nothing like real life, the film never shows
Casey going to class, discussing her major,
tuition or grades.
Realistic or not, Casey has just found out
that she had a twin who died during childbirth.
Perhaps that's why she's haunted by a spooky
little boy? Could it be the reason she's seeing
dogs with masks on their faces?
In search of answers, Casey finds her
estranged grandmother Sofi (Jane Alexander,
"'the Ring"), a Holocaust survivor and requi-
site wise old religious lady. Sofi explains that
Casey is being haunted by a dybbuk, a possess-
itg demon of Kabalah and Jewish Europeat
folklore that can invade our world via mirrors
and scantily clad women. How PG-13.
The rest of "The Unborn" is a series of creepy
moments and crazy images that should leave
the audience wondering how Gary Oldman
("Batman Begins") wound up in this movie as
an exorcising rabbi.
Still, "The Unborn" has some fascinating
imagery and ideas. A mix of Jewish mysticism,
underage melodrama and imagery lifted from
"Don't Look Now," the film occasionally works.
It's filled with radically random moments.
When a feeble old man suddenly bends and
morphs into an upside-down tarantula, Goyer
strikes trippy gold. When a four-year-old child
appears with a blue raincoat, butcher knife and
demon face, it's legitimately scary. And when
Gary Oldman sees a bull terrier with an upside
down head growling in a temple, it's actually
memorable.
But it's not enough. While "The Unborn"
has great images and fresh ideas, nothing ever
quite meshes. Goyer is still green at directing,
and he throws his scenes together with little
cohesion or flair.
Horror films can easily sling cheap thrills at
audiences, usually using tense "Psycho"-esque
strings inthesoundtrack anderashedits.Goyer'
lazily uses these tools, in addition to innocuous
slow motion and baroque angles. As a result,
one can't help but imagine this material in th
hands of a skilled horror director. There's a
reason "The Dark Knight" was so good: Goyer
let someone else direct his material. What if
Guillermo Del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth") or Eli
Roth ("Hostel") got a crack at this? Think of all
the tension and thrills people could get from a
Goyer collaboration with one of those guys.
Instead, "The Unborn" is just a slightly aver-
age January thriller. Keep writing, Goyer.
When Iinitiallyhbought
The Cure's Disintegra-
tion I absolutely hated
it. I resented the
album because y
it was mopey,
shapeless and
way too good for
me. I could tell it
was great, but in
some ivory tower JOSH
sort of way that J
I would never SAYER
fully understand.
Then I broke up with my girl-
friend.
After that, it was like I was
listening to the record through
a completely different set of ear-
drums. Its ambiently undulating
odysseys used to bore me to death;
post-breakup, they washed over
me like a Zen wave of remedial
hopelessness. The Cure, indeed. For
two weeks, I wanted nothingbut
to take long hotbaths in the band's
angsty brilliance. Before, the record
hadn't even sounded like music
to me. There had been no driving
force behind it. It would just slosh
tepidly in my ears like lukewarm
bathwater. But when I listened to
Disintegration on a family road trip
the day after the breakup, it hit me
that it was driven by emotion. What
had previously sounded like back-
ground music cocooned me like a
warm sweater as I slouched bleary-
eyed in the backseat of my mom's
car. Heartache had unlocked the
door to the ivory tower.
So as I sit here now, wallowing
in this bittersweet nostalgia, a
burning question springs to mind:
What makes me like music? Being
a music critic, this is particularly
distressing. Had I reviewed Dis-
integration pre-breakup, I would
have panned it as drearily plod-
ding Goth sludge. But if I were to
review it now, I would worship it
as a slow-burn cathartic tour de
force. So when I have only a week
to listen to and assess a given
albums for the Daily, how can I
possibly be expected to regurgi-
tate a ripened opiion about it?
