Two Reviews.
Aug. 25th, 2008 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sechan19Tropic Thunder is easily one of the funniest movies ever made. Seriously. There were moments during this film where I honestly thought that I was going to become apoplectic. I couldn't stop laughing. Like, at all. The humor is biting and brilliant, the acting is sharp and skewering, and Tom Cruise fucking owns this motion picture. In one single side-splitting dance sequence he completely regains any and all of his street cred. For reals. Everyone needs to see this movie.
Nine Inch Nails gave a typical performance at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena on Friday. For the most part, I enjoyed it. However, in my opinion, there were significant flaws with the show. First of all, the light show--though very high-tech and oft-times intriguing--has gotten totally out of control. It cuts the band off from the audience and completely ruins any chance of synergy. The result is a somewhat static show that feels longer than it is. When the LCD screens were out of the way and the band was visible, I felt much more in the zone and was able to enjoy the groove.
Another problem is that many of the songs are so rehearsed, so locked-in to a specific mode of performance, that they too are stagnant. Granted, this is way more noticeable to the fan who's taking in concert number twelve--yes, I've seen Nails that many times--than it is for the fan who's taking in concert number one, but I can't help feeling that the lack of spontaneity must come through to the newbies somewhat as well. That said, the new material was great. "Head Down," in particular, rocks as much as I thought it would, and the instrumental stuff was beyond cool. Trent Reznor can play the xylophone, yo. Who knew?
Finally, after a long conversation on the above topics with my mom--who also loves the Nails and attended the show with me--I finally realized the overarching problem with the Nine Inch Nails show: Trent Reznor.
The man is a musical genius, there's no question of that. And he's certainly got more energy at forty-three than I had at fourteen, but he is not capable of connecting with his fanbase in a live setting. He barely looked at the audience the whole show and said not a word to them either. The introductions and thanks he gave at the end don't count. I'm almost positive he opened up because his family was at the show (Cleveland is his adopted hometown) and for no other reason.
It's a shame. He'll never be able to match the impact of his albums, let alone surpass them, until he can connect with the crowd and generate the energy that turns a performance by a star into an exchange between friends.
That said, I'll probably go to the Columbus show in November. I'll never get over hoping for better, I guess.
Nine Inch Nails gave a typical performance at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena on Friday. For the most part, I enjoyed it. However, in my opinion, there were significant flaws with the show. First of all, the light show--though very high-tech and oft-times intriguing--has gotten totally out of control. It cuts the band off from the audience and completely ruins any chance of synergy. The result is a somewhat static show that feels longer than it is. When the LCD screens were out of the way and the band was visible, I felt much more in the zone and was able to enjoy the groove.
Another problem is that many of the songs are so rehearsed, so locked-in to a specific mode of performance, that they too are stagnant. Granted, this is way more noticeable to the fan who's taking in concert number twelve--yes, I've seen Nails that many times--than it is for the fan who's taking in concert number one, but I can't help feeling that the lack of spontaneity must come through to the newbies somewhat as well. That said, the new material was great. "Head Down," in particular, rocks as much as I thought it would, and the instrumental stuff was beyond cool. Trent Reznor can play the xylophone, yo. Who knew?
Finally, after a long conversation on the above topics with my mom--who also loves the Nails and attended the show with me--I finally realized the overarching problem with the Nine Inch Nails show: Trent Reznor.
The man is a musical genius, there's no question of that. And he's certainly got more energy at forty-three than I had at fourteen, but he is not capable of connecting with his fanbase in a live setting. He barely looked at the audience the whole show and said not a word to them either. The introductions and thanks he gave at the end don't count. I'm almost positive he opened up because his family was at the show (Cleveland is his adopted hometown) and for no other reason.
It's a shame. He'll never be able to match the impact of his albums, let alone surpass them, until he can connect with the crowd and generate the energy that turns a performance by a star into an exchange between friends.
That said, I'll probably go to the Columbus show in November. I'll never get over hoping for better, I guess.
