Last week Saturday, a sizable group (Tuuk, Mark, Carolyn, Joel, Adam, Lucas, Sarah, Dan, Lisa, Dave, JHo,Jplant, Alan, Junko, Toshiro, Brian, Marcia, Beth, Mark H, Mary [apologies to anyone whose name I misspelled or omitted]) got together and Tuuk and Mark’s place for a Thanksgiving meal. It’s already been described here and here, and you ought to check out their pictures.. particularly Tuuk’s, as he acknowledges that I’m ridiculously good looking. Anyway, there were many people, and we had enough food to feed a small army. Turkey, roast, Ham, all sorts of vegetables, etc… and it all tasted amazingly good. All this praise coming from one who typically doesn’t like food should clue you in just just how good it was. I tip my hat to all involved, and would like to give a big thank you to Mark and Tuuk for putting this whole thing together. There was a wonderful feeling of community, I thought, that really captured what I think Thanksgiving ought to be about. I couldn’t help but feel thankful for all that I had, especially my friends, who are just amazing people. It was a great time, and I took a few pictures. In typical fashion, I managed to become miserable before I made it home, but for those few hours, life was indeed good. Happy Thanksgiving.

5. Guster – Lost and Gone Forever

As I said before, I got myself a Guster cd shortly (read: immediately) after seeing them in concert, and that album remained in my cd player (and car tape player) until Christmas. This album was quite honestly all I listened to in the Unix lab for months, and I absolutely loved every song on the album. This album remains my favorite Guster album, though the newest album (Keep It Together) is making quite the rise in my mind, and Goldfly will forever remain a close follower as well.

One thing I really like about Guster is that many of their songs have a fairly upbeat, energetic feel to them, despite some rather heavy messages/subject matter. They manage to make it all come across as believable and worthwhile, rather than sounding like their making light of things like suicide, drug addiction, and the failure of relationships, and they don’t come across as pretentious pricks. I like that. That having been said, there are certainly some songs that are just plain sad, and sound sad… so very, very sad.

This album also features many, many of the things I’ve been listing off as things I very much enjoy about albums:

1. Singability – This album features some of the best songs I’ve ever found to sing along to. They’re also nicely in the small range where i believe myself not to sound like ass. (I’m under no delusion that my Veruca Salt sounds like anything but ass) One thing I may not have mentioned before was that I very much life songs that have parts that involve counting… It’s hard to explain.. perhaps it’s just because I don’t have to work too hard to remember those words, but something about that I find very fun. Some songs that do this well: Don’t Make Me Prove It from Veruca Salt’s 8 Arms to Hold You (“Zero, one, two, three, four days without you… eight, nine, now we’re five times two.“), Pearl Jam’s Animal, from Vs (“One, two, three, four, five against one. Five, five, five against one.” < - That one always goes with the counting off with your fingers raised in the air as well. Man that concert was amazing.), then there’s the ultimate count-off: The Violent Femmes Kiss Off:

     I take one, one, one cause you left me   and two, two, two for my family   and three, three, three for my heartache   and four, four, four for my headaches   and five, five, five for my loneliness,   six, six, six for my sorrow,   and seven, seven no no no no tomorrow,   and eight, eight, I forgot what eight was for   but nine, nine, nine for my lost gods,   and ten, ten, ten, ten for everything, everything, everything, everything

   Anyway, this album has the grand Barrel of a Gun which goes “Four, three, two, one.” quite often. It’s grand.

2. Polyphony – The thing where two or more melodies are woven together seamlessly. I love that. On this album, this works especially well on What You Wish For, when you’ve got three parts singing different lines for the second verse. this works well with the Signability part as well, because you get to choose which part you want to sing, or attempt to sing them all, and sound like a damn fool.
3. Play-Along-ability – As I mentioned before, I tend to listen to an album more if there’s a chance I could play along to the songs on my guitar. Most of the time, I just go online and find some tabs, and tweak a bit if I think they don’t sound right (um.. okay, most of the time, they end up being G-C-D anyway, so tweaking isn’t really necessary..) Anyway, when I got into Guster, I couldn’t find tabs anywhere, so I just started trying stuff out to see if I could get close, and it was a ton of fun. Many of there songs (like Center of Attention and All the Way Up to Heaven) feature really fun little guitar riffs that aren’t horribly complicated, but sound quite kewl, and thus, are very fun to play.
4. Harmony. When you can get two people to sing together and make it all blend together perfectly, you’ve got something special. Guster has a Simon and Garfunkel quality to them in that regard that makes them just a joy to listen to.
5. Lyrical Poetry. The lyrics to some of these songs would make wonderful poetry, I think. At any rate, the lyrics are grand, and worth reading or listening closely to.

