The life of Kid A

First of all, one of my favourite bands is Radiohead. A group of 5 people from Ablington School in Oxford in England who meets together to form some of the best music in this modern era of music where grunge turns dead and makes itself look country, Britney Spears and many Disney label artists took over and brainwash our filthy minds and make them so messier. Today our mind was not yet cleaned when a 16 year old idiot squashed our rage with his song reffering to an infant and girls get swooned by them

Anyway, back to Radiohead one of the greatest bands never listened to by the mainstream because of the first paragraph mentioned and in this article we say..

Happy Birthday to Kid A.

I'm not talking about a kid who is named after the first letter of the alphabet. I'm talking about the fourth album made by Radiohead that was recorded at the beginning of the millenieum and really divided fans of the band. So, it's been ten years since this album was released and we still think Kid A is a classic in the alternative rock genre. IT has been named Album of the Decade (the 00s) by Rolling Stone Magazine, Pitchfork beating out other classics such as The Strokes' Is This It, The White Stripes' Elephant and Jay Z's The Blueprint.

What's interesting is that it's been a year since I've bought it and it's only for $9.99 when I first started liking Radiohead. Most of the teachers in my school liked this band while kids are just morons to know about them.

Pre Kid A


Radiohead in the 90s was much difficult to hear. Their debut single 'Creep' became an instant hit unexpectedly in 1993 while Nirvana and Pearl Jam were must listen bands. These bands form grunge and it's bringing alternative rock to the mainstream where the lyrics and tone much range around angst and adolescence.

'Creep' was a radio hit in Israel and despite this success, Radiohead was shocked to learn about that and suprisingly for any music artist they were angry because that single had gave them too much pressure into recording.

When grunge turns itself into the grave, the band recorded their second album 'The Bends' and again they were stuck in the middle of a breakthrough genre in England called Britpop with popular bands such as Oasis, Blur, Primal Scream and Pulp. The Bends proved to be a success that spawned hit singles like 'High and Dry', 'Fake Plastic Trees and Street Spirit. It was critically acclaimed because of Thom Yorke's (the lead singer) falsetto voice.

But much success came with OK Computer, their follow up of The Bends. It was an album that like a best selling novel spawned many allegories. There were many themes towards angst, consumerism, social isolation that were inside each song. It might also comment on the politics of England when Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister of UK. OK Computer is still considered one of the greatest albums of all time.

The birth of Kid A


Recently Linkin Park an album called A Thousand Suns where it was Farewell Nu Metal and changes their music completely. Kid A was like that. It was a complete change in style for the band in which Radiohead mostly preffered that option. Whilst recording, Yorke suffered from writer's block and attempts to fill ideas to songs recorded in the studio.


Kid A was influenced by many genres outside of rock. Jazz, electronica and classical were the main influences. And during the initial release, Radiohead had avoided traditions of each musician. The band didn't release a single, the lyrics were so abstract and 'amazingly' these principles actually work because of unique marketing that involved animated 'blips' shown here.


The album was neither a concept album nor a pop album. It looks like an album with audio filled with abstract paintings that will question itself into what each song would mean. It might be an arthouse album and even though Radiohead never had said about its imagery, it was an album that would divide many listeners of music and many of the band's fans.


Kid A was then released to critical acclaim with Pitchfork Media rated this album 10.0/10, a rare rating for the publication who never done this before to any album reviewed to the site. The album went Platinum (+70000 units) in Australia and was a best seller.







Review of Kid A


Rating: 5/5


Kid A may have been a sudden change for Radiohead, but when I was starting out to like Radiohead, Kid A is almost a beautiful album. It sounds like a soundtrack or a score of a really eerie movie and it's almost visceral to say Radiohead is working towards being one of the greatest bands of all time. Radiohead nails the music with influences from jazz, techno and krautrock that creates such a head trip to the album without a touch of Jonny Greenwood's guitar. 'Everything In Its Right Place' and 'How to Disappear Completely' shows off its true angst, while 'The National Anthem' make itself look epic. Not everything's changed in the album. Thom Yorke's falsetto vocals is still intact despite the distortion of his vocals in the title track. Kid A proves to be a state-of-the-art classic by saying to itself 'I can make my own music' without pulling to the finger to the mainstream society...still listening to dopey artists.