Now, I want to make it crystal
clear that I am not tryingto detan-
gle this riddle of "what makes
good music?" for the masses. Not
at all. How could I? I'm tangled
up enough myself. But what I am
doing is letting you ride shotgun
while I attempt to cure my own
idiosyncratic confusion.
Music could easily hold the
throne as the most subjective art
form in the big, bad kingdom of art
forms. And while we can bicker
endlessly about lush arrangements
and technical prowess and how
fucked-up Bjork is, when it comes
down to the nitty-gritty, all that
truly matters is the way music
makes us feel. Plain and simple. It
may sound trite, but it's true. It is
for me, at least.
It's primal, sometimes even
sexual. It's a gut feeling I get
every time I hear the guitar solo
in "Summer Babe" by Pavement.
Or the gooseflesh that explodes on
my forearms like serrated Braille
whenever Thom Yorke soars into
his wraithlike falsetto. That's
when I know something's work-
ing, how I know the music's doing
its job.
But is it?
If I'm driving my car down
Main Street on a balmy April
afternoon, with the windows
down and the tantalizing aroma
of restaurants I can't afford waft-
ing into my nostrils, I'm goingto
think whatever I'm listening to is
a masterpiece. Hell, after having
a stimulating conversation with
someone, I could probably wax
poetic to Lil' Jon. Maybe that's a
bit of a stretch, but the point I'm
trying to make is that my enjoy-
ment and appreciation of music
is strongly contingent on not only
how it makes me feel, but also how
I'm feelingbefore I even hear it.
So maybe that's it. Music is like
a padlocked treasure chest, and
we need only to be in the right
state of mind to ransack its riches.,
Fair enough.
But what about differentiating
between the different creams of
the crop, or between the albums
I've already labeled as "my favor-
ites"? Being a music elitist, I obvi-
ously need to have an all-time
favorite album. You know, for
when people ask. And when they
do, I tell them Radiohead's Kid A.
But I could just as easily tell them
In Rainbows. While the former
may be what I deem "the perfect
album," the latter is my go-to; the
one I'll spin when nothing else
is doing it for me. In Rainbows
boasts the highest playcounts on
my iPod by a complete landslide.
It makes me giddy no matter what
Even I don't
know what I like.
mood I'm in. But, as a critic, I'll
tip my hat to KidA for its sheer
sonic infinity. Every time I listen
to the album, I'll hear something 1
haven't heard before. And I listen
to it a lot. So which one is better?
Which one is truly my favorite? I
have no idea.
I guess the more important
question is: Does any of this really
matter? I like to think it doesn't.
Sure, this skittish self-analysis
can provide for some thought-
provoking cognitive aerobics.
But if I'm stoned at Lollapalooza,
Broken Social Scene is playing
"Cause=Time," and I'm so moved
I'm on the verge of tears (hypo-
thetically, of course), I'm not going
to waste one second pondering
why I'm in spch ecstasy. I'm just
going to feel it.
Bayer is just looking for a
new girlfriend. Cheer him up
at jrbayer@umich.edu
enough junk food ("Death Warrant," "Dark
City") to last Spike a lifetime.
But as a director, Goyer kinda ... sucks.
The weak direction is only thing holding
back "The Unborn," a consistently interesting
but ultimately medicore new thriller written
and directed by Goyer. A brilliant idea-making
kind of man, Goyer keeps enough utterly crazy
shit on the screen at all times to keep audiences
amused, but he never quite leads the film in the
direction he should. "The Unborn" is a perfect
A menagerie of creative clarity
By MATT EMERY plex album they offer.
