Ten Years Ago, Jerry Seinfeld Advocated Slavery And Stereotypes In Bee Movie!

The Good: Decent animation
The Bad: Ridiculous stereotypes, Unlikable characters, Terrible overall theme, Predictable and hyperbolic plot
The Basics: Bee Movie is another terrible animated film that has an ultimately horrible message and reinforces stereotypes more than doing anything remotely entertaining.


Years ago, I discovered that some animated films get away with the most horiffic racism, sexism and stereotype-reinforcement when I sat down and watched A Shark Tale (reviewed here!) and it was painfully obvious to deconstruct what was in the film, as opposed to what the writers and producers hoped viewers would see. So, when my wife sat down to watch Bee Movie and she prefaced it with "this is one of the worst movies ever; it is so horrible!" I was ready to believe her, but I still went into it with an open mind. Anti-Semitic and essentially arguing in favor of a slave class, Bee Movie is one of the worst, most subversive films I've seen in a long time . . . even if on the surface it advocates for worker's rights and environmental balance.

Bee Movie was co-written by Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Feresten (who had a delightful late-night talk show for a while that I quite enjoyed!), Barry Marder, and Andy Robin and it is somewhat amazing that it took at least four people to write a film that was so lacking in humor and managed to create something that on the surface was progressive, but has a truly horrible subtext. While the film is built on an obvious series of jokes based on stereotypes about Jews, lawyers and women, Bee Movie has a resolution that is unfortunately ambiguous and leads to a conclusion that appears to advocate in favor of race slavery!

In a bee hive, Barry B. Benson and Adam Flayman graduate from school and are assigned to the hive workforce. Barry wants to join the bees who leave the hive because he has a sense of adventure to him, while Adam wants to work in the hive. Barry goes on a flight out into the city where he learns about pollination and is nearly killed by getting stuck on a tennis ball. When it begins to rain, Barry ends up in the apartment of Vanessa Bloome, who saves him from her neanderthal boyfriend. Barry feels obligated to thank Vanessa, revealing to her that bees have the ability to speak and are fairly reasonable. Barry also discovers that humans are manufacturing their own honey, to the detriment of bees.

Barry and Adam sue the humans, charging that the companies that enslave bees to harvest their honey (while keeping the bees at bay using smoke) are illegally appropriating the by-products the bees create. When the lawyer for the humans, Layton T. Montgomery, goads Adam into attacking him, Barry must complete the case on his own. But winning the case and freeing the bees from human exploitation leads to an environmental disaster that menaces humanity! As bee society falls apart, the relationship between Barry and florist Vanessa Bloome is strained to the point of breaking. The bee and human must work together to save the world!

On the surface, Bee Movie seems to have a great message of the importance of environmental interdependence. The humans and bees in Bee Movie eventually learn that they must work together to protect the delicate balance of the Earth's ecosystem. That is an honorable message. However, the film begins in the hive and illustrates a rigid society that is ordered, well-controlled, and is somewhat oppressive, but ends in Vanessa's lower shop without any closure for the hive. The consequence of this is that it leads to a strongly implied horrible message for the overall film.

After winning the lawsuit in the human world, the humans stop using honey in their products, which frees the bees and menaces their orderly society. But the final scene of Bee Movie has Vanessa featuring "bee approved" honey in her flower shop. The problem with this climax is that there is no visible price on the bee approved honey and it is not clear that she is actually selling the honey, as opposed to giving it away. The problem with failing to close the loop on the hive story is that Bee Movie fails to illustrate that the bees actually profit from their work. The bees successfully stop humans from explicitly enslaving them and stop the humans from manufacturing and selling honey from fake hives created for the purpose of making honey. But, the bees go back to work to protect the environment, keep order in their society and produce honey that the humans then distribute and enjoy. The bees in Bee Movie do not evolve; they merely liberate some of their brethren from explicit slavery. Because there is no scene that illustrates that the bee approved honey financially or materially benefits the bee hive, Bee Movie implicitly advocates in favor of a slave society. The bees do all of the work and are kept under control and the fruits of their labor are used by a vastly more powerful group . . . without any explicit moment that shows them benefiting, this is a slave class that has been bamboozled into putting their seal of approval on their own exploitation.

This troubling ending comes at the climax of a film where the characters are unlikable, based on stereotypes and relationships that make no actual sense. The unlikable aspect of the characters is epitomized in the way Barry uses other people for his own gain. Barry is thrilled when a bear is willing to appear at the trial and act violent in order to benefit his case . . . but then, after the case, Barry disparages bears again. Barry is a user and a racist one at that! Ironically, the writers miss their chance to make a truly relevant social commentary on the way language has been misappropriated by having a lawyer accuse Barry of "playing the species card" when it was the perfect place to use the term "race card" accurately (as bees and humans are actual different races, as opposed to humans of different ethnicities!).

The relationship between Barry and Vanessa is just troubling. Vanessa is a human who seems to fall in love with Barry, the way he fell for her. When my wife shockingly asked, "How would that even work?!" and I came up with some creative ideas to answer that question, I got her to blush and tell me - well before I came to the end of my list - to please stop! Bee Movie is just ridiculous when one looks at the relationships in the film.

