Movie Review: “Adoration”
Rating: 77
Atom Egoyan’s films are often about the ripples after impact, the dull pain left in the wake of tragedy. In “Adoration,” multiple psychic wounds — the loss of parents, spouses and siblings — come to bear on a bright teenager who might not deserve all this pressure, but invites it all because so few of his life questions have answers.
Simon (Devon Bostick) lost his beloved parents five years before, and now lives with his rudderless Uncle Tom (Scott Speedman) in Toronto, haunted by their deaths. The official word is that his classical violinist mother Rachel (Rachel Blanchard) and his father Sami (Noam Jenkins) were killed in a car accident, but the still-seething racial hatred of his dying grandfather (Kenneth Welsh) muddies the waters with insistence that Sami, a Palestinian, killed Rachel.
A high school French assignment intensifies Simon’s internal conflict. When the class is asked to translate an old news story about a terrorist attack in which a pregnant woman is forced by her Arab husband to carry a bomb onto an Israel-bound plane, Simon inserts his parents into the story. This intrigues his teacher Sabine (Arsinee Khanjian, Egoyan’s wife), who asks Simon to do a dramatic reading of his interpretation.
For all Simon knows, it could be true. His reading becomes a point of interest and conflict in his community, especially in online chatrooms where Simon’s classmates gather and debate the story alongside survivors of the crash and venom-spewing anti-Semites. To complicate matters further, Sabine is fired for overstepping the bounds of teaching with the assignment, and her interest in Simon and Tom is too intense for comfort.
To his credit, Egoyan spends much of “Adoration” deliberately confusing the audience — Sami and Rachel are portrayed as both the parents Simon knew and as the attackers they may or may not have been. This, along with the rising community conflict surrounding Simon’s story, cultivates a slow-burn tension around the teenager.
While “Adoration” is filled with great performances, the standout might be Speedman, the former “Felicity” actor who plays Tom as a man whose life was clearly derailed by his sister’s death and stained by the dark blotch of his father’s racism. His life was cast adrift by the event, and Speedman’s dark-hued performance is central to Egoyan’s message in “Adoration”: that sorrow and anger embeds itself, and the past can flare back up at any time.
Video of the Day: Yo La Tengo, “Here To Fall”
This almost sounds like pop music, kids. From the forthcoming Popular Songs, coming three years after the masterful I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, this leadoff track benefits from strings that sound a whole hell of a lot like the work of Paul Buckmaster (Madman Across the Water), but I’ve yet to confirm.
Video of the Day: Owl City, “Fireflies”
Ben Gibbard, your move.
Music Review: Wheat, “White Ink, Black Ink”
Rating: 83
“Change is the better part of me,” sings Scott Levesque on Wheat’s fifth disc, “White Ink, Black Ink,” and the Boston band could not have delivered a better mission statement. Following the autumnal, Dave Fridmann-produced 1999 disc “Hope and Adams,” Wheat signed to a major label and delivered “Per Second, Per Second, Per Second … Every Second,” a thoroughly melodic and commercially unsuccessful brass-ring grab. “White Ink, Black Ink” is the second disc in Wheat’s indie retrenchment, and the duo of Levesque and Brendan Harney are absolutely killing here, creating a disc that is as adventurous as it is surprisingly accessible.
“White Ink” begins with “HOTT,” in which Levesque sings about life’s flux periods against a galloping combination of processed beats, Harney’s furious drumming and a wall cloud of tempestuous sonics. “Change Is” puts the band in perspective as the anthem builds a head of steam, with Levesque’s guitars achieving orchestral density. Throughout “White Ink,” Wheat finds pleasing ways to layer its noises, almost always culminating in an earworm melody or hook.
Central to these chorales of distorted grace is an ever-present insistence on great songcraft, so even if Wheat initially impresses with its intriguing instrumental combinations, there is always a song in the middle of the flash and fire. “White Ink, Black Ink” might not settle anything about whether Wheat has a governing style, but it proves Harney and Levesque will try everything to achieve that sound, whatever it might be this time.
Video of the Day: The Fiery Furnaces, “Charmaine Champagne”
The Fiery Furnaces - Charmaine Champagne from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.
Eleanor puts her boots on and shows us the squarest thing on the jukebox.
DVD Review: “Watchmen: Director’s Cut”
Rating: 60
The best method for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Zack Snyder’s adaptation of “Watchmen” is to compare it to the first screen versions of the Harry Potter books. Director Chris Columbus was so slavish in capturing the action of the first two volumes that he gave short shrift to the soul of the stories. Snyder’s “Watchmen” culls Alan Moore’s words and Dave Gibbons’ images with such painstaking detail, this director’s cut takes as long to watch as the graphic novel does to read — it’s not so much an interpretation as a scanned-and-animated copy without much life of its own.
Moore’s vision of a dystopian 1985 in which Richard Nixon is serving his fifth term in office is packed with vivid anti-heroes and historical grace notes that add an alarming realism to the proceedings. Some of Snyder’s casting decisions are stellar (Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach) and some are simply terrible (Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Malin Ackerman as Laurie Jupiter), but it’s the pacing that trips up “Watchmen” — the film feels oddly static and laborious given the intensity of its story.
To its credit, the director’s cut wisely adds more Rorschach moments and Nite Owl I’s mesmerizing death scene. But since Snyder was being so completist with “Watchmen,” one cannot help but wish that this edition integrated “The Black Freighter,” the grisly comic-within-a-comic that was animated and sold as a separate DVD upon the film’s release. “Freighter” would add depth to this story, and since this “Watchmen” clocks in at 186 minutes, four-and-a-half hours of combined “Watchmen” and “Freighter” wouldn’t run out the doomsday clock for most purists.
Video of the Day: The Octopus Project, “Wet Gold”
Just in case Yvonne Lambert’s semaphore doesn’t lead the rest of the band to shore, there’s always a helpful assist from dancing green monsters.
The Flaming Lips Release “Songs From The Future Album Embryonic” Today
Songs From The Future Album Embryonic, a three-song EP including Embryonic songs “Convinced Of The Hex,” “The Impulse,” and “Silver Trembling Hands,” releases today through the band’s Web site and at iTunes and Amazon and other assorted online retailers. These songs illustrate the Flaming Lips’ renewed sense of sonic adventure and full, passionate embrace of both melody and dissonance.
Sure, they’ll all be on the album, due sometime this fall though hopefully close to the original September release we were told earlier this summer, but why wait? Come on — $3.87 at iTunes, $2.97 at Amazon.
Dfest Photo Blowout, Part 2
Kori Gardner of the Mates of State. Photos by George Lang
The Mates of State. Photo by George Lang
Robert Schwartzman of Rooney. Photos by George Lang
Taylor Locke of Rooney. Photo by George Lang
Antoine “Mikey Rocks” Reed of The Cool Kids. Photos by George Lang
Evan “Chuck Inglish” Ingersoll of The Cool Kids. Photos by George Lang
Blue October. Photos by George Lang
Justin Furstenfeld of Blue October. Photo by George Lang
John McCrea of Cake. Photos by George Lang
Dfest Photo Blowout, Part 1
Street drummer Jascha Tobias rocks the sidewalk outside the IDN Ballroom. Photos by George Lang
Ryan Hendrix of Colourmusic. Photo by George Lang
Colin Fleishacker of Colourmusic. Photo by George Lang
The Knux. Photos by George Lang
Ra Ra Riot. Photo by George Lang
Alexandra Lawn of Ra Ra Riot. Photos by George Lang
Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot. Photos by George Lang
