R.E.M.: 1980-2011

I considered calling this post It's the end of REM as we know it. An obvious tongue-in-cheek reference to the recent retirement of the band, and their 1987 single off their album Document. But that has an unpleasant ring of permanence to it as if the members died or actually wouldn't do any other productive things thereafter. And the fact that a million others titled their article like that.


All bands eventually succumb to this; it's just a matter of time. It's actually surprising the band held out for as long as 31 years.


I never considered myself a big fan of the group. But I do have three albums I enjoy spinning every now and then, mostly the later works they did for Warner Music after they departed from IRS Records.


"Losing My Religion" was the single that sparked my interest for the band, and I even had the mistaken notion that it was a debut single coming from a new act that obviously benefited from what Nirvana did in ushering the alternative era and making college music cool enough to merit endless airings in MTV and mainstream radio. It had a jangly, catchy pop hook to it that was missing in most of the hard rock crunch of the distortion-heavy groups I listened to in heavy rotation that time. The lead singer, a good friend would later comment, even looked like a geek and slightly gay version of 90210's Luke Perry.


R.E.M was my introduction to 'rock' music minus the cock-rock and macho BS-posturing and moping evident in some of the buzz bands that took up most of my collection. While the band may take it negatively being referred to as rock musicians, or being purveyors of music anywhere remotely near the term rock, is beside the point. I always believed 'rock' meant not doing the same asinine disposable top 40 single with the shelf life of two days. 

R.E.M., Murmur era, 1983

Out Of Time (1991) was the first album I had of the band, mainly because of "Losing My Religion" and my budding interest to a local newspaper (Teddy Locsin's TODAY) column by someone named Jessica Zafra. She practically worshiped them, not unlike a religious zealot---most especially lead singer Michael Stipe---that I had to find out for myself that the group was more than just the single I came to know them for. 


I did not like the album that much. It was good, but not great. At least in my opinion that time.


It was too adult contemporary rock for me, being only 14 and still maintaining my stand that Megadeth is the best band of the last 1000 years. It was hardly the kind of band who channeled the angst, confusion and rebellious sentiments of the turmoils of adolescence unlike Green Day or Pearl Jam. 


 I walked out of it more than a little disappointed and thinking only "Losing My Religion" and "Near Wild Heaven" were the only great tracks on it. It was relegated to the last section of the drawer where I kept most of my cassettes (CD cost too much back then, even more so now) to be played now and then when I have had too much of the ear-splitting approach of their much louder Seattle counterparts or the token thrash metal records I had in abundance. In other words, it served as an intermission record for the next how many years I had left in high school, and had to get another copy of it when I entered college due to an unfamiliar deck's messing up the cassette ribbon into a tangled mass of trash.


By this time, and probably because of the hormones starting to stabilize coupled with reading some of the major music publications as well as an unconscious need for variety in listening materials, I gave the album (the new copy) another spin and found myself warming up to it a lot more than the first time I listened. I found myself sitting through the entire tape, with a few rewinds to the track "Belong"---wondering how the hell I missed such a good song and skipping it all these years. 

Automatic For The People (1992) is the best R.E.M album according to most publications and even Peter Buck (guitars) himself, but the one I wore out due to repeated playing was the little known New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996). Out of the three albums I had, the latter was probably the one that had the most resonance to me. I don't know, maybe the fact that most of the songs were recorded live in various locations, sound checks and dressing rooms while on the Monster tour and still sounded a lot better than other overproduced garbage of that time was the reason. And that the songs had a floaty, introspective feel to them not even readily apparent in all other earlier songs I heard from them. If I were a superstitious man I'd  attribute the overwhelming sense of melancholia that pervades the entire record as an omen for drummer Bill Berry's departure a year later.


Hardcore fans thought the abrupt departure of the drummer would deal a blow so big the band would quit shortly after that. They didn't. Even made at least five other albums, with the latest released just last March of this year. What makes REM unique is that unlike some of their peers who achieved legendary cult statuses due to stopping at the peak of their artistic apex, they decided to milk the possibilities dry. 