So yeah, I like this album a lot. It helps that the album starts out with my favorite Guster song, and one of my favorite songs from any artist: What You Wish For:

  Woke up today to everything grey  And all that I saw just kept going on and on  Sweep all the pieces under the bed  Close all the curtains and cover my head  And what you wish for won't come true  You aren't surprised love, are you?    [The polyphony thinger:]  If this serenade          Repeat After me                  Just a little bit closer    Is not what you want          And do what I say                  Caught up in a lie    It's just how it is         It won't change a thing                  Got a little bit colder    It keeps going on and on      Come out, come out where ever you are  Would you do it all over right from the start  And what you wish for won't come true  You aren't surprised love, are you?  So what you wish for won't come true  You aren't surprised love, are you?      Once had this dream, crashed down and up  Not black and white, but where the colors are  I never dreamed that I would let it go    And I will get what I deserve  Keep all the secrets under the bed  Open the curtains, forget what I said  And what you wished for could come true  You aren't surprised love, are you?  So what you wished for could come true  You aren't surprised love, are you?

From the instant I heard the words “woke up together to everything grey“, I was hooked. I don’t think you can live through a single Michigan winter without eventually feeling your soul completely destroyed by the endless parade of grey, miserable days. It gets to the point where simply waking up and looking outside is enough to make you miserable all day long. The grey seems to start from the sky, and eventually sucks all the color out of the world, and then from inside your head.. well, my head, anyway. Life turns into the endless parade of the same old drab nothingness, and right when you think your about to snap.. and spring and color and joy and happiness will never come, *BANG*, you’ve got 4 more damn months of winter to get through. Stupid Michigan winters..

Anyway, the opening line caught me, and the rest of the song was just perfect. The energetic optimism of the last few lines “What you wished for could come true” always hits me as being rather powerful. I’ve heard this song performed live a few times, and they sing the “Won’t come true” at the end, and that always confused me… Then I heard a few more live performances, and a fairly humorous drunken performance of “Sunshine”, and decided they either forgot the words, or were drunk. Either way, the album version is my favorite.

I could talk about each song the album for a while, but suffice it to say, they are all amazingly good, and you ought to give them a listen. My other personal favorites include: Either Way, Fa Fa, All the Way Up to Heaven, Rainy Day, Happier, Two Points for Honesty, I Spy, Center of Attention, So Long, and Barrel of a Gun. So… along with What You Wish For, that makes the entire album. Told you it was good.

A final note: There are a few times in life when I am so taken with something that it becomes my goal to make as many people aware of it as possible. When I first read Jurassic Park I was so impressed with it I tried to get everyone I knew to read it, with limited success. When I discovered Ed, I insisted that everyone I knew watch it, with some (albeit limited) success. When I discovered Guster, I demanded that people listen, and those who have seem to like them as well. This pleases me.

Andy introduced me to another spectacular band the other day, and one song in particular that I’ve taken quite a liking to. The band is Lush, and the song is Heavenly Nobodies:

For the record, the song Ciao! on this album (Lovelife) is also spectacular.

6. Extreme – III Sides to Every Story

This album has, hands down, the greatest ending section of any album I’ve ever heard. The only thing that even comes close, in my opinion, is Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral. III Sides to Every Story is another concept album (like The Downward Spiral, Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, or The Wall), that we all know I’m so fond of. This album’s “concept” is fairly straightforward.. as the album suggests, there are 3 sides to every story: yours, mine, and the Truth. I capitalized “Truth” for a reason: This album has an overwhelmingly obvious Christian theme to it. The last three songs (grouped together under the title “Everything Under the Sun“) are ripped straight from Ecclesiastes (Which, as you might recall, I like a lot). I can’t say enough just how truly amazing sounding these 3 songs are, and just how well they complete the message of the album. You’ll just have to listen yourself to understand. Okay, that having been said, I’ll dig into the album a bit.

Yours

We start off with Warhead, and as you might have guessed, it seems to be about war and violence. It starts out with “Hey kid, wanna have some fun? Choose a side and here’s your gun.“. This song features one of Nuno Bettencourt’s amazing guitar solos (He has many, and they are all unbelievable), and has almost a Metallica – Black Album feel to it. Straight from the [obviously sarcastic] “celebration” of culture’s violence obsession, we jump into the violin-introed Rest in Peace. “Make Love not war sounds so absurd to me. We can’t afford to say these words lightly, or else our world will truly rest in peace.“. One of my favorite parts of this song is the guitar solo. We’ve already established that Nuno Bettencourt is a guitar deity, yes? Good. This thing about this solo is that he makes it sound very natural and fairly uncomplicated. (i.e. It doesn’t sounds horribly complicated in that Eddie Van Halen “There’s no way a human can play anything that fast” sort of way, though Nuno is certainly capable of such things (See Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee or Midnight Express). Instead, it just sounds really, really good, flowing well with the rest of the song. You don’t realize just how complex is is until you pick up the guitar and say “Hrm, maybe I should to learn that one.” About 5 seconds later you giggle nervously and set the guitar back down.

