Tag: Digital Media

George Carlin used to a do a bit about his favorite movies: westerns in which a bunch of cowboys face off with a bunch of Native Americans. “You know what the big scene is going to be, right? It’s going to be the attack the Indians finally make on the cowboys. You wait for it to happen for an hour and a half, and then it’s over. And they show us for 90 minutes how the cowboys get ready for this attack.”

That sums up Godzilla. Ninety minutes of prep work followed by 30 minutes of Godzilla facing off with two MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism).

It feels as if the filmmakers, including story writer Dave Callaham (The Expendables), screenwriter Max Borenstein, and director Gareth Edwards (who has spent most of his time as a visual effects artist) were going for a more nuanced Godzilla, like the film that started this whole mess, Gojira (1954). Because Godzilla eventually spends a lot of time battling Mothra and Ghidrah and other ridiculous monsters, we sometimes forget just what a sincere movie Gojira is. Sure, it looks dated, but it’s a deeply felt rumination on the aftermath of war and the lingering effects of radiation poisoning. Plus, Godzilla stomps on a lot of shit.

Tone-wise, there’s a similar sincerity to Godzilla, but Borenstein and Edwards forgot to put any effort into making their characters human. If they’re just going to be lizard fodder, who cares whether they live or die? In Gojira, everyone has a purpose. In Godzilla, Elizabeth Olsen’s purpose is to look beautiful and stand in the rain, mouth agape, before she begins running (slowly). Her character literally does nothing.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, as her husband Ford, doesn’t have it much better. He’s a Navy nuclear munitions expert (how convenient) who happens to be in Japan visiting his crackpot father (Bryan Cranston, who gets the early award for Scenery Chewing by a Respected Actor) when the first MUTO appears. Taylor-Johnson is one of the dullest actors of his generation (Kick-Ass notwithstanding), and the script does him no favors.

Neither does the pacing, which is leaden on purpose. In the movie’s first hour or so, we get glimpses of what the big scenes are going to be when Godzilla and the MUTOs meet, but even Return of the Jedi—the least of the first three Star Wars films—knew that when cutting away from action, one should cut to more action. Here there’s lots of cutting from action to pondering and prep work. Has the military ever been so sluggish on screen? And how did no one notice—twice—a 10-story tall monster lumbering around in a major metropolitan area?

Worse, there’s no levity in Godzilla. At first, it’s refreshing. But after an hour of deadly serious people doing deadly serious things, a wisecrack or two may take the pressure off the non-story. There’s also some borderline tasteless 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami visual references that are hard to swallow.

But when the monsters finally fight? Pay dirt. Lots of tail-whapping, screaming, and building destruction.

In the end, Godzilla is good for one thing. It puts to rest the age-old question, “What raises a movie’s rating from ‘Terrible’ to simply ‘So-so’?”

Spectacular monster fights, ladies and gentleman. Nothing more, nothing less.

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America:
The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Fed Up
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Locke
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Million Dollar Arm
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Mom’s Night Out
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Only Lovers Left Alive
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Other Woman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Spartacus
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

Needtobreathe

Rivers in the Wasteland/Atlantic Records

This Southern rock trio has made an album filled with hope and energy—seemingly with the intention of easing the weight of life’s challenges. Rock and soul numbers like “State I’m In” and “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now” corner the market on encouragement, while the swelling folk pop track “Rise Again” inspires letting go with lines like, “Set my sights on where I’m going/And my goodbyes on where I’ve been.” The acoustic opener “Wasteland” posits that a small ray of hope in the dark is better than none at all, and on the other end of the spectrum, the roiling rocker “Oh Carolina” burns with the passion of lovers apart too long. In its entirety, the album is like a refresh button for the soul.