Bands like Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, and Live all proclaim reverence to the group. And rightly so, because while Michael Stipe and Co may sound weird and so out of touch to today's contemporary music scene, their brand of DIY cool set the template for all other bands to follow. What I liked most about the band was that they were never saddled with the hubris that came with the 'indie' or college music tag. They helped define the indie genre that produced them, and at the same time maintained a comfortable distance from it that you rarely hear snotty indie aficionados name drop them in discussions. An indication that they never allowed to let themselves get pegged on a certain spot. And even when the later albums and songs were not as sharp or as potent as the singles that defined them, you'd have to give them credit for not copping out on it all too quickly.


And that, as they say, is that.

A nightmare, alright

I held off watching the remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street for a variety of reasons. One of which is Michael Bay being attached to the project. And the other, most important point: Why bother?


It's always Hollywood and its endless fascination with remakes. There's always an enterprising studio exec in there somewhere, with a bright idea that probably goes somewhere along these lines: "Hey! Why not reboot an 80s era blockbuster to fit today's braindead audience who has no chance of seeing the original despite the presence of Google and man's innate nature to go looking for things? Let's save them from that 'looking' and make truckloads of money while we're at it." 


If the studios are doing it to explore artistic reinterpretation, then Michael Bay is a modern day Fellini. 


The thing about remakes is that 9 times out of 10, most are simply sub-par, and dreadfully inferior versions of the original work (see: Psycho, The Ring). Unfortunately 'Nightmare...2010' is no exception. 


Remakes do unimaginable harm than good to almost everything, especially on movies that require suspense and rely heavily on the viewer's apprehension and uncertainty about what character will die on the next sequence.


And on a horror-thriller at that. What's the point of watching a 'thriller' if you already know what happened to every major character? For the new generation to be familiar with a 20+ year old celluloid boogeyman? Has spoonfeeding really degenerated to this?


There's the hype of it being the more 'serious and less comical interpretation' that is guaranteed to give you more scares than the original. That Jackie Earle Haley's Freddy Krueger is a lot more brutal and scary than the original Robert Englund version.

Freddy, 2010 incarnation

That would have been very promising except that Freddy is not Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. Dour, silent killers with no sense of humor.

Freddy's appeal on the other hand, is in the various creative ways he toys with his victims. Always in that nasty sadistic toying and humiliation before going in for the kill.In a lot of ways "Nightmare..." is not exactly a 'horror/slasher' film than a curious fascination on how Freddy will come up with new ways to dispose of his prey.


One memorable sequence in an early installment had him transfer a teenager as a playable character in a video game he was playing. Or a woman bring eaten face-first by a television set. Or Johnny Depp being swallowed by the bed and regurgitated as a bloody mass of pulp back to the ceiling. Horrifying at first, but then you realize it's a movie not meant to be taken seriously.

 

Englund nailed the character's brilliance, nastiness, and most of all, amusing sense of humor and the acerbic kiss-offs that's noticeably missing in Haley's version. Not his fault---a good actor---but what can you do with a character that is so familiar and embedded so deeply in the pop culture landscape people practically know him as how Englund played him? 


They already started with Freddy vs Jason, a fun and satisfying fanboy celebrity deathmatch fantasy came true. Whatever these studio heads are smoking for them to see things like this and resort to the abominable stance of doing a remake, ought to be very expensive.


I wonder how that Fright Night remake is gonna pull it off.

'No'

The last time George Lucas  decided to improve the aspects of his original trilogy, fans (by this I mean people who loved the original set from 1977-1983) were outraged as to why he even bothered with 'fixing' something that isn't broken in the first place.


I had no problem with it at first. This was a chance to see the originals in the theater, the way they were meant to be seen, anyway. 