Next we have Politicalamity… the reason for owning a Wah pedal. Another pounding anti-war anthem. “Wars ‘n rumors Of wars, no one knows what for. Toys and soldiers deployed, on some foreign shore.“. This leads into Color Me Blind, a grand rock song plea for racial equality. “Why do we dream in black and white?“, “Picture the world without any color. You couldn’t tell one face from another. I don’t understand why we fight with our brother. Color me blind just to love one another.“. Each of the verses begins with the line “I had a dream..“. This sets the stage for the Peacemaker Die 2 tracks later. But first, there’s Cupid’s Dead. Rather than try to describe it, I’m just listing the lyrics. It’s fairly self explanatory:

  I read the news today oh boy,  About a tragic comedy  Newspaper hinted suicide,  The letterhead read 'Dear Johnny'  A tainted truth was all it said,  Sleep tight now that  You've made your bed  An arrow that once pierced your heart  Points to the apple on your head    Three sides to every story  Yours, mine  And, Monday morning's    CUPID'S DEAD, HEADLINES READ,  CUPID'S DEAD    Oh, Romeo, Oh, Romeo  Where did our love go, Romeo?  If you read between the headlines,  You wouldn't be the last to know  No mystery yet to unfold,  A paperboy left in the cold  A love was said to never die,  Withered away and just got old    'Our top story tonight,  is a crime of passion  The victim, an unidentified man,  is found in bed, wearing only a diaper,  holding a bow an arrow in one hand,  and clutching a letter in the other.  The letter simply read ...  CUPID'S DEAD.'    Extra, extra, extra,  read all about it    CUPID'S DEAD,    Cupid is dead, deceased,  I got peace of mind  Still it's hard to forget,  what it leaves behind  A lot of love lost,  your feelings are wasted,  tasted the sweetness,  but now you're faced with,  the thought, of being alone  Nor more companionship,  you can handle it,  just abandon it,  leave it behind,  and look for the brighter day  Give it some time,  cause it won't come right away  You gotta be standing strong,  hold on to your dignity  Don't sit around,  saying look what ya did to me  It's time to move on,  you gotta continue  to look for a love,  of a life that's within you  Cupid is dead now,  it's time to rely on,  yourself to cope  You got no shoulder to cry on  DEAD

After that, we have the final song of the first section, Peacemaker Die, which I also consider to be the most moving song of the first section. “Peacemaker Die, I don’t know why.“,”Blessed are the warmongers..“. After two verses and choruses, we move into yet another amazing solo. As the solo eases up, we’re suddenly presented with a clip of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech:

 I have a dream this afternoon,  That the brotherhood of man,  Will become a reality  In this day, with this faith,  I will go out and,  Carve the tunnel of hope,  Through the mountain of despair  With this faith,  I will go out with you and,  Transform dark yesterdays  Into bright tomorrows  With this faith,  We will be able to achieve  This new day  When all of God's children,  Black men and white men,  Jews and gentiles,  Protestants and Catholics  Will be able to join hands  And sing with the negroes,  In the spiritual of old  Free at last, free at last,  Thank God almighty,  We're free at last.

I consider that speech moving in and of itself, but in the context of this song, this section of the album, and this album as a whole, I find it even more so. Truly an amazing song. And with that the first section is over. The Yours section is characterized by pounding rock songs about social and political topics, targeting whole groups of people, or the world as a whole. This sets us up for the next section:

Mine

This section is noticeably softer, and more personal, focusing on Gary Cherone’s voice and acoustic/orchestra backing rather than Nuno Bettencourt’s guitar. It starts off with Seven Sundays, a sweeping ballad with an orchestra and piano joining the band. I toss back and forth with this song as to it’s meaning, and the more I think about it, the more I think it has two meanings. It’s in the form of a love song, and when coupled with the next song, it would make perfect sense (and these two songs together would form a good reply to Cupid’s Dead). But when you take all the songs that follow, and see the direction the album is going, it makes sense that this could be a song to God saying something like “I’ve been too busy for You, but if I could, I’d spend more time with you”. Take a look at the lyrics:

  One day  we'll find the time  to spend, together  until then, My Love    If I had one wish,   it wouldn't be hard to choose:  Seven Sundays in a row,  cause that's the day that I spent with you.    Someday soon,  you and I  will hold each other  once again, My Love    If I had one wish,   it wouldn't be hard to choose:  Seven Sundays in a row,  cause that's the day that I spent with you.  

Tragic Comic is one of my favorite songs on the album, and the only song I could take out of the album and listen to without feeling like I had to hear the entire thing in context. A guy completely in love who managed to [at the very least in his own mind] screw everything up…repeatedly I am this guy. Dear lord am I this guy. One thing I really like about this song is that it’s still sung with an obvious joy.. I could see a song like this being sung like “Woe is me, I’m a pathetic loser”, but instead it’s a “I’m so completely in love that I can’t even do anything right, and I couldn’t be happier.” I envy this person with every fiber of my being.

