Ben Tobin Johnson's Blog, page 3

BABYMETAL Can’t Hear Your Disbelief Over the Sound of How Awesome Their New Album Is

“I’m not sure what I’m about to see,” Stephen Colbert begins, cuing a chorus of nervous laughter. “But I’m pretty excited about it!”

Thus begins BABYMETAL’s first performance on American network television. While Colbert misattributes the infectiously weird “Gimme Chocolate!” to their recently released Metal Resistance, the performance otherwise carries on in typical BABYMETAL fashion: fast, loud, occasionally disturbing, and completely indifferent to your comfort zone. What could be more metal than that?

So, for those unfamiliar with this particular Japanese export (and there may not be many of you left by now), BABYMETAL is a metal band founded by babies.

Just kidding!

Sorta.

Fronted by 3 bubbly teenage girls and backed by a group of creepy-stage-makeup-wearing headbangers, BABYMETAL sounds exactly like what that description implies: sugary, ebullient J-Pop energy married to an onslaught of blast-beating, guitar soloing metal. Across two studio albums, the band sings (mostly in Japanese) about the trials of growing up, the complicated greatness of chocolate, martial arts as a metaphor for personal courage, and other ultra un-metal topics.

As you can imagine, this heresy has cultivated a small army of very, very upset human beings. I won’t bore you with the specifics of every butthurt “epic rant” blogged/vlogged in opposition to BABYMETAL’s international success – Google is more than equal to the task.

Instead, I’d like to merrily dance on the grave of every outraged comment and bad attitude – including my own – thrown at this band now that their second album, Metal Resistance, has proven what they can do. At first, I dismissed BABYMETAL as another thinly veiled bid to harvest the wallets of two separate audiences simultaneously, at least as far as their management was concerned. I’m not convinced that assessment is 100% wrong, either. At this point, however, it’s irrelevant; because Metal Resistance is as metal as metal gets.

BABYMETAL’s self-titled debut had a few high points, but seemed to lack a cohesive direction despite its singular strangeness. Songs like the aforementioned “Gimme Chocolate!” and “Megitsune” were accessible overall, even while flirting with questionable stylistic contrasts. Meanwhile tracks like “BABYMETAL DEATH”, “Ijime, Dame, Zettai”, and “Road of Resistance” (which opens Metal Resistance) proved they generally knew their way around heavier territory. But as a whole, the album felt disjointed and uncompelling; it showed a great deal of promise, but fell short of delivering. It was Season One of Parks and Recreation.

My opinion began to mutate once I saw a few clips of their live performances. I still wasn’t convinced I liked their music, but I couldn’t deny their dedication to exhausting performances or the morbid appeal of their unnerving theatricality. It wasn’t until I saw them stage a mock crucifixion during one of their shows that it dawned on me: this band had actually disturbed me, even slightly – dare I say it – offended me. Not because of the religious blasphemy, but because those motifs had long been the purview of my favorite super-mega-evil-dude bands like Behemoth, Gorgoroth, or Dark Funeral. There was something viscerally troubling about 3 teenagers in tutu’s skipping around blood-red stage lighting, pyrotechnics, and mock executions. Do their parents know where they are right now?

Provoked but unable to explain exactly what my objections were, I realized that BABYMETAL had won me over through the sheer madness of their work.

It’s not often that a band challenges my sensibilities. After all, it’s been several decades since parents everywhere first collectively blanched at the profane iconography and transgressive lyrics of heavy metal. In that era, metal was rebellious and even revolutionary; and in countries where violating blasphemy laws carries a heavy penalty – like Iran – it still is. But you can only butter the bread with blasphemy for so long before sacrilege becomes its own kind of sacred cow.

Someone had to blaspheme the blasphemous, disgrace the disgracious, and profane the profanatory. That someone was BABYMETAL. What could be more heretical to a self-serious scene flush with machismo than a trio of teeny-bopper Japanese idols singing about candy and boys?

Even if their music wasn’t particularly good (my initial assessment), BABYMETAL would deserve credit solely for breaking new ground in a genre that prided itself on trailblazing. Fortunately though, their latest release canonizes the distinction of a record and a band worthy of every metalhead’s attention.

Metal Resistance is a fascinating exercise in genre splicing. It’s equal parts cute and creepy, dabbling in divergent musical subgenres with impressive confidence. “KARATE” explores the more conventional tropes of metalcore (aggressive riffing accompanies the verses while soaring melodies carry the anthemic chorus) and results in one of the strongest tracks in BABYMETAL’s entire discography. “Awadama Fever” delivers a high octane blend of industrial big beat and pop-punk energy, which in turns gives way to “YAVA!” – a schizophrenic journey through insistent up-strumming guitars, explosive techno, subtle nods to surf-rock, and even a breakdown. I didn’t think BABYMETAL could get away with borrowing from the likes of Cryptopsy and Aborted, but “Sis. Anger” proved me wrong. “Tales of the Destinies” issues rapid-fire Dillinger Escape Plan-like pinch harmonics over layers of a Between the Buried and Me-esque fusion of progressive metal and whatever pops into the song’s head from moment to moment.

It is delirious, aberrant musical abandon; a Japanese transcription of Alice’s travels through Wonderland as told by Harley Quinn.

