Morphizm Mash-Up: August 2004

I Want to be Challenged": Q&A With M. Night Shyamalan
Director, The Village

Q: Was there something special that attracted you to the landscape for The Village?
A : It’s very hard to find a plot of land in the middle of the woods. We had to fly in a helicopter to find it.

Q: Do the woods scare you?
A: The woods are a place that we are genetically afraid of. We know not to go into them in order to survive, so I am taking advantage of that.

Q: People refer to The Village as a horror movie, but it seems to be much more than that.
A: I think there is always a desire to put it into a box. It was not intended to be a horror movie; I wanted it to be a period romance and heighten suspense to the point that it becomes frightening. I would feel comfortable calling it a suspense movie.

Q: There seems to be political commentary within the film. Did you find that events occurring in the world were running parallel to your film?
A: It came from the feeling that the world is a scary place right now, the desire to go back to simplicity. Emotional colors were accurate for what you're saying. It’s ironic because we wrote this a while ago.

Q: Does The Village argue that our elders are keeping things from us, that there is danger in following leaders in any community?
A: It’s all about how to protect your innocence from getting hurt by the “creatures” in your life. The desire to protect your children from going into the unknown. If these “creatures” have hurt you, you don’t want them to hurt your children, but the younger generation may be willing to risk that.

Q: As both filmmaker and writer, how tough is it for you to maintain the element of surprise?
A: I'm just being Zen about it. If I worried about keeping the element of surprise, I wouldn’t have been able to make The Sixth Sense. I'm just going to keep doing what I’m doing. I can’t take expectations into account. Would you really want me to take that into account? Should that be the basis of my next movie? That’s why I stay in Philadelphia, so that I can draw my ideas from a small pool.

Q: You put your actors for this film through a boot camp.
A: They were all very intense about it in their own ways. It gave them the opportunity to do their craft at the highest level. They felt honored to give their all; we all felt there was something precious. The process brought great meaning. I had an opportunity to create a sanctuary.

Q: Bryce Dallas Howard was shocked you cast her for this role after just seeing her in one play.
A: Yes, it's this stupid trust that I have in the Internet. My wife gets on me for that; she says that I’m lazy but it’s really instinct of mine. I didn’t even make Bryce audition for The Village; I had a gut feeling. But there’s a reason why Signs opened at $60 million. I walked my walk, my own way, and I knew that no matter what, you were going to see something different and original. It’s the choices we made. The commitments is what shines though.

Q: Does being a writer, director and producer create an insulated environment for you?
A: It’s absolutely problematic, but that’s where Scott Rudin comes in. We'd never met before, but I told him to come because I was in danger of being too isolated. He looked at what I had and he critiqued and challenged me. That is why I hired these monster actors and theater actors -- to challenge me. I’m not about being comfortable, I want to be challenged. You always want someone to go, “Why that?” and “Why this?"

Q: Could you live in The Village's utopian society, where there is no money or greed?
A: Could I live in it? Yeah, but the irony is that I don’t put a lot of stock into money and materials; they aren’t that important. If that stuff went away I wouldn’t give a shit. If those things are your motivators in life, I guarantee crash-and-burn.

Q: Was it fun to write romance?
A: It was hard to write, because I had to remove all of my sarcasm. Today, when we say things, sarcasm is always involved. In that era, when someone said “I like you,” it meant they liked you.

Q: Isn’t there a danger of idolizing the simplicity of the past?
A: There is a give-and-take. All things come with sacrifice. Is it better that we have the microwave? There are all kinds of philosophical arguments to this.

Q: When are you going to get your own TV show?
A: I have ideas that aren’t big enough to be movies, but it requires time and effort that I cannot justify. These movies work at the level that they're working on because I get to creatively devote two years of my life to them. I have family and all that stuff the requires time. I can’t right now justify that move, although I've been asked by every network to do something. But movies are the format that I want to work in.


The Beta Band
Heroes To Zeros
What was intially another captivating entry into the Beta Band catalog has now become their swan song. You read that right. Shortly, after releasing the ambitious, rewarding Heroes to Zeroes, The Beta Band decided to hang up their instruments and call it a game.

