The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 7A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday. October 21, 2009 - 7A
Not cops with donuts - lawyers with donuts! See? It's original, now!v
A flnot to
ARTS IN BRIEF
Music
Neon Indian's bipolar masterpiece
Neon Indian
Psychic Chasms
Columbia
Like the band's very name suggests, Neon Indian simul-
taneously incorporates both the old and the new. The other-
worldly Technicolor ambiance of Psychic Chasms is rendered
familiar by its reassuring '90s lo-fi mumblings, and a sense of
world-weariness permeates the record despite the bizarrely
bright synths. Psychic Chasms is a study of contrasts - vivid
clarity juxtaposed with jaded burbles, and novelty paired
against the status quo.
Neon Indian is the third musical project of Alan Palomo,
who at the tender age of 21 is also already affiliated with
the now-defunct Ghosthustler as well as VEGA, an ongoing
project. Lyrically, the record is presented in retrospective,
reminiscing on an idealized past from the perspective of a
cynical present. The vocals on Psychic Chasms, although
mostly indiscernible, clearly reflect disillusionment with
the contemporary world and a longing for the past.
"Deadbeat Summer," the discs's most radio-friendly and
appealing track, is a testament to the creative bipolarity of
Neon Indian. The track epitomizes the nature of the release
by mergingthe familiar with the strange. The songhas a nos-
talgic feel of summers long gone, with a backdrop of zingy,
twee electronic bleep-bops. The youthfully druggy "Should
Have Taken Acid With You" is another track with a wist-
ful, slightly melancholy and sentimental sound. The song's
tone is delibeiately sweet and regretful, painting a picture
of halcyon days of yore. The idyllic past is a consistent theme
woven throughout the entirety of Psychic Chasms.
"Mind, Drips" is a distortedly fuzzy '80s flashback with
intermittent electro-pop buzzing reminiscent of retro-
futuristic spaceship sounds. The track is somewhat pre-
dictably gimmicky as a result, but an enjoyable listen in the
guilty pleasure sense. In fact, Psychic Chasms itself is a bit
of a guilty pleasure, with its unabashed embrace of rebel-
without-a-cause-ness. But it's a pleasure to indulge and wal-
low in the past alongside Palomo.
All this rumination on the past may have listeners eager
to hear about the future. The effort ends with the appropri-
ately titled "Seriously, It's Over," leaving us looking forward
to the next stages of Neon Indian.
JASMINE ZHU
'Law Abiding Citizen'
murders the very idea of
character development
By NICK COSTON
Daily Arts Writer
In 1817, philosopher and poet Samuel Taylor
Coleridge devised a formula for
fiction known as the suspension *
of disbelief. It theorizes that an
audience is willing to overlook Law Abiding
certain preposterous aspects of MM
a story in order to better engross
itself in the unfolding narrative. At Quality16
"Law Abiding Citizen," the latest and Showcase
film from director F. Gary Gray Overture
("Be Cool"), tries harder to prove
Coleridge wrong than almost any other film this
year. It's so absurd, so nonsensical, so offensively
stupid that one has to wonder if it's some sort of
nihilist exercise in bad filmmaking that exceeds
apathy and dives straight into contempt for logic.
The titular citizen is Clyde Shelton (Gerard
Butler, "300"), a retired spy who goes on a killing
spree from inside prison after his wife and daugh-
ter are killed in the film's first 30 seconds by two
worthless and unimportant characters who have
no connection to the succeeding two hours. Jamie
Foxx ("Collateral") is Nick Rice, a rising star in the
Philadelphia district attorney's office who has built
his career on orchestrating shady plea bargains
- including one. with the murderer .of Shelton's
family. It's up to Rice to stop Shelton's murderous
rampage, because apparently Philadelphia doesn't
have any police officers or detectives.
Speaking of Philadelphia, the audience has no
idea the film takes place in the City of Brotherly
Love until the final 30 minutes (bear in mind that
two of the most important characters are the dis-
trict attorney and the mayor). Characters talk
about terrified citizens evacuating"our proud city,"
and putting a cop on every corner of "the city" and
how Shelton owns a number of properties outside
of"city limits;" meanwhile, the audience throws up
its hands and asks, "What city?"
As District Attorney Rice, Foxx performs about
as admirably as could be imagined of a man playing
a hybrid lawyer-cop. Unless the real Philadelphia
has recently adopted a radical form of law enforce-
ment, its public servants do not fly police helicop-
ters or attempt to defuse bombs or carry a firearm
as Foxx does.
While Foxx doesn't do anything to inspire
hatred - he didn't write his own bad dialogue,
f after all - Butler's performance is a laughable
sight to behold. His accent, purportedly intended
to reflect a native of the United States' East Coast,
falls somewhere between Scottish brogue and
perpetual chewer of skirt steak. His face is con-
tinuously twisted into what is supposed to be an
evil grin but looks more like a visit to the dentist.
More problematic than his bad accent and smile,
however, is his deplorably cold reaction to his
family's murder.
Butler's Shelton is the driving force behind
what makes "Citizen" so loathsome. The problem
begins when director Gray offers no more than a
title card reading "Ten Years Later" to illustrate
Shelton's descent from sorrow to murderous rage.
Although time has passed within the film, the
audience is jarred by the tasteless proximity of
his family's death to the beginning of his rampage
- he captures, tortures and gruesomely murders
the killer within minutes of his family's demise,
real-time. And he does so with a sick smile on his
face, while taunting the helpless criminal he has
strapped to atable in a warehouse basement. Shel-
ton's vengeance is complete, seemingly before the
movie even begins, and it's exacted in a manner
that inspires repulsion rather than sympathy. As
a result, he's given no humanity to counterbal-
ance his villainous qualities.
It's not unreasonable to portray a man violent-
ly deprived of his wife and daughter as mentally
unstable. But Shelton shows no signs of such emo-
tional vulnerability or progression. It's as if this
ice-cold maniac just happened to have been mar-
ried with a child - as if his domestic past has no
genuine impact on his soul, and his family's death
merely provided him with the opportunity to kill
dozens of people and falsely justify it.
"Law Abiding Citizen" has a slew of problems.
It's poorly written, poorly acted and poorly direct-
ed. But worse than that, it's offensive. Ittakes a man
in a potentially vulnerable position and transforms
him, unnecessarily and inexplicably, into a glee-
ful mass murderer. If Gray wanted to make Shel-
ton the villain, that's fine. But by failing to intercut
Shelton's killing spree with some sign - any sign
- of grief for his departed wife and daughter, the
director destroyed the only shred of believability
he might have otherwise achieved.
Worst hiding spot ever.
,rsover-gelle
hal( turns t em off*
*National survey of 2,500 gidue18-24
conducted by Strategy0ne June and July 2008
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