Page 6 | Monday, November 9, 2015
OPINION
MUSIC
McGraw shows sensitive side in new album Julius Kizzee News Editor
Tim McGraw released his 14th studio album entitled “Damn Country Music” on Nov. 6, much to the country culture’s anticipation. Before I started listening to the album, I had to realize that I had never listened to anything like this before. Country is not my forte of music critique, but I dived into the Tim McGraw musical experience and was thoroughly impressed. From the outset of the first song, “Here Tonight,” his lowly vocals and the hard-pressed bass kick make McGraw’s musicality unique from anything I’ve heard. Naturally, I listen to
mostly hip-hop and soft R&B, so it was unique to me to hear these kinds of notes, period. But the combination of all of the elements gave McGraw the perfect ambience for his work. The bass-heavy interludes from the first two songs give the album a down-South, hardnosed feel. His sensitive side comes out often in the album, and it’s a journey that you must take along with McGraw. His vocals are mostly baritone interludes—and even monotone at times—under the instruments. I wish I could hear his vocal range a bit more, but it plays well into the overall feel of the record. Every song has its own message, but it sometimes can be hidden behind the great
quality of the melodies. Those melodies are hiding his central message—love—from
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the album, especially in his song “Love Runs.” He sings about the many nuances of love and the intricacies of it.
ENTERTAINMENT
“Then love runs through your veins like the wax of a candle flame, the first time that she says your name and you just come undone,” he sings in “Love Runs.” His drum set is varied in its elements, in each and every song. Sometimes, it uses brushes such as in “How I’ll Always Be,” or it uses heavy kick on songs such as “Losin’ You.” My personal favorite is “Want You Back,” in which he sings about the memories of his past companion. His resentment and compassion flow through his lyrics, making the mood of the song a great one to understand his feelings. The guitar solo also adds a great feel to the moment. Love is a tricky element and
feeling, according to McGraw’s lyrics. It cannot be classified or clarified by anything. One of the disappointing facets of this album is most of the tracks sound the same or share a similar message. McGraw is sad or disappointed in love, and he hopes to find a solution to his intimacy problems. In all, I enjoyed the album for its musicality and the instrument variation. I wish that he would have shown more variety in his music and that he would have different varying tempos in his music. The album dragged along at some points when his message was the same going across for many songs at a time. McGraw gained a fan with this project.
NATIONAL
Del Toro’s new film disappoints Trump hosts SNL Jesse Hammett
J.D. Rimann
Copy Editor
Tom, there’s a hole in your roof. Maybe you missed that. Oh, and your entire house is sinking into what appears to be a blood canyon, Tom. Did I mention there are screaming ghosts in the bathroom? Also, your sister lives here. Isn’t that weird since you’re married, Tom? These are a few of many questions I asked “Crimson Peak” semiantagonist Tom Hiddleston after cringing my way through an hour of awkward dialogue. It’s difficult to refer to Tom Hiddleston’s character as anything other than Tom Hiddleston, because I can’t seem to separate the actor from his roles. At this point, as I haven’t been able to escape seeing his face every time I browse the Internet, all of his characters are Tom Hiddleston to me. “Crimson Peak,” directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Matthew Robbins, debuted internationally on Oct. 16. The film was made on a budget of $55 million and stars Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jim Beaver and others. It currently holds a 70 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The most difficult thing to swallow while watching the film is how increasingly unbelievable the scenarios get. The plot is this: an English man named Tom Hiddleston—excuse me, Sir Thomas Sharpe—comes to America and meets protagonist Edith (Wasikowska). The two fall in love over the course of what feels like a few minutes, shenanigans ensue, they get married and they move back to England in a fit of impulsiveness. Sharpe’s house is a mansion that barely has any ceiling at all. In addition, yes, his sister lives there, too, and the walls ooze with bloodred clay. Apparently that’s what your walls do when you build your house on top of a clay deposit, which seems like something only weirdos would do in the first place. The clay is the reason the house
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and the hill on which it’s situated are nicknamed Crimson Peak in the film. The moniker probably has nothing to do with blood or ghosts—of course not. But funnily enough, the film itself has barely anything to do with blood or ghosts, which is opposite of how it was marketed. I was promised blood and ghosts, you Piccadilly dirt bags. This brings me to the red motif and how I’m supposed to feel like it represents something important and thought-provoking. Sometimes movies attempt to take on the literary value of books. It can work to a degree, if done carefully— Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption” comes to mind—but del Toro’s latest work jams its attempts into the audience’s face such that it feels like an insult. Tom, do you mean to tell me that everything colored red in this movie is pretty much evil? Gosh, I had no idea. The film’s meat and bones are not its only failing points. Wooden performances also stunt the piece, as actors come off as being unable to figure out how to portray characters who exist in the late 19th century. Hints of English accents and awkward speech patterns alone are enough to keep the viewer from full immersion. The only actor who seemed to grasp his role was Jim Beaver, but there is an unfortunate lack of Jim Beaver for a good threefourths of the film. His absence is a colossal lapse in judgment on the creators’ parts, especially given
