Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Hypnotic Eye (2014)

The new album by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Hypnotic Eye, is getting a lot of good press (and for good reason, it turns out). Even Entertainment Weekly is singing its praises, and as a person who is mostly a fan of non-contemporary music, I usually find EW's music coverage to be largely irrelevant to my tastes. Among the things I've read about Hypnotic Eye is the claim that it is a quality Heartbreakers record in the classic style. And so that was my mindset going into it on first listen.

It's not often that a decades-old band puts out a record to rival their youthful output. Obviously, this is probably the goal of a lot of bands on a lot of records (whether they're trying to recapture old lightning, or outshine it with a new sound), but it's not easy to accomplish. Take The Rolling Stones, for example, who have released a lot of iffy records since their heyday in the '60s, and '70s. In 2005, with A Bigger Bang, they finally put out a solid record worth perking your ears up and listening to. At the same time, it doesn't so much sound like a new classic Rolling Stones album, as it sounds like The Rolling Stones in the 21st century recording some good music that doesn't embarrass their monumental legacy.

On the other hand, take Black Sabbath's album from last year, ingeniously titled 13. Nobody would have faulted you for doubting that Black Sabbath was a band that could put out a record that effectively captured the sound on their classic albums (well, I wouldn't have, at least). But to my surprise, that's exactly what they accomplished with 13, which to me is every bit as good as their self-titled debut, or Paranoid, or Master of Reality, or what have you - and maybe even better as a matured, consistent product.

So where on the spectrum does Hypnotic Eye lie? When I first started listening to it - skeptic that I am - I was doubtful that it could be as good as people were saying. As the first couple songs played through, I caught myself thinking, it's good, but can it really compare to a classic Heartbreakers record? But, lo and behold, by the time I got to the end of the album, I found myself digging the songs enough to put it back on from the top. I ended up listening to it three times in a row before I had to get up and do something else, and at that point, I was convinced that I liked the record enough that I wanted to buy my own copy of it.

Truth be told, and as cynical as this is going to sound, I didn't think Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers had another album of this quality in them still. They put out a good album in 2010 (titled Mojo), but if I were to be honest, I think I like Hypnotic Eye even more. Mojo was more akin to The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang, in that it sounded like a modern Heartbreakers recording good music that didn't embarrass their legacy. It's also a longer album, in the modern format. Hypnotic Eye is a short 45 minutes, like albums of the old days, but it's a lot tighter as a result, with hardly any filler. I like an album that doesn't take the risk of overstaying its welcome. If it's that good, you can always put it on repeat, but if there's too much filler, you're bound to start reaching for the skip button.

And the quality of the music is fantastic. Like Black Sabbath's 13, I think it's as good as any Heartbreakers album I've listened to, including their self-titled debut and Damn The Torpedoes (both from the '70s). And in spite of my strong personal connection to the band's 2002 release The Last DJ, which was probably responsible for me finally taking Tom Petty seriously as an artist and not just a musician who put out some good radio hits, I think that, on a purely musical scale, I like Hypnotic Eye even better.

The Songs

The album opens with American Dream Plan B, which is very clever and gets you thinking - even before the song starts playing! It starts off in a lo-fi sort of way that may be a little off-putting at first - I'll admit it had me scratching my head the first time I listened to it. But it clears up quickly, and on repeated listens I think it's actually a really neat effect. It's a solid song that includes a crunchy guitar solo, which is typical of the album on the whole - and something that I, as a guitarist, absolutely appreciate, and also something, I think, that ties it in to the old classic Heartbreakers songs, written and recorded in the days before people forgot how important a good guitar solo was in a rock song.

The next song, Fault Lines, is a little bit more traditionally pop-Petty, but it's saved by a very rough-around-the-edges guitar part. I really can't over-emphasize the importance of guitar tone and playing to the quality of a song. I may be biased as a guitarist, but in a more general sense, the sound of the instruments on this album contribute in no small part to how good the songs on this album are.