That’s to say nothing of the lighter, more intimate moments that counterbalance Metal Resistance‘s 50+ minute runtime – each one adding to the startling, brazen complexity BABYMETAL has finally subjugated.

Metal Resistance, like the band behind it, isn’t for everyone. Even with my love of metal and experimental music, I’m still struggling to contextualize and assimilate it within my listening habits.

But I think that’s what lies at the core of great art; the ability to provoke, challenge, and even offend. Metal Resistance isn’t great art per se, but given how quickly the band crystallized a new subgenre of music (in the subgenre-saturated arena of metal, no less), it’s more than just a standout sophomore effort. It’s so unprecedented, it almost defies description.

That’s why BABYMETAL’s Metal Resistance is my inaugural Album of the Month, and the next musical expedition you should conduct.

But don’t take my word for it…

Harry Potter and the Screenwriter’s Gamble

“I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.”

Charles Kuralt

I won’t pretend to know exactly who Charles Kuralt was before that quick trip to Wikipedia five minutes ago, but this quote has stuck with me for years. This idea can be extended, I believe, to include film as well – good writing comes from good watching, so to speak.

The latest revelatory viewing experience I had was re-watching the third film in the Harry Potter franchise: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

There’s a reason this entry is the second-highest rated of the series (outmatched only by the bombastic final installment), and a great deal of it has to do with director Alfonso Cuarón’s emphasis on a distinct visual language. In a more tangible sense, however, the film’s climax delivers a practical lesson on how to get away with utilizing one of storytelling’s biggest no-no’s: deus ex machina (Latin for god from the machine, or god out of the machine).

In a sentence, deus ex machina is a contrived narrative device that cheaply solves a problem for the characters involved. As a result, they don’t earn their victory and the audience winds up cheated out of a narrative payoff.

Throughout Prisoner of Azkaban, a few key conflicts appear to be resolved via deus ex machina:

While inside Hagrid’s hut, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are alerted – via anonymously thrown stones – to the approach of the Minister of Magic and his executioner; en route to execute the hippogriff Buckbeak. This gives the trio time to engineer the condemned creature’s escape.
Werewolf Professor Lupin – in wolf form – is called into the woods by what sounds like the call of another werewolf, seconds before he would have eviscerated Harry and company.
Finally, Harry and his godfather Sirius Black are rescued from the wraith-like Dementors by the spontaneous summoning of a patronus nearby, which Harry believes to be his deceased father’s doing.

As you might have surmised, however, none of these supposed moments reveal actual deus ex machina at work. In the film’s eleventh hour, Hermione reveals to Harry a Time Turner Professor McGonagall gifted her – allowing the pair to travel back in time and:

Toss stones into Hagrid’s hut, alerting their past selves to the impending danger and facilitating Buckbeak’s escape.
Imitate the call of a werewolf, rescuing their past selves from certain doom.
Witness the Dementor attack, prompting Harry to realize that it was his time-turned self, and not his father, who summoned the patronus and warded off the spectral foes.

As usual, real-world questions of causality and the quantum mechanics of time travel are best kept away from stories about magic.

Still, there’s real-world lessons to be learned from these narrative acrobatics. The element of time travel effectively allows our protagonists to become their own deus ex machina, which isn’t really deus ex machina after all.

But even in this clever workaround, the characters aren’t immune to unforeseen consequences and conflicts. When Hermione imitates the call of the werewolf, for example, this only transfers the lupine danger from their past selves to their time traveling selves. Buckbeak ultimately comes to their rescue, but only because they earlier changed time and accomplished his escape in the first place.

So in each instance of seeming deus ex machina, the characters incur a small narrative debt which they must repay during their dalliance with time travel. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but provides yet another instructive example on how breaking the rules – when properly executed – can yield refreshing, rewarding results.

The 88th Academy Award Winners! (From a Parallel Universe)

Greetings!

The recent confirmation of Einstein’s predicted gravitational waves has led to a series of discoveries in the near future that results in a spatio-temporal distortion through which a textual anomaly appears: this blog post.

In a parallel universe, the 88th Academy Awards ceremony is not plagued by wildly overrated nominees and social controversy. Instead, the Academy’s artistic integrity and even-handed judging leads to a ceremony so powerful that the day afterward is thenceforth declared a national holiday. Now, thanks to the daring initiative of one writer, you can glimpse this distant sliver of the multiverse for yourself in all its glory below.

In said parallel universe, unlike this one, the so-called minor categories (the Shorts, Foreign Language features, Documentaries, etc.) are widely venerated and writer Ben Tobin Johnson totally saw all of them, like for real. But since interest in those categories is limited here, this breach in the fabric of space-time will focus only on those more high profile categories. Having said that, some of the best films in recent years have come from those categories, so get in the habit of checking them out.

On to the parallel-universe winners!

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

In the first of many surprises, the vote comes down to an exact tie between Adam McKay and Charles Randolph’s irreverent adaptation of The Big Short and Drew Goddard’s deft juggling act of multiple character arcs in The Martian. As the envelope is torn open and presenter Will Ferrell tries to convince the audience he’s not joking about the tie, laughter nearly drowns out the orchestra attempting to force a commercial break. Being the good sports that they are however, both winners ascend the stage to the raucous delight of the audience, yelling their acceptance speeches over each other while pantomiming a tug-of-war with the coveted trophy. As they finally exit the stage, laughter gives way to a cathartic fist fight among several prominent attendees. Dame Helen Mirren is ultimately crowned champion of the impromptu brawl, which she describes to the press later as something she “secretly always hoped for.”