Best tracks:

• Kid A
• The National Anthem
• How To Disappear Completely
• In Limbo
• Idioteque

Post-Kid A

Since Kid A, Radiohead had been recording albums by this style. Their follow up Amnesiac is the follow up to Kid A and had still been successful with their experimental use of music. Later, they released Hail To The Thief where it was influenced by politics. But these two albums still divide fans on whether this style of recording would work for them.

But Radiohead returned back to their roots with their recent album In Rainbows where it was independently recorded. It can sell for any price to download on their website even for free. It was critically acclaimed for being so chilled and at the same time, its lyrics were so seductive.

Radiohead will likely to release a new album any time soon,

Enough with the Armonds

There were two posts I made in The Catalyst. One was about how critics miss the point and become incredibly inconsistent and unfairly biased when they review movies. Another one was about the buzz about The Social Network. The movie on Facebook.

Now I told you on that post about my experiences on Facebook, how South Park called this device pointless and the predictions I made about the movie and how it's gonna effect us. The audience. Where it is certain that most of the audience are using Facebook. I said it was going to hurt some users who would be insulted about the aims of Facebook and why we are using it.

Now in this post, I'm gonna combine these posts together so I can protest on one critic I really hate. And you would hate him too. Every film critic would also hate him as well. I'm talking about this guy below:

Armond White.

Meet this guy. It's ironic that his name and his skin colour contrast together. I don't know any African American film critics, but I think people who has a great taste in movies and the internet know him as 'the troll' which means to mock someone out of annoyance.

Now I didn't mention him on the post about critics because I was focused on David and Margeret who are really well known critics in Australia and also I forgot about him but here's the facts.

• Armond White used to be a music critic so why did he moved to movies when he hated that field he's given to analyse so much
• He agrees with the movie website 'Rotten Tomatoes' 52% of the time and had slash out many films which are almost destined to get 100% like Toy Story 3
• White's considered a contrarian who rejects in popular opinion.
• White's best films he rated were most people including me think were awful including Transformers; Revenge of The Fallen, Jonah Hex, Grown Ups, and any movie critics think are awful
• White's worst movies were movies we think are the best. He hates Toy Story 3, Inception, Star Trek, Iron Man, Up, Up in The Air, The Dark Knight, any movie we think is the best.
• He was first labelled as a troll by Roger Ebert after disagreeing with his review on District 9, one of the best reviewed movies of 2009.
• White claims to have watched 400 movies a year and his aim was to help the viewer get to understand film better.
• He adores Steven Spielberg (well why can't we?) and hates Noah Baumbach just like David Stratton like Michael Winterbottom and hates Lars Von Trier. 

White's is what I think matches my blog post's rants about critics. He's biased towards and against one filmmaker, he's against movies about his race, put in allegories in his reviews and calls himself a film critic which is just a hobby going into a cinema and enjoy watching the movie. Critics are just people from an outlet going into the cinema.

But here's something. About three hours ago, I was on my Twitter and RT had announced that The Social Network which was getting really rave reviews and early Oscar chances had got its first negative review and unsurprisingly it is White himself.

In his review, White commented about the character of Zuckerberg as an 'obnoxious protagonist Noah Baumbach didn't write' before that White said that director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin sould worship Zuckerberg and not accusing Zuckerberg of being a big jerk. He concluded in his review that The Social Network is a TV-trite.

Well I just checked into Rotten Tomatoes again and believe it or not he hates every movie he reviewed except for the movies I mentioned above. In his reviews, he use many words we don't usually use in real life. In other words, he's like Spock from Star Trek where he's an illustration of rationale and that's what he's like. In other words and I don't want to be mean and to be metaphorical, White is a Vulcan.

In his review of Easy A, he declared that movie the worst of 2010 when it is so good, receiving universal acclaim.

His review on The Wrestler commented on Mickey Rourke's performance labelling both it and the film crap.