From this point on, the album focuses in on the overriding theme, with each song growing nearer to the final song, which encapsulates the entire album so brilliantly that one need only listen to that song to know the whole album, and love the whole album. First we have Our Father. Here’s another song like Seven Sundays that can be taken 2 ways, and both would be accurate, and intended, I think. Our Father is a song from a child to their father who has gone away. Taken literally, it’s about a father who has left a family, and the child desperately wants him to come back and be there for him and the family. Taken in the scope of the album, and the songs to follow, it could be a plea to God. He feels like God has abandoned him, and realizes he needs Him in his life.

  Oh Daddy please,  I pray every night  the doors will open  Oh Daddy please,  this house is just  a broken home,  left all alone

This leads perfectly into Stop the World. Now we have a man looking at the world, and realizing that the world has no idea what it’s doing (“All the world’s a masquerade made up of fools and philosophers”). The more he looks at it, the more he realizes that things aren’t going to get better if we continue to try to do things on our own (“if we forget yesterday, We’re bound to repeat it tomorrow. It’s not too late to start today, Better off safe, than sorry.“). Then we get the line that points to what’s to come:

  There's nothing new under the sun  for me and you  Won't somebody please    Stop the world  Stop the world  I wanna get off.

The next song, God Isn’t Dead, is the saddest song on the album. We’ve come to the point where he realizes the world is messed up and evil, and it’s not getting any better… and now he’s crying out to God, wanting to know how this could be, and wants to know where God is for all of this. It ends in a plea for someone [God, Himself] to prove that God still exists.

      Ah, look at all  the lonely people,  losing faith,  in a world  full of despair,  no one who cares,  wondering where  God disappeared    I, see the pain  in everybody's faces  asking why,  the God up in the sky,  didn't say goodbye,  please tell me,  God didn't die      Please tell me God isn't dead.  Please tell me God isn't dead.  Please tell me God isn't..  I want to know if He's..  Tell me God isn't..  Please tell me God isn't dead.  I want to know.

If you don’t feel your soul ache after that song, then you either weren’t’ listening, or you’ve got no soul.

While I was searching for lyrics for this album, I found out there there was one additional song on the cassette that they couldn’t fit on the Cd version. I was excited, to say the least, and sought out to acquire that song, and my computer tells me I’m about 2 minutes away from doing so. The song is Don’t Leave Me Alone, and it fits right here, after God Isn’t Dead, to close out the middle section. It’s another plea to God (and finally mentions Jesus by name), begging him not to abandon him (“I’m on my knees, Forgive me please. Just don’t leave me alone. How long will my song be wrong?“). And with that, the middle section is done.

The Truth

This section is essentially one song (Everything Under the Sun) broken into 3 parts:

I. Rise ‘n Shine. The song begins with a child’s music box playing, then a simple acoustic guitar enters, and as the song begins, a full fledged orchestra joins in, growing to a crescendo at the first chorus: Rise.. Rise ‘N Shine, a new day is coming. Rise.. Rise in time for everything under the sun.. After another orchestra rich verse referencing Daniel’s dream interpretations (and again referencing the “I Had a Dream” line used in Color Me Blind and Peacemaker Die), the song quiets down, back to just the acoustic guitar, and the lyrics come straight from Eccesiastes:

  Vanity,  Yes, all is vanity  Vanity,  Yes, all's futility    For one that dies,  another's born  Where laughter's heard,  comforters mourn  There's a time for  everything    A song for love,  even abhor  An olive branch,  or winter's war  There's a time for everything under the sun

II. Am I Ever Gonna Change?. With the new found energy and encouragement of the previous song, we enter into this song, and he voices the battle between an earnest desire to change, and problems of weakness, doubt, and failure:

I'm tired of being me,  and I don't like what I see,  I'm not who I appear to be  So I start off every day,  down on my knees I will pray,  for a change in any way  But as the day goes by,  I live through another lie,  if it's any wonder why    Am I ever gonna change?  Will I always stay the same?  If I say one thing then I do the other,  it's the same old song that goes on forever.  Am I ever going to change?  I'm the only one to blame.  When I think I'm right I wind up wrong  It's a futile fight, gone on too long.    Please tell me if it's true,  am I too old to start anew,  cause that's what I want to do  But time and time again,  when I think I can,  I fall short in the end  So why do I even try,  Will it matter when I die,  Can anyone hear my cry?    Am I ever gonna change?  Take it day by day.  My will is weak and my flesh too strong  This Peace I seek til Thy kingdom comes.