 

Best Original Screenplay

Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington take home this award for Creed, a script sporting well-developed secondary characters, excellent pacing, and the uncanny ability to transcend those well-worn tropes of the formula in which it revels. Their acceptance speech, while brief, acknowledges that the film’s opening fails to fully explicate Mary Anne Creed’s (Phylicia Rashad) character motivation as clearly as the rest of its cast. Interrupting, Aaron Sorkin stands up and shouts that the ambiguity is context-appropriate given that it foreshadows and underscores Adonis’ (Michael B. Jordan) complicated relationship with his past. Coogler and Covington wink a thanks to Sorkin, who replies with finger pistols. Before leaving the stage Covington adds that if they hadn’t won, he would have wanted Ex Machina to take the award, given how much it manages to accomplish with so little. Coogler counters with Inside Out, citing “literally the entire movie” while security attempts to restrain a now hysterical Sorkin. Kerry Washington has to push the two, still arguing, off-stage in order to present the next award.

 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

As Alicia Vikander ascends the steps to claim the Oscar for her unnervingly precise performance in Ex Machina, Domhnall Gleeson (winner of Co-Star Magazine’s “Guy Who Was in That Too” Award for 2015) nods approvingly. Oscar Isaac sits near Gleeson, flanked on either side by expressionless women. The pair later join Isaac in a dance-off described by one reporter as “the creepiest in the history of Oscar night after party dance-offs.” Vikander’s acceptance speech is breathless, beginning with how honored she is to share the nominee pool with the likes of Tessa Thompson and Jennifer Jason Leigh. She concludes by congratulating the Academy on accurately assessing the difference between a supporting role and a lead role, and assigning nominations accordingly. “Perhaps in some strange parallel universe,” she muses with a wry grin, “the categories aren’t as well-defined, and I’m nominated for a supporting award in one ceremony and a lead award in another for the same role. Maybe, in that same universe, I’m nominated for another film altogether! I know it sounds crazy, but who knows? Anything is possible.”

 

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

With three different nominees taking this category at the SAG awards, BAFTAs, and Golden Globes, the Academy has no idea how to proceed. Thus, Christian Bale receives the Oscar with the Academy citing the “frightening music” he had to endure for the role. Bale points to John Cena in the audience, admitting “I was rooting for you to take this one, mate.” Cena mouths Thank you in reply, wiping a single tear away, then points to Trainwreck co-star Lebron James. James, in turn, shakes his head and shouts to Bale, “I was rooting for you!” Stallone takes up the chant, and soon the ceremony is on the verge of another riot as everyone insists they wanted someone other than themselves to take the award. Dame Helen calms the rising clamor with a withering stare and forceful flick of the hand, then nods for Bale to continue. He goes on to further acknowledge that he could have “listened to Cattle Decap, or even some Mayhem, given Hellhammer’s speed and range as a percussionist, but comparatively familiar artists like Metallica, Pantera and Mastodon seemed the more pragmatic choice since awards ceremonies don’t really get metal anyway.” In the back of the hall, Papa Emeritus III solemnly nods an “Amen.”

 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role

In one of a few crossovers between this parallel universe and ours, Brie Larson rides a SAG award, a BAFTA win, and a Golden Globe to Oscar triumph for her role in Room. Tearfully clutching her prize, she begins by thanking the voting committees involved in her victory for not confusing this film with The Room, but nonetheless suggests that everyone see it before The Disaster Artist comes out. She points to the other nominees in her category, honored to have shared the pool with Amy Poehler in particular, whose nomination for Inside Out marks the first time for a voice-only performance. Poehler, in turn, slings a thankful arm around Andy Serkis. Charlize Theron holds a firm, authoritative fist over her heart as Larson confesses she “tries to live each day like Imperator Furiosa.” Cate Blanchett solemnly whispers “Witness me…” Larson concludes by reminding everyone that she’s not Allison Brie, though she takes the confusion of their names as a compliment. Allison Brie later admits in an interview that the two have been playing a Parent Trap-like prank on the world, and their names are indeed reversed.

 

Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role

In the other major crossover between this parallel universe and ours, Leonardo DiCaprio finally snags his first Oscar win for his role in The Revenant. Sharing the same triple-threat award streak that practically guaranteed Larson her Oscar, DiCaprio’s win also enjoyed the aid of an authentic vomiting scene. When asked whether Emmanuel Lubezkis’ atmospheric and stunning cinematography contributed to his performance, DiCaprio was characteristically self-effacing: “Chivo’s camerawork has been known to artificially improve the performance of whoever is onscreen; he can’t help it, he’s just too good. Meet Joe Black is a three hour long romantic drama, for crying out loud, yet it only feels a fraction of that length because of how engaging the cinematography is. To The Wonder would be almost unwatchable without his contributions.” When the same question was posed to Lubezki, the revered cinematographer shook his head: “Leo won because he pushed himself and turned in an incredible performance.” Director Alejandro Iñárritu echoed Lubezki’s sentiments: “We originally set out to make a family comedy about a father and son who bond during a camping trip, but Leo showed up on set the first day with a ‘sleeping bag’ that I’m fairly certain was a horse carcass. He earned every inch of that statue.”

