Song review: Still Breathing

Here is another song review, sort of similar to the one I did awhile back about Barbarism Begins at Home. Which, as you may remember, was not a positive review.

Today's, or rather, tonight's song review is of a new song by the band Green Day. I don't have any particular strong opinions towards Green Day; I only know a few of their more famous songs, American Idiot and Boulevard of Broken Dreams (another song that I particularly like, even more so than any Green Day song I know, that has "boulevard" in the title is Stars and Boulevards by Augustana) being some of them. 

This song is from a new album they recently released called Revolution Radio (I think?). The song is called Still Breathing. I listened to it because I saw a link to an article about it. It was a decent song, not particularly irritating or anything, but rather safe and bland and not particularly profound or anything. There is an excessive use of similes in this song. Speaking of which, there is a sort of similar thing going on in the song Ash and Ember, another one by Augustana, with comparisons/descriptions of events that are relevant to the themes in the song, but Dan manages to do it in a way that does not involve excessive use of similes although there is some use of metaphors and one simile in the chorus of the song - "like a phoenix rising up from ash and ember." All in all it is a very good song like many other songs that he has written over the years. But I digress. 
Back on topic now. 
This is no American Idiot, or Citizen Erased (a song by Muse that is like 7 minutes long and quite something) or Demolition Lovers (a My Chemical Romance song that just happened to come on shuffle right as I'm writing this, after I listened to Stars and Boulevards which I felt like listening to because I mentioned it earlier on in the post) or Bullet with Butterfly Wings (a song by another band, the Smashing Pumpkins, which I don't even like, but that song is... it's... it has a certain edge to it). I don't exactly have a ton more to say about this song. It wasn't particularly impressive or anything. It might grow on me a little bit, but that's not going to change the fact that it's a bland, and dare I say, cliche kind of song. It almost feels insincere in a way. For some reason. I never thought of Green Day as the epitome of songwriting (Dan from Augustana is the epitome of songwriting, for me), but I expected a little better than this. It's a rather generic pop-type song. 

I may possibly listen to other songs from that album, but probably not the whole album. Maybe there's another single from it, I don't know. If any new opinions about this song pop into my head, I might add them here but I can't guarantee that new opinions about this song will come to me.   

As an afterthought, I decided to attempt a bit of an analysis of this song. I have taken some of the similes and other important phrases in the song and looked at what I associate with them. Some of the things are paraphrased from how they are in the song. These are just some very roughly thought out ideas, straight from brain to screen (rather than paper) so they may not be the most coherent but I haven't bothered to clean them up into a clearer form. 

child looking at horizon - hope, naivete, wonder, innocence
ambulance with sirens - sense of urgency 
son without father - lost, identity crisis (sort of), loneliness?
struggling mother - desperation 
addict getting clean - hope but also the possibility of failure, a difficult task 
gambler losing the last of their money - also desperation 
soldier coming home for first time / dodged bullet and walked across landmine - brush with death, relief, emotional attachments to people (family/etc)

find home for restless - not finding a place to belong 
 bleeding from the storm? - chaos, have I survived it unscathed?
above the rain and roses - ?? rain -> sadness; roses: thorns? Things that are beautiful but also have a more unpleasant side? 
shine a light into the wreckage -  
are you scared to death to live? 

The count: (like in that one post I did about eyeballs and eyelashes)
times I made positive/glowing remarks about Dan/Augustana (even though this post is supposed to be about a Green Day song): 3

