Music Review - The Faint - Doom Abuse

If any of you have known me for long enough, you'll known I love The Faint's 2008 album Fasciination. I loved it so much I pushed it during my high school news broadcast's music segment. Well, it's been 6 years and The Faint are back with Doom Abuse, an album I am loving.

While I don't totally love The Faint's back catalog, Fasciination was a perfect album for me, a combination of electro-style synths and basslines with a rock band behind them and an eccentric vocalist behind it all, giving me catchy yet out there lyrics in what would come to define my idea of Dance Rock/Dance Pop music for a very long time. With Doom Abuse The Faint drop a large portion of the bouncy Electro synths for noisey ones and a harder rock edge, but it's still the same band and still giving me exactly what I never knew I wanted.

Doom Abuse is a short blast of danceable, weird pop rock. They come in at 12 songs in just over 39 minutes. The songs are catchy and convey just as much as they need to before jumping to the next one. Allmusic review James Christopher Monger called this iteration of The Faint "Equal parts whimsical and despondent, it's Disintegration-era Cure, wearing an Imagine Dragons hoodie trying to have an LCD Soundsystem "All My Friends" moment." While that is a lot to swallow, I think it's pretty apt. The lyrics are often on the downward slope, about the decline of one's mental health, the degradation of society and a cynical view of how the world is changing, but told through upbeat, rocking numbers you can't help but move along with. Two of the biggest examples of this are the back-to-back combo of Mental Radio and Evil Voices, pairing lyrics like "Evil voices lie when they say you're alone" with arguably the catchiest songs on the album. On tracks like Salt My Doom they go for a noiser edge, tapping into their punk influences for a short, shouty number. Help In The Head is the opening track and pretty much a combination of both previous styles, being catchy and flippant, but also dark and with a noisey overtone. While not the best song on the album, it gives you a damn good idea of what the rest of the music is going to sound like, more or less. If you like Help In the Head, you'll like the rest of the album. The track Animal Needs might be the most The Faint song out of all of them, with a strong synth riff and a pounding drum beat play while the lyrics talk about what they do and don't need, which comes down to pretty much, we don't need anything from structured society, but they have the same needs as an animal." An anthemic track you can dance along too with a message about society.

Doom Abuse is the kind of album that makes me fall in love with a band. Their Dark Wave/Dance Punk outlook has enough twists and turns in between songs while still keeping to a very similar and established sound throughout the piece. The only time it really lets off is the final track, a beautiful but slower piece named Damage Control. While not a revolutionary album in itself, it's a totally different experience from most popular music going on today, with just as many catchy riffs, hooks and choruses. At under 40 minutes, it's really just a fun experience to put on and let it play all the way through, and when it's done I'm ready to start at the beginning all over again.




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Movie Review - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier was awesome, and you should totally go see it.

The Winter Soldier is the second Captain America film, and the last of the main Avengers to get a solo movie before the next Avengers film. The basic plot is that Steve Rogers is adjusting to living life in the modern age and dealing with S.H.I.E.L.D., when he eventually gets tangled up in a terrorist plot to kill millions of people all over the world and it's up to him to stop it.

I really enjoyed The Winter Soldier. Like, really enjoyed it. The opening fight sequence alone got me hooked. As much as I enjoyed the first Captain America film, it was easily the most boring of all the first wave movies. My biggest problem with the first one was one I understood was not exactly the writer's fault, but they had to tell Cap's origin story. The problem with Cap's origin story is that he did some cool stuff in World War II and then gets frozen until he's thawed out in the present day. While it's important to set-up Captain's past history and his involvement in the war and why he was so revered, it takes all the tension out of all the action scenes because you know that at the end Captain America has to be frozen in ice, then thawed out in present day and be fine. In the first film, you know nothing can happen to him while he's in the 40's because you know he has to end up perfectly intact in present day. I suspect that's a big reason they added a troop of guys for him to fight with in the first movie, because you could care about them living and dying, in a way you couldn't care about Captain.