The only one I was lucky enough to catch on its original theatrical run was Return Of The Jedi in 1983. I was 4. Didn't even know what I was watching was the last part of an epic trilogy. Just that it completely blew my mind, specially those humming lightsabers and how bad guys can actually redeem themselves in the end. 


The earlier films, I watched repeatedly on the VCR. 


The 1997 special editions had, as was previously reported before they opened, some pretty good upgrades and additional scenes that were previously envisioned by Lucas back in '77 but was unable to do so due to the limitations in special effects technology then.

CGI Stormtroopers on CGI dewbacks absent in the original version

That was okay as far as I'm concerned. Who would not want a little additional refurbishing or addition to the landscapes you practically knew even in your sleep? As long as it did not interfere with the story or any major character's presentation.


What raised the red flag for me while watching it in the theater, particularly on A New Hope (Episode IV), was the scene where Han Solo was confronted by one of Jabba The Hutt's henchmen (Greedo). In the original '77 version, Solo shot the villain first.


On the upgraded version, the scene was played out in a way that made me suspect a defect in the movie reel they were using. There was an awkward shift in Solo's head that made it look as if he evaded Greedo's blast first, and fired his own to kill his nemesis. 

Turns out Lucas did not want him to look too ruthless by firing off first.

That scene turned everyone's favorite smuggler/gunslinger from a badass, tako-no-shit kind of person to a boy scout with a tough exterior. Whatever convoluted sense of morality Lucaswanted to impart on the Solo character, totally destroyed how people knew him.

For starters the character really is unlikeable. At least at first. He's supposed to be the balance to the all around good guy country boy hero in Luke Skywalker. You're supposed to view him as an opportunistic scumbag until the end when he turned out to be a great person after all. 


What's even more puzzling is that this is hardly one of the 'technological setbacks' Lucas kept complaining about that he wanted to improve. This is already about changing characters'  motivations and actions. 


It happened again in The Empire Strikes Back. Several key changes in the dialogues were noticeable. A bid for political correctness, most likely. Whatever 'upgrade' Lucas did in the effects department were surely eclipsed by the new things old characters were saying. In other words, the brilliant screenplay of Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan were not spared from the 'refurbishing'.  


But the worst part of it in the best part of the film as well.


This time in the climactic fight between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in Bespin's Cloud City. 


In the 1980 version, instead of giving in to the temptations of power his father promised him if he turned to the dark side, the young warrior from Tatooine chose death by quietly jumping off the small platform he was holding unto. 


In the 'improved' version, Lucas decided to insert a long girlyman scream as he was falling to the chasm. It also sounded distrurbingly similar to the Emperor's own freefall screams when Vader threw him to his own death in Return Of The Jedi.

Gone was the brave freedom fighter who defied the lures of power. In its place was someone who was probably about to go on traipsing in to the dark side for all we know, and just slipped.

Even Lucas realized how stupid the move was and decided to remove it in the subsequent DVD releases.

But what really is infuriating about all these changes is how the guy's obsessive drive to 'perfect' the materials that practically does not need it as far as fans---the real owners---are concerned. Even that kind of motivation or drive is forgivable. At least that shows you the depth of the man's dedication to his art.

However, marketing ploys are another thing. Specially on specialty products like this you know for a fact are held in high esteem by rabid fanboys who'd automatically gobble anything remotely attached to the series.

Insanity for your art is one thing. Butchering a beloved piece of work to sell more of it, is another.

A few days ago news about the Blu Ray version of Return Of The Jedi caused another stir when a leaked footage of the scene in question was seen by most fans. 

Perhaps Mr. Lucas felt slighted about the negative reactions to Vader's prolonged "NOOO!" in Revenge Of The Sith, that he decided to rub it in by letting the iconic character at it again just to get even.

Or maybe he's just being magnanimous by offering audiences countless options on how they want their Star Wars served. Like a twisted version of the Choose Your Own Adventure series.

In any case, if there's any Lucasfilm movie that badly needs a major overhaul, it's Howard The Duck.