Then there’s a Priest reading some Latin text that sounds like part of a Catholic Mass or something, but I haven’t yet been able to find or figure out what exactly is being said… then they blast back into the chorus with the orchestra again… then the music fades out…

III. Who Cares?. This is the best song on the album, and one of the best songs ever created, in my opinion. It begins with a simple piano melody being repeated. As it continues, we hear what sounds like whispering or something in the background… the whispering starts to get louder, but then is overtaken by the entrance of some shrieking violins… then the entire thing explodes with a full orchestra, then all is hushed again, and back to the piano, as the singer directs his song straight to Jesus:

Tell me, Jesus,  are you angry?  One more sheep has,  just gone astray  A hardening of hearts,  turning to stone  Wandering off,  so far from home  So many children,  losing time  Walk in darkness,  looking for a sign  Chasing their rainbows,  the future looks so bright  Slowly we're losing,  Sight of the light.

This is followed by the chorus: “Who Cares? repeated over and over again… then back to a soft verse, then a just plain beautiful guitar solo. Nothing uber complicated, but just perfectly flowing with the tone of the song. After the solo, we get the orchestra kicking in again, and the next verse is sung/screamed:

Here I am,  a naked man  Nothing to hide  with empty hands  Remember me,  I am the one  Who lost his way,  your Prodigal Son

With all masks dropped and walls broken down, he presents himself as he is and begs for God. With the final words of the verse sung, the piano and gentle strings return, and a peaceful melody plays through, and gains momentum, and again explodes into what is hands down the most beautiful section of this song, and the album. The melody from Who Cares is mixed with the Chorus from Am I Ever Gonna Change, and in the background the chorus of Rise ‘N Shine is sung, blended together perfectly. As they reach the end, the music abruptly stops, and we return to the music box from the start of Rise ‘N Shine, only we now recognize the melody it’s playing as the chorus to Who Cares.

Quite frankly, I think this is the most beautiful album I’ve ever experienced. I may listen to others more, but I have seen no other full album that holds together as a unit, and tells as compelling a story as Extreme’s III Sides to Every Story.

Okay, at this point I’m assuming you’ve read both my and Andy’s review of The Matrix: Revolutions. If not, go read them now, because it’ll up our page views, and might help you understand where this one is going. Anyway, now to respond to some of Andy‘s arguments: [a note: There may be some spoilers throughout. Any major plot or storyline spoilers I'll try to flag, but minor things might just be left in. You have been warned]

Andy said: Revolutions provides a suitably epic and satisfying conclusion to the hero-myth tale begun in the first Matrix film

I’d argue that Revolutions provided a suitably predictable (albeit nicely/”visually pleasingly” done, for the most part) conclusion to the tale begun in the 2nd movie.. Well, the end of the 2nd movie. At the end of the first movie, Neo is essentially a god in the Matrix, and can do whatever we want. That’s what we are lead to believe. We’re also lead to believe that he can speak directly to whatever great power controls the thing (remember the phone call? I’m assuming he wasn’t just calling random numbers and making the same speech over and over again… although given the substantial fluctuation in intelligence he displays in the 2nd and 3rd movies, I guess it’s possible. So the first one ends with us believing that Neo has won, and the world is saved. The 2nd movie begins saying that Neo hadn’t really won, he was just god, and could do whatever he wanted. Apparently, what he wanted was to fight worthless battles that accomplished nothing, then fly around for a while. They were fun to watch, but about half way through the movie you start thinking, “Wait… why didn’t he just fly away from that before it started?”… “and remember when he just flew into people, and they died? Why not do that again?” (I know, I know… “upgrades”.. weak.) Anyway, I was stuck through much of the 2nd movie with no real idea why Neo didn’t win at the end of the first one.

Andy said: Importantly, it avoids the mistakes that made plagued #2 (Neo being invulnerable, Zion being a joke, the Architect and the Oracle using Really Big Words to distract us from the fact that they’re not saying anything All That Deep, the final Act being a confusing mishmash of cut-scenes and not-sufficiently-explained sequences, among other things)..

Okay. I think the fact that Neo was invulnerable in #2 lead to a lot of the thoughts I explained in the previous paragraph. It also came straight from the end of #1, when he discovered that he was, indeed, invulnerable. I’d consider this more a problem of trying to create a trilogy out of what was just one movie. Look at Star Wars. at the end of A New Hope, evil still existed. Vader flies away, and we see him do it. There wasn’t any such message at the end of #1. Also, at the end of A New Hope, Luke is hardly a Jedi.. Hell, he’s hardly much of anything. We’re lead to believe Neo has already achieved what he was supposed to achieve in #1… and then additional things just get tacked on for the next 2 movies. What I’m getting at is that the 2nd two movies in the classic Star Wars trilogy highlight and compliment what happened in the first movie, and continue that story. In the Matrix trilogy, the 2nd two movies downgrade and trivialize what was done in the first movie, and tarnish what was originally believed to be a pretty spectacular event. (Yeah, I became a messiah and destroyed the Matrix, but they just instantly made a better one,) [At least the Death Star 2 took some time to build...]

