Conceits Undermine The Punch Of Thirteen Reasons Why Season 1

The Good: Decent acting, Important social messages, Some interesting characters
The Bad: Some truly underdeveloped characters, Narrative complexity distracts from some of the important issues, Casting
The Basics: Thirteen Reasons Why unsatisfyingly draws attention to a number of important issues facing young people today through a series of fairly unmemorable characters.


If I learned anything from reviewing the first season of Netflix's A Series Of Unfortunate Events (reviewed here!), Netflix shows based upon popular novels with a devoted audience are fairly pointless to analyze for the fans. People who have a high nostalgia quality for the source material generally don't want to hear a critique of their beloved work and that is fair. I did not read Thirteen Reasons Why before sitting down to watch the first season (and, presumably, only season) of Thirteen Reasons Why when it made its debut. As a result, this review is ideal for those who know nothing about the book, the show and want to know whether or not the content of the show is worth taking in.

And . . . for the first thing that will undoubtedly piss off those who love the book, the final analysis is "no." Thirteen Reasons Why Season 1 is not a Netflix show I'm recommending, would tell a friend about or will ever watch a second time.

Thirteen Reasons Why is a good idea that gets distracted from its own potential greatness by conceits and melodrama.

A short time after high school sophomore Hannah Baker killed herself, Clay Jensen receives a box with audio cassettes in it. Clay begins to listen to the tapes and discovers that Hannah recorded the tapes and he almost immediately learns that he is not the only person to know about or listen to the tapes. Clay begins to listen to Hannah telling her own story of moving to the small city and meeting various classmates who contributed to Hannah's suicide. While Clay learns the story of the girl he had a crush on, through stories of her interactions with Jessica (another recent-arrival at the school), Alex (another new transfer who befriended her and then dated Jessica), Justin (the first boy she had a crush on, who betrayed her trust and got her labeled at the school as a slut), and others, like her stalker, Tyler the photography geek, he begins to have interactions with people in his high school.

And in the present-tense, post-suicide storyline (and trying to blend the two stories) is where Thirteen Reasons Why falls apart. Clay suddenly has a guardian angel around school (and his life outside school) in the form of the good-natured Tony. Tony does his best to look out for Clay as other students - most of whom are worried about the fallout that would happen if it became public knowledge that Hannah attributed them as a factor in her suicide - begin to exert influence on Clay. Clay begins Thirteen Reasons Why as a pretty solid geek who has lost one of his few friends in the world. And while Thirteen Reasons Why gets some of his grieving right, other aspects - most notably a scene where he and Alex feel pressured into speed-drinking 40 oz. beers - feel entirely forced, especially given Tony's presence nearby. In other words, Clay has no emotional investment in the people attempting to peer pressure him into drinking, which he is not inherently interested in doing, and he has an easy way to avoid their threat of a beating by just leaving with Tony.

So, in the present-tense storyline, Clay's grief is undermined by contrived plot events surrounding other people's reactions to what they heard on the tapes and tangential in the town. While some of the plot and character threads make sense - most notably the fact that the Bakers, Hannah's parents, are suing the school district - others, like fleshing out Tony by having him act like a mob enforcer, are far less satisfying and distract from the main narrative. There are moments where Hannah Baker's suicide is treated like a mystery and in the best of those moments, Thirteen Reasons Why feels like it is trying to be Veronica Mars (reviewed here!). Unfortunately, Thirteen Reasons Why never rises to the greatness of Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars managed to find the right balance between witty lines, engaging circumstances, clever characters, good performances and genuine human drama; Thirteen Reasons Why starts with a serious purpose and is so unclear in what it wants to be that it quickly begins to feel melodramatic. In fact, the tone of the first episode is such that I had a reasonable concern that Thirteen Reasons Why would end up as some form of convoluted I Know What You Did Last Summer or have a twist where Hannah Baker was still alive. The only thing that convinced me to actually continue with Thirteen Reasons Why was jumping ahead to the last episode to make sure that Hannah actually was dead.

Yeah, that's pretty harsh. But here's the thing, Thirteen Reasons Why is established with a number of conceits that become more problematic the longer the season goes on. First, the fact that the tapes are delivered to Clay's house instantly clues the viewer into the idea that someone other than Hannah knows about the tapes, listened to them, and delivered them. That creates an artificial sense of mystery, especially after it becomes immediately apparent that Tony knows all about the tapes and is characterized as a good guy. Thirteen Reasons Why does not explain in a satisfactory way why Tony goes along with Hannah's plan for so long before doing the right thing. The show pays lip service to what takes Tony so long to get where he ultimately goes.

But one of the more problematic conceits of Thirteen Reasons Why is that multiple young people all work to reinforce essentially the same conspiracy. The dumb jock teenager characters all buy into the same idea as the brainy, ethically unchallenged characters and it is a tough sell to believe that they all respond the same way. So, for example, Clay gets the tapes well after Justin, a no-good jock who Hannah attributes as her first crush since her move and her first kiss. But after their first kiss, Hannah withdraws, Justin takes an upskirt picture of her and shares that picture with all of his classmates. The viewer is asked to believe that the adults in the world of Thirteen Reasons Why are so stupid and out-of-touch with their kids (and students) that when all of Hannah and Justin's classmates all end up in possession of a photograph of Hannah in a compromised position, none of the adults find out?! Seriously, the series of escalating events surrounding Hannah Baker's death seem like they could have been cut off at virtually any moment had any school official or parent noticed the picture and acted like a concerned adult. You know, like a concerned adult who doesn't want to end up on a sex offender list and who recognizes that a photograph of a minor child on a cell phone in their name could cause problems down the line and turns it over to a legal authority . . .

But, that doesn't happen in Thirteen Reasons Why. Instead, the viewer is compelled to believe that in addition to the dumb jocks closing rank to protect one of their own from the content of the tapes, they all believe that they have to pass the tapes on?! The people who have heard the tapes and might believe that they contributed to Hannah Baker's death are warned that there is another copy of the tapes and told not to destroy the tapes, to pass them on instead. And they all believe that and do as the (now dead) Hannah Baker tells them to. It seems to me that if I were a guilt-ridden dumbass who emotionally abused someone who then killed themselves, I would probably want to make sure no one else heard that and find out if there actually was another copy of the tapes to prevent the truth from ever coming out.

That feeling becomes more reinforced as the tapes go on and multiple people are implicated in being horrible to Hannah Baker. Thirteen Reasons Why is a fairly small city, where most all of the students at the high school know one another - in fact, one of the decent scenes early in the first episode features a character who recognizes how Clay feels because she has known him her entire life - so when the season turns into a mystery involving sexual abuse, the show becomes burdened by a failure of suspension of disbelief. The viewer is asked to believe that all of the characters who already listened to the tapes passed the tapes on even though there are people who do far worse things than they are implicated in (like rape). Again, even a dumb jock who might know which of their peers is guilty of rape, seems smart enough to make sure that no one else would listen to the tapes and thus risk one of the subsequent people who heard the tapes learning of the rapes and figuring out who the guilty parties are.