Movie review: Born on the 4th of July

First things first, I think the real question is why do I keep subjecting myself to war movies that are almost inevitably weird? With that in mind, I went into watching this movie thinking that it would probably be at least a bit weird like Full Metal Jacket (as you can see, that movie has stuck with me nevertheless) and Apocalypse Now, which was even weirder than FMJ. And again, also didn't have the virtue of having Vincent D'Onofrio even though he was fat and unsightly in FMJ. 
In any case, this movie that I just watched has Tom Cruise in it. I have no particular strong opinions towards Tom Cruise but I think I like him a bit more than George Clooney and even Brad Pitt. The movie was based on events that happened to a real person, and apparently said person wrote a book so I think I may have to try and read that sometime. Incidentally, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now were also based on books (The Short Timers and Heart of Darkness, respectively, both of which I have read). The plot is about a young man who joins the Marines (which were also featured in FMJ, however this movie did not have the boot camp scenes like FMJ did. I saw a jelly doughnut the other day and thought about FMJ) to go fight in the Vietnam War. Initially, he is enthusiastic about serving his country as he had always dreamed of doing such since he was a young boy. However, in Vietnam he ends up accidentally killing a number of helpless civilians as well as a fellow soldier (also accidentally). In short order he gets shot through the back (in the scene, you can see a huge bloody hole in his back) which leaves him paralyzed. He returns to the US and spends time in a veteran's hospital which is decidedly unpleasant. These events eventually cause him to become disillusioned about the war and become an anti-war activist. 
Similarities and differences:
This movie took a different approach than FMJ; in FMJ the main character(s) - Joker and Private Pyle who meets an unfortunate end at his own hands - are kind of just thrown into the whole war thing - they are more passive than Tom Cruise's character in Born on the 4th of July. FMJ also takes place entirely before and during the time that Joker goes to Vietnam; it ends with a scene of him still in Vietnam reflecting on the events that have happened since the beginning of the movie. It's sort of an interesting final scene, very stark; as I remember it, they are marching through somewhere with flames in the background, it's dark and they're chanting ironically a children's song. Joker says that he is "no longer afraid." Reflecting on FMJ, I begin to wonder what happened to Joker after the end of the movie. I don't remember if the book went on to describe events after what were shown in the movie. For some reason, I feel like what happens to him is that he eventually gets killed in Vietnam. 
The movie reminded me a bit of the scenes in Forrest Gump where Forrest fights in the Vietnam War as well as what happens after that, in that he (Forrest) has a lady friend (Jenny) who is a hippie and involved in anti-war protests. A similar thing is seen in Born on the 4th of July - Tom Cruise's character has a lady friend who is also a hippie and an anti-war protester. However, Forrest Gump has a much lighter tone than Born on the 4th of July. 
In FMJ, there is a scene where Joker is in a helicopter and watching another soldier shoot at civilians on the ground. Joker asks of him "How can you shoot women and children?" In Born on the 4th of July, there's kind of a similar scene in that civilians get killed but it's different than the one in FMJ. 
Incidentally I feel like I should mention that there was a lot of profanity in this movie. I wasn't particularly bothered, but there was a lot. So maybe don't watch this movie around other people if they would be bothered by the profanity. 
In any case, I was quite surprised that this war movie was NOT weird. Perhaps that was because it didn't take place entirely in the war zone, like the other ones I've seen. It also made me wonder if there are such things as pro war movies, seeing as this one and FMJ can be considered anti-war movies. Tom Cruise did a good job of acting in this movie, I think. I would be inclined to watch other movies that he's been in, perhaps.

Further reading: 
Here is an interesting article that offers some additional relevant commentary on Born on the 4th of July; mainly (tl;dr here) that it is prescient and still relevant to today's society; unlike other Vietnam War movies like FMJ and Apocalypse Now that are more bound to the times they were made in. 
Here is an article with some trivia about the movie.

Barbarism Begins at Home: a scathing critique

So, I was wasting time as usual, doing some knitting while I should have been working on homework, but regardless.. I put my music on shuffle, skipped like half of the songs that came up until Jenny Was a Friend of Mine by the Killers came on. I love that song. It's quite nice and it's also cool that it's about murder. It is from the point of view of someone who has committed a murder yet denies that he could have done it because the victim was his friend. You can take a listen here, as well as watch Flowers do some nice little gestures that relate to the lyrics as he performs the song. The song is known for its bass line, which also happens to be sort of copied from the song Barbarism Begins at Home by the Smiths, which, in my humble (read: not so humble, probably) opinion, pales in comparison to Jenny Was a Friend of Mine. First off, I think Barbarism Begins at Home is a particularly boring and uninspiring regarding the lyrics. It doesn't really have too much to say, as far as I see it. However, Jenny Was a Friend of Mine has a bit of a narrative to it regarding the events of the murder and the murderer's subsequent arrest and interrogation. Cool, right? If you're me, at least. Secondly, going together with the whole boring and uninspiring lyrics thing, Barbarism Begins at Home is like 6 minutes too long. It's so boring. So so boring. Regardless, I did decide to listen to it again (I listened to it in the past once or twice) which... well, no opinions changed. Sometimes I do get in the odd mood to listen to a song that I don't even like that much, such as... any number of the Smashing Pumpkins songs that I know (Bullet with Butterfly Wings, which is also a weird one, 1979, Disarm, Today, etc) and... that's all I can think of for right now. 
In any case, I think the Killers took an aspect from the Smiths' song Barbarism Begins at Home and turned it into part of something much more impressive. Jenny Was a Friend of Mine is quite a nice song. Flowers really conveys the emotion that the narrator in the song is feeling regarding the murder he committed. There is no such thing in Barbarism Begins at Home. Morrissey sounds sort of... drugged or half asleep or something. There's nothing interesting in the way he sings the song or in anything else about the song. Also, in Jenny Was a Friend of Mine, the bass line is a lot more defined and there's also some cool synths in that song too.