As for Zion… Zion never once interested me. They showed up, and I thought “Hrm.. I’d rather live in the Matrix.” They started dancing, and I thought “Hrm.. I guess I could take a nap”. I guess the mixture of ultra-1337 technology and archaic gears and pulleys and stuff was supposed to be kewl. (And I’m sure there’s some reasoning, like energy signatures or EMP dangers or something) but to me, it just looked stupid. That thought continued into #3. Example: Those Mech suits. Seriously… why? Are we not of the opinion that wheels are good? I’m assuming those were created [for the movie] because they were supposed to look kewl. I thought they looked idiotic. I was pleased with the absence of dancing in #3, but it didn’t make Zion any more interesting to me. Also, just curiosity question: if they’ve had all this time to built these machines, and ships, etc.. Knowing that they’re fighting a war with the machines, shouldn’t they have come up with some adequate defenses for the thing? They always seemed so surprised by everything that was going on… like the size of the machine army, the fact that they were drilling toward Zion, etc.. Why not build a giant EMP, or better yet, MANY giant EMPS, then launch an assault on the surface? Did I miss some part where that wasn’t possible?

The Architect and the Oracle… There were two things I really liked about the 2nd movie: 1.) The huge highway action scene. 2.) The Architect. (I found a few other things entertaining.. like the battle with the many Smiths, but their entertainment value came at a price (They did nothing at all but hurt the storyline, and the CG looked pretty bad in parts.. We’re talking Anakin on the shaak bad). But back to the Architect: His speech, though wordy, was really the only interesting new addition to the Matrix story. I was surprised and pleased by it. They were actually doing something significant to the storyline, after doing pretty much nothing with it the entire movie. It was also one of those things where people, after the movie, were saying “I’m going to have to see that again, just to hear all of what the Architect was saying.” I thought that scene was incredibly well done. The oracle, on the other hand, just annoys me. I’d like to be revered for saying nothing besides “you already know the answer” repeatedly. I also find it kind of cheap that every time a decision is made, they run to the oracle hoping she’ll give them all the answers. Unless she has some sort of strange telepathic powers, the same thing could have been accomplished by just sitting down and thinking about it for a while. So in this regard, #3 was an improvement. The Oracle is finally helpful, and she finally says something in a coherent fashion that doesn’t involve 3 subsequent sentences of explanation. (and probably some visual clue for the slower viewers out there.). As for the ending mishmash… I guess I didn’t see it as that confusing. I just didn’t find it all that interesting or new either. Hell, you had seen much of it 2 or 3 times by this point (Neo’s Dream), so you already knew what was going to happen. They could have made his choice (when he left the Architect) a bit more clear, as some people seemed confused, but otherwise, I’d call it decent).

Andy said: #3 ditches much of the pretentious college-freshman-philosophy talk and gives us what we loved about #1: lots of fun action with a catchy sci-fi premise, coated with just enough high-concept elements to elevate it above standard-fare sci-fi.

Yes, #3 ditched the philosophy talk (which I found kind of interesting) and replaced it with some new-agey “We’ll be okay, because we believe in something” mantra, which I didn’t care for. There were some close similarities between #1 and #3 on this point. In #1, the big thing was Morpheus (and consequently, almost everyone else on his ship) believing in Neo as “the One” who would fulfill the prophecy. There was a specific thing that they believed in. I thought that was good. In #3, the prophecy is proved to be bunk, and now they start “believing” again. This time not in anything specific, just in Neo. They believed he would make things okay, but they had no idea how. I’m not sure if I should find that impressive (They’re believing in this guy despite overwhelming odds) or just an act of desperation (Well, we’re going to die, so I’ll put my faith in the only thing that might have a chance).

[spoilers ahead. highlight to read]

As for what I loved about #1: I loved the world inside the Matrix. Besides the final showdown (which I found hella disappointing), they didn’t spend time there at all. As for the fun action… The battles inside Zion I didn’t find enjoyable at all. I thought the mech suits were stupid, the inspirational “women fighting for their man” and consequently saving the day for a few seconds cliche` and not interesting.. and when things were nearing their worst, you get the inspirational story of the little boy Neo saves coming through in the clutch. Come on! Even that actor must’ve thought that was completely lame. The flying around the caves? I got the impression that she was doing something impressive, but it wasn’t all that exciting. It doesn’t rival a well done car chase (or even the motorcycle stuff in #2)… So what’s left to be impressive? The stuff with Neo and the Wizard of Oz? It looked kinda kewl, and I have to say, when Neo entered the Matrix to fight Smith one last time, I was excited. It was like when Yoda shows up to fight Dooku in Ep. 2… Only the resulting fight did nothing for me. They just punched and kicked a lot… and that was it. The fight on the playground was more fun to watch. Oh, now you can fly and punch.. woo. I was disappointed. And the ending was nothing new. The worst part was, I really wanted to like it. There just wasn’t anything for me to latch on to and say “yes, that was amazingly kewl, and redeemed the stuff I didn’t like. I think the fact that the “real world” just didn’t interest me really ruined the movie for me. It was the same with the first movie: Every time they entered the Matrix I was excited, and every time they left, I was disappointed.