Red River opens up sounding an awful lot like something you might hear on Mojo (which is no criticism), and sports a chorus that is very classic Petty-sounding. It's no obscure secret why people are calling this an album in the classic Heartbreakers vein. It's got a nice instrumental bridge that starts off sounding very pretty, but only for so long until the screaming electric guitar charges in.

The sound of Full Grown Boy is very distinctive, with a unique guitar tone that makes me think of something like Pink Floyd's Biding My Time, or The Doors' Cars Hiss By My Window, or something else esoteric like that. It's very difficult to find a clean guitar tone that's tasty and not too tinny, but the band nails it on this track. The song's a bit laidback, but it's got a nice swing and a groove to it.

To be fair, a Tom Petty album should really probably be evaluated for its lyrics among everything else, and there are glimpses here and there that tell me that the lyrics on this album have some depth (take the title of the opening track, for example), but as anyone who knows me knows, I listen to instrumental music first and foremost, and tend to view the vocals in a song more as a musical instrument and not for the words that are being sung. That having been said, the fact that I like this album so much is a testament to its instrumental achievement.

All You Can Carry is a much more upbeat track, with a far more liberal spattering of guitar leads. A lot of my favorite Tom Petty songs are of the guitar-heavy sort - tracks like Refugee, Runnin' Down A Dream, Mary Jane's Last Dance, and, even more recently, Good Enough. This song fits snugly in that category.

Power Drunk slows down a bit, but maintains an emotional intensity. It's one of those songs where Petty's voice has an edge to it, which is also reflected in one of the guitar tracks. It's also another song that has a bit of a Mojo feel to it, which leads me to suspect that this album is actually a pretty good bridge between Petty's classic and modern sounds, almost in the sense of it being a perfect distillation of the musician (and, absolutely, the band)'s talent and potential. Power Drunk is also one of the songs on the album that leaves an early impression on you. You know how some songs just stick out in your mind right away, and others take some time for you to really notice them (popularly known as "deep cuts")? This is the former.

Forgotten Man seems to sit firmly in the Bo Diddley camp of rock beats, but is just another example of how the excellent sound on this album contributes to its overall feel. It's almost as if it doesn't matter which song on the album you're listening to, because each one has a bit of each of the parts that makes the album overall so good. I wonder who's responsible for that cohesion of aural landscapes; I suspect it has as much to do with the production of the album than the musicians' individual approaches. Whoever is responsible, they deserve major kudos.

Sins Of My Youth is another one of those songs that leaves an impression, maybe as much due to the catchy chorus as anything else. It's a mellow, moody track though, with another appearance of that very smooth guitar tone, like we heard on Full Grown Boy. I absolutely love it.

I suspect that U Get Me High may be an attempt at reaching out to a younger generation of fans (although I probably only say that because of the choice of spelling "you" with a single letter). Not that the song is in any way out of character for Tom Petty - I think that You Don't Know How It Feels, with the infamous line "let's roll another joint" is one of his enduring hits, both in concert and on the radio, even if, to me, it's not one of his most musically interesting songs. In any case, this song, like everything else on the album (not to sound like a broken record), has a good sound to it, with a nice guitar part, that almost (if not quite) reaches Runnin' Down A Dream levels at the very end.

Burnt Out Town is the song on Hypnotic Eye with the most direct blues influence in its sound, including a great harmonica part. I also noticed in the liner notes that Tom Petty takes the guitar lead in this song, although it's not very extensive. He employs Mike Campbell for good reason, but a little variety is always fun. The focal point of this song definitely seems to be on the lyrics, as it is very much a story-telling kind of song (and if I'm saying that, you can probably believe it).

The album closes with Shadow People, which might not be all that assuming at the start, but as it develops over the 6+ minutes of its length (being the longest song on the album), it eventually proves itself to be probably the best song on the album. The lyrics, again, are evocative, with much to say, it would seem. And the outro that finishes the song (and the album) faintly recalls in my mind the close to that other Heartbreakers album I love so much, The Last DJ, with its reference to the shining sun.