He compared Inception to playing Grand Theft Auto which would have been worst if GTA had been turned into a movie. Inception and GTA has something in common. They're both about stealing something for a person involved. The huge difference is that Inception is not a video game and doesn't contain Leonardo Dicaprio shooting Ellen Page in the face. So this made me angry.

What's even annoying is that he gave Grown Ups, the thumbs up calling it heartfelt. As well as Transformers 2 is which he calls it art when it's just a bunch of metal fighting each other with no script at all. Anyone so stupid who never want to read reviews in New York would go pay their money and waste it for that film.

White is indeed an intolerant, nasty, hypocritical troll and he would love to make things back to the status quo when we're becoming a progressive society nurturing our opinions. The status quo making us going into his huge depth of dumb movies.

As for me, I have to be stuck with many people that are like Armond Whites at my school. People torment me for watching Inception, a really smart movie nobody in that school watched and anyone who watched it think it's the worst they've seen so far. While the majority of the school has seen Grown Ups and called "the funniest movie of the year". These people are some of the most intolerant hypocrites I have ever met.

But as the moral goes, everybody has an opinion. And whetyer you like it or not, every film isn't perfect. 99% for Toy Story 3 isn't that exactly the percentage we want, but it's ok. We enjoyed it. HE doesn't. We can't do anything about it.

If White want to make America a country with no taste of culture, wished Justin Bieber would forever lived on this planet when we seriously want him to die, eat the same plain food we should eat, then we don't care. White maybe felt bored in every movie he sees.

In that case, Armond White could be the most annoying person tied with Justin Bieber.

And here's a song I would like to compare to that douche.



In a generation where most of the world is globalised with annoying people from Disney, Justin Bieber's a god, and damn it, Megan Fox's the sexiest thing on the planet, the minority of this generation would make Armond Wite, the critic for the New York Press, a butt of all jokes in arts and culture

A pitchfork rating of no stars. >:)

The Social Network - Previews, Predictions and Points to make

As we head into Oscar Season or Awards season as a little warm ups for next year's Oscars, there are a few films in the eligibility list at the moment:

- Inception
- Toy Story 3
- Black Swan (not yet released)
- Winter's Bone (not yet released)
- The Kids Are Alright
- 127 Hours (not yet released)

and as we prepare for that, there's one movie that is in the run for the money and that is...

The Social Network





After you've watch the trailer you would see how great this movie. It shows brilliant performances Jesse Einsberg of Zombieland fame and Andrew Garfield who will be the upcoming Spiderman, bautiful cinematography and direction from David Fincher and shows several interpretations of Facebook as we users never know it 

OK. 


Have you ever been tired of hearing really bad stuff Facebook has to face involving privacy issues and identity? In Australia, a girl in my place was on the news, couple of months ago that made me sick. She finds this guy who is an animal carer and you know what she did? She followed him to the address he "supposedly' worked at and got murdered. That person was a wilderness person. It's a sad stoory that involves Facebook. 


In The Social Network, it's the story of how Facebook becomes a success story for founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Einsberg). But it was to get popular in Harvard and join the elite clubs as he was a total loser there (sorry, but that's the truth)


So when Facebook becomes a phenomenon in his college later he get involved with a lawsuit that charges him with breaching privacy and copyright infringement. BUt this ravels towards his personal life with his feud with his best friend Eduardo Sevin.


So About Facebook...


Facebook is a revolutionising social network that is used currently by more than 500 million users. But if you want to know more, here's a link of the full info about Facebook. 


To hear the first time that Hollywood is making a movie about Facebook sounds ridiculous to you. But if you understand film maturely, wisely use Facebook at your own time, then seeing this movie wouuld be a huge offer.


I first logged in to Facebook on November last year and you won't believe this but the day before I signed up, I've seen New Moon and I've realise how awful it is and wanted to write a comment about the scene where Kristen Stewart's acting went so horrible. So I just got 'sucked in' into Facebook.


The first few months on Facebook, it seems that you can message and chat your friends, share photos, posts and videos on to your profile, play games like Poker, Yahtzee and build up your virtual farm.


The real truth of Facebook and that... South Park episode


Unfortunately, there are some things I would not wanted to do on Facebook and that is to become social.