One of the things I liked most about The Winter Soldier is that instead of trying to create tension with the possible safety of Captain America, they took a different approach and really hit home how much worse it's been on Steve Rogers emotionally to be alive. If he had died after the events of The First Avenger then he would have been the hero everyone wanted and would have gone out a hero. But in The Winter Soldier they emphasize how hard it is to deal with the fact that not only shouldn't Steve be alive, but that everything he knows from the life he knew is over and he has to start all over. They play several of these sequences for laughs, but there is still an underlying tragedy and darkness to it all. In the opening sequence we have Black Widow ask Captain America what he does in his free time and he quips that all the guys in his barbershop quarter are dead so he's got nothing to do.  While a humorous statement, it shows you something some people might forget about good ol' Cap, everyone he knew in his original life are dead or dying. The woman he had feelings for in The First Avengers is in a hospital as an old woman and has some form of Alzheimer's. Steve Rogers is all alone in this new modern world and has no one.

Things I really liked about this movie: The action, the relationship between Black Widow and Captain America and the humor. The action and stunt choreographer's deserve awards for what they accomplished in The Winter Soldier. All the action set pieces look and feel real. Also, the decision by The Russo's and company to go with as many practical effects as they could also made it all feel that more real, which is something you want from a Captain America movie I think. Iron Man has the movies with crazy technology, Thor has the movies with fantastical worlds, Captain America should have movies that ground themselves in as much reality as they can because in The Avengers, he's our everyman. Steve Rogers was just a normal guy who happened to be injected with a crazy serum that made him a perfect specimen of man. Sure, he was always brave and heroic, but the serum is what made him stand-out. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are genius scientists/engineers, Thor is a god-like being, Black Widow and Hawkeye are extremely dangerous and expertly trained assassins. Steve is essentially a regular guy on super juice.

The relationship between Black Widow and Captain America was also a lot of fun. Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans have really good chemistry together and after seeing that they're good friends in real life and have worked on a bunch of movies together it totally makes sense. Apparently they also made up a bunch of their own dialogue for their scenes together which if true is great because it feels so natural. They get to bounce a lot of jokes off of each other and at once they both humanize Black Widow who up to this point has just been this crazy assassin woman with a fun personality and give Captain America someone to relate to, something that he is shown over and over that he is having a hard time doing in the present day.

Finally, the humor in this movie was really a delight. The Russo's come from a comedy background, including directing a ton of NBC's Community and as such it came as no surprise that they added a bunch of humor in what would otherwise be a pretty serious political thriller. One of the biggest letdowns of the first Captain America movie for me was how serious it was. There was humor, but for the majority of it the movie is played straight and that takes away from it I think. These Marvel movies work best when they have humor injected into a serious story. Thor was another good example. When Thor is on earth there's a lot of good humor about how much he stands out, but when he's in Asgard it's all totally serious. In the Thor: The Dark World there's humor in every sector of the movie and it plays a lot better. Not just because of the humor, but at least in part. The third Iron Man works way better for me than the first two (especially the second) because it's basically a buddy-cop movie re-skinned as an action/sci-fi film.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed The Winter Soldier. The story was good, the cinematography and sound design were good, the action and stunt choreography was brilliant and the acting was good all around. I was totally happy with how the film played out and I'm excited to see where Guardians of the Galaxy and Age of Ultron take us in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I figured I'd talk very briefly about the things I didn't like about the film, which will include spoilers for the movie, don't read past this point if you haven't seen the film.