Hypnotic Eye manages to do what every great album in the annals of rock history does: become something more than the sum of its parts. You could talk about the songs, but in the end, there's just something about the album that sounds groovy from start to finish, and somehow it makes you want to put it on in the car and turn the volume up. And then, when it's over, play it again. What more could you ask for from a rock album?

Stephen King's The Stand (1994)

The Stand is a 1994 adaptation of a popular Stephen King novel, directed by Mick Garris (who put together the more recent Masters of Horror series), in the form of a television miniseries consisting of four 90 minute episodes. For many years I had known of The Stand (whether in book or TV format), but it wasn't until just the past couple days that I actually sat down and watched it (yay for Netflix!). Before I get into some of the finer details, let me say that my overarching impression of it was that it was not quite so grim or epic as I had anticipated (in the form of mankind's last stand during the apocalypse), but, if you take into account the inconsistent track record of adaptations of Stephen King's novels, and ground your expectations, I think it's well worth watching.

It starts with a fantastic premise. A viral outbreak in some laboratory in the U.S. releases a way-too-effective super-flu into the general population, ushering in the apocalypse-by-plague. This stage of the story is exciting, but while we've seen it in myriad iterations through the years, this is just the beginning of this particular story. Most of the human race is decimated, but a small percentage is naturally immune to the disease. So the question that's raised is, what happens to the survivors after most of the world's population is eliminated?

You could go in any number of directions at this point, and the direction Stephen King takes us involves a face-off between two very different segments of the surviving population - the good people versus the bad people. But that's not all; in true Stephen King supernatural style, there are biblical underpinnings to the face-off, when a demon shows up to take advantage of the post-apocalyptic wasteland and corral all the bad people, while God chooses a messenger to rally the nicer folk to her cause, all of which occurs largely in prophetic dreams.

So yeah, things get kinda complex, but also very black and white. However, there are some good characters, and the TV series makes use of many familiar actors, including the likes of Molly Ringwald among many others. The series is unfortunately very dated to the early-mid nineties, but I'll say that I really liked the score (presumably composed by W.G. Snuffy Walden), which consists of lots of instrumental rock parts with slide guitars that seem to suit the frequent desert locations. At the end of the day, the series has maybe a bit too much drama, and ends on too saccharine a note. And the biblical angle - while I don't resent the use of the age-old theme of good versus evil, nor the idea of a demonic villain and saintly hero - gets tiresome pretty quickly. But as a dramatic horror television miniseries, it's worth a ride.

Snowpiercer (2013)

When a film like Disney's Frozen gets a lot of hype, I reserve my enthusiasm. But when an international film that couldn't get released in America because they refused to edit it down for dumber audiences starts receiving a whole lot of buzz, I sit up and take notice. Snowpiercer is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi dystopia story, and it's really well done. It's smart, it's exciting, and it's engrossing. It's well-written, well-acted, and well-directed. It's one of the best new movies I've seen in years.

Here's the quick and dirty plot synopsis: mankind plunges the planet into a new ice age as the result of a misguided effort to combat global warming. 17 or so years later, the only humans left alive are the passengers on a large train designed to withstand the cold. They now make up a closed and (relatively) sustainable ecosystem, except that the discontent of the lower class passengers relegated to the tail end of the train is brewing into a revolution to take over the engine (the seat of power on the train).

I know the basic set up of a dystopia where you sympathize with the oppressed class is something of a cliche (I'd like to see a movie about a utopia that actually works, but I guess there wouldn't be much drama), but this movie does a fantastic job of humanizing and empathizing with those lower class characters, and then subsequently showing both the excitement of revolution, but also the violence and the real human toll it takes when your friends start dying all around you. And then you have to ask yourself the question, is the cost worth it? Do we continue forward, or fall back and count our losses?