Which brings us to the protagonist of Thirteen Reasons Why. While some might debate who the protagonist is - Hannah or Clay - Clay is the protagonist, as he has both the flashback and prime post-suicide storyline. Clay is such an unremarkable protagonist, set in such an indistinct setting, that almost immediately in Thirteen Reasons Why viewers are given an easy conceit to differentiate the time period scenes are set in using Clay. Clay gets into an accident while using his bicycle, which leaves him with a head wound. Viewers, from that point on, know whether they are witnessing a flashback or a post-suicide scene by whether or not Clay has a bandage on his head. Sadly, the high school Clay goes to features a number of scrawny white boys with short haircuts that look very similar (whether it is a part of the book or not, it seems like a big reason Miles Heizer's Alex has blond hair is just to help differentiate him visually from the other boys in the class), so keeping track of the characters and time periods needed visual cues like Clay's head wound and the length of Hannah's hair.

Hannah Baker's story is both tragic and all-too common and the important aspects of Thirteen Reasons Why are important for young people to be aware of, sensitive to and for American culture to become more educated about to prevent. Young people, especially young women, face bullying, exploitation, sexual abuse, and depression and they can lead to suicide. Those are tragic and deserve to be the subject of a well-executed drama. Thirteen Reasons Why graphically explores the daily horror and ultimate tragedy of the events that could lead a young person to suicide. Unfortunately, Thirteen Reasons Why gets sidetracked with melodrama and keeping the viewer watching using sensationalist techniques and the tone of a mystery so it does not service its subjects well.

Thirteen Reasons Why is not the story of two characters, deeply affected by their peers descending into depression and trauma; it is one person, enmeshed in a group of people who are looking out for themselves in a half-assed way and trying to influence him, learning about what led the girl he had a crush on to kill herself. And it does not do justice to the issues it attempts to explore.

For other works from the 2016 – 2017 television season, please check out my reviews of:
The Walking Dead - Season 7
Grace And Frankie - Season 3
Iron Fist - Season 1
Love - Season 2
Santa Clarita Diet - Season 1
One Day At A Time - Season 1
Travelers - Season 1
"Happy Fuckin' New Year" - Sense8
The OA - Season 1
Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life
"Invasion!" - Arrow
"Self Control" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Abra Kadabra" - The Flash
"Doomworld" - Legends Of Tomorrow
"Distant Sun" - Supergirl
Luke Cage - Season 1
Stranger Things - Season 1

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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For You Illustrates The Inconsistent Musical Career Of Selena Gomez!

The Good: A couple fun songs, Hints of vocal prowess
The Bad: Short, Unremarkable remixes, Lame dance tracks, Overproduced
The Basics: For You is a surprisingly unremarkable compilation album for Selena Gomez & The Scene!


It has been a long time since I chose an Artist Of The Month and managed to get through the entire library of that artist's works in the month. I chose Selena Gomez as my September Artist Of The Month and immersed myself in her works - both as a solo artist and with her earlier works with her band The Scene. I am capping off my musical exploration of the works of Selena Gomez with her compilation For You and putting in that album made me realize that before the month of study began, I had only heard two singles from Selena Gomez. The second song I (apparently) knew coming into the month was the track produced explicitly for For You, the single "The Heart Wants What It Wants." If my previous experience is any indication, by the third track of For You the average listener who heard the works of Selena Gomez on the radio will have their familiarity with the works on the compilation album exhausted.

For You follows a fairly new trend in compilation albums - especially when those conglamorated albums are released early in the career of the musical artist - in that it does not simply include the standard studio releases for all of the songs. Instead, several of the songs are remixes and there is at least one Spanish language version of a previously-released track. As well, For You is a blend of songs from Selena Gomez's solo work and her work as the lead singer for Selena Gomez & The Scene.

With fifteen songs clocking out at 51:52, For You is actually longer than many of Selena Gomez's other albums. Selena Gomez is the lead singer on all of the tracks, but she had limited creative control over For You. Gomez co-wrote only two of the songs, she does not play any instruments on the album and was not credited as producing any of the songs. As a result, For You mostly showcases Selena Gomez's talents as a performer.

Most of the songs on For You are culled from Selena Gomez's dance hits, despite opening with the ballad "The Heart Wants What It Wants" and including the more inspirational anthem "Who Says." The bulk of the musical accompaniment for Selena Gomez on For You is fairly generic dance-pop and some of the songs are catchy, like "Love You Like A Love Song," but others are entirely forgettable like "Round & Round."

Vocally, For You manages to pick some decent songs that showcase some of Selena Gomez's singing talents. Gomez has decent range and can sing pretty fast and articulately on some of her song. But there are very few songs that allow Selena Gomez to explore her range and are produced to have a natural quality that plays well to the earnest quality of the lyrics she sings. "The Heart Wants What It Wants" is an excellent example of a song where the vocals have minimal production elements infused to obscure or alter Selena Gomez's voice; "My Dilemma 2.0" is an excellent example of how a song can be produced to make the instrumental accompaniment compete with the vocals.

Lyrically, most of the songs are about relationships, including "The Heart Wants What It Wants." To be fair, For You illustrates well how unfortunate it is that Selena Gomez is not more involved in the creative side of her own works. When Gomez sings the lines "The bed's getting cold and you're not here / The future that we hold is so unclear / But I'm not alive until you call / And I'll bet the odds against it all / Save your advice 'cause I won't hear / You might be right but I don't care / There's a million reasons why I should give you up / But the heart wants what it wants" ("The Heart Wants What It Wants"), which she co-wrote, it illustrates a real lyrical talent.

Usually, with a compilation album, I come to a point where I either recommend it as a substitute for the albums that it compiles from (there is a Fleetwood Mac compilation album, for example, that makes Tango In The Night irrelevant by including all of its great tracks without any of its filler!) or point out that it is just a cashgrab that unimaginatively puts together most of the material that other albums already possessed. With For You, I find myself at the odd position of feeling neither. Indeed, at least until the point where For You was produced, the entire musical career of Selena Gomez has seemed like a cashgrab lacking in creativity. The compilation came far too early in the career of Selena Gomez to be only her essential works and while "The Heart Wants What It Wants" is a decent song, it is not enough to justify paying for the filler and familiar tracks that follow it.

The best songs are "The Heart Wants What It Wants" and "Who Says;" "Forget Forever" (Remix) is probably the low point of For You.

For other works with Selena Gomez, please visit my reviews of:
The Fundamentals Of Caring
Revival (Deluxe Edition)
The Big Short
Hotel Transylvania 2
Behaving Badly
Stars Dance
Hotel Transylvania
When The Sun Goes Down - Selena Gomez & The Scene
A Year Without Rain - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Kiss & Tell - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Horton Hears A Who!

3/10

For a comrehensive listing of all of my music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page where the artists and their albums are easily organized!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Teen Pop-Rock Generica: Kiss & Tell Fails To Thrill!