Nick Pollock

Light Me Up/7-11 Records

Nick Pollock’s newest EP is an emotional experience. On cuts like “The Best I’ll Ever Do,” Pollock combines true love with a sound reminiscent of Hoobastank’s “The Reason,” and on the folk rock number “Paying for Pain,” he highlights the irony in killing ourselves slowly while chasing pointless pursuits. “Wide Awake” is a charming tune about relationships, and Pollock explodes—both vocally and sonically—on the soulful rocker “Hey Havana,” which is one of those rock ‘n’ roll songs that makes you dance your butt off. “Ride On (The Ballad of Billy G.)” remembers a close friend who has been lost, and the closer “Spend My Money” is another chunky rock track that is bound to be a favorite at live shows. The album deftly explores the highs, lows, joy, and pain of everything that lights you up in life.

Lindsey Stirling

Shatter Me/Lindseystomp Music

It’s not every day that you come across someone who makes visionary music. Violinist Lindsey Stirling—whom you might recall from the splash she made on season five of “America’s Got Talent”—is one such artist, and her latest album is proof. Shatter Me combines Stirling’s lively violin with all manner of dance sensibilities. Whether it’s the sweeping, operatic feel of the club track that marries with her violin on “Mirror Haus,” or her frenetic playing accompanied by wobbling bass, dubstep beats, and heavenly vocals on “Beyond the Veil,” Stirling knows how to get your attention. “Roundtable Rival” adds a raucous guitar solo, while Lzzy Hale and Dia Frampton respectively deliver guest vocal turns on the title track and “We Are Giants.” This album overflows with electricity and the prodigious talent of Stirling on her instrument.

It’s mid-May: The crushing tide of summer movies is just around the corner. Gear up.

Actually, we don’t really have a summer movie season anymore. Of all the traditions Star Wars ushered in—it was released on May 25, 1977, just in time for Memorial Day—summer release dates have largely gone kerblooey. To wit: Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released on April 4, a previously unheard of time for big budget action flicks.

But there is still mucho big, big explosion-filled stuff coming this season. And, just in case you don’t want your eardrums to explode along with a bunch of robots, cars, and buildings, there are some smaller releases, too.

Godzilla

Another year, another movie about a giant something-or-other smashing stuff. Last year it was Pacific Rim. This year, it’s a giant radioactive lizard-thing. The trailer reveals little of the plot, and one of my colleagues, a bona fide giant robot/monster movie fan, thinks the movie looks deadly serious, just like the Japanese Gojira from 1954 (that’s the one sans Raymond Burr). It can’t be worse than the 1998 Matthew Broderick-starring Godzilla. (May 16)

X-Men: Days of Future Past

The Wolverine, the 2013 Hugh Jackman standalone, was the X-Men apex. Why crap it up with a Bryan Singer-directed prequel/sequel? Sure, Singer is the brains behind the bulk of the X-Men franchise, but his last job helming Professor X and the crew was the good X2 (2003), and he hasn’t directed a decent movie since. (And Jack the Giant Slayer is just terrible.) Happy news: Almost every cast member from previous X-Men films appears, so the star wattage will be blinding. (May 23)

Maleficent

A live-action expansion of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty story is needless, but if any actor was born to play Maleficent, the Mistress of All Evil, it’s Angelina Jolie. It will likely be worth seeing for that reason alone. (May 30)

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Seth MacFarlane returns to live action with this aware-of-itself western. The trailer, which features five deaths—one of them funny—and a musical number, seems like standard MacFarlane: We’ve been told he’s funny by people we respect, so why not just assume it will be funny (even if Ted wasn’t great)? (May 30)

The Fault In Our Stars

Shailene Woodley, apparently not content with conquering YA action films (Divergent), will also conquer YA weepies. She has cancer. Her boyfriend has cancer. I read somewhere even cancer has cancer, which, like two negatives in algebra, actually cancels the cancer out. Cancer is now hosting a podcast and writing a memoir about working with Woodley. (June 6)

Edge Of Tomorrow

It must be summer if Tom Cruise is starring in an action movie that looks terrible! He dies a lot (which he sort of did in the rotten Oblivion). Emily Blunt is in EoT, too, and she looks like an ass-kicker. Good. Action movies need women kicking ass more than they do in the Marvel movies, which relegate women to non-ass kicking roles unless they’re Scarlett Johansson. (June 6)

