Cast Away

Cast Away isn’t just a film where one escapes by taking a dramatic adventure, but is also an escape from the traditional adventure film. Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks worked together before on the cult-classic Forest Gump, and their teaming up will have that as the staple memory. Their efforts together shine much brighter with Cast Away a three-act desert Island story that avoids all cartoonish gimmicks that desert Island stories carry. We are attached to Hank’s character by admiring his determination and obsession with time, trotting the globe motivating and organizing FedEx workers. His relationship with Kelly, played by Helen Hunt, is leveling its way into an engagement when Chuck hands her a box to be opened New Year’s Eve when he gets back from the South Pacific. The plane crash is the most terrifying part and it leaves us just as adrift and scared for Chuck when he and his raft tumble through the vast blackness of the South Pacific storm.

            In the second act we are on the island with Chuck watching him learn to adapt step by step. What makes this separate from most other island adventure films is that there is no background music while he is on the island. While the film is setting up we are tapping our toes to Elvis and holiday music throughout Chuck’s busy 21^st century life in the industrialized world. The film never cuts back to the industrialized, as so many Island movies do, feeling the need to hit us over the head with, “hey you’re missing out on life”. There is no soundtrack to island life, just the rustling palms and the pounding tides.

            The third act is Chuck leaving the island, and there is an unforgettable shot of the island from a distance, and is the first time in a long time that we hear music. The violins come in and Chuck is prepared to endure the worst on his tiny-wooden raft. Before the classic, and now overly spoofed scene of losing our beloved Wilson, Chuck endures a storm that tears his tiny vessel apart. While it leaves him more stranded than he’s ever been at this point, his attitude towards losing his make-shift sail is, as forest Gump would say “shit happens”.  After being rescued and brought back to the familiar sounds of busy airports and Elvis tracks in the comfort of Memphis, Chuck re-unites with the one-who-got-away, letting the love he was longing for the whole time on the Island go.

            The film came so close to being a Gilligan-type gimmick and leaving Chuck at a literal cross-road at the end of the movie works much better than a run off the plane, kiss Helen Hunt, and roll the credits hoisting hanks on our shoulders as so many welcome home scenes are. The closing of the film is so realistic because it captures the awkwardness of having to start over from everyone thinking your dead and being so used to the fact that you are gone.  

A Review of Lupe Fiasco

A Review of Lupe Fiasco’s “Words I Never Said”

From the blaring siren opening chorus, the drumbeat is showing us that a revolution is underway but how seriously is it to be taken? People compare Lupe Fiasco’s song “Words I Never Said” to a protest song from the Vietnam era though the merit of the song lies more with the economic complaints rather than the ones on foreign policy. The line “Crooked banks around the world, would gladly give a loan today, so you can miss a payment and they can take your home away,” and the line, “Your child’s future was the first to go with the budget cuts,” make it work more as a clash of the classes song since he only mentions the war on terror and attacks on Gaza in the first verse. Sixties protest songs were short and simple, since it doesn’t take a long rap verse to tell people that killing is bad. Protest-raps are long-winded, which is fine but that leaves a lot of room for garbage. The lines on the schools and banks carry a fact behind with the anger, which he lacks with all of the lines concerning his conspiratorial politics.

By going after Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, it seems rather hypocritical to stoop to their level by asking, “9/11, building 7, did they really pull it?” Like Beck, Fiasco can get the paranoid fired up while not really taking responsibility for what he says. It is one thing to call the war on terror “bullshit”, since you can’t go to war with an emotion, and the way we are approaching Al-Queda may not be the most efficient or ethical. He could even go after the media for persecuting Muslims. Though there is something cheap about questioning the perpetrators of the September 11^th attacks.  Since he only gave that line in the form of a question, he can just throw up his arms and go don’t look at me, I’m just the guy asking questions, when put under pressure for saying it. It’s the only line in the song with a question mark at the end of it that carries the attitude of a conviction and it throws all reasonable credibility of the song out the window.

While a solution is not required of a protest song it is encouraged since the skeptical will ask, “How would you handle the situation, or run things better?” Fiasco indicts the American people for their docility by saying “I think that all the silence is worse than all of the violence”. But what is his solution? Not voting, “Next one neither”, referring to the upcoming 2012 elections. He even stated in interviews that he wants to encourage kids to not vote, while insisting they aren’t doing enough to fight the powers that be. Is there a worse form of political silence out there?

Don Hall

Notes on “Critical Condition”

            I have to say Don Hall was the critic in the conversation that I most related to.

He emphasized early on, that being self-aware is one of the most important aspects to a critic.  “Know your own prejudices” is an example he gives. Acknowledging that he has such prejudices is the first step to over-looking them, as much as realizing that “you know nothing” is what drives one to want to learn everything.  Hall also calls the critics he disagrees with “hacks” rather than writers he disagrees with. So with an awareness of prejudice and a knack for name calling, this shows me that he is no stranger to conflict in reviewing. He wants the element of argument out there so long as the reviewer is “at least sharp or precise as what they are slamming”. 

            Conversational reviews are the best kind there are. You feel like the person is talking directly to you and the piece is being praised and criticized back and forth until the best and worst elements are brought out, and the grey areas have relatable justifications. He asks if critics have courage or are stubbornly opinionated. Knowing the witty room full of self-deprecators will take the latter he defends the position that there is nothing wrong with being stubborn. “Passion and Education go hand in hand”.  Arguing over subjectivity can be dismissed as a waste of time when compared to arguing about politics.

            While one should not spend a year debating with a stranger on which of the most recent Goo Goo Dolls albums are the most tolerable, trying to get the other person to wrap their head around the joy that that work of art brings will be far more satisfying to the ideal of “intellectualizing an emotional response”.

            Hall’s input to the conversation is minimal but shows a desire to put up a fight. His question on whether or not critics have courage seems like the kind of ultimatums he would set up for his readers. The ultimatums are a good way to get into an argumentative mode with oneself taking the reader along if there are no opposing voices available. He also puts an emphasis on knowledge, which means the potential conversationalists in his online forum are not just bantering on why one thing “sucks” and another “rocks”. The emphasis on knowledge will hone in on details worth deciphering between the disagreeing parties. Regardless of how many U2 songs I like I still felt stupid during Henry Rollin’s rant on how they have “been milking the same bass-line and guitar riff for 5 albums”. Clever, cutting, and not what I wanted to hear but felt better after hearing it.

            I reference Henry Rollins helping me realize I’ve “been had” by U2 because I also agree with Hall’s comment on it takes courage to criticize the powerful. Everyone I have shown Rollin’s rant on U2 to I made sure, liked U2 to see if they would have the same realization and were just plain offended. I didn’t just enjoy the rant I enjoyed the amount of light Rollins was producing from the inevitable heat he would be willing to take from disapproving U2 lovers. “Know your prejudices” is advice that will serve critics well and it will help one tear down the prejudices of other more easily.