There are several very exciting, and also several very heartwarming scenes scattered throughout the movie, which is as action-packed as it is dramatic. I obviously don't want to spoil too much, but the climax is fantastically engineered, and has much to say about both the nature of humanity, and what it takes to keep a system running, which then begs the question of whether or not the survival of the human race is a noble goal after all. There are shades of the Architect from The Matrix: Reloaded, and also a scene that recalls to me a similar scene from Metal Gear Solid (I say, to tempt you with a little intrigue).

But mostly, I just want to say that this is a fantastic movie. You have to see it.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Simply put, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a worthy sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I don't intend to spoil much, but if you're planning to see it, I suggest you do so before reading this review, as there are some things that are just more exciting to discover without knowing too much beforehand - particularly just how advanced along the journey from the Planet of Men to the Planet of the Apes the story currently sits.

I'm gonna gloss over the typical review fodder, like special effects, and actors, and all that, because I found it all to be satisfying in this movie, to focus instead on the things that really interested me - like the dramatic themes and symbolism. The movie kicks off with a demonstration of the apocalyptic impact of the "Simian Flu" that we were introduced to at the end of the last movie, and then follows with an introduction to Caesar's ape community in the California redwoods.

For a while it seems as if maybe there really are no humans left, but then, of course, they show up. And what follows is a tense and evolving standoff between the ape community who simply wants to be left alone, and a human refuge in San Francisco, that needs to get into the forest to repair the dam and get the power back on. Obviously, the apes are distrusting of the humans, considering their treatment at their hands before the Simian flu wiped them out. At the same time, Caesar - an ape of intelligence and honor - remembering the human who raised him, wants to believe that humans can be trusted, and that just maybe, man and ape could live together in harmony.

And this is the central conflict that tears the ape community apart - with Koba, Caesar's right hand ape, more distrusting of humans, and thinking Caesar is being too soft and putting the entire ape community in jeopardy. The brilliance of the movie is that, even though you may not identify with each side, they each feel justified, and so long as you're not entirely sure of the motivations of the opposing players, the suspicion and paranoia and self-doubt is warranted.

And the best part of the movie is the demonstration - as Caesar eventually learns - that man and ape are not so different after all. From the beginning, there is definitely the feeling that Caesar's community could be this experiment in an evolved, utopian sort of community. Apes are, presumably, free from the flaws that made humans betray and fight one another over petty gains. Humans are the ones who cruelly imprisoned and abused apes, and now these apes - given the intelligence to see their plight and understand the humans' failings - are in a position to do better.

But in the end, it proves to be true that apes are just as human as man. It's pretty depressing, when you think about it. But rather than believe that apes are good and men are bad (or vice versa, if you desire) as you have a tendency to want to in this movie, eventually it becomes clear that there are simply good apes and bad apes, just as there are good men and bad men. It seems obvious when stated straightforwardly, yet it is a powerful realization.

So, yeah, it was a good movie. When spoiler spoilered spoiler (you can probably guess what I'm talking about if you've seen the movie), I was actually genuinely shocked - that was a very exciting scene. And at the end, when the last human on screen fades into the darkness of a doorway, yielding to the apes' celebration, it seemed to me powerfully evocative of the transfer of the planet from the humans to the apes.

That having been said, this movie ended with the promise of a rather more immediate sequel than I was expecting. All along, I'm thinking, this is the evolution toward the Planet of the Apes of antiquity. And I guess I was kind of hoping to see the series end in a retelling of that story. But then maybe the point of these movies is not to get there, but merely to show the journey to it. I don't know what the filmmakers have in mind, but I'm a little bit cautious of dragging the story out too long, and catering to fan demands. But I haven't lost faith yet. A lot will depend on how the next movie turns out.

Machete Kills (2013)

Back in 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez joined forces to pay homage to the gratuitous sex and violence of the grindhouse era of cinema in their double feature theatrical release Grindhouse, combining Rodriquez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof. At the time, several fake trailers for non-existent exploitation flicks were produced, to enhance the grindhouse experience of the double feature. One of them, Robert Rodriguez's Machete, starring Danny Trejo as the titular Mexican ex-fed, eventually blossomed into a feature film that was released in 2010. It was spectacularly gratuitous. And in 2013, it got a sequel - Machete Kills.