The Good: Catchy tunes, Listenable, Moments of voice
The Bad: Overproduced, Repetitive, Some truly lame rhymes, Short
The Basics: Kiss & Tell was the musical debut of Selena Gomez & The Scene . . . and it is pretty surprising there was ever a follow-up!


It is always very interesting to me to see who is able to successfully traverse one medium to another - like singers who show genuine talent for acting or actors who make magnificent directors or writers who prove they have the chops to executive produce a television show that is consistently great. Selena Gomez got her start as a child actor, arguably because she was on kids shows and had a very natural "cute" factor that got her foot in the door. But, as her tenure on the Disney Channel came toward an end, Selena Gomez - like Miley Cyrus before her - made the transition from child actress to young pop star. The debut album of Selena Gomez & The Scene was Kiss & Tell.

Kiss & Tell is a debut album full of rookie mistakes that achieved some measure of commercial success arguably because it was exceptionally well-promoted at the time. Had Selena Gomez not been associated with the Disney brand, the Disney Channel and ABC probably would not have utilized their influence to push the product and the album would have been forgotten with the one-hit wonders and the could-have-beens. But in the final analysis, Kiss & Tell feels much more like a product than it does a musical expression or anything truly artistic.

With only thirteen songs, totaling 42:20, Kiss & Tell is very short. Selena Gomez & The Scene are responsible for co-writing only two of the tracks. Gomez provides all of the lead vocals and some of the backing vocals, while members of The Scene play the primary instruments, which are guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. Kiss & Tell feels like a product in that most of the songs have multiple producers and engineers and the album has a hodgepodge sound to it that seems to be the result of it lacking an executive producer that had a clear musical concept for the album. Kiss & Tell is the musical shotgun approach to attempting to make hit pop songs.

Musically, Kiss & Tell is largely an album filled with very generic pop-rock songs. While the album begins with "Kiss & Tell," a song that sounds like it could have come from pretty much any garage rock band, most of the album treads more toward pop. Indeed, only "Crush" stands out as having similar noticeable guitarwork that promotes the instrumentation with a tune and a sense of edge to it. Kiss & Tell is a mix of rock, pop and one or two tracks (like "Tell Me Something I Don't Know") that try to edge closer to hip-hop. Kiss & Tell, predictably, does not have a cohesive overall sound.

"I Promise You" has good vocals that promote Selena Gomez's natural voice, but not her range. In fact, outside only one real stretch for a high note in "Crush," Gomez plays it musically safe and many of the producers obscure her natural vocals with production elements. Even the ballad "The Way I Loved You" drowns out Gomez's vocals at some of her most raw moments! Kiss & Tell does not present any truly audacious or musically interesting vocals.

On the lyrical front, Kiss & Tell is something of a mess. The album has some moments and Selena Gomez is actually singing some of what she knows by singing about young love on some of the songs. On "I Promise You," Gomez creates an effortless sound and there is something authoritative in the earnestness of her delivery. When Gomez sings "They say that we're just too young / To know / But I'm sure heart and soul / That I am never letting you go / When it's right it's right / And this is it / 'Cause I'm walking on air / Every single time that we kiss" ("I Promise You"), the listener believes the singer has a clear idea of what she is singing about.

But Kiss & Tell is plagued by songs with terrible, predictable rhymes. The poetics of "I picked you out in a crowd of a thousand faces / Yea, I found you oooooooo / I chose the whys and the whens all the random places . . . Well you think you are the one who got me boy / But I got u / I've been playing with you like a lil toy" ("I Got U") were stale long before Selena Gomez & The Scene used them!

The other real mark against the writing on Kiss & Tell is its duration. Most of the songs are in the three minute range, but they utilize a lot of repetition. For example, the word "more" appears in the song "More" at least 34 times in a song about three and a half minutes in duration! There is a mind-numbing quality to the repetition in the song and it is not the only song that suffers from repetition problems.

Ultimately, Kiss & Tell is an entirely unremarkable debut for Selena Gomez & The Scene. It is a product that started Selena Gomez down the path to be a popular icon and a cash cow for big corporations, but it lacks any of the artistry and talent that later works by Selena Gomez exhibited. The best track is "I Promise You," the low point is "More."

For other works with Selena Gomez, please visit my reviews of:
The Fundamentals Of Caring
Revival (Deluxe Edition)
The Big Short
Hotel Transylvania 2
Behaving Badly
Stars Dance
Hotel Transylvania
When The Sun Goes Down - Selena Gomez & The Scene
A Year Without Rain - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Horton Hears A Who!

4/10

To see how this album stacks up against every other musical work I have reviewed, please check out my Music Review Index Page where the reviews are organized best to worst rated!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Rare Album That Gets Better As It Goes On: A Year Without Rain

The Good: Moments of voice, Moments of lyrics
The Bad: SHORT, Derivative, Overproduced
The Basics: The deluxe edition of A Year Without Rain is fractured and mostly disappointing, but the best tracks are not the ones up front!


In my study of musical artists over the last few years, I have come to find that one of the true, simple, joys in life is the thrill of discovery. In recent years, I have listened to quite a bit of music without any prior knowledge of what I will encounter. Ironically, I can recall the first time as an adult that I picked up an album without knowing a single single or the artist on the album and I know that at the time I did not realize just how much I had lucked out with the album being one that was truly great in its own right. But, years of musical studies of albums that have included numerous artists with whom I only had an initial passing familiarity has led me to see some patterns in the mainstream music industry. One of the patterns, especially in pop-rock albums, is frontloading; albums that put the marketable singles right up front and allow the musical experience to turn into auditory slush as the album goes on. There are very few successful musical artists or acts that do not present an album in that fashion; it is a very rare thing when an album gets better after the first few songs and finishes stronger than it begins.

A Year Without Rain is one of those rare exceptions.

Opening with the insipid, repetitive, pop song "Round & Round," A Year Without Rain gets off to a terrible start. And while the listener is lulled into a false sense of security by the title track as song number 2 (a song with decent lyrics and moments of voice from lead singer Selena Gomez, but with a forced dance pop tempo), the listener's hopes are dashed when that song is followed up with "Rock God" and the equally horrible "Off The Chain." But then something good happens around track seven, "Spotlight;" Selena Gomez & The Scene take the album in a more palatable direction and the songs become surprisingly good.

With thirteen tracks on the deluxe edition of A Year Without Rain, Selena Gomez & The Scene present an erratic, short, and repetitive album. Even the deluxe version ofA Year Without Rain is short as it clocks out at 45:47 and while it is longer than the original, it is fluffed out with three remixes of two of the songs from the base album, adding nothing substantively new to the musical experience. The short duration of A Year Without Rain might well reflect how little creative influence the Selena Gomez & The Scene had in the album's production; they are entirely relegated to performers on the album. Selena Gomez provides all the lead vocals (save the opening rap on "Intuition") and The Scene plays the musical instruments for the songs that are not programmed, but none of the members of the group so much as co-wrote any of the ten songs and they were not involved in the album's production, either. As a result, A Year Without Rain has the sound and feeling of being an album assembled as a studio cashgrab as opposed to an artistic endeavor.