 

Best Director

George Miller wins for Mad Max: Fury Road in this and every other parallel universe out there.

 

Best Picture

Finally, the moment everyone has been waiting for arrives. The fragile truce declared earlier has disintegrated, Dame Helen’s cold command is no longer sufficient to maintain order, and the Dolby Theater is now occupied by numerous factions vying to take the award by any means necessary.

Emboldened by their Best Director win, the cast and crew of Mad Max: Fury Road have reapplied their crusty costumes and makeup, and form the most physically and vocally imposing of the Oscar’s warring factions. Coogler and Covington have decided to lend their support to Team Ex Machina, while the alliance between The Big Short and The Martian has further solidified on the grounds that both films are “serious comedies.”

Spielberg and co. have already vacated the ceremonies at this point, leaving history to judge whether Bridge of Spies will be remembered favorably. (SPOILER: Of course it will) When asked to comment further, Spielberg remarked that he made the film he wanted to make, he always does, and he’s now ready to get back to “pwning n00bs in Call of Duty.” Tom Hanks confesses his parents don’t let him stay up very late on school nights, so sleepovers at Spielberg’s house are his only chance to do so.

Meanwhile, the cast and crew of The Revenant rally behind Mad Max: Fury Road at Tom Hardy’s prompting – though it’s unclear which of his two roles is represented by his regression into barely audible brooding. Commenting further, Team The Revenant admits “Leo got his Oscar, so we’re good.”

As presenter J.J. Abrams approaches the podium with the fateful Best Picture envelope, open violence erupts. Each faction attempts to storm the stage and usurp the envelope’s decree through a superior show of force. The chaos is abruptly halted, however, when a commanding voice shouts “Enough!”

All eyes turn to the stage as the ghost of Alan Rickman materializes in a soft glow.

“Have you no respect,” Rickman chides slowly, “for your craft?”

Sheepish glances are exchanged among the now bloodied attendees as the shades of Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Lee, James Horner, and Omar Sharif emerge from the mist. Abrams dutifully surrenders the envelope to Nimoy, who begins to open it. Lee raises a firm hand.

“No,” he intones, his voice dark and rich as the soil of Isengard, “there is but one who can unite all of these gathered here; one who can reforge the peace between them.”

Nimoy nods, as do the rest of his spectral companions. He holds the envelope aloft, chanting “Ground control to Major Tom…”

The other ghosts join in, then the entire hall; soon the roof trembles with the chant. At long last, David Bowie descends from on high – alighting just behind the podium. Nimoy attempts to hand him the envelope, but Bowie shakes his head with a beatific smile.

“I know what’s written within that envelope, we all do,” he says. “And the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year goes to…”

Every last molecule of oxygen is sucked out of the auditorium in anticipation.

“Inside Out.”

Applause erupt from the gathered masses; everyone is blindsided by the recollection of this powerfully pure film.

Cheers ring out as Bowie, smiling radiance down upon old friends and lovers, ascends back into the heavens from whence he came. Tearful embraces spread like wildfire through the hall; the night’s bitter wars are ended.

The entire Pixar team takes the stage to accept the award, dragging anyone within arm’s reach up with them.

“We all knew this was one of the greatest films ever made,” Pete Docter begins, “and that only in the most confused of parallel universes would it be snubbed.” Vigorous nods of assent affirm the truth of his words.

“We want to share this award with all of you, and indeed with all of the planet,” he continues, holding the Oscar high above his head. Beams of cleansing light cascade from the golden statue, pulsing outward, enveloping the entire world in a blanket of acceptance and understanding – as only the power of Pixar can.

With all of Hollywood happily crowding onto the stage, arms and hands and fingers entwined, the 88th Academy Awards comes to a thundering, rapturous close.

The Grammys Still Can’t Get Metal Right And They Should Stop Trying

I’ve already discussed my misgivings about the Oscars this year, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a decent excuse to rant about music.

Enter the 58th Grammy Awards.

Friends and longtime followers of my writing know that I’m an avowed metalhead. I am often guilty of the “inverted snobbery” Lemmy once famously derided but as much as I hate saying it out loud, people (especially those on award show committees) really don’t seem to understand metal.

Fear not: I don’t make this admittedly elitist claim in the absence of evidence.

The Grammys’ “Best Metal Performance” category continues to be a prime example of how confused the supposed experts are when it comes to this genre. Even when they get it (mostly) right, some inevitable flub provides the exception that proves the rule.

Here’s what they got (again, mostly) right: Sweden’s Ghost took home the award from a pool of nominees that was – perhaps for the first time – not comprised of the first five bands a generic Google search would turn up.

Ghost is the kind of band whose sound is unlikely to offend even the most conservative of tastes. Still, they’ve managed to carve out a singular niche for themselves in the already niche-flooded landscape of metal subgenres, and that’s no easy trick. Despite sinister stage makeup and Satanic lyrics, their spooky and often melodic psychedelic rock – complete with appearances from the pipe organ and theramin – is more likely to conjure flashbacks to a Halloween episode of your favorite 90s sitcom over a genuine horror movie.

Now, watch the clip of their acceptance speech. Did you catch the tune being played by the awards show band as Ghost approaches the stage?