There was a line in The Breakfast Club where Bender said to Brian who tells Bender that he was part of the Physics Club where he tells him they discuss physics, do experiments and so on. And this was what Bender reacted...


"So it's social. Calm and demented, but social"


This was one of my favourite lines in the movie because not only Brian's being tormented for joining an isolated social group, but he's been praised since at least in a group and not completely a basket case. 


The fact that Facebook is a social network doesn't mean a lot of users on Facebook are social. IT's not a law or a rule from social networks to be social but many of them doesn't follow the rule.


There are two kinds of people who are not social in the network:


The first kind is the people who choose not to be social on Facebook. And I chose not to. I would either socialise outside of Facebook and can just have a chat with a person in eye contact. And users on Facebook have to go and do something like that since they can't devote their lives too much on Facebook.


The second kind is people who turned out to be losers inside and outside. They can become that if they are bullied or berated online or offline and will lead them to feel manically depressed and kill themselves.


Facebook reminds us that the Internet and many other types of technology such as MP3s and mobile phones is a waste of time and changes the way we live completely.


One person who shows this example is South Park. I've dowloaded this episode called "You Have 0 Friends" which is an obvious spoof on Facebook. Apparently this actually send the real messages of Facebook. The boys are on Facebook, they made a profile for Stan so he can socialise with them when Stan doesn't wanted to get into this new way of socialising. Meanwhile Kyle keeps losing friends when he made friends with a loser named Kip Drordy.


The whole episode wasn't that funny and yet it is really the most popular episode before the 200th and 201st episode of South Park. But the main message by that episode is that Facebook is pointless in life since Stan never wanted a Facebook profile as well as making friends on that site when you don't know anyone.

This is Kip... and he's a social outcast

I really hated that character Kip. Not hate, but I disliked him. I first take pity to him because he only made a Facebook account six months ago and made no friends but when Kyle decided to friend him he goes berzerk and hangs out with him everywhere on his laptop. The truth is Kip is a social outcast and he is a loser inside Facebook. And he doesn't do anything with his account once he has no friends. For the worst, he's one of the most disturbing character I have seen in South Park


Facebook can also be tool for attention. You put in photos and videos... for what. For comments on how good looking you are. I don't want comments on my photos or tags like "Oh he's sexy" in my photos. And I don't want a profile picture but everybody force me to because they think I might be a paedophile. But if you look at my badge you will see a picture of me I made for Scott Pilgrim which is my profile picture and I will keep that picture because I want to.


I wish I wasn't on Facebook on the first place. Even so, I've been thinking many times about deleting my account since I was meddled with by so called 'friends'


SO GOOD RIDDANCE!


Anyway back to the movie and..


The Previews


Surprisingly, The Social Network had got rave reviews. Many of them have a star rating between 3.5 to 5 stars. 


In this review by Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave this four stars out of four and said that Facebook had changed us into narcissisists that we are becoming


A glowing review from cinemablend.com says that we relate our lives to Zuckerberg and will keep you engaged

A review from an anomynous person at the New York Film Festival said that it's razor sharp and plays a meteoric rise... for Facebook

So if these preview tells you anything that it looks awesome and is one of the best movies of the year. Go see it.

Predictions about The Social Network

The Social Network is moved to October 26th in Australia from November 26th. One thing certain and is and again from the trailer is that the performances are brilliant and beautifully directed. Might have a certain chance for Best Picture at the Oscars.

But there's a flaw in this and it is whether or not the audience would be moved by this film. Expectations was very small because people think a movie about Facebook is boring while it was on production.

Not only would they be bored by this movie, but the fact is that much of the world, almost half a billion people in this world use Facebook would be insulted by this movie as they might have use Facebook for nothing and that Mark Zuckerberg has been using our profiles for profit.

But anyway, The Social Network is one of the movies I want to watch in this season with The Town as well as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I.

Crticising the critics: what they do to miss the point so they get ahead of them

You know what. I'm a blogger and also an amateur film critic. I got my own site, my own rating system and I know film very well in my school they don't get me. Sadly I have to face these kinds of things because you never get listened when you are a film critic. When you criticise, either you are making a fool of yourself or you just wanted people's attention. I don't even do that. But I unintendedly get these comments on me a lot.