22 Jump Street

It looks exactly the same as 21 Jump Street, which can’t be bad. Unless it’s exactly the same like The Hangover II was exactly the same as The Hangover—you know, a remake without jokes. But Jonah Hill is a savvier writer than the Hangover crew, right? Right? (I hope I’m right.) (June 13)

The Rover

Another YA alum, Robert Pattinson, makes his non-YA thriller debut. He stars with Guy Pearce in grizzled mode, and if history has taught us anything that means there will be lots of killin’. (June 20)

Transformers: Age Of Extinction

The only thing worse than a Shia LaBeouf-starring Transformers movie is a Mark Wahlberg-starring Transformers movie (that’s a guess). People of Earth: Stop buying tickets to these shit shows. Hopefully this movie’s subtitle hints at the shelf life of this franchise. (June 27)

Tammy

Melissa McCarthy wrote the screenplay for this comedy with her husband Ben Falcone, who also directs. Even in the darkest moments of The Heat and Identity Thief—and there are plenty—McCarthy shines brightly. Let’s hope Tammy is Bridesmaids-funny. (July 2) 

Jupiter Ascending

Mila Kunis is Jupiter, a janitor (yeah, O.K.), who just happens to be someone who could save the universe from an evil queen. This movie is the brainchild of the Wachowskis, which explains why its trailer feels so much like The Matrix. It can’t be worse than Cloud Atlas, and if we’re lucky it will feel as fresh as Neo’s first adventure before the two sequels killed the good vibes it created.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

“From Producer Michael Bay” reads the first title card in the trailer. So that’s why it feels like another Transformers movie. If you read the Interwebs, you’ve heard the grumbles about changes in the turtles’ origin story. That doesn’t mean the movie is good or bad; that just means longtime fans are butthurt. Will TMNT be good? Honestly, it doesn’t look half-bad. Plus, William Fichtner is Shredder, so you know one thing: Shredder is ridiculously handsome. (Aug. 8)

The Expendables 3

Man, Sylvester Stallone is really milking this old-guys-blowing-shit-up routine, and to be fair, he’s done it better than anyone else—admittedly a low bar. Good news: Wesley Snipes is out of prison and in an action movie again. It hasn’t really raised the star power of the other olds in the series, and it didn’t hurt or hinder current stars. But Snipes was always fun to watch, even in rotten movies (Blade: Trinity). Here’s hoping he’s back, and that Stallone can still provide the goofy fun. (Aug. 15)

Enjoy the air conditioning, kids. See you in the fall for the awards-hungry movies.

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Bears
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Brick Mansions
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America:
The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Fading Gigolo
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Le Week-end
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Mom’s Night Out
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Other Woman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Titanic
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

By this point, we’ve all seen the ads for Neighbors. Family vs. frat. Thirtysomethings vs. drunk 20somethings. Seth Rogen and gross-out humor.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Plus, the last movie Rogen starred in, This is the End, is so bad that any reasonable adult could be forgiven for thinking Rogen had jumped the shark and would never star in anything decent in the future.

Good news: Neighbors is hilarious. It has a simple formula—the aforementioned family vs. frat—solid jokes, and above-average performances. But, and this is key, it knows it’s a goofy idea and uses that to its advantage. Plus, director Nicholas Stoller specializes in making good movies out of thin premises; he’s also responsible for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, and the underappreciated The Five-Year Engagement.

Mac (Rogen) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne) are a married couple in their early 30s with a newborn. They’re happily adjusting to domestic life and love their neighborhood.

The trouble begins when a fraternity moves in to the house next door. To prove they’re cool, and also to politely warn the neighbors about loud partying, Mac and Kelly introduce themselves and bring some weed as a gift. The weed (and the baby, funnily enough) is a big hit with the fraternity brothers, and the president, Teddy (Zac Efron), and vice president, Pete (Dave Franco), promise to keep the noise level down. They also ask that if Mac and Kelly have problems with the fraternity, they bring it to the house and not the cops.