P.O.D.’s “Boom.”

Yes, seriously; a half-committed approximation of a Big Band take on America’s regrettable fling with nü-metal in the early 2000s.

To be fair, I enjoy the occasional guilty pleasure trip down memory lane with P.O.D., Limp Bizkit, Saliva (geez, remember Saliva???). But Ghost almost couldn’t be further from the score chosen to accompany them up onto the stage – musically or lyrically.

Imagine Mark Wahlberg strutting down the aisle to claim an Oscar or Golden Globe while the band plays a jazzy version of a Backstreet Boys song. Not a New Kids on the Block tune or a selection from Marky-Mark and the Funky Bunch (as if that wouldn’t be horrific enough); a massive, I-can’t-tell-the-difference-so-who-cares arrangement of “I Want it That Way” or “Larger than Life.”

Imagine if Meghan Trainor, who took home the award for Best New Artist this year, approached the stage to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” No treble?

That is what happened to Ghost.

Thankfully for the Grammys, this embarrassingly tepid portion of the ceremony wasn’t even part of the main telecast, in case anyone harbored lingering hopes that they cared. The flaccid applause at Ghost’s entrance and exit is limited to a persevering few, and a handful of onlookers quite literally point and stare in bewilderment. What is this strange spectacle that involves playing one’s own instruments and performing one’s own songs?

Thankfully for Ghost, public opinion has long been one of their favorite playthings.

The red carpet interviews are just as cringe-worthy. None of the interviewers seem to know who the band is, let alone how skilled they are at trolling the media.

Now, as I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, any discussion about art is ultimately going to come down to what I like versus what you like. In that respect, I have no beef with the Grammys. I’m content to wear out the latest Zao or Fleshgod Apocalypse or Mechina or Cattle Decapitation while they feverishly extol Max Martin’s latest copy+paste. But in these clumsy attempts to honor metal, they continually prove how ill-suited they are to even comment on it, let alone adjudicate which artists are most deserving of acclaim. Even when a unique, arguably deserving artist takes home the gold, the ceremony finds some other risible way to slip on a banana peel.

So who, then, is worthy of this forsaken music?

Why, equally unqualified bloggers and self-published writers like myself of course! Because we have something the Grammys lack: genuine appreciation for the music. We actually do care – often too much – about what’s going on with these artists.

The Grammys deserve credit for at least trying to get the nominee pool right this year. But it’s too little, too late; especially when the live band’s go-to “metal” song is evidently a microwaved rendition of a track you can hear in trailers for Reign of Fire, Bulletstorm, and Mortal Combat X.

Remember who won this award last year? Tenacious D. I like Jack Black and Dio covers as much as the next idiot, but who besides the Grammy voters thought a comedy duo represented metal better than anyone else that year? Or any year, for that matter?

It’s time they put themselves out of our misery.

It’s time they left metal to the irrationally opinionated keyboard warriors and elitist music snobs of the internet.

It’s time Axl Rosenberg, Dayal Patterson, Sam Dunn, and Anthony Fantano staged a four-way cage match.

It’s time the final word on Metal Album of the Year was decided by a weeks-long comment war spanning multiple social media platforms involving inter-label vendettas and ending in the destruction of numerous friendships and possibly some property.

Because that would still provide a better metric than what the Grammys have been serving up for over 25 years.

Who’s Driving?

I was incredibly late to the seismic creativity fest known as Pixar’s Inside Out.

I could go on for pages (and may yet one day) about what a monumental achievement this film is; how deftly it juggles symbolism, humor, story structure, visual appeal…

But for this post, I’m gonna keep it short and sweet (which means you’ll get the most from this blurb if you’ve already seen the film).

Inside Out is, in a sentence, the most handy character creation tool since whichever Bethesda title you prefer to use in this analogy. By making individual emotions the lead characters in its story, Inside Out illustrates the internal complexity of its human players as a byproduct of whichever emotion is “driving” them.

As a quick example, take the family dinner scene. In the mother’s head, Sadness drives but runs a tight ship, orchestrating all of the emotions at the helm in harmonious tandem. The environment is well organized and resembles a sparsely decorated ballroom or diplomatic arena from which the Mother’s emotions analyze her surroundings. Contrast this with the father, whose head space looks like a generic command center from just about any Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich flick. Anger drives, deferring largely to Fear and Disgust as he negotiates his daughter Riley’s outburst.

At the start of the film, the first emotion to pop into existence in Riley’s head is Joy – the very first emotion Riley feels as a newborn. Sadness follows soon thereafter, as do Fear, Disgust, and Anger. But it’s implied that Joy drives because she’s the first on the scene. Consequently we infer that the first emotion the mother felt was Sadness, the first emotion the father felt was Anger, and the first emotion I felt during this film was all of them streaming out of my tear ducts at once.

All of which is to say…

Plenty of writers use worksheets, outlines, or any number of other tools in service of fleshing out their characters. There’s nothing wrong with this approach – underdeveloped characters are the bane of newbie writers and veterans alike. But Inside Out has distilled all of that longhand paperwork down into a simple question: who’s driving?

When you get inside your character’s head, is Joy at the helm? Was Fear the first emotion they experienced as an infant, laying the foundation for how they relate to the world as an adult? Are certain emotions missing altogether?