Daily Arts Writer With Merriweather Post Pavil-
ion, two things are now poignant-
Animal Collective has never ly clear: Panda and Avey are no
been transparent. Leaders Avey longer complete mystery men and
Tare and Panda Bear's songs are Animal Collective's growing fan
caked in lay- base will continue to develop with
ers of technical the group's most accessible, soni-
production with cally reserved effort yet. There
many of their Aimal are no more songs that might
lyrics shrouded not even be songs, and fewer
and garbled, COIIediVe obtrusive squeals and wandering
as if they were Merriweather sounds. Also, someone told Avey
singing in an Post Pavilion he didn't need to scream any-
aquarium. The . more, which is nice.
sporadic yet cal- Still, from the first warbles of
culated sounds opening track "In the Flowers,"
and production have always it's painfully clear that Animal
trumped Animal Collective's Collective isn't looking for abso-
characteristically indecipherable lute clarity this time around. B3ut
lyrics. Merriweather is an astoundingly
Similar to their lyrics, Tare and crisp, buttery effort that not only
Bear's lives rest in relative secrecy. rounds out a lot of the blunt edges
They don't do many interviews. from the band's first few albums,
They don't blog constantly. Even but also ups the lyrical deftness of
press photos are scarce. All they 2007'sStrawberry Jam. All of these
really have speaking for them is elements formulate what is sure to
their music, and it has certainly be one of the most technically and
helped their legendary status grow vocally precise albums of 2009.
exponentially with each new, com- Merriweather is a decidedly
adult album. Despite the thinly
veiled drug references (including
the lyrics "If I could only leave my
body for the night" on "In the Flow-
ers" and the cross between an opti-
cal illusion and a "Magic Eye" book
that is the album cover), Panda and
'Tare are growing up. Panda feels
domestic on "My Girls," singing,
"Is it much to admit I need / a solid
soul and the blood I bleed / With a
little girl, and by my spouse / I only
want a proper house." On "Daily
Routine," the production - full of
chirpsandelongatedvocalpatterns
- mimics the daily routine of pro-
tecting a child from gas fumes and
stopping at traffic signals before
the vocals blend into stretched and
desolate shutters. The songs pack a
bit of raw emotion that didn't seem
possible on Animal Collective's
previous albums, especially under-
neath the complex drum patterns
of Sung Tongs and Tare's old pen-
chant for screaming.
For all its wispy hits and swirl-
ingtmelodies aboutleaves and flow-
ers, Merriweather pushes a more
dance-oriented Animal Collective,
though with more than a touch
of hippie musical elements. The
grinding and mechanical "Sum-
mertime Clothes" is scrubbed
clean by dueling and jovial chimes
from both Tare and Bear about
the healing powers of the sun.
But the undercurrents of tension
and fear create a fitting, grounded
quality, which can be seen when
Tare sings, "Walking around in
our summertime clothes / Know
where to go when our bodies go."
True to form, Animal Collective
still enjoys embracing its tribal
and jungle influences. "Lion in a
Coma" skips along injected with a
didgeridoo-like beat and the sound
of buzzing insects, and "Guys
Eyes" sounds like it was recorded
in a swamp where Tare and Bear's
vocals compete for a dose of fresh
air. The subtle touches to songs
like these and the delicate lyrics of
love-song "Bluish" show just why
Animal Collective has such a cult
following: No one else can make
songs so astonishingly complex.
"Brother Sport" feels like a
dance song, even though it may not
be, with the lyrics "Open up your,
open up your, open up your throat,
and let them go" falling into video
game blips and bloops, compli-
mented by a siren-like squalor. It's
an outcast on the album, falling
into the final slot, and it might be
the closest the group has to cling-
ing to its alienating self of old. But
underneath it all are the complex
connections ofvocals and the com-
puter splashes that should never go
together so well.
What really pulls "Brother
Sport" into Merriweather Post
Pavilion is the culmination of all
the things that have worked so well
for Animal Collective, not just on
the album, but for the past decade.
Dance and hippie
jams all in one.
It's a bit of an anomaly after all the
flowing tracks, but Merriweather
wouldn't be the same without
"Brother Sport." It's a peppy, dance-
and-chant-oriented reminder of
the group's eclectic tendencies that
shows that even on top of such an
emotionally raw disc, Animal Col-
lective really has found its stride
and picked its best elements to craft
a startlingly precise album.
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