So when I was watching a movie review show called At The Movies, it has two professional film critics in Australia: Margeret Pomeranz and David Stratton. If you don't them, let's pretend they're Australia's answer to Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper.

Whilst I was watching their show, I was feeling like every movie they review they get to stick to the things affecting that movie and slandering them. OK, Stratton is the target and even though he's one of my favourite movie critics, I'm getting tired of him being too tough on films that are really good and yet so controversial, he wants to stick with the controversy, while Pomeranz. What does she do. She keeps interrupting Stratton because he was giving out allegories that was essential to his opinion in movies. I find this alright at first, but when i was on the websites message board it was filled with posts complaining about Margeret's behaviour.

Here's a Link to show you why:
A comedian criticise David Stratton for hating his programme, then get into a fist fight with him

This does not happen to them, but it happens to every critic even me, so I just find every critic uninteresting because of their behaviour and how it's put out in their material.

So these are the top five behaviours critics do to miss the point because they think they're better than us:

If Lars Von Triers is a great director, then why does David Stratton hate him

5. In this picture is director Lars Von Trier. He directed films like Dogville starring Nicole Kidman and his recent film was the horror movie Antichrist which divided many people. So Trier is David Stratton's target to criticise because he put on the Dogma movement which has many rules and laws involving hand held camerawork, one factor of film Stratton never liked. So the next film Stratton reviewed directed by Trier he will hate it no matter what it is.

The point is many critics would choose who to target to make fun of not only because of their bad filmmaking, but because of their behaviour outside of film. An example is Roger Ebert vs. Rob Schneider when Schneider wrote a hate letter to one critic for hating Deuce Bigalow and overlooked for an Oscar. Ebert would give that film zero stars to defend that critic and also to point out the film's demerits.

4. What I hate about Australian critics is that each time an Australian directed, written a film out of Hollywood, they would give it positive reviews when these films are such crap. I was confused about Salt and why critics giving it a thumbs ups when that film was so ordinary and predictable. This also happens when people give Charlie St. Cloud a three star rating because the screenwriter was Australian. Critics usually get biased to films when some of the crew are that nationality.

3. Recently, I downloaded this episode from South Park called 'The Tale Of Scrotie Mcboogerballs' which was when the boys of South Park wrote a novel to shock readers after becoming tricked for reading Catcher in The Rye thinking it was risque. The novel, hence the episode's name was really graphic and each time people read this, they puke. Despite this, readers put non sensical meanings in the novel to make this a literary masterpiece when there is no meaning.

The fact that in many reviews, critics would use their time to find meaning in film without thinking it through. Many science fiction classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and Alien and even great movies like Inception had many meanings in their own material. But when films are being reviewed, often critics find meanings or make up their own allegories to film that are not there and also  find meanings many filmmakers didn't intend to show.

Remember Closer. The one movie where it had Natalie Portman played a London stripper, then she was nominated for an Oscar. Critics would think the film was based relationships in the modern era where to me it was a soap opera styled movie about sex addicts. There is no meaning in this movie!

Or Match Point, the first Woody Allen movie featuring Scarlett Johansson. People analysed the movie as opinions over London's economy? What the hell is that supposed to mean. I spent like two hours seeing Woody Allen mistreating women in that movie. Well, every Woody Allen movie never had any meaning.

I don't get it. Why does Avatar has to be based on the Vietnam War or 9/11?

Even Avatar. How many underlying ideas can you find? You can find heaps. There's environmental issues, human rights concerns and unnecessary resource use. But political issues based on 9/11 and religion. That's totally ridiculous.

So critics go further in their reviews. Well maybe you shouldn't go too much.

2. What is it when people would go into the controversy of the movie. Is it too graphic. Does that make it even better without controversy? Besides I know that many of you would find A Clockwork Orange so controversial. It should intend to show the bigotting crime rate in London.