The habit of asking these questions as you write, and experimenting with how various behaviors emerge (sarcasm as the result of Disgust trying to impersonate Joy, for example) can help you create complex, memorable characters almost on the fly.

And in case this wasn’t already clear, Inside Out is one of the greatest things our species has ever produced.

Spotlight on Creed

It wouldn’t be the Oscars without a few shocking snubs. This year, however, I’m less baffled by certain exclusions than by the films that stand in their place.

There’s no accounting for taste, so any discussion about the artistic merits of one film versus another is going to be largely subjective. Having said that, there are still some objective standards by which these things can – and should – be measured. A film that’s indistinguishable from a made-for-TV-movie, for example, shouldn’t be nominated in major categories like Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. Yet that is precisely the case with Spotlight, a film that never strives to be better than perfectly adequate and sometimes even misses that mark.

Meanwhile, the seventh film in the Rocky franchise – Creed – has one nomination (Best Supporting Actor for Sylvester Stallone) and is pound-for-pound a better film.

Spotlight makes rookie mistakes throughout. Stern warnings about the long arm of the Catholic Church are thrown at the protagonists over and over: “They’ll try to silence anyone that speaks out,” “They’re gonna come after you!” No such thing happens. The story goes to print, a few introspective monologues are exchanged, the credits roll, and the audience dutifully shakes its head at the ecclesiastical orders that made it all possible. For a film about institutionalized sexual abuse, Spotlight is oddly committed to not ruffling feathers. That’s to say nothing of Rachel McAdams’ Oscar-nominated wooden performance, for which she shouldn’t be blamed so much as a script that gives her almost nothing to do but echo other characters’ dialogue (seriously) and scribble notes while victims narrate their trauma. Mark Ruffalo and Stanley Tucci manage to act like they’re in an Oscar contender, to give credit where it’s due. But the film as a whole does little more than the bare minimum to develop any of its characters.

It’s an acceptably directed, adequately shot movie with multiple, homogeneous protagonists and a single monolithic antagonist that doesn’t really do much to stop them…and it’s nominated in all the major categories.

Compare that to Creed, in which even minor characters and antagonists are given accessible characteristics and goals almost as soon as we meet them. Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) wants to make a name for himself without invoking his iconic heritage as the son of Apollo Creed. In his quest, he’s stumbled as much by his own flaws as a small-minded world that wants him to conform above all else. Thus, the script performs a delicate balancing act, threatening the protagonist with becoming the antagonist if he can’t overcome himself. But Adonis’ reflection isn’t his only enemy: he also has to defeat the belligerent and bellicose “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew). Conlan’s fight with Adonis will be his last before he serves a prison sentence, further rounding out his character with a stronger motivation than simply being a pair of opposing fists in the ring. This isn’t anything particularly special, by the way – it’s just character development. Nevertheless, it’s an essential step to ensuring that the film’s climactic fight – shot and edited with bombastic kinesis – keeps the audience emotionally invested in every bloody blow.

Notice that I’ve yet to mention Sylvester Stallone’s performance, the only thing the Academy seemed to notice. Ryan Coogler’s deft direction, as much at home with intimate exchanges as with the chaos of the boxing ring, goes unsung. The script he penned with Aaron Covington, despite observing all of the rules of quality story structure and then some, takes a back seat to entries like Spotlight. I’d even say that Michael B. Jordan’s aggressive but grounded performance outshines Eddie Redmayne’s nearly one-note turn in The Danish Girl, but can you guess which one has the Oscar nod?

None of this is to deny Stallone’s spot in the nominee pool; he turns in one of the best performances in his career. Furthermore, Spotlight isn’t a bad film (neither is The Danish Girl) and Creed isn’t necessarily a contender for Best Picture. But Spotlight, while thematically complex, is artless. The Danish Girl, while poignant, is regrettably uncomplicated. And when the issue of minority representation in the Academy and the films it honors is so clearly a going concern, when the film in question is so undeniably well-crafted, it seems hard to explain away this particular lockout as merely a byproduct of the usual “Oscar politics.”

Sure, snubs are to be expected. One of the greatest films in years – Inside Out – didn’t receive a Best Picture nomination (despite being so engaging that I spent most of its run time in tears). And I think artistic merit really should take precedence over identity politics in determining the nominees. That assumes, however, that such merit has been the watchword all along. No such state of affairs is possible when filmmakers and actors of color are routinely overlooked – whether by virtue of genre prejudice, apathy, or whatever weird excuses are on offer that year.

Thankfully, the Academy has pledged to rectify these imbalances. But it comes too late for another batch of films unduly receiving attention that belongs to someone else.