Mac and Kelly attend a party and everything is cool. But then a subsequent party is too off the rails, and Mac calls the police. Teddy and Pete consider the police intervention a breach of trust and decide to make life miserable for the Radners, even though everyone still finds the baby really cute.

From then on it’s pranks and silliness—hard R-rated silliness. Stoller has edged toward complete outrageousness before (the stabbing scene in Get Him to the Greek, for example), but Neighbors is the first time he’s fully embraced it (chalk that up to Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien’s script). Mac and Kelly work up a cockamamie scheme to get the fraternity banned from the college, and have some uproarious exchanges with the over-it-all dean (Lisa Kudrow).

Another thing Neighbors does well is shine a light on how easy it is to forget what it’s like to be young. It’s not necessarily groundbreaking, but Mac and Kelly face questions we all face when we get older: What the hell happened to us? Are we no longer fun? Do we take our lives so seriously that we get bent out of shape over a loud rave? Aren’t we justified in feeling this way?

The entire cast is excellent, particularly Byrne, who continues to show a gift for comedy. She’s matched by Rogen, who excels at this type of role (which is not all that different from what he does in every movie), and Efron and Franco, even if they’re a little too old to play college seniors.

Enjoy Neighbors. It’s smart (in its stupidity), it looks better than any college movie should, and it’s laugh-out-loud funny. And you get to see an almost naked Seth Rogen. Who could ask for more?

Neighbors/R, 96 minutes/Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Ben-Hur
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Bears
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Brick Mansions
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America:
The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Draft Day
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

A Haunted House 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Jodorowsky’s Dune
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Le Week-end
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Monuments Men
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Other Woman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Quiet Ones
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Transcendence
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

For many people, the radio is a convenient distraction that adds some color to  daily routines. But for the students at Tandem Friends School, it’s their voice.  Teaming with WNRN and Music Resource Center in the Radio Resource Project, the teens write, produce, and host a complete radio show, titled “30 Minute Throwdown,” from beginning to end. The show airs once a month WNRN and features music from local artists and recent graduates who are pounding away at the music scene.

The program is a collaborative effort designed to provide students with something they rarely get: A chance to experience real life.  Every month, the group faces the same problems that professional broadcasters face, and they must develop their own solutions.

“The opportunity to participate in the Radio Resource Project has provided them [students] everything a good education ought to: meaningful, “real-world” learning,” Nura Yingling told the Music Resource Center.

Though they’re still in the learning stage, the participants are anything but amateur.  The broadcasts are exceptionally polished and brimming with fresh content.  Every second, from the rocking introduction to the last word, is a joy to experience.  And this hasn’t gone unnoticed. Dave Benson, a seasoned pro of the radio industry, was extremely pleased with the product these young artists are creating, according to The Music Resource Center.  Damani Harrison, the Project Coordinator, is so excited by the success of these students that plans to both continue and expand the broadcast to other schools are in the works. On Sunday, May 11 at 11:30am, a special live broadcast of the show (and the final for the 2013-14 season) will air on WNRN. —Logan Boggs

To hear previously aired segments of 30 Minute Throwdown please visit: http://www.wnrn.org/?s=30+Minute+Throwdown&x=38&y=15

WNRN can be heard on 91.9 in Charlottesville; 101.1 in Waynesboro and Staunton; 94.7 in Lovingston; 103.1 in Richmond; 89.9 in Lynchburg; and 95.3 in Lexington. WNRN also streams on-line: http://www.wnrn.org/

Sam Cregger

Tell Me Something Different/Self-released

The sophomore full-length album from local artist Sam Cregger is a real treat. Tracks like “Still Love” pit unending love against a backdrop of ambling Americana music that features some languid accordion to set the mood, while the simple, brief folk track “Discovering Roads” casts a wide-eyed look at past decisions. And in a neat bit of symmetry, Cregger revisits a fictional character from his debut album, Wanderlust, with the down-tempo Americana track “The Continuing Story of John Duphrane” as well as the country-tinged “Finding John Duphrane.” The former finds the gunslinger killing a man and realizing the dead man’s son is after him, while the latter focuses on Duphrane’s desperate attempts to avoid being caught. These two songs, which are fun and imaginative despite the dire situations they entail, are significant highlights. Cregger does a fine job combining his dusty vocals with appropriate amounts of emotion (“In the Dirt”) or exhaustion (“Doubts”), and proves to be a capable narrator whether his subjects are fictional or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOjWqM_XU88