The deluxe edition of A Year Without Rain is homogeneously pop music, most of which is designed for danceability as opposed to creating memorable tunes. Percussion and synthesizers dominate most of the deluxe edition of A Year Without Rain. There are no truly memorable musical moments on A Year Without Rain.

Selena Gomez's natural singing voice seldom comes through on A Year Without Rain. While "Intuition" allows her voice to be clearly, she plays off a very bland rap, which feels very forced on the album. "Intuition" is followed by "Spotlight," one of the tracks where Gomez's voice is most notably altered by production elements. But "Spotlight" is an interesting transition for A Year Without Rain because after a number of indistinct, generic-sounding pop songs, Selena Gomez starts to sound like Avril Lavigne. It is a somewhat shocking musical transition that leads to Gomez's natural voice breaking through on "Ghost Of You." "Ghost Of You" illustrates Gomez's vocal range and lung capacity in a way more compelling than the lyrics.

That is not to say "Ghost Of You" is not one of the better-written songs on A Year Without Rain. "Ghost Of You" is one of the tracks with a fairly universal message as Selena Gomez sings about the agony of the loss of innocence and the power of negative experiences. Indeed, she does not hint at all at her youth when she sings "And I'll never be like I was / The day I met you / Too naive, yes I was / Boy that's why I let you in / Wear your memory like a stain / Can't erase or numb the pain / Here to stay with me forever" ("Ghost Of You").

A Year Without Rain does not simply focus on relationships. Selena Gomez & The Scene present an album with a positive tone when it comes to interacting with the larger world. "Intuition" is focused on being the best one can be and with lines like "Believe in what we feel inside / Believe and it will never die / Don't never let this life pass us by / Live like there's no tomorrow," "Live Like There's No Tomorrow" encourages listeners to make the most out of life. These are good messages and they are presented well-enough to be heard.

Unfortunately, the process of getting to the good lines is an often agonizing one. Most of the songs are disturbingly repetitive, starting with "Round & Round." It is hard to see what the message Selena Gomez & The Scene wanted their listeners to get out of songs like "Off The Chain." With the frequent refrain of "A thousand church bells ringing / I can hear the angels singing / When you call my name / Your love is off the chain" ("Off The Chain") before the title is repeated ad nauseaum, the song is just bad and singing to the lowest common denominator of youth culture.

Despite the fact that A Year Without Rain generally gets better in its latter half, it is still a disappointing album that is impossible to recommend.

The best song is "Ghost Of You," the low point is "Rock God" (though the remix of "Round & Round" that appears near the end of the Deluxe edition is not doing the album any proud service!).

For other works with Selena Gomez, please visit my reviews of:
The Fundamentals Of Caring
Revival (Deluxe Edition)
The Big Short
Hotel Transylvania 2
Behaving Badly
Stars Dance
Hotel Transylvania
When The Sun Goes Down - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Horton Hears A Who!

3/10

To see how this album stacks up against every other musical work I have reviewed, please check out my Music Review Index Page where the reviews are organized best to worst rated!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Average, Not At All Awful: When The Sun Goes Down Is A Decent Album!

The Good: Some catchy tunes, Moments of vocals, Moments of theme
The Bad: Short, Frontloaded, Overproduced in places, Some unimpressive lyrics
The Basics: When The Sun Goes Down is a fun pop-dance album that is listenable, even if it is not great.


I have a feeling that everyone has some people they know of far better than they actually know, especially with the plethora of celebrities, musical artists and genuine actors working in the world today. For example, to the best of my knowledge, I have never seen any sort of performance or program that features any member of the Kardashian family from Keeping Up With The Kardashians, yet I'd lay fairly decent odds that I might be able to pick out a Kardashian on a magazine cover while at the grocery store. Until I made Selena Gomez my September Artist Of The Month, I was unsure that I had even heard one of her songs before, but I recognized her very easily. That sense that I had no rational reason to recognize Selena Gomez was reinforced when I listened to both of Gomez's solo albums - Revival (reviewed here!) and Stars Dance (reviewed here!) - and did not know any of the songs. That changed, though, when I started listening to the Selena Gomez & The Scene album When The Sun Goes Down.

When The Sun Goes Down is the Selena Gomez & The Scene album that opens with "Love You Like A Love Song," a very catchy dance-pop track that I heard on my last cross-country trip a lot. The song "Whiplash" sounded ridiculously familiar, too, but it turns out that was because it was co-written by Britney Spears and sounds exactly like what one might expect of one of her songs (especially from the era in which it was written!). When The Sun Goes Down is not a bad album, but it is very much what one expects from a dance-pop album, including being frontloaded to include the best, most catchy dance and pop numbers on the album's first half before descending into utterly forgettable songs on the latter half.

With twelve tracks, eleven songs (track 12 is a Spanish language version of the song "Who Says," which appears earlier on the album: "Dices"), When The Sun Goes Down is very short at only forty minutes long (I couldn't get the Deluxe Edition with its additional tracks, but considering they were just remixes of "Love You Like A Love Song," I don't feel like I am missing anything. When The Sun Goes Down was very much a studio creation: Gomez is the only member of the musical group who is credited as even a co-writer and only on two of the eleven songs. Selena Gomez provides all of the lead vocals and the members of the band The Scene appear to play all of the important instruments on the album. But many of the songs have electropop and dance influences, which prioritize production of the music over instrumentation and, as a result, the laundry list of producers involved with When The Sun Goes Down appear to have more musical influence over the album than Selena Gomez and/or The Scene. The result is an album where Selena Gomez & The Scene seems to have limited creative control over their creation, which might be why this was their last full studio album together.

Instrumentally, When The Sun Goes Down is dominated by synths and drums, which creates a very danceable sound most of the songs. This creates some interesting auditory discontinuities, most notably on "Middle Of Nowhere," which has a danceable beat and an up-tempo musical accompaniment to lyrics about heartbreak and abandon. In a similar way, the hypnotic, beat-driven sound of "Love You Like A Love Song" is hardly an embodiment of romance in musical form. That said, "We Own The Night" is one of the best, most memorable sounding pop-rock tracks from Selena Gomez's career - with or without The Scene.

Vocally, Selena Gomez has very few opportunities to show off the quality of her natural singing voice. Her vocals are produced to a mechanized quality on "Love You Like A Love Song" and she sounds like she is doing a solid Britney Spears impersonation on "Whiplash." While the vocals on "Who Says" sound occasionally syrupy, Gomez is able to show off some of her range on that track. "Dices" might be the most vocally impressive track of When The Sun Goes Down given that Gomez is not credited with translating "Who Says" to create "Dices;" Gomez performs the song with a precise and excited emotional quality of the English language version and many of the words come faster in "Dices," so that's no small feat.

