Monday, February 28, 2005 11:27 AM | Matthew Jeanes While I've never read any of the comics, I found the Constantine movie to be fairly entertaining. It's a comic-to-movie adaptation that's quite like the original X-Men or Hellboy films in that it re-imagines the comic book universe for the big screen, taking the story essence and then playing with it enough to make it something on its own. Keanu Reeves was terrible as was expected, but otherwise the film was pretty entertaining and fairly thought-provoking. What I especially liked about the film was the fact that it played quite opposite to expectations. Originally the comic was called Hellblazer, a title that was changed to no doubt limit the connection to the similar subject matter in Hellboy but probably also to limit the "it's a devil-worship movie" mindset of many who'd see a title like "Hellblazer" and be scared off. In fact, the film deals directly and frequently with Hell and Demons and the Son of Satan and a lot of other stuff that's not evil aliens or anonymous monsters but real-life Biblical Evil. To some, this might cut a little too close to home to be dealt with in such a trivial "comic book action movie" kind of way, but that's what was so interesting about it. The Passion of the Christ is the biggest recent movie to lay out an unabashed Christian belief system and to portray aspects of the Christian faith that may seem fantastic or mystical to some as reality. Well, Hellblazer does the same thing, but in the service of a completely different story. After all, the central premise in the film is that Heaven and Hell DO EXIST and that God and Satan have an "understanding" called "the balance" that keeps them from directly interfering in the lives of Humans; instead, they kind of watch what goes on and see who chooses sides. It's a play on lots of elements of Catholic dogma, rules about salvation, and the interplay of faith and belief, and the film uses those themes over and over to provide the set up for Constantine and the powers he has and the world he sees. Though Constantine himself is not the ideal Christian hero, the film really seemed very pro-Christian to me in a strange way. It may not have intended to do so, but by laying out the premise of Constantine's reality, the film requires that viewers buy into the idea of a real Heaven and Hell and real demons, the power and love of God, the deceit and hatred of Satan--all things that come straight from Christian beliefs. I'm guessing that most Christian's would not have an interest in Constantine because it looks on the surface like a movie that's ambiguous about demons and magic and dark powers, but in fact, Constantine himself is a kind of new Christian hero of sorts. He certainly doesn't act the part, and there's one gag in particular that seems to take the whole Heaven/Hell thing less seriously than it should, but for the most part, Constantine represents a fascinating hero. He's acting for the Good, but not out of Goodness. This simple point makes the character much more multi-dimensional and worthy of reflection than so many other similar movie characters. Even Hellboy, Constantine's closest comparable character, isn't driven by the same fear of Hell that we see here. Perhaps most stunning was Constantine's reaction to and relationship with Hell. Having killed himself as a teenager, he was damned to hell under that rigorous Catholic rule system, and was sent there for a few minutes before the EMTs could revive him. He says of his experience that "even two minutes in hell are a like a lifetime" of pain and suffering, and he has thus devoted his life to working for the "good guys" in hopes of bartering his way into Heaven. But he still doesn't 'believe. He lacks faith because he has knowledge of Heaven and Hell--he can't blindly believe because like most others, he isn't blind. It's a great set up for a flawed hero and would be a perfect discussion-starter for Christians because it asks some important questions. Are good deeds and a good life enough? Are God's rules as dogmatic as Catholicism says they are? Do God and Satan really try to influence or even pay attention to the affairs of us measly humans? I imagine that in churches accross the country, Constantine is being badmouthed along with all the other "violent and dark movies out there that are corrupting people", but oddly I think it might just be a wonderful device for people of that faith to use as a recruitment tool. {0} Comments Wednesday, February 23, 2005 4:10 PM | Matthew Jeanes Social Networking is taking over. Soon we'll need to re-write the line Alex delivers in A Clockwork Orange about real life never seeming "really real as when we read about it in a blog." If your band doesn't have a LiveJournal account, it means you're missing out on a chance to pitch to your friends about where your next show is. If you don't have a MySpace account, you can't pimp your newest mixes and compare friend networks with other bands. If you don't have a friendster account, well, you were lame 2 years ago then. If you aren't keeping a tour diary, personal blog, and message board posts, and if you aren't cross-posting (and apologizing for it) regularly, then you just aren't doing your job. I've about had it. Not that I spend a ton of time updating this blog, this site, or any of the others, but I see it happening and it's a funny thing that people are willing to swap time for money. I suppose that people have more time than they do money, so the idea of spending countless hours making sure that news is crossposted to every newsgroup, forum, message board, and journal is meaningful if a marketing budget is essentially nil. But what does it all mean? Do the social networks actually grow, or actually bring people together? It seems like more and more they are just a way for the same people to bump into the same people in multiple online places instead of multiple places in the real world. Not that that's a bad thing, but I don't know if it's necessarily the best use of anyone's time. I guess what we all need is some sort of RSS feed or bot or something more technical than I understand to take a single message and reformat it and cross post it to every available outlet that makes sense with a single keystroke so that we aren't constantly trolling around all over the web. Of course, the easier thing to do would be to ditch everything but the tried-and-true band website and tell people "if you want to find out what's going on or read our silly musings, you need to do it HERE 'cause we can't be spending time jacking up all these other sites." I like that idea, but of course it makes you look like an outsider or a bad team-player to all the folks who use those networking tools to stay in the loop. Maybe one day when we all have smart agents, this will be a moot point as we'll all be connected to whatever we want no matter it's location, and there won't be a need for redundant websites, blogs, tour updates, mp3 links, and flyer scans. Maybe. Until then, you can have fun at MySpace/Larvae which is dutifully maintained by the Birmingham third of the crew, LiveJournal/Larvae which is updated by me but is only about Larvae-reated stuff, 404Noise which is a message board I post to a lot and is pretty useful for Atlanta-related goings-on, or you can sit right here and get the scoop on the old Zeroplate Express as we like to call it. Well, no one really calls it that, but here you are. Thanks for reading, and as always, no apology for cross-posting! {0} Comments Wednesday, February 16, 2005 11:07 PM | Matthew Jeanes Okay, I'm not sure what is going on here, but I have now been told twice that I look like someone famous. I used to get this a lot when I was in college and had long hair and wore band t-shirts all the time. "Hey, are you the drummer from Celtic Frost?" or "I saw you guys open up for Morbid Angel in 92" or "Where's Jay (as in Jay & Silent Bob)", but I haven't heard anything like that for a while. But in the last couple months, two different people have told me I look like Michael McDonald. Not that I mind, or that looking like a famous guy who's gotten by on his voice and his beard for a couple decades is a bad thing, but it just seems weird. Judge for yourself: {0} Comments Friday, February 04, 2005 5:17 PM | Matthew Jeanes The following is exerpted from an article at CNN and is from a US Marine General: "Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot," Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling. "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." Hello United States Public Relations Department: this is why people in other countries hate and fear us. We have high-ranking people in the military running off at the mouth about war as if it were a first-person shooter on XBox. The most terrifying thing here is that this is certainly not one man's isolated misstep in the media, but it's more likely that this is a pervasive attitude in the military that has (unfortunately for them) bubbled up to the surface. There's no excuse for that attitude and none for those kinds of statements. Killing other human beings should never be fun, and it should never be 'a hoot'. It may be necessary at times, and it may bring a rush of adrenaline to put your life on the line, but it should never be fun for anyone. {0} Comments

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