Melethril

An empty hole in my chest,

Bereft of substance

Carried with me from my first steps

To this bridge

And beyond the fog, your face

Your smile beckoning me forward

Over the current

And into this new splendor

My home at last

Distant echoes, regret calls from the shadows behind

The path disappearing beyond

The bends of hidden decisions

Each one revealed to me as every step along the way here

Finally here, and home

Uplifted at long last

Carried above the reach of these sorrows

By hands loving, reaching, holding

The gift of your shattering light

Held in my hands my own heart before I knew

Where to find you

Only you found me

When I had lost myself

Breathing life into dusty lungs

Touching a wish back into my skin for salvation

Finding every dream come true

Still glimmering, still shimmering, still you

And here in this golden grove

Above the dimly lit stumbling

Cascading clearly from my head

A wincing wish for redemption

At long last, home

Home, found and forever

My soul, a gift from my love, returned to me

With no demands or conditions

Only the wish, on your lips, to be loved

Only the gentle tug at my sleeve

Only the hope to find what you found in me

Found

My joy, your greatest handiwork

My peace, your masterpiece

You took me to the place beyond the parts

To the whole

And I there found me a soul

With your fingerprints in the seams

Balancing the Ledger: The Hateful Eight and Poetic Justice

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

The Hateful Eight packs a wallop.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you know the film was shot in “glorious 70mm,” even if you don’t know exactly what that means. Never fear what it means in principle, in practice it means squeezing more into a single shot than I thought possible and giving the film’s claustrophobic locale a sense of unexpected complexity and dimension. The film feels quite pleased with itself and has good reason to be. But it’s not in this impressive cinematography that we find another lesson for aspiring storytellers; it’s in the seemingly gratuitous bloodshed and unrepentant wickedness.

It’s no secret that Tarantino has always been preoccupied with transgressive behavior in his films; violence, drug use, rape, more violence, the liberal (arguably casual) use of the word “nigger,” etc. Even as a fan of his work, I don’t mind calling some of that material often unnecessary or at least incidental. The volcanic fountains of blood in Kill Bill, for example, are more about entertainment value than advancing the story. And Tarantino’s bit part in Pulp Fiction wouldn’t lose any narrative weight by nixing his repeated use of the aforementioned n-word.

So it should come as no surprise that a cast of characters dubbed “hateful” would act accordingly and they do not disappoint. But the odious behavior on display serves a greater purpose than simple shock value: it’s about narrative symmetry.

The Hateful Eight keeps a diligent ledger on its characters, ensuring that no sin goes unpunished. There are no “good guys” here, just morally degenerate protagonists and slightly more degenerate antagonists. But each is drawn with crisp, discernible motivations and largely permitted to achieve them – though the film takes its time revealing exactly what they are.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, dies. Even if they die off screen, or haven’t bled out completely before the credits roll, no one gets out alive. Yet not even death precludes certain characters achieving their goals.

Take bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell), for example, one of the only characters in the movie without any guile. His only stated goal is seeing that the prisoner cuffed to his wrist – Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) – hangs in nearby Red Rock for her crimes. But Ruth’s continued abuse of Domergue illustrates a sadistic streak later reinforced by the admission that he enjoys watching his captives hang. He pays for this character flaw by projectile-vomiting blood and innards thanks to a poisoned cup of coffee, thwarting his plan to hang Daisy.

This allows demented Daisy to achieve the one goal she’s permitted: to be free of her captor. Her poetic justice takes center stage as she then hacks off Ruth’s lifeless arm and leaves it cuffed to hers, a gruesome trophy.

Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) – also a bounty hunter – initially seems somewhat morally sound, at least by some archaic code of the West. His goal also appears familiar; to collect bounties on the pile of  corpses he’s bringing to Red Rock. Later he declares that he fought in the Civil War “to kill white crackers,” and doesn’t mind implying the wish still animates him – hardly a sin. But it turns out he sexually assaulted and then murdered the son of General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), the cranky old Confederate who spends the film scowling in a chair by the fireplace. This, in turn, was payback for Smithers’ murder of a group of black prisoners of war. Warren recounts his lurid tale specifically to provoke Smithers and shoots the wrinkly racist when he grabs a gun, thus paying up Smithers’ transgressive tab. But there’s still red in Warren’s ledger (re: sexual assault), so he later gets castrated via gunshot – as one does.

Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), the newly minted sheriff of Red Rock, rants and raves about his beloved Lost Cause; arguably the most unabashed racist in the film (at first, anyway). “Dignity in defeat,” he repeats like a prayer to the gods of screenwriting. He and Warren ultimately form a tenuous alliance once the bodies start piling up, but there’s still a string of war crimes in his checkered past for which he must account. Thus, in answer to his prayer, he and Warren spend the last moments of the film bleeding out together, the last men standing. Finally, they hang Daisy from the rafters in honor of John Ruth’s wishes – proof that even death can’t overcome strong character motivations.

And so it goes.

In summary, these characters get what they want and what they deserve, sometimes simultaneously. The result is narrative equilibrium not in spite of the copious gore, but precisely because of it. None of these hateful eight get away with any of their hateful conduct and in a film this over-the-top, that is exactly as it should be.

So whether your cast is made of saints vs. sinners or an indeterminate number of hateful players, it’s your job as the writer to balance that ledger and ensure that everyone gets what they have comin’ – one way or another.

Breaking Up With George Lucas

Dear George,

I saw The Force Awakens last week and I think we need to talk.

I’m not here to open old wounds or rub salt in them, I’m really not. I’m here because I think it’s time to put this ugly mess behind us.

Things between us weren’t always so strained of course. In fact, not long ago it seemed like the world was our Bantha Platter. I barely remember a time before you showed me the wonders of that galaxy far, far away. So many of my fumbling stabs at creativity throughout the years were born in those fateful hours after the opening crawl.  You held the match that set my imagination ablaze and to say I’m eternally grateful, or that I could never repay you, is to concede that the English language is ill-suited to the task.