Songs about murder though. I really need some more of those in my life along the lines of Jenny Was a Friend of Mine. I wish the Killers would write some more songs about murder and such. 

Movie review: Se7en

I like writing it Se7en just cause it kind of looks cool, to me at least. In any case, I watched this movie finally; I had been wanting to watch it for awhile and this afternoon I finally did. Mostly it was the murder/serial killer and detectives aspect of it that interested me. This was also directed by David Fincher, who directed Fight Club (I think?), Zodiac (I know, and it was rather disappointing), and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (which I really liked). That makes him probably one of the directors I've watched the most films of, at least off the top of my head. 

In any case, I thought going into this I might probably keep comparing it to Law and Order, and I kind of did. I would say this was a good movie, which is odd because I thought Zodiac was really bad. But TGWTDT was really good. I'd put Se7en as better than Zodiac, definitely, but maybe not quite as good as TGWTDT. Brad Pitt was in this movie; I have no particular preference towards him as an actor, but I guess he's a decent actor. It reminded me of the time a few years ago when it was Halloween and Interview with the Vampire was on and I happened to watch that, which was the first movie of Brad Pitt's I had seen and made me come to the conclusion that he was a decent actor, even if I don't particularly care for him (I care for Leonardo DiCaprio, though). I guess he did a good job in Se7en, even if his character was kind of an unsophisticated jerk. 

It was a pretty decent movie although I think perhaps it could have had more... substance, or something. Maybe I wish I liked the characters more? I know with a movie there's not as much time to really endear the viewer towards the characters as there would be in many episodes of a tv show (hello, Law and Order), but I guess I've just been used to watching tv shows where you get repeatedly exposed to the same characters. This movie was sort of similar to the stuff that happens in Law and Order, but it had more drama and it was a bit grittier. I definitely noticed the general look of the film was consistent; the cinematography and colors, which is a thing I also noticed in TGWTDT (lots of blues, darkish colors to convey the Swedish setting and the darker tone of the movie), so perhaps it's a Fincher thing. This movie didn't completely WOW me like Shutter Island did, so I'd say Shutter Island was better although Se7en was definitely decent and not a waste of time. I thought some of the tortures the serial killer used were... interesting. I liked how the interrogation room was rather similar in general appearance to the one in Law and Order - the same square tiling on the walls, and the Navy chairs (!). The colors were darker though, a bit more green, whereas in Law and Order the colors of the interrogation room are more of a light grayish blue. 

I do wish there were more information given about the setting, rather than it just being some ambiguous inner city type place. I don't think it was supposed to be NYC because the badges weren't right. I guess it was intended to not take place in a specific, real, city. Maybe it was Chicago? Not that I even really have a clue what Chicago looks like, but it's the second thing that came to mind if it doesn't seem to take place in NYC. I guess it's because I'm used to Law and Order and the NYC setting is definitely an essential part of the whole Law and Order-ness of it. 

So all in all, it wasn't a waste of time although perhaps it could have been somewhat better. But it was definitely better than Zodiac. But not better than TGWTDT or Shutter Island. I am kind of curious what the movie would have been like if Leonardo DiCaprio had played Brad Pitt's character. Although in 1995 he probably would have looked a little young for the role. But let's say, theoretically, the movie was made in... 2003, and Leo had the role. I wonder how it would have been like.