Machete Kills is every bit as bombastic as Machete was. Danny Trejo returns, with another star-studded ensemble cast. Particularly noteworthy were Mel Gibson's appearance as a tech CEO/cultleader, and Lady Gaga (among others) as a shapeshifting bounty hunter. Charlie Sheen (billed as Carlos Estevez) stars as the President of the United States, and Demian Bichir plays one of the film's most charismatic characters, a Mexican crimelord-turned-revolutionary. As for Machete himself, if this wasn't the case already, his international reputation, fighting prowess, and survivability is growing to superhero levels.

The stakes are high in this installment of the Machete series, with a threat that eventually escalates to the level of nuclear holocaust, giving the film the feeling of a gratuitous Mexican version of a James Bond flick. The sexual innuendo is blatant (if never very explicit), the violence as gore-tastic and over-the-top as ever (I loved the molecular blaster), and the straight-faced humor heavy. In fact, what might have begun as an ode to the grindhouse days seems to be evolving into something of a tongue-in-cheek parody (making comparisons to Austin Powers more and more applicable).

But it is a loving and playful parody. And nowhere is this more obvious than in the film's unselfconscious treatment of its own advertising potential. Since Machete began life as a trailer, it doesn't seem so out of place that Machete Kills plays up a new trailer to its own as-yet-unproduced sequel (which, I'll be honest, if I didn't see it listed as "in production" on IMDb, I would have thought was just a joke) Machete Kills Again... In Space! - which obviously parodies both Star Wars and Jason X (featuring that other popular violent marauder who loves to wield a machete). If you think that's taking even over-the-top to an over the top level, I'd be inclined to agree. But you have to admit, Danny Trejo wielding a light-machete is an image too hilarious not to take advantage of!

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

I've never exactly been a Planet of the Apes geek, following the franchise through countless films over the years, but I've always appreciated the original, and its fertile sci-fi premise. I can't imagine this is actually a spoiler anymore, as it's probably on the level of Darth Vader's paternal relationship to Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy, but the big reveal at the end, that the Planet of the Apes was really Earth all along, is perhaps one of the most stunning and emotional twist endings in popular sci-fi history.

Naturally, being a prequel of sorts, Rise of the Planet of the Apes makes no secret of that fact and chooses to explore how modern technology and human civilization as we know it (more or less) today could possibly have led to the passing of the baton from humans to apes, and in the Earth originally becoming the Planet of the Apes. Which is also a fascinating premise, especially given how familiar most people are with the old story. Modern cinema technology, also, has enabled us to tell a convincing and emotive story featuring apes as central characters who are not (yet) evolved "ape-men", and are closer to the "primative" ancestors that live in zoos and jungles today.

I missed Rise of the Planet of the Apes when it played in theaters, but I heard a lot of good things about it, both from the press, and from people I know who had seen it. And with the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, scheduled to hit theaters very soon, I made it a priority to sit down and watch Rise in preparation. And my verdict is that it was as good as everyone says. The story was fantastic, the digital effects impressive, and the characters sympathetic. Especially Caesar, the chimp who changes everything - brought to life by Andy Serkis, the man behind Gollum in the Lord of the Rings.

I also appreciated the little nods to the classic Planet of the Apes - as well as, presumably, the future fate of this story - both in the appropriate placement of the infamous line "get your stinking paw off me, you damn, dirty ape", and in the subtle hints at the manned Mars mission which apparently goes missing. I'm not sure what the plans are for this movie franchise, but I would be excited if they make it into a trilogy, with the final installment tackling the original Planet of the Apes plotline, with all of the precedent and creative talent of the other two titles in the series backing it up.

I am now looking forward even more to the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I'm not sure what story it will tell, but I hope it's some intermediary, further tracking the progress of the ape revolution in taking the planet over from the humans. I thought the plot device of the man-made chemical - developed in the relentless pursuit of science to conquer man's weaknesses - being responsible not only for the intellectual evolution of the apes, but also (spoiler) the ostensible extinction of man via viral pandemic was clever, unexpectedly propitious (from the perspective of the apes' coming revolution), and also reflective of modern fears (I couldn't help thinking of 28 Days Later at various points in this film).