[end spoilers]

Andy said: In many ways, #3 reminds me very much of Return of the Jedi (another film critiqued for being a shallow action film). Neither #3 nor Jedi introduce the sorts of mind-bending plot twists that their predecessors did (the true purpose of the One, the Vader-Luke relationship). In both movies, little time is spent further developing characters we already know well. The time for Big Revelations is over. Now it’s time for action, and the movies are all about the heroes finally doing what they’ve been wanting to do throughout the whole trilogy: take down Evil once and for all.

I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there, Bob. First off, I love Jedi, obviously. Jedi had a number of things going for it that I didn’t feel the Matrix #3 had, some personal, some not. First, I thought Jedi did introduce some new things. We learn Leia is Luke’s sister, which I think was a surprise for some (I was too young to really know what was going on back when those movies came out, but I’m sure there must have been at least a few people who thought it was going to be Han as his brother, or something.). Next, we get the Emperor finally becoming a main character, and we realize just how truly kewl he is. We get new ships (A-wings and B-wings anyone? How about a ton of capitol ships to boot?), We get Leia in slave garb (thank you), and we get what I thought was one of the kewlest things about the trilogy: The conflict between Darth Vader and the Emperor. It might have been eluded to in Empire, but in Jedi we get the full story: Vader wants to replace the Emperor, and can do so with Luke’s help. The Emperor wants the more powerful of Luke or Vader, and is kewl with them fighting it out. That’s a worthwhile addition to the storyline, and something that’s become significant in the prequels… I don’t think we knew about that before. You are right, though, I don’t think Matrix #3 introduces us to anything new. The end of #2 we see Neo stopping the machines in the “real world” using his magic powers. You knew from that point on exactly what he’d be doing in #3.

Also, I found the 3 part battle of Endor far more interesting, exciting, and enjoyable to watch than the end of Matrix #3. Jedi’s battles mixed heavy action with impressive visuals, but there was always enough lighthearted stuff to keep it bearable and enjoyable. Also, they jumped from storyline to storyline to keep you in the loop.. you were never stuck trying to reorient yourself, or wondering what’s happening to the other people. In #3, we’re with Neo, then we leave him… and we don’t see him again for like 45 minutes. (i have no idea how long it was, but it was a long, long time.) Considering how important he is the the survival of mankind, shouldn’t we at least check in on him every once in a while. Point to ponder: How many hundreds of people died because Neo and Trinity have to get it on every 3 minutes? We get it, they’re in love. People are dying, Neo.

Another thing that kind of bothered me: In Jedi, if Any one of the 3 parts (Luke, Lando and the Fleet, Han and the ground forces) had failed, the war would be over, and the Rebels would all be dead. In #3, if Neo fails, it’s all over. If Neo wins, it’s all over. Morpheus and those guys could have locked themselves in a box and just waited for it to all be over. Their war didn’t matter.

Andy said: To boil it down, then:

1. Revolutions is supposed to bring closure to the Matrix trilogy, in style.
2. It does.
3. Therefore, it rocks.

I’d say:
1. Revolutions is supposed to bring closure to the Matrix trilogy, in style.
2. #1 already did that. #2 and #3 just kinda mess things up then try to fix them, with varying degrees of success (and entertainment)
3. Therefore, it’s mediocre

I guess I should add that I didn’t hate #2 or #3. Hell, I bought #2, and I’ll buy #3. I just didn’t think they were nearly as good as #1. And #3 was really disappointing to me, because it just didn’t entertain me the way #2 had.

I saw the final installment in The Matrix trilogy opening day, and now that the story has come to a close, all I can say is “I wish they had left it at one.” While the second two movies had their share of interesting tidbits and enjoyable sequences (and for me, the 2nd beat out the 3rd in this regard), nothing they did seemed up to par with the original, which I considered to be a truly excellent film. My main compliants:

1. I considered the original Matrix movie to be excellent. The story was new and fresh (or at the very least a good story presented in a new way.) The story ended with what I considered a perfect ending (it answered enough questions to not leave you hanging, but left enough things up to personal interpretation/imagination to be interesting). The next two movies, I felt, had to create a new problem to be overcome, and I didn’t find that conflict nearly as interesting. More troubling, it had to undo things that were supposedly solved in the first movie.
2. The new conflict for the 2nd two movies wasn’t that original, was fairly predictable, and required the audience to endure a number of very lame cliches, poorly executed plot development scenes, and whole sections that, while pretty, were completely uneccessary.
3. The first movie focused on the world inside the Matrix itself, which I found completely fascinating. I cared absolutely nothing for the “real world”. The next two movies drifted away from the Matrix, and focused on the “real world”… By the 3rd movie, they really didn’t spend any time there at all. I was very disappointed.
4. The ending, while predictable, and perhaps necessary, didn’t do it for me at all. I have a hard time people being all that much happier now than they were before this whole thing started. That wasn’t how I felt after the first one.