But we still have the music to remember them by, and their latest doesn't disappoint. Veering from their signature sprawling jams, Heroes to Zeros is a neatly packed collection of landscaped pop ditties that are well worth checking out. From jangly acid pop to intimate digital love ballads, this Beta effort is effortlessly blissful.

BUY HEROES TO ZEROES HERE

The opening track, "Assessment," sets the tone with ethereal guitar and lyrics to match, but the album's poppy momentum soon slows down with "Wonderful" and the depressed "Troubles." Meanwhile, "Out-Side" is impressive in that it presents an entirely different Beta sound, one that's definitely more on the garage rock side. But overall, Heroes to Zeroes is a solid stretch for The Beta Band, a deeply intriguing layering of sound and substance.

In order to capture their impressive live act, parts of the Heroes to Zeroes were recorded accordingly and then digitally processed and accentuated with the Beta's signature samples and sound oddities (including a barking dog on "Out-Side"). In fact, the Betas first produced this gem themselves, before handing it off to master mixer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck, Air) for the finishing touches.

The result is a tightly woven collection that nevertheless follows a different but still invigorating style, one that even the diehard 'Three EPs' fans will still appreciate. Heroes to Zeroes still communicates all that is Beta, albeit in a more cohesive format. -- Nancy Hunter

(Photo: Shearwater Official Site)

Shearwater, Winged Life
There are so many bands out there, and all of them are making records. Millions of albums are available to you, catering to your every taste, style, emotion. Whatever your craving may be, there are at least a few records out there for you, even if you haven’t found them yet. And even if you have found the albums that suit you, chances are you had to wade through endless other albums from bands that are, at best, good and, at worst, simply OK. I myself have listened to so many just OK records from countless OK bands that I could probably build the world’s largest disco ball out of them.

Okay, forget I said the disco ball thing. What I’m trying to say is this: I don’t want to write a bad review of Shearwater’s new album, Winged Life. It would be unfair to criticize them for being boring, because the truth is they're making records and I’m sitting here. Writing about them.

So if you are a fan of country-tinged outfits like The Sixth Great Lake, The Essex Green, Beachwood Sparks and Okkervil River (which features Shearwater's Will Sheff), then go get this record. Seriously.

BUY WINGED LIFE HERE

Because there are some gorgeous tracks on Winged Life. “St. Mary’s Walk” is a slow, bittersweet song about a oceanside relationship in turmoil, the lyrics “I hate the ocean” swelling in concert with a seasick accompaniment. “Sealed" features some wonderful harmonies, and a great build-up into a collision of screeching violins and lilting Wurlitzers. How I love those musical orgasms.

And, now that I've been here, writing and listening to the album again and again, the whole thing is beginning to grow on me.

Sure, I said earlier that it’s not the best album in the entire world. But how many are? Yet we still go out and buy them all. In other words, Winged Life is not a work of genius. It’s not going to start a revolution. But it sure feels good. -- Jeff Pearce

04 August 04

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Five Reasons Culture Didn't Suck in 2003... Depending on who you ask, 2003 was either the year that the world came together or became irreparably polarized. We tend to take the middle road, and say that it more or less sucked but had some bright, history-making moments. In fact, whether it was Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings juggernaut or the rise of Howard Dean, life as we know it may never be the same again . . . MORE	...and Five Reasons Why It Really Did There were so many laughable failures in 2003, that it would simply be impossible to list them all. So where should we start? How about with an oil whore -- uh, war -- dressed up to look like a 9/11 payback? Or perhaps the sellout Democrats that let it all happen? Or maybe we should turn away from politics and just enjoy the lesbian lovefest between Madonna, Spears and Xtina? Or . . . . MORE	Little Stabs of Happiness There's a wild world to experience once mainstream Hollywood stops force-feeding you war epics or Julia snoozers. And it houses some pretty weird shit, to be honest. Like films involving Dahmer, homo parents, Euro schlock and porn involving rats. Gary Morris breaks it down. . . MORE