Spoilers
I thought it was a nice touch that they referenced Tony Stark a bunch in the film, and even Bruce Banner for their creations, but it was a little irritating at the end to see that they never mention Hawkeye and never call up Tony Stark. However, there are things I don't think we know, like the timeline of these films. In the first wave of films, they don't happen in chronological order and/or take place at roughly the same time. Thanks to Shane Black's love of using Christmas as a back drop for his movies, we know Iron Man 3 takes place around Christmas time, but I'm unclear of when the other movies of this wave take place. While I understand that these solo movies are supposed to be that, solo, it feels funny that after The Avengers if something big is happening like say, S.H.I.E.L.D. is secretly half Hydra and is trying to kill millions of people around the world that you reach out to Tony Stark and ask for help. The biggest problem for me in this regards was the lack of Hawkeye. We're shown in the first Thor and in The Avengers that he does a lot of big S.H.I.E.L.D. and as such he may have been off on assignment somewhere (possibly being saved for a Black Widow spinoff movie that is supposedly in production) but he's never mentioned by name in the film. The fact that Hawkeye isn't even mentioned seemed like just a waste, as we've established he is a main Avenger that is directly working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and in this movie S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised and destroyed. I would have understood if there were filming complications due to Jeremy Renner being in other movies or not writing him into a plot corner if he's supposed to be tied into this supposed Black Widow movie, but even then they should have at least mentioned him the way they name drop Tony Stark for a bunch of his technology.

The other thing that bothered me was the possible romantic subplot between Black Widow and Captain America. If the intention was just for Captain to make a friend then to me it seemed that Scarlett and Chris' chemistry worked too well for them because throughout this movie it feels like they're making a romantic bond. One of the recurring gags of the movie is Black Widow asking Captain if he's thought about asking any girls from work out on a date, and he has a reason for each one for why they wouldn't be compatible, and by the end of this movie it feels like a woman who could easily understand and relate to Steve would be her. There is very clearly romantic tension between the two in the film, especially when they kiss, and the resulting conversation after that. To me, it felt like the writer and directors didn't want to commit to anything because Black Widow has an off-again-on-again relationship with Hawkeye in the comics, and with a Black Widow movie possibly getting off the ground they didn't want to jeopardize anything for that movie. I thought it was a nice touch that at one point we see Black Widow wearing a little arrow necklace, if they want to setup that she's romantically involved with Hawkeye. But then that goes back to my other problem, if she really cares about him, why does no one mention Hawkeye once in this film.


In reality, these are just nitpicks in what I find to be a superb movie and a fine entry into the Marvel cinematic universe. I guess my problems with the film are really just tied into the movie not wanting to interfere with any possible plot or storylines from the movies they have planned. We might find a reason for why Hawkeye or Iron Man weren't called in for this story in Age of Ultron, or why there wasn't a romantic sub-plot between Captain and Black Widow in Age of Ultron or her spin-off movie. Not everything has to be a definite and known thing in film, but both these things just felt like windows of opportunity or even logic that were sacrificed for the ability to keep everyone's options open for future movies.

TV Review - How I Met Your Mother Season 9 - Overview and My Thoughts On The End

First, I want to explain my absence, I was at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle! I saw a lot of cool cosplays, got some rad comics, and met Ron Perlman. I didn't watch any tv during this trip, but last night was the finale of How I Met Your Mother and I watched. Since there has been a ton of outrage and confusion about the end, I figured I'd throw my two cents on what I ended up coming away from it after my initial confusion.

Warning, the rest of this post will spoil pretty much anything about How I Met Your Mother, so if you haven't seen the last season or even the last episode, don't read this yet. Instead, wait until you have and come back.

 
Overall, I really, really liked Season 9. However, it had problems that became very apparent with the release of the finale. So in the finale we find out many things, the two biggest revelations being that The Mother (named Tracy) has been dead for six years at the time Ted is telling the story to his kids, and that Ted is in love with Robin and brings a blue french horn to her place and presumably they will live a happy rest of their lives together.

I was confused and a little mad initially after watching the end. On it's face, it seems like it's two series endings that had competed to be the one that won out. Ted being with Robin felt like an end that would have made sense up until this season, while the mother being dead was an end that people had been guessing for a long while but was really foreshadowed this season. During season 9 it did not feel like Ted and Robin could ever be together, which makes the end of them being together feel so forced and contrite to many fans. The real problem of the show though is the narrative framing constraints they gave themselves and how it affected storytelling.