The Currys

Follow/Self-released

It is easy to get lost in the beauty of the debut record from this local Americana outfit. Between the three relatives (Jimmy and Tommy Curry are brothers; Galen is their cousin) either trading vocal duties or out-and-out making the hairs on your neck stand up with fantastic three-part harmonies, there’s a lot of energy on this album. And as for the content, the guys touch on a variety of relationship-centered subjects like resisting infidelity (the bluesy pop rock number “Inches From You”), moving on from a past lover (the jangly rock track “You’re Getting Smaller”), or analyzing an unhealthy relationship (the rip-roaring bluegrass track “Wrecking Ball”). The folk track “How a Man’s Supposed to Die” extols the virtues of living life without regrets, but the title track takes the cake with subtle ambient noise and the Currys’ stirring vocals making for a solid debut from a promising new band.

Katie Herzig

Walk Through Walls/Self-released

The new album from Nashville’s Katie Herzig is quite the ride. Walk Through Walls is a synth-laden pop record that explores Herzig’s emotional range of ups-and-downs over the last three years. On one hand, you have “Forgiveness” which is a raw track that was the first piece Herzig wrote after her mother’s death from cancer in 2011; then you also have the hypnotic, Motown-tinged piano pop track “Drug” that examines the intoxicating effects of love. Dreamy numbers like “Summer” are engaging and have the sort of chorus that will stick in your mind for weeks, while the borderline trip-hop sounds of “Frequencies” are more subdued in their exploration of the courage it takes to follow your heart. Herzig is in fine form vocally, offering sometimes wispy, sometimes throaty performances as she sings about loving, grieving, recovering, and starting over. Considering the loss that fueled its making, the album is more uplifting than you would expect, and strength shines throughout.

The Other Woman has approximately 1 million things working against it. First, we’re expected to believe Kate (Leslie Mann) is some sort of undesirable fuddy-duddy. Mann has played this role before, mostly in her husband Judd Apatow’s movies, but at least here she has a chance to use her goofy muscles instead of just reacting to Paul Rudd acting like a bonehead.

Secondly, there’s Cameron Diaz as Carly, an ice queen high-powered attorney. Diaz has certainly played her share of ice queens (In Her Shoes, Bad Teacher, The Counselor), and it’s not much of a stretch for her, but at least she does it well.

Thirdly, there’s Kate Upton as Amber, a beautiful innocent. She has so few lines of dialogue it’s hard to tell whether she’s a decent actor, but she beams at the right moments, makes frittatas, and has a few good lines—or what passes for good lines in a screenplay as lazy as The Other Woman’s.

Finally, the story operates under the pretense that a woman needs a man to make her happy, or to complete her in some way. That’s not an original idea (or a particularly good one). In 2014 you’d think we’d move beyond such limited gender bias.

But you can’t have everything, especially in a big budget Hollywood comedy. And somehow, miraculously, The Other Woman isn’t going to be the worst movie of the year. Some of it is actually quite funny.

In the movie’s first scene, we see Carly (Diaz) making out with hot guy Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who plays Jaime Lannister on “Game of Thrones”). Before long they’re spending many waking and sleeping moments together, and soon they’ve made plans for him to meet her father (Don Johnson, who plays the old lothario with ease).

What Carly doesn’t know—and what we all know because the title of this film is The Other Woman—is that Mark is married to Kate (Mann). After Mark cancels the father meeting to spend time with his wife, Carly is pissed off, but her assistant, Lydia (Nicki Minaj, who should be in every movie from now on) convinces her to pop in on Mark unannounced. When Carly arrives at Mark’s house, Kate answers the door. Carly is mortified, even falling into the bushes (ho ho!), and Kate is confused.