I look forward to the continuation of the story in the sequel.

Maleficent (2014)

I was excited to go out and see Maleficent since it features the darling Elle Fanning as a Disney Princess (Aurora by name), even though the entire concept of the film is a re-envisioning of Sleeping Beauty with the focus not on the princess but on the evil villain Maleficent - played to great fanfare by Angelina Jolie. To prep for the new movie, I watched Disney's original Sleeping Beauty from all the way back in 1959. It suffers from the same singing-animals-and-happily-ever-after tone as your typical Disney movie (unlike, say Dragonslayer), but, the animation looks very nice, and at least as far as Disney movies go, it was pretty good. Maleficent herself makes a very brilliant and terrifying villain, culminating in a climactic scene involving her transformation into a vicious dragon.

This is all the more reason why a new take on Sleeping Beauty with Maleficent at the center of the story was such a good idea. Unfortunately, though, instead of being a chilling portrait of a villain (like, say, Maniac was), this movie goes a little too far in making the character sympathetic, such that it ultimately takes her fangs away to a large extent. It doesn't even work very well as an exploration of how somebody good could ultimately turn so cruel, because in the end, she's never actually that cruel. That's not to say that this version of Maleficent is not a good character - and truly, Angelina Jolie is fantastic in the role - but it just doesn't feel like the terrifyingly sadistic villain everybody loved to hate from the original Sleeping Beauty.

Indeed, one of the prime directives of this movie seems to be to spin a new yarn, revealing the "truth" of how things happened differently from the fairy tale everyone knows and loves, and manages to succeed pretty well on that count, in subverting some of the crucial plot details and playing with fans' expectations. For this reason, I was glad I went back and watched the original Sleeping Beauty first, to be able to appreciate these new twists, although the ultimate determination of which was the better story will be up to the individual fans. Certainly, though the trope of subverting fan's expectations - particularly in fantasy tales - seems to be beginning to verge on the cliché these days, it may not have made much sense to tell the same story that's already been told before. And as much as I have the habit of going into a story I've seen or read before, and wanting things to happen just so, I think I learned with Carrie that it can be problematic if you follow the blueprint too closely.

My main criticism of Maleficent, other than de-villainizing the titular character (and not featuring more of the princess :p), is the abundance of digital effects in use. I think that ultimately it comes down to a matter of taste - because the effects are certainly not poorly done - I just think that too much of them makes the movie look too fake. And it may be ironic to call for realism in a fantasy story, but one of my favorite fantasy movies of all time is Legend; and while it utilized many fantastic elements, even if some of them ultimately looked "costumey", it just felt more real. I fear it may be evidence of me actually losing touch with modern sensibilities, because it's obvious that elaborate digital effects are the soup du jour. I think Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings looked fantastic, but ever since then, it's gotten out of hand (and the new Hobbit movies are victims of this as much as anything else), and every fantasy movie is starting to look the same, with the same ridiculous-looking digital creatures (not the same creatures, but the same stylized look).

All that having been said, despite all of these flaws, Maleficent was not a bad movie, and I enjoyed it, to the extent that I could. For those who like the story, or fans of fairy tales or animated features in general, I still recommend the original Sleeping Beauty from 1959. And a note to Elle Fanning's agents: please, oh please, somebody cast her in the role of an elven maiden. She's got the perfect look for it. Seriously, she could replace Orlando Bloom in the next Hobbit movie, or even play his daughter. It's the perfect match of character to actress, and I will be sad if noone capitalizes on it.

P.S. Juno Temple was completely wasted in a throwaway role as the prettiest of the three bumbling fairies (who, in this version of the story, offer none of the wisdom or pathos of their previous counterparts, and serve instead purely as The-Three Stooges-like comedic release).