I didn’t want to give up on what we had, even after things started deteriorating. I thought we could make this work.

I was thrilled by the Special Editions and overjoyed to see them in theaters. At the time, I thought your additions and enhancements were engrossing and innovative and couldn’t understand why so many people were upset. I still can’t fathom those who, like an army of attacking clones, cry in unison “George Lucas ruined my childhood!” when you practically wrote their childhood. You were doing exactly the things for which you were already renown: pushing the boundaries of cinematic technology, showing audiences just what might be if we would only unchain our imaginations.

Then came the prequels.

No, we don’t have to have this fight again.

Plenty of others have done a better job than I could explaining what’s wrong with them or how they could have been improved. But it was then that I began to fear our journey together was coming to an end. Because it wasn’t just that you made some creative missteps, but that you insisted those missteps take precedence. What was once “ours” became “yours.” And with each succeeding argument, it seemed you had lost all sight of what made this dream-come-true so captivating in the first place. You even accused the film industry of “abusing” digital technology when the prequels – particularly the latter two – practically started the trend.

You changed. Or perhaps I changed. But the result was the same: we both wanted different things from this relationship.

I tried going back to where it all started with a new hope of resurrecting what we once had. What I found was that I had so many additional people to thank for this influential epic. I discovered how important it is to surround yourself with other visionaries if you want to bring your dreams to life, and just how dismal the whole affair might have been without them.

You deserve credit for that, I hasten to add. Film is a collaborative medium after all, and the balancing act between creative integrity and humility is not easily accomplished. Yet you recognized what it would take to render this spectacle even when it challenged your original ideas.

I think that’s part of why I held on for so long. I knew you had it in you to own up to bad ideas, to give credit where it’s due, and to appreciate the place these films have in hearts and minds around the world. Yes, these stories are your kids in a way. But just like kids, they have to grow up one day, move out, and start a life of their own.

All of which is to say…I’m sorry it’s come to this, and that your darlings seem to fly highest when you’re not calling all the shots. That must be so painful, and I mean that without so much as a phantom of menace. All the same, I’m grateful we agree that this break up is for the best, and that we can both finally move on.

I won’t forget you, George, or imperiously strike back over some petty grudge – even if I still wince at the thought of what might have been. And I think you should give The Force Awakens another chance; it’s a lot of fun.

I hope we can still be friends.

 

May the Force be with you,

Ben Tobin Johnson

 

P.S. Han shot first. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Another One About the True Meaning of Christmas

With Christmas arriving this year on the same day I’ve elected to publish new blog posts, I had two choices: post a slapdash piece about something holiday-related on Christmas Day or post a slapdash piece about something holiday-related a bit early.

So here we are.

I recently had the pleasure of hosting a Christmas movie pajama party at my apartment. We watched Home Alone, Elf, and the first 30 minutes or so of The Muppet Christmas Carol before the chorus of gentle snoring cued the night’s conclusion. All of these movies I’ve seen multiple times, and while I enjoy each for the laughs and nostalgia they provide, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I get something new out of repeat viewings.

This is more of a feature than a bug of Christmas movies. Almost all of them are about the “true meaning” of Christmas, even if they don’t all agree on exactly what that true meaning is. And this consistency, however ham-handed, is what gives Christmas movies their staying power.

Consider Love Actually, which has earned the coveted title of “holiday classic” while apparently no one was looking. So has Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause. Neither movie is particularly bad (though I’d agree with Christopher Orr that Love Actually isn’t particularly good), but transpose them into another genre and the idea of their becoming “classic” seems baffling. It’s not particularly hard to imagine, given that Love Actually spawned a number of similarly-structured rom-coms likely to be found in a DVD bargain bin near you. And those two aren’t outliers; plenty of medium-good Christmas movies have earned their holiday-classic-halo via the same formula: slightly above average returns at the box office and the passage of time.

Thus, Christmas movies enjoy an advantage not in spite of being thematically one-dimensional, but precisely because they are. They comfort us because they tell us what we already know; they reinforce our personal and cultural narratives.

And that, I think, really is the true meaning of Christmas.

We conduct a series of odd rituals – bringing trees inside, hanging over-sized socks above the fireplace or nearest equivalent, singing uncomfortably rape-y songs – that may or may not be directly related to our beliefs about the holiday itself. But the act of sharing these traditions, however arbitrary, brings about an enhanced sense of connection with the people we love.

The shared revelry in this or that Christmas movie, the tradition of watching it every year, is another festive part of forming our own holiday narratives. To quote Jonathan Gottschall:

“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”

Stories that, around this time of year, are rumored to involve sugar plums.

So it’s safe to assume that plenty of other medium-good holiday flicks await us in the years ahead, and their status as “holiday classic” only a few years thence.

But the true meaning of Christmas (movies) isn’t box office profits or a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s the traditions we’ll construct around them with our family and friends and significant others meeting the rest of the family for the first time; the quote-offs, the inside jokes, the sing-a-longs. It’s that gingerbread feeling.

So as this year comes to a close, whether you’re in the trenches of the War on Christmas or eschewing the holiday altogether, take a moment to step back and observe your narratives as they unfold all around you.

I think you’ll find tangible, powerful, nondenominational holiday magic therein.

Like this:

Merry Christmas!