When The Sun Goes Down is an album that tackles love, loss, and a lot of youth empowerment and it manages to hit more often than it misses on the lyrical front. In fact, "Who Says" has a lot of merit to it in the way it attempts to inspire the listener to change the world. When Gomez sings "Who says, who says you're not perfect? / Who says you're not worth it? / Who says you're the only one that's hurtin'" ("Who Says"), she is clearly exhorting the listener to challenge the authority of those who keep us in our places. The problem with "Who Says" on the lyrical front, though, it the way it includes so much emphasis on appearance over substance. It is hard to take seriously an empowerment song that repeats ". . . that's the price of beauty / Who says you're not pretty? / Who says you're not beautiful?" ("Who Says") so often, as if those were the most important qualities to validation.

What originally drew me to the works of Selena Gomez probably was the catchy quality of "Love You Like A Love Song." While "Love You Like A Love Song" seems vacuous and like a catchy hit at first blush, Selena Gomez & The Scene (and the trio who actually wrote the song) manage to make a pretty universally-accepted scholarly analysis musical: "It's been said and done / Every beautiful thought's been already sung / And I guess right now here's another one / So your melody will play on and on, with the best of 'em" ("Love You Like A Love Song"). The song might not be one of the great pop songs of all time, but it is solid and more substantive than most dance pop.

When The Sun Goes Down makes a solid stab at a song with conflict and angst on "My Dilemma," but it is undermined by its lines. With predictable rhymes like "And I know, what I know / And I know you're no good for me / Yeah I know, what I know / And I know it's not meant to be" ("My Dilemma"), Selena Gomez & The Scene present a song more generic than compelling.

Ultimately, When The Sun Goes Down is an average album that peaks early and the best parts are probably present on the band's compilation albums. The best song is "We Own The Night," the low point is the entirely forgettable "That's More Like It."

For other, former, Artist Of The Month works, please visit my reviews of:
The Collection - Alanis Morissette
American Fool - John Mellencamp
Goodbye Alice In Wonderland - Jewel

5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Fundamentals Of Caring Is A Worthwhile Road Trip Movie!

The Good: Wonderful performances, Engaging characters
The Bad: Some predictable plot moments, Supporting characters are a bit flat
The Basics: Paul Rudd and Craig Roberts deliver impressive performances in what could have otherwise been an average road trip film, The Fundamentals Of Caring.


For September, Selena Gomez is my Artist Of The Month for my music reviews - check out the review of her album Revival here! - and in addition to her musical career, she is now an actress. As a result, I decided to devote a couple of my movie reviews this month to works that include Selena Gomez in the cast. The Fundamentals Of Caring has Gomez getting third billing and it is somewhat surprising given that Jennifer Ehle has such a significant initial role in the movie. Gomez does fine in her role, but The Fundamentals Of Caring is hardly her film.

The Fundamentals Of Caring is a Netflix Original Film vehicle for Paul Rudd and Rudd stars in the dramedy opposite Craig Roberts and Selena Gomez for the bulk of the film. As I frequently do in such circumstances, it is worth noting that the film The Fundamentals Of Caring is based upon a novel, by Jonathan Evison, which I have not read. This is a very pure review of the film The Fundamentals Of Caring.

Ben Benjamin is served with divorce papers and depressed, so he becomes a certified caregiver to move on with his life. His first patient is Trevor, who introduces himself to Ben by pranking Ben during the job interview. On his first day caring for Trevor, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, Ben learns the rigid rules and routines of his charge's life. Trevor continues to prank Ben, though they quickly bond and enjoy time with one another. Trevor refuses to read letters from his father and when Ben learns that his ward knows about the personal tragedy in Ben's life, he gets upset with Trevor.

To avoid his process server and challenge Trevor, Ben lets Trevor manipulate his mother, Elsa, into taking him on a road trip to see the World's Deepest Pit. In Idaho, the pair encounters Dot, a hitchhiker, a second time. Before going to meet Trevor's father in Salt Lake City, Ben and Trevor pick up Dot. Trevor is clearly enamored with Dot and finally gets up the courage to ask her out on the road trip. When the van approaches a car, burnt out on the side of the road, they pick up the very pregnant Peaches and she joins them on their cross-country quest.

The Fundamentals Of Caring is a well-executed film that instantly reminds viewers that people with physical disabilities or ailments are human beings. As stupid as it might be to have to point such a thing out, so often the characters who have handicaps in media are the handicap before the personality. Trevor is not that and it does not take much goading by Ben before Trevor's sarcasm and prickish nature come out strong.

Essentially a road trip, The Fundamentals Of Caring goes through a third of its run-time before Selena Gomez even appears on film. Gomez manages to quickly escape the "good girl" reputation she built on the Disney Channel by using the word "fucking" every sentence for her first few exchanges of dialogue. Gomez does more than just swear and smoke; she does a pretty amazing dead-eyed stare that has a surprising amount of force behind it in The Fundamentals Of Caring. Gomez and Craig Roberts have wonderful timing for keeping their lines feeling both fresh and fast. They have adorable on-screen chemistry.

The Fundamentals Of Caring makes great use of Paul Rudd's dry sense of humor. While some moments - most notably the moment when Ben tries to get Trevor to try a Slim Jim - are very derivative of his other performances, that moment being virtually identical to Rudd working opposite himself in the mirror in Wanderlust (reviewed here!), most of Rudd's acting allows him to blend the serious and humorous moments. In the moment when Ben pulls the van over to save the choking Trevor, Rudd manages to effectively embody a realistic caregiver. As well, he completely lands the deadpan when Ben pranks Trevor.

Rather unsurprisingly, the dramatic powerhouse of The Fundamentals Of Caring is Craig Roberts. Roberts plays Trevor and his physical performance in The Fundamentals Of Caring is impressive. Roberts plays the humor and the intensity of Trevor incredibly well. At the peak of the dramatic tension, Roberts and Rudd square off and they have a magnificent sense of gravitas between them. Roberts makes Trevor incredibly watchable and keeps the tone of The Fundamentals Of Caring entertaining when it could begin to feel oppressive.

The Fundamentals Of Caring is a road trip movie that manages to unfold in a compelling way - with humor and drama, with characters that are easy to empathize with and performances that are easy to appreciate. It is the first Netflix Original film I've seen that is actually worth watching.

For other Netflix exclusives, please check out my reviews of:
XOXO
Tallulah
House Of Cards - Season 1
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
Daredevil - Season 2
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Grace And Frankie - Season 1
Sense8 - Season 1
Arrested Development - Season 4
Stranger Things - Season 1

7/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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I Strain To Find Something Nice To Say About Stars Dance.

The Good: Hints of natural voice (?)
The Bad: Short, Terrible lyrics, Awful music, Overproduced vocals
The Basics: Conceptually and musically immature, Stars Dance is a flat-out terrible album.