That sets the stage for what becomes a fairly typical revenge comedy. Carly and Kate conspire to make Mark pay for his infidelities, eventually roping in third other woman Amber, who’s eager to go along with them. They put a laxative in his drinks (eww—and yawn), find out he’s doing a bunch of illegal business (no surprise given this jerk’s track record and his propensity to have Kate sign legal documents without letting her read them), and give him estrogen (prompting a very weird racist joke in the middle of the movie).

Somehow it’s not a total wash. There’s something rather delightful in watching these women act like total idiots. And Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifinakis, and Ed Helms did that for three Hangover movies, so why not give Diaz, Mann, and Upton a shot?

I’d come down harder on The Other Woman if it were meant to be taken seriously, but the whole thing is so absurd, it’s impossible to take seriously. And who couldn’t use some silliness?

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

A Haunted House 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Bears
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Brick Mansions
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Dom Hemingway
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Draft Day
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Gladiator
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Oculus
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Quiet Ones
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Transcendence
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Under the Skin
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

How cool can a church get before it starts to ruffle some feathers?

Christ Episcopal Church, which operates The Garage, an outdoor concert venue/art gallery (a super-cool combo if ever there was one), is pushing the boundaries of non-secular hip yet again by bringing back its Makers Series. The quarterly event features an evening of presentations that allows three artists to tell the story behind their work. Sam Bush, curator of The Garage and Makers Series organizer, said that while the event is held at and partially bankrolled by a church, it’s not religious.

“It’s important for us to do these things without attaching any sort of agenda,” he said. “I think people are tired of the church with a capital C using a bait and switch formula to attract people, so we are wary of that. We simply want to honor art and artists for their own sake.”

Christ Episcopal launched the series, held in its Meade Hall and co-sponsored by The Garage and the New City Arts Initiative, five years ago. But it quickly went on hiatus a year later when its founder moved away to attend art school. Then, last fall, the church brought the event back, reportedly due to popular demand. Now, if the Makers Series can just go for four straight years, its run will have lasted as long as its hiatus.

The next event stands to be a good step in the right direction for the series’ longevity. Kho Wong, assistant to the producer of the Oscar-winning Life of Pi, who’s also worked on box office successes The Lake House, The Strangers, and Date Night, will headline the installment by offering a behind-the-scenes look at producing. She said she’s looking forward to showing the audience what a producer actually does for a film.

“Producing in general is sort of misunderstood,” Wong said. “For my boss, who was one of the producers, his job was to mostly support the vision of the director Ang Lee. But he also had to make sure the studio approved of the choices Ang was making. It’s a marriage between serving a creative vision and finding the practical, affordable solution.”

Bush said the May event will explore several production processes, be they in the creation of “landscapes, soundscapes [or] spaces.” Wong will present along with Colin Killalea, a record producer for White Star Sound located just outside Charlottesville, and Tosha Grantham, curator at Second Street Gallery, which focuses on contemporary art and artists.

“The whole idea is to provide a platform where artists can speak about their creative process openly and honestly,” Bush said. “I think the public’s understanding of art is limited by only seeing the finished product. More often then not, we miss out on what it took to get there.”

The event essentially works as a companion piece to The Garage’s indie music acts and unique, installation-focused art shows, giving creative types a forum to unpack, for example, the sometimes-bizarre scenes they lay out in the small brick enclosure outside Christ Episcopal. Bush said the question and answer portion of the event at the end of the night can be the most interesting, allowing patrons and artists a chance to have a two-way conversation about the artwork.

Sometimes, though, pulling back the curtain on art fails to enhance it and in fact takes away some of the mystique. Bush said he’s aware of the risks.

“I think artists have every right to be suspicious of showing their cards, but I think what helps, what hopefully will help an artist let down his guard at these events, is an openness and a trust,” he said. “There are so many failures alongside the successes, so many frustrations alongside the victories.”