One Moralist would say 'Help Me! A girl in a purple wig's about to kill me' because of stupid controversy

When Kick Ass was reviewed in At The Movies, Margeret questions David because he was so disturbed by the fact that an 11 year old character swears and slash people in half. And yet a lot of moralists care about that when considering Kick Ass as a movie. This is so stupid of them to think that it was in that movie when it's only suitable for adults

People. Controversy is art. If you look at artistic photographs of an 11 year olf boy and girl naked, it's supposed to show children blooming into a life transition, not child abuse. When there's controversy, ignore it and enjoy the show.

So in conclusion, film critics would send a hidden message using the controversy in their reviews as a way of censorship.

AND FINALLY THE MOST ANNOYING THING ABOUT FILM CRITICS IS...

That they call themselves film critics. It's not even a job. IF they want to go bash and insult the public for choosing dumb movies, then fine. Let them have it their own way. People who call themselves critics, they have a life. They can't spend their lives devoting on movies. They should go listen to music or ride a skateboard or work an important job. Or if they have a partner, they should have sex with them.

And we have to respect them for their intelligence on material. This also happens to critics in music, movies and books. But at least they have their own thing. For instance Australian film critics James Mathieson and Jim Scherebi are both a music journalist and a children's author respectively. Roger Ebert is a respected public figure in America and he doesn't make a lot of money (Take that Oprah!)

Meanwhile, I'm a high school student trying to pass year 10 and I shouldn't be on this blog too much.

So once I stop ranting about critics, I should do my homework.
Neutral3 

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey


[10.0]

Sometimes a classic cannot be perfect. And sometimes you'll get polarized into why films so old are turned into classic, that you had watched it for nothing. When I've watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, it seems that I've learnt that lesson that  many film lovers should learn. A classic cannot be a classic to your view.

2001: A Space Odyssey has no narrative at all and use a minimal amount of dialogue. But we don't have to worry about that because director Stanley Kubrick doesn't intend to bore the audiences and send them out to the matinee of the cinema. He intends to show science fiction as an art form and we should appreciate that because like Blade Runner, it doesn't go to usual conventions in the genre like laser guns or car chases or aliens. These factors are cliche and unoriginal.

The movie takes place in 2001 where it starts 4 million years ago where a tribe of primates find this rectangular door call the monolith. But in this chapter, one of the apes find out you can use a bone as a tool and a weapon as well. This scene shows how it's the beginning of mankind.

It changes to a chapter where several scientists went on a mission to find a device called a TMA-1 that was buried during the prehistoric period also known as the monolith.

Later it goes into the most important section where two astronauts are on a mission to Jupiter on Discovery One monitored and controled by HAL 9000. AS the chapter progresses, it goes into the concept of human vs machine and should we be controled by technology or should control the technology and not let them interfere.

It seems that things changed a lot before, during and after 2001 that seems to matched the movie. The Cold War ended, WE had the 9/11 attacks, changes in technology such as touch screen gadgets then we went into conflict to fight off terrorists. Hoever when we are talking 2001 and space exploration, it seems much had changed but with severe consequences. We seen the Columbia mission turned to a failure killing seven astronauts. We have delayed plans to revisit the moon and China and India had their go on space exploration.

But with 2001: A Space Odyssey we should consider this a classic and so should I.

The movie gets so imaginative and clever Kubrick's ideas on technology, space exploration and the infinite future with each of its underlying intepretations like can we behave with upgraded technology in our lives, what is important about the monolith, and can we rely on artificial intelligence, do we have a fear on technology. All these questions everybody who've seen this film would ask.

The soundtrack is excellent and is some of the grandest scores put there in cinematic history. The use of classical music shows how beautiful and yet eerie outer space is. It plays an important part in the movie as it would evoke particular emotion to the viewer and so. 2001 is beautifully shot and the special effects are quite an achievement in cinema.

Unfortunately the problem in this movie is that each scene doesn't have enough layer. Many films work in a certain level of layer and the more layer, the more engaging it is towards the characters. However 2001 has less of that, it certainly gets boring to realize how great the movie is.

2001 is some of the most influential films of all time thanks to Kubrick's experimental ideas. If you look at other films of the last decade like Wall-E, Moon or Solaris they all pay homage to the movie. This should be the best science fiction of all time.