 In my opinion, the real problem with Season 9 is that it has to tell two different and conflicting stories, one for "Future Ted" in 2030 telling his kids the story and one for present day Ted. For "Future Ted" he's been telling this story about how every decision he made up until this point led him to their mother. The problem being however that the biggest problem present day Ted faces is getting over Robin, which he needs to do in order to meet the mother. So this season spends a good 2/3+ of it's Ted storylines dealing with Ted's unresolved issues with Robin and how he gets over them. In order to meet Tracy, Ted had to know that him and Robin could never be together. It's only once he resigns having feelings for her that he falls for Tracy. However, the reason "Future Ted" has been telling this story is really because he wanted to tell his kids how much he loved Robin, and that although he loved and cherished Tracy, she was gone and thought he could be happy with Robin.


The point of the end, in my opinion, was to show how everything changes, but some things are constant. In the begining of the show, we are shown many times that Robin and Ted couldn't work as a couple as they were. Ted wanted to meet "The One" and experience pure, true love, have kids and the dream relationship he always wanted. Robin did not want, nor could have kids, and wanted to be someone who was successful in their career and wanted to be responsible for her own success. Ted met "The One" and had kids, they're now teenagers. Robin came to realize once Ted was taken that he was the kind of guy she actually wanted, despite having rejected the idea for all those years. She also had a very successful career, and judging by the home and dogs, was back to living in New York, so she had somewhat settled down in her middle age. At the end, they've both experienced the things they wanted for themselves that had made them unable to be with each other.


The creators foreshadowed Ted's decision in the episode this season called How Your Mother Met Me, Tracy's origin story. We find out that on the same day as the first episode starts, Tracy loses her boyfriend Max to a car accident. She goes on to mention that he was "The One" for her, no matter what. After 5-6 years she starts dating a guy but she's just dating him to do so, she's not in love with him and still considers Max her one true love. After he proposes to her, she makes a speech to Max that even though she would always consider him "The One" he would want her to move on and be able to love someone else and have a good life with them. They will never replace him, but they could be happy together. Tracy was "The One" for Ted. You can tell from how he talks about her that he never stopped loving her, and still considers her "The One." However, she would have wanted him to be happy, and he's been alone 6 years since she died. His story shows non-stop that he always loved Robin and held out hope that they might one day be together. He knows now that she is not what he wanted or needed, but now that he got the thing he wanted, but can no longer have it, he can be happy with Robin. His kids are cool with Robin and can see how much they both love each other, and they are the ones encouraging him to go after her. They want to see their dad be happy because they know that as much as he loved their mother, she's gone. The kids also point out what most fans complained about all along, that Ted clearly loves Robin from the beginning of the show all the way until this season. If the show was truly about the story of how Ted met Tracy, it seems totally out of place and fans got real tired of it. Though it did get irritating the way it was told, it does make sense in context that the story of How I Met Your Mother isn't how Ted met Tracy, but instead that he wants to go after Robin and is telling his kids this story because he wants to emphazie how Tracy was his perfect opposite, in order to bring up the idea of him trying to rekindle his relationship with Robin.


The fact that Ted wasn't telling the story to just tell the story is what got most fans upset. They didn't want to hear that Ted was going back after Robin after finding out in a space of about 1 minute that the mother died and that she died six years beforehand. The season really kind of screwed itself by being about the two days leading up to Ted and Robin's wedding, only to have the finale be all the time after that. The problem was that they had to many cross-purpose reasons for storytelling that they corned themselves into doing. Season 8 was supposed to be the finale season, but they found out pretty early on that they would get one more season, which means that they had to stretch out the ending a whole 'nother season. Season 8 was good, but it felt like they were just prolonging the inevitable. Here with season 9, it feels like they had all the time after the wedding planned out, but for whatever reason couldn't think up a way to write those as whole episodes and instead focused on 22 of 24 episodes on the wedding and then the last 2 episodes on everything else. The problem with the wedding being the focus of the entire season is that in an early flash-forward to 3 years after the wedding in the finale we are shown that Barney and Robin can't make it work even though they love each other, and they get divorced. We are then shown important flash-forwards that establish that after the divorce Robin knows that her locket speech from episode 22 was right, Ted was "The One" for her. But, because of them spending 22 episodes showing Robin accepting Barney as the one she loves and Ted not being right for her and them both moving on, it's hard to then squish them knowing they are right for each other into the last two episodes, and seems contradictory. In reality, this season should have spent the first half of the season and no more on the wedding. Then every flash-forward we saw could have been it's own episode. Though people still would have been mad at the end I'm sure, it would have eased people into the way it ended instead of just going, "Hey remember how for the last 22 episodes we've estasblished Ted and Robin are totally wrong for each other and will never be together? Well in these last two episodes we're going to show that they were really meant to be together all along, they just had to experience some cruical life moments first for it to work."