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Beaver’s track record. However, the script was written circa 2006, so shoehorning his character into the rest of the movie likely would have made things messier. Writing has never been one of del Toro’s stronger points. That much is obvious to anyone who has seen his 2013 flick “Pacific Rim.” That said, the writing in “Crimson Peak” is perhaps among the film’s worst elements. Characters’ reactions were unbelievable, the scenarios and dialogue were riddled with clichés and it was a chore to attempt to relate to anyone. As I mentioned, the script was finished in 2006, and I can’t help but feel as though it saw no edits or changes since then—a sort of “junior high first draft,” in a manner of speaking. The movie isn’t awful. It’s fun to stare at while slurping down a Coke, to see it but not necessarily watch it. It’s a passable autumn movie that doesn’t make one’s evening better or worse. Yet there is plenty of praise for the film, and all praise thrown its way is valid. But the fanfare surrounding it and del Toro’s past works is almost hysterical. “Crimson Peak” is being heralded as this year’s godsend film, which makes me wonder if these people have ever seen a good movie. There’s no substance here, and I mean none at all. Give “Crimson Peak” a pass unless you don’t mind seeing a throwaway period piece that features a ghost here and there.
Last week was an interesting one for the two current leaders of the Republican polls. While Ben Carson was catching fire throughout the week for comments that he made recently, and parts of his autobiography which have apparent inconsistencies, fellow Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appeared on famed comedy show “Saturday Night Live,” where he effectively spent the night doing nothing more than making fun of himself on national television. In their own way, each of these events spoke to an important and often overlooked part of the modern day race for the American presidency: the need to be both strictly disciplined but also appear to be completely laid back. On one hand, a candidate needs to appear calm, cool and collected all while maintaining strict message discipline. The masters of this in this current presidential cycle are Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Very rarely, if ever, do they appear flustered by the questions they are asked in town halls, debates or press conferences, and very rarely do their answers to these questions not serve to reinforce the narrative they are attempting to build. When Rubio is asked so-called “gotcha” questions, he keeps composed and typically turns them back around on the questioner, and it is rare that any question he answers is not in some way linked to his theme of looking forward and embracing a “New American Century.” This is not a natural thing to do, which can be clearly seen whenever individuals who are not professional politicians attempt to do it. When Carson is asked a “gotcha” question, he has a tendency to stumble and commit the dreaded gaffe. Take his recent pronouncement that a Muslim could not be president of the United
States. Not only does it make him sound bigoted and ignorant of the U.S. Constitution, but it is also completely unnecessary. Again, the entire mini-controversy over Carson claiming that the pyramids were not burial chambers but biblical grain silos constructed by Joseph falls into this area. There was absolutely no reason to bring it up, and as a presidential frontrunner, he needs to understand that he will be hammered by the media for comments like that. Meanwhile, Trump walked a fine line on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend. We as voters hold presidential candidates to impossible standards. We want individuals who are on message and not committing gaffes, but we do not want them to appear so disciplined. Instead, in the words of that most legendary of political clichés, we want our candidate to be a “guy we could grab a beer with.” What we do not want are candidates who do not take themselves seriously at all. Well, Trump does not have to worry about the gaffe part. His bombastic, made-for-TV personality and history as a reality TV star mean that he is simply not held to the same standards as other candidates. However, he should be very concerned about the second part. He is not taken seriously by half of the population right now, and directly mocking himself on SNL shows that he does not quite take himself seriously at all. The occasional self-deprecating joke by a candidate is one thing, but going full Palin and participating in an hour-and-a-half show that revolves around mocking yourself is dangerous territory indeed for anyone who aspires to the White House. If Carson is serious about the presidency, he needs to tighten up on message discipline; and, if Trump is serious about his candidacy for presidency, he needs to stop being a caricature and start being a candidate.