7. R.E.M. – Out of Time

It would appear sleep will not be joining me for a while… Which is fine, i guess, I haven’t really had time to write recently. So on with the show: The scary thing is that this album almost didn’t make the list… That would’ve been wrong… but one of my rules was that I had to like every song on the album… and I don’t like “Radio Song“… But at one point I did… so I did “like” it, so it still counts. (Nevertheless, it did hurt it’s standing a bit… it prolly coulda been a top 3)

Okay, this is R.E.M… my favorite band since I discovered that they sang 2 songs I very much liked (The theme to “Get a Life” [Stand] and the “End of the World” song that they played on the radio forever that one day [It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine]). Anyway, this is R.E.M.’s first appearance on the countdown, and I must say I restrained myself from putting at least 5 or 6 of them in the top 25…. So why this album? First and foremost, the songs on this album are incredible.. they just are. They’re a different sound to each of them.. The lyrics and tone stir up different emotions. But they all weave together fairly nicely. Now add to that that significance/memories/connection that I, personally, attached to this album, and these songs, and you’ve got yourself a winner.

I already mention that I don’t much care for Radio Song. It’s okay, and I can listen to it and all that… It just doesn’t do much for me… but when I first got the album, it was one of 3 songs I’d play (Tracks 1, 2, and 6). So I won’t say all that much about this song, cause I want to get to the next one.

Losing My Religion is one of my favorite songs ever. Many, many times I’ve said it’s my absolute favorite song, and many times it still is. This is partly because of what the song is about, and partly because of what the song represents for me, and partly because the song is simply so enjoyable to listen to that I can’t imagine ever not wanting to hear it. [And I also love the video]. So what is the song about? Well I’ll tell you

“Losing my religion”, according to Michael Stipe, is a southern expression. The idea is something like this: It means when there’s something you want so bad, you’re willing to sacrifice everything else that exists in order to get/achieve it. This thing is so important that you’d be willing to give up your religion In the words of Stipe during the VH1 Storytellers, it’s when “something has pushed you so far that you would lose your faith for it.. it’s pushed you to the nth degree”. So we’ve got that part down. So what is the song about? When you have a crush on someone, and you’re afraid.. and you want to find out if they like you, and you desperately want them to know that you like them, but you just can’t… And so you’re subtly dropping hints, and you’re certain each time that you’ve gone too far, and you’ve ruined everything… or you lay out these hints, and the person responds in a way you didn’t expect, or don’t understand… and so there’s this constant struggle inside your head to 1.) figure out what you have to do to get this person to notice you, and 2.) figure out what that person is thinking based on their actions/reactions… and it’s all just too much for you, and you’ve got this crush so bad that you’d give anything in this world for it.. That’s what this song is about. Take a look Essentially, it’s about having a crush, and being afraid that every hint or action you take is too much, and that you’re going to ruin everything… but you are just so overwhelmed that you’ve got to do something. I adore this song.

Low is a slow, sad, sombre song about love that sounds more like a dirge than a love song to me.Love is no longer something to be sought out for happiness, but something necessary for survival.

Near Wild Heaven takes the love theme, and adds to it the idea of imperfection.. Okay, so you’re in the relationship now.. but things aren’t/life isn’t perfect. “There’s a feeling that’s gone. Something had gone wrong, and I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”..

Endgame is an instrumental that is quite fun to play, and mellow and relaxing to listen to.

Shiny Happy People… I can’t tell if it’s a sarcastic mock of bubblegum pop or a true celebration of exuberance with a slight twinge (“there’s no time to cry. Happy, happy.”) It annoys the hell out of some people, but I still like listening to it.

I’m still not certain what Belong is about, exactly. But I like to think it’s about, well… “belonging.”

Half a World Away is another excellent song. This time about loneliness. We’ve gone from unrequited love, to needing love for survival, to finally getting love, and it not being enough.. We’ve celebrated the joys of life, and felt the importance of belonging… but now, we’re all alone… traveling through life without a love just seems empty.

Texarkana is another great song that’s just a joy to listen to. This one I believe to be about the struggle (in keeping with the theme I’ve drawn up for the album, I’d call it the struggle to make a relationship work, or to get it started in the first place…. I think the idea is that he’s struggling to figure out what he’s supposed to be doing in life, and figuring that out is the biggest part of the struggle. He needs that other person to “catch me when I fall”… Then the realization “All alone, waiting to fall.”

I’ve said pretty much all I can say about Country Feedback. It’s a song about breakup and blame, and it’s my 2nd favorite song on the album.

Me in Honey. I think this song is about pregnancy, or having a kid with a woman, or being messed up, and in a relationship with a girl you have a kid with. Something like that.

So there you have it. One of R.E.M.’s best, if you ask me.