When I selected Selena Gomez as my September Artist Of The Month, the truth is, I did not know what I was getting myself into. Before this week - when I have had Selena Gomez on heavy-repeat - I was more familiar with Gomez as an actress than as a musical artist. But having listened to Revival (reviewed here!) and now Stars Dance, it occurs to me that I might not have ever heard a Selena Gomez song before I made her my Artist Of The Month. If I have heard any of her singles, they were not tracks from her last two albums. And, as I sit down to review Stars Dance, I'm not entirely sure what the appeal is of Selena Gomez's music.

For sure, Selena Gomez is amazingly attractive; one need only see her album covers or see her in a movie to get that. But as a musical artist, Stars Dance does nothing positive to promote anything good about Gomez. Indeed, from the first track, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach and the phrase "what the hell am I listening to?!" going though my head pretty constantly. Stars Dance is not only a generic dance-pop album, it is a repetitive, insipid, virtual parody of music that is almost entirely unlistenable.

With only eleven tracks, clocking out at 38:59, Stars Dance is short. Usually, this is a severe detraction to an album, which can hold at least seventy-one minutes of music; with Stars Dance it feels like a mercy killing that the album ends so soon (not soon enough!). Selena Gomez bears minimal blame for Stars Dance, though. Gomez provides the lead vocals on all of the songs, but she is a performer only on the album. Gomez is not credited with playing any instruments on Stars Dance, she did not even co-write any of the songs and she was not involved in the album's production. As a result, Selena Gomez displays no real artistry on Stars Dance and the way her vocals are produced over on most of the songs, there is very little of Selena Gomez herself on the album.

Stars Dance is a heavily-produced album. The songs are constructed by multiple producers and writers. The synths and percussion machines dominate the sound to create a repetitive, boring dance-pop album that has little distinction to it. As well, several songs include samples and random shout-outs to the track's producers that create a sense that the album is just a bunch of people exploiting Selena Gomez for advertising space as opposed to creating actual music. There is an absolutely ridiculous quality to Selena Gomez shouting out about cataracts in the middle of a song - it has nothing to do with the single, The Cataracts were the track's producers. Seriously, listening to the song it's virtually impossible not to sit up and say "What the hell?!" and were I not reviewing the album, I would not have even bothered looking up an answer to what was going on in that song.

Selena Gomez has an amazing voice. It is not evident on Stars Dance. There are moments in "Love Will Remember" where Gomez's natural voice creeps through. The rest of the time, Gomez's voice is sublimated to production elements and the musical accompaniment, such as it is, is produced to have more auditory force than her vocals.

In some ways, it does not matter that Gomez's voice is largely obscured on Stars Dance; most of the lyrics are just incidental noise, as opposed to coherent statements. Oddly, the album might well open with the most rational collection of lyrics and "Birthday" appears to be about getting what one wants when going out to party by telling the club (or other business) that it's the musical protagonist's birthday. It's hard not to feel like Gomez is just opening herself up for self-exploitation when she sings "Tell 'em that it's my birthday / When I party like that / Every night's my birthday / They don't know, so it's okay / Tell 'em that it's my birthday / When I party like that . . . Happy as can be / Falling into you, falling into me (so yummy) / How do you do, come and meet the queen, cake and cream" ("Birthday") and she's not doing anything for female empowerment by whining and encouraging manipulation that way.

Stars Dance actually lost me with the title track. The people writing for Selena Gomez on Stars Dance are ridiculously immature and they preyed on the idea that Gomez would not notice. Lines like "Our love was made to rule the world / You came and broke the perfect girl / Our love was made to rule the world / Our love was made to rule the world / You left me wanting what we were" ("Forget Forever") show an absolute lack of understanding about the emotion of love. Indeed, "Forget Forever" only makes sense if it is intended as an anthem for Jasmine from the fourth season of Angel (reviewed here!).

More than making a musical statement, Stars Dance seems to be much more about making a vocal accompaniment to the produced beats and rhythms the producers have put together. As a result, the typical lines on Stars Dance are painfully predictable lines that most listeners can call well in advance. Even Selena Gomez cannot make the lines "Kiss the moon goodbye / But don't close your eyes, your eyes / It's the end of the night / But the beginnin' of time, for you and I / I... I can't believe that my body's still movin' / I... It makes me feel like we're doin' somethin' right" ("Save The Day") sound remotely fresh.

Ultimately, Stars Dance is just an unredeemably bad album . . . at least it did not make me feel sick to listen to it, just bored. Then again, my eyes did start to hurt from all my eye rolling while I was forced to contemplate the album . . .

After eight times listening to Stars Dance, I chose "Love Will Remember" as the album's superlative track mostly because it offers the most hints of Gomez's natural voice. Even that song is pretty much crap, though Stars Dance sets the bar incredibly low from the outset with "Birthday."

For other, former, Artist Of The Month works, please visit my reviews of:
Glory (Deluxe Edition) - Britney Spears
Rumours (2-disc version) - Fleetwood Mac
Remember - Janis Ian

1/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Selena Gomez Is My September Artist Of The Month! I Start At The End With Revival!

The Good: Moments of voice, One or two lines/themes
The Bad: Musically dull, Often overproduces the vocals, Short (even for the Deluxe Edition!)
The Basics: Revival might have a very personal story and journey behind it, but it is produced to be anything but personal and ends up as a sadly generic dance-pop album.


I do not listen to a whole ton of new music these days. I live in an area without any real radio reception and so I have fallen out of the habit of listening to Top 40 pop music. Instead, I listen to albums. When I listened to the latest album by Britney Spears, Glory (reviewed here!), I found myself exceptionally dismayed and I found myself wondering if all new music was as bad. To try to find an answer to that question, I decided that I would make a contemporary musical artist my September Artist Of The Month. I chose Selena Gomez.

I'm starting my study of the musical works of Selena Gomez at her (current) end and working backwards. Today, I am reviewing the deluxe edition of her album Revival. There is something very liberating about reviewing the latest work first in that, as a reviewer, I am not crushed by the weight of precedent; I cannot discuss the artist's growth or make a comparative analysis. This is a very pure review of the deluxe edition of Revival and as such it is a review of what the listener hears when they put in the album.

Revival is a largely generic synth- and production-driven dance pop album that does not take many spinnings to reveal tracks derivative of one another and a generally indistinct sound.

With only fourteen songs, clocking out at 50:33, even the deluxe edition of Revival is short. Selena Gomez provides the lead vocals on all of the songs and she co-wrote nine of the fourteen songs. While Gomez does not play any musical instruments on the album and she is not part of the rather extensive list of producers who created the individual tracks, she is credited with an executive producers credit. As a result, it seems very fair to say that Gomez had some influence in what she wanted to say on Revival, but not a lot of control over how her musical statements got made. With over a third of the album utilizing Gomez as a performer instead of an artist, it is somewhat unsurprising that there is an assembled and inconsistent flow to the album.