When it’s her turn to take the stage, Wong promises to have a more user-friendly presentation on hand, with behind the scenes clips from her work on Pi interspersed through her discussion of the practicalities of working on film. But that’s not to say she doesn’t have a deeper, touchy-feely artistic side, as well. She’s worked on a variety of small productions over the years that are closer to her heart, she said, including a screenplay she’s writing while living in Charlottesville. She revealed the script is a “dysfunctional love story,” but she wasn’t giving up any more details.

“Everyone wants to be the director because you have the creative control,” Wong said. “There are lots of ways you can be creative and still have a satisfying career in film.”

But what about those ruffled feathers? If the Makers Series does last, will Christ Episcopal’s tithing parishioners be cool with their money going toward an arts series as opposed to their house of worship? Bush doesn’t think it’s a concern.

“A lot of parishioners have given to The Garage, and I think with those donations and with that support comes an understanding that loving people comes in a variety of ways,” he said. “And all that entails is giving something without expecting something.”

Producers and Curators, the next event in the Makers Series, features Kho Wong, Colin Killalea, and Tosha Grantham and starts at 7pm on Thursday, May 1, in Meade Hall  in Christ Episcopal Church. 

What artist would you like to ask about their work? Tell us in the comments section below.

One of these days someone is going to have to write a movie that explores—purposely—the irony of making a film that uses cutting edge technology to tell an anti-technology story. Transcendence is not that movie. Its storyline, character arcs, and politics are so hopelessly muddled, it’s unclear what its makers were thinking. In fact, there’s so little resembling an understanding of human emotion that I wonder whether it was written by computers trying to approximate the human experience.

Will Caster (Johnny Depp) and his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) are brilliant scientist types. He wants computers to do something revelatory—it’s never made clear what—and she wants to use technology to change the world for the better.

One thing that’s clear is that there’s an anti-technology movement trying to stop their work. After giving a lecture, Will is shot by a would-be assassin. The wound appears minor but it turns out the shooter (Lukas Haas) dipped the bullet in some kind of chemical that gives Will fatal radiation poisoning.

Evelyn, along with her friend and colleague, Max (Paul Bettany), has a solution to save Will: Upload his consciousness to a computer. They do it. The results are disastrous (natch).

Along the way, Evelyn and Max’s purposes diverge. He thinks the technology is dangerous and tries to shut Computer-Will down. Evelyn kicks him out of their lab because she’s a woman and prone to letting her emotions get the better of her (I doubt that’s the intention but misogyny doesn’t have to be intentional). With Will’s now-sentient computer mind, she sets up shop in a dying town in the middle of nowhere. There she and Computer-Will start working on nanotechnology that will not only improve the physical constitution but will also connect every human’s brain to Computer-Will so the human race can evolve.

It’s not a bad concept, but the execution is just plain silly. For example, a group of anti-technology terrorists led by Bree (Kate Mara) kidnaps Max, beats the hell out of him, and then somehow convinces him to join their movement.

Then there’s Joseph Tagger (Morgan Freeman), a colleague of Will’s whose purpose is hazy; he and Human-Will had been working on nanotechnology, but his role in bringing Will back to Earth is unnecessary. Max can do everything that Tagger can do (and more).

Eventually, Computer-Will tries to take over the world. That’s how it goes in movies like this, as if there’s some sort of rule: Computers only want to kill us (see also the superior films The Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine).

One could make the case that it’s delightfully subversive that the terrorists are the good guys, but they’re pretty rotten people. Plus, they use state of the art technology to thwart technology. The paradox!

Finally, Transcendence is director of photography Wally Pfister’s directorial debut. It’s a shame that a DP with such a great track record—Pfister shot the beautiful-looking Moneyball and The Dark Knight series, among others—has made a movie that looks dark even when its characters are standing in the middle of the sun-bleached desert. Transcendence is a total misfire.

Playing this week

A Haunted House 2
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Bears
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Draft Day
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

God’s Not Dead
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Le Week-end
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Noah
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Oculus
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Particle Fever
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Raid
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Ten Commandments (1956)
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Under the Skin
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213