I was not surprised at all that the mother turned out to be dead. Anyone who didn't think so hadn't paid attention enough throughout the last few seasons. Though I did help in having every hint pointed out to me through the HIMYM Reddit sub, it was still pretty obvious that she was not around. In one of the best episodes of last season, The Time Travelers, Ted spends the end of the episode telling the kids that although he loved his time spent with the mother, he wished he could have had more, and he makes a tearful speech about how she was so close and he never knew it, but it would be another 45 days until he meets her, and that he would have given anything to have spent those 45 days knowing her. It's very romantic, but not something that he would be that emotional about unless she was no longer around. In that end scene, Ted was literally on his knees in tears giving the speech. That was what sealed the deal for me, and was the real big clue. Other small ones included the way he used past tense throughout this season, like in How Your Mother Met Me, where he talks about how no matter how many songs Tracy sang that he heard, that first one was his favorite. The other big clue was an episode near the end, named Vesuvius, in which Tracy says in relation to current Ted and her planning their wedding, 'What Mother is going to miss her daughter's wedding?" And Ted gets real choked up and she tries to distract him with another story. It's clear that at that point they already know she is sick. If just taken at face value, it's a very confusing reaction to have, unless of course they know something we did not about.


Overall, I liked how the show ended. The show had this big habit of making deceiving twist endings. Throughout all 9 seasons, they pulled off multiple episodes where you thought the story was one way, and then they reveal in the end that there was actually a hidden purpose that was the actual reason the story elements happened. It's literally the same way they had Barney propose to Robin. It seemed that the show's favorite thing to do was give you all the pertinent information but mislead you into thinking it was meant for a different purpose. It turns out that that's how the actual story of How I Met Your Mother went. We were given all the information we needed to know that Robin and Ted were meant to be together in the end, but we were led to believe we were being told the story of how Ted met the Mother. While that was true, the real story was that Ted was telling the story of how Ted met the Mother in order to approach the idea of finally moving on and being able to be happy in a life without her. Once this is put into context it re-values everything we've seen so far, because all of the episodes now have a second meaning. Ted is at once telling the story of how his decisions led to him meeting Tracy, but they are also there to show how close him and Robin were and how it was always on his mind, especially now that Tracy is gone. He's bringing up to his kids how important and integral Robin was to him over all these years to justify why he wants to be with her. Though it's an offhanded comment, the kids mention to Ted that they've seen how Robin and Ted interact when she comes over to visit. Since Robin was pretty much absent during Ted's time with Tracy, it can be assumed that she would continue the tradition of "being there for the big moments" and rekindled their friendship once Tracy died. From the way the kids talk about it, Robin has visited more than on a blue moon, enough to see the history Ted and Robin have together before hearing this story confirming that.

The show tricked us, and I'm okay with it, it's a plot device that the creators loved doing, so it's totally in tone with the show. The biggest problem was just that the format of this season does not go well with having to both tell the story of how Ted got over Robin to fall in love with Tracy and how Ted has come to terms with losing Tracy and wants to move on and try again with Robin. In the end, How I Met Your Mother did everything I wanted it to, and it was a wonderful 9 year ride that I will love re-exploring when I rewatch the series from start to finish some time from now on.