Musically, Revival is something of a mess, but it is a mess of dullness and inconsistency. After listening to the album several times, it was utterly unsurprising to me that the song "Same Old Love" was released as a single; it has an infectious dance-pop sound. It is catchy and has a fairly distinct melody. "Sober" might get a little repetitive, but it makes a good statement in a very musical way. But much of the album includes murky, synth-driven tracks with the same slow percussion and those tracks blend together in a way that disappoints the ear. On the first two spinnings of the album, when "Survivor" and "Nobody" came up, I felt I might be listening to remixes of some of the earlier tracks on the album. The music is not all bad, but most of it is indistinct and blends together.

Arguably, the most musically impressive track is "Hands To Myself." But even "Hands To Myself" was a song I enjoyed more for the nostalgia quality to it than for its own merits. "Hands To Myself" sounds a lot, at its outset, like a lost Michael Jackson song. It then transitions into something that is very much like Prince (specifically on "Kiss"), which is very appealing to someone who grew up in the 1980s. To be fair, "Camouflage" is also a much different track, musically, as it is a stripped-down piano-driven track, but because of how Selena Gomez's vocals dominate the song, the instrumental accompaniment is surprisingly easy to overlook.

Vocally, Revival reveals hints of potential for Selena Gomez's voice, but the album renders her voice so inconsistently, it is hard not to be disappointed. "Camouflage" presents Selena Gomez's natural vocals and they are beautiful; she has a wonderful voice with impressive range. "Me & The Rhythm" has Gomez going quite high and exhibiting some serious lung capacity, which hints at the artist's innate and developed talents. Unfortunately, Gomez's natural vocals are seldom evident on Revival. Production elements are used to alter Gomez's voice on "Sober," "Survivors," and many other songs. The alterations make Selena Gomez sound mechanical and inorganic . . . it's a falseness that clashes noticeably with the themes of most of the lyrics on Revival. It also makes the listener wonder how good an acoustic reworking of Revival could be . . . The inclusion of a guest rapper on "Good For You" stands out as a terrific musical mistake.

As for the lyrics, Selena Gomez seems to have something to say on Revival and many of the themes and lines are quite good. Gomez makes musical a discussion of how the party scene makes for false friends with "Sober." Indeed, instead of a dumb teen anthem promoting drinking and stupidity, Gomez sings "You don't know how to love me when you're sober / When the bottle's done you pull me closer / You're saying all the things that you're supposed to / But you don't know how to love me when you're sober / Why is it so different when we wake up? / Same lips, same kiss, but not the same touch" ("Sober") and it is a welcome statement that Gomez makes musical.

Selena Gomez is all about empowerment on Revival and there are some wonderful songs about social responsibility, which is not a very common theme in pop-rock today. But with lines like "You can tap into the strength you never knew you had / You can breathe into your faith no matter where you’re at / Just close your eyes and change your life / Like the air / Like the air you can / Rise from the rubble with your mind, you can hover / You can rise like the tide, like the heat in the summer" ("Rise"), it is somewhat surprising that Gomez has not inspired a new generation of volunteers.

There are also some wonderfully personal moments on Revival and they remind the listener that Selena Gomez is a real person. It is hard to think of someone who looks like Selena Gomez as insecure of anyone, but the artist reveals her vulnerability on "Perfect." A rare musical story-song on Revival, "Perfect" allows Gomez to articulate about living in the shadow of a past lover: "Bet she's beautiful like you, like you / And I bet she's got that touch / Makes you fall in love, like you, like you / I can taste her lipstick and see her laying across your chest / I can feel the distance every time you remember her fingertips / Maybe I should be more like her" ("Perfect").

Ultimately, though, Revival is indistinct when it is not being a mess of contradictory themes (social responsibility and generic dance-party songs are back to back on the album!) and sounds. It is hardly an inspiring album and not one that captivates. Hopefully, the rest of the month's albums from Gomez will have more to them!

The best track is "Sober," the low point is the banal, generic, dance track "Body Heat."

For other, former, Artist Of The Month works, please visit my reviews of:
The Circle In The Square - Flobots
@#%&*! Smilers - Aimee Mann
MTV Unplugged - 10,000 Maniacs

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Rooting For Those Betting Against The Market: How The Big Short Works!

The Good: Engaging story, Decent performances, Direction and pacing
The Bad: Light on character growth/development
The Basics: Smart and worthwhile, The Big Short is more than just Oscarbait.


Over the last year, I have been a bad movie reviewer. The truth is, there have not been a lot of movies I have been excited about seeing and, as a result, I have not bothered with the rest. That said, my commitment to my Best Picture Project (That's Here!) has led me to break out of my apathy and get on seeing some of the Best Picture Oscar nominees in preparation for next week's big ceremony. So far, all I have done for the Oscars is write about the OscarsSoWhite Movement (article here!) and, long before the nominees were announced, see The Martian (reviewed here!). Tonight, I start with the Best Picture nominees with one of the few nominated films I was actually interested in watching: The Big Short.

The Big Short is a film that instantly garnered my interest - even if I did not rush right out to see it - because it was about the housing bubble crisis and it was directed by Adam McKay. My first thought was, "a comedy about the housing crisis?!" Then, I learned that The Big Short was a drama and I thought, "Adam McKay is doing a drama?! How will that work?" As it turns out, it worked out painfully well . . . mostly because McKay smartly blends the most horrific story of mismanagement with some incredibly funny lines.

Opening with the introduction of Lewis Ranieri, who created the mortgage-backed security bond, The Big Short educates and then entertains as it informs people of how the financial crisis of 2008 was precipitated. The film is based on a true story, but it is incredibly important to note that The Big Short is a film and this review is based on the movie, not the historical events it depicts. So, when I talk about characters, it is entirely specific to the film version of The Big Short.

Lewis Ranieri created the mortgage-backed security, a bond that pools the risk and debt for mortgages. In the 1970s, he sought to create money by making a long-term bond based on mortgages. Thirty years later, banker Michael Burry begins to investigate the mortgage-backed securities, based on the notion that the tech bubble burst in 2001, but the housing market in the tech corridor did not appear to be affected. After putting together data, Burry goes to the investment bank Goldman Sachs to create a bond to bet against the housing market. Meanwhile, investment banker Mark Baum - who is shaken by the effects of his brother's suicide - becomes outraged by bank overdraft fees and corruption. Baum learns about Burry's scheme when Jared Vennett's wrong number pitching the trade . . . to bet against the housing market.

Baum's team investigates some of the properties that are part of the mortgage bonds and discover that Burry's and Vennett's theories are likely true. In January 2007, mortgage loan default rate skyrockets and the market fails to adjust, which alarms Burry and Baum. The failure of the bonds created that bet against the housing securities market alerts most of the key players to the institutional fraud or outright stupidity of those at the top of the securities industry. As the truth comes out, the money flows in the direction of the four small groups that were smart and connected enough to bet against the housing market and the effects on the individuals in the groups are profound. Burry outs the mortgage industry to his investors and by April 2007, the housing bubble is collapsing and the entire economy is thrown into free fall by July.

There are few movies that so effectively manage to captivate when the subjects of the film are people profiting off the suffering of others. What The Big Short does so well, in addition to educating viewers to the biggest financial calamity of our generation (and the criminal enterprise that perpetrated it), is humanize those who made obscene amounts of money on it. The banking institutions might be made up of individuals, but the investment bankers who profited from the housing collapse are a much smaller group and The Big Short manages to illustrate well their humanity. While some of the profound effects of profiting from the financial market's collapse are only shown in the closing text montage, both Michael Burry and Mark Baum illustrate their understanding of the human cost of their financial profit.

Steve Carell entirely nails the frustration Mark Baum feels as he does the investigative work that proves Burry's theories are valid. Carell is given the film's deepest performance role and Baum is the film's most tormented and interesting character. Baum's sense of loss and disillusionment sets him up to profit from the investments he is making, while Burry's sense of being an outsider merely makes him determined in a somewhat monolithic way. For sure, Christian Bale is wonderful as Burry, but anyone who has seen Bale as Bruce Wayne has seen him play determined before!

The Big Short breaks the fourth wall to explain important financial terms and concepts. Adam McKay and writers Charles Randolph and Michael Lewis (who wrote the book upon which the film is based) tie the seeming complexity to the financial markets with pop culture in a brilliant way. In that fashion, they illustrate how major institutions bamboozle the populace by getting them to look in an entirely different direction from the calamities that are falling upon them.

Describing The Big Short is like trying to draw out a description of Argo (reviewed here!) - "It's a film about the rescue operation for the Iran hostages." - The Big Short is an explanation of the financial crisis of the mid-2000s . . . and how a few people made a lot of money off it. Of course, both films are deeper than that, but both are explorations of nuance, lines and studies in how the known can be made entertaining. Much of the credit for the power of The Big Short comes from the direction of Adam McKay. McKay has a great sense of timing for the cuts and cutaways and keeps the pace of The Big Short tight and flowing in a way that makes one almost instantly forget that the people who are the subjects of the film are hardly magnanimous.

The Big Short does not browbeat the humor or the humanity of the people who suffered to make the profits of the films protagonists. In fact, the simplicity of seeing one man - who paid his rent on time - evicted when his landlord defaulted on the mortgage makes the human statement that the ironic voiceover at the end glosses over.

As I begin my sojourn down films specifically for my Best Picture Project, it is hard not to imagine that I might have started high and picked the winner right off the bat. The Big Short has a lot of the key elements for a Best Picture, so long as one looks at the somewhat dated and specific systemic problems as an allegory of the larger corruptions of an institution that shows no signs of reforming. The Big Short is smart and complicated, even if it is not the most character-driven story.

8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Unremarkable Sequelland: Hotel Transylvania 2.

The Good: Decent-enough animation and performances
The Bad: Overbearing soundtrack, Not funny, Nothing compelling or original in the plot or characters
The Basics: Hotel Transylvania 2 unremarkably strings together random jokes about monsters to continue the franchise in an unimpressive way.


As a reviewer, I see a lot of movies and one of the real tests of a film's endurance is how well the viewer remembers it when and if a sequel is made. With the release of Hotel Transylvania 2, I got to thinking about Hotel Transylvania (reviewed here!). I know I saw the first Hotel Transylvania, but it was so utterly unmemorable that as the sequel began, I realized I could not recall a single moment from the original. Hotel Transylvania 2 leaps right in, so those not invested in the characters from the first one are likely to find the new movie somewhat inaccessible.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is an odd blend of monster jokes mixed with the non-sequitor of monsters talking about ridiculous or pop-culture things. So, people are supposed to find it hilarious when Dracula kvetches about "good fats" or Wayne the werewolf refuses to hunt because Pop-Tarts make killing animals unnecessary. At the other end, Mavis's journey almost entirely consists of her shock at seeing the mundane aspects of the human world - like the variety of potato chips and 24 hour gas station/convenience stores. The result is a thoroughly lackluster film.

Opening with the wedding of Mavis and Johnny, the daughter of Dracula and her human boyfriend, the Hotel Transylvania is packed with monsters and Jonathan's very unsettled human parents. The wedding goes off without a hitch and a year later, Mavis tells Dracula she is pregnant while the two are out flying as bats. Soon after, Dennis is born and appears to be human. While Dennis is growing up, Johnny tries to get Dracula to use social media and technology like smartphones. Dracula begins to worry that Dennis is not learning how to be a proper vampire and tries to get the boy to activate his powers, to no avail. After Dennis goes to a birthday party for a litter of werewolf pups and loses a tooth there, Mavis suspects that Dennis is not actually a monster and she tells her father that she is thinking of moving away to a place that will be safer for her young son.

Mavis and Johnny head to California to see if it will be an appropriate place to raise Dennis, while Dracula and the monsters take Dennis to try to get him into real monster culture. Unfortunately, the trip to the dark forest reveals that it is now a park filled with suburbanites on vacation. While Mavis is thrilled by exploring the human world with Johnny, the monsters try to teach Dennis how to be monstrous, but they run into adoring fans, physical problems like back spasms, and the monsters' refusal to be truly monstrous. The monsters make it to the camp where Dracula learned to be monstrous as Mavis makes it to the California suburb where both discover that things are not as they remember or want.

Much of Hotel Transylvania 2 is a series of shtick jokes with monster subjects or "values" used to replace the mundane subjects. The concept gets very old exceptionally quickly and given that lines like "stake my heart and hope to die" from Dracula barely elicit a smile the first time around, it's hard to imagine how the studio thought this would perform well. Hotel Transylvania 2 feels like a direct-to-video sequel that has the voice talents from the first project, but predictably lacks a compelling story or jokes that make it a worthy continuation of the characters' journey.

The voice performances in Hotel Transylvania 2 are fine, but nothing extraordinary. Selena Gomez does fine as Mavis, but she's not given any challenges that would allow her to be particularly expressive. Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg play Dracula and Johnny as very minor variations on their previously-established characters. Sandler, especially, falls into a voice that is particularly generic for his shtick.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is marred by an overbearing pop music soundtrack as much as it is by characters who utterly unremarkable. The story is painfully generic and if the characters were not monsters, it's hard to imagine the movie ever would have been made. Within minutes of finishing the film, I realized that there was no defining moment that stuck with me. It is a forgettable sequel for a forgettable film.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is utterly unnecessary; The Addam's Family and The Munsters have done all these types of jokes before and there's nothing so compelling about the characters, animation or plot to make this feel at all worthwhile.

For other works with or by Selena Gomez, please visit my reviews of:
The Fundamentals Of Caring
Revival (Deluxe Edition)
The Big Short
Behaving Badly
For You - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Stars Dance
When The Sun Goes Down - Selena Gomez & The Scene
A Year Without Rain - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Kiss & Tell - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Horton Hears A Who!

2/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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