While the animation in Bee Movie is fairly impressive, the voice acting is merely adequate. Renee Zellweger goes in and out of dialects as Vanessa and Jerry Seinfeld descends into shtick as Barry.

The result is that Bee Movie is a truly terrible animated film that is not worth watching . . . even for its ten year anniversary!

For other animated films, please visit my reviews of:
Zootopia
Despicable Me
Shrek

1/10

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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Indistinct Sting: Mercury Falling Fizzles!

The Good: Fine vocals, Good instrumental accompaniment
The Bad: Fairly short, Largely indistinct, Some pretty banal lyrics
The Basics: Largely one big musical mash, Mercury Falling by Sting is one of the artist’s least impressive, least creative, works.


Despite the fact that Sting’s tenure as my Artist Of The Month has vastly exceeded a month, I have largely enjoyed immersing myself in his works. My penultimate review of a Sting album is one of his least impressive works: Mercury Falling. It is hard to call an album that shipped (and presumably sold) a million units a “failure,” but Mercury Falling is impossible to call a success for Sting on any front.

Mercury Falling is a musically rich, but oddly dull album that was squeezed in between two of Sting’s most popular and commercially successful solo albums. The album is a logical extension of the pop-rock music Sting had long before mastered and while it foreshadows some of the experimentation that would follow on Brand New Day. But Mercury Falling has the feeling of being an artist in transition; Sting is experimenting and still presenting some familiar-sounding songs, so he has not quite committed to going off the rails entirely. The result is an album that is more auditory mush than it is audacious and it is unsurprising from that standpoint that it was not commercially successful.

Nevertheless, Mercury Falling is Sting’s work and where he wanted to be at that point (1996) in his musical career. With ten tracks clocking out at 48:08,all of the songs on Mercury Falling were written by Sting, save “La Belle Dame Sans Regrets,” which was co-written by Sting. Sting provides the lead vocals on the album and he plays bass on each track. Sting is credited as a co-producer of Mercury Falling, which makes it hard to deny that the album is anything but the musical vision of Sting.

Musically, Mercury Falling is a surprisingly tame and indistinct guitar/keyboards, bass, and drum sound. The album has one or two poppy tunes (most notably “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying”) and the slower ballads, but it is largely mid-tempo, ballad-like songs that drift from one song into another. Sadly, Mercury Falling, despite having more saxophone parts, is one of Sting’s least musically-imaginative albums. Indeed, “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot” and “You Still Touch Me” have a number of musical similarities to one another and sound similar for several phrases.

Vocally, Mercury Falling is boring. Sting does not strain his range or even try to impress listeners. Instead, he dully repeats lines ad nauseum on songs like “I Hung My Head” and on the rest of the album, he sings clearly enough that the listener can catch every line the first time around, making it largely unnecessary to listen to the work again.

Lyrically, Mercury Falling is not Sting’s most impressive work. Starting with “The Hounds Of Winter,” Sting begins Mercury Falling in an unimpressive fashion. With predictable rhymes like “My coat around my ears / I look for my companion / I have to dry my tears / It seems that she's gone / Leaving me too soon / I'm as dark as December / I'm as cold as the Man in the Moon”(“The Hounds Of Winter”), Sting leaves the listener wishing for more. Alas, the unsophisticated start to the album is largely indicative of what follows.

Fortunately, Mercury Falling ends well. The poetics of the final track are impressive. When Sting sings “Fill my eyes / O Lithium sunset / And take this lonesome burden / Of worry from my mind / Take this heartache / Of obsidian darkness / And fold my darkness / Into your yellow light” (“Lithium Sunset”), he creates evocative images in the listener’s mind and the listener has to wonder where that talent was on the rest of the album. “Lithium Sunset” is a pretty and well-written pop song.

While Mercury Falling might not have a load of political songs like one expects from a Sting album, it does have Sting’s trademark relationship insights. On Mercury Falling, he captures loss in a compelling way on “You Still Touch Me.” Indeed, there are fewer more heart-wrenching lines in mid-90’s pop-rock than “Now if I sleep / I sleep here alone / In my bed tonight / You still haunt me / And if I'm falling / I'm falling like a stone / In my nightmares / You still hold me” (“You Still Touch Me”).

On the balance, the best songs on Mercury Falling are available elsewhere, save “Lithium Sunset,” and that makes the album utterly dispensable in today’s age when singles can easily be purchased independently.

The best track is “Lithium Sunset,” the low point is “La Belle Dame Sans Regrets.”

For other works featuring Sting or The Police, please visit my reviews of:
If On A Winter’s Night...
Songs From The Labyrinth
Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 - 1994
Sacred Love
The Dream Of The Blue Turtles
Every Breath You Take: The Singles - The Police

4/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page where the albums are organized from best to worst!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sting’s Compelling Solo Debut Is More Than The Dream Of The Blue Turtles!

The Good: Lyrics, Vocals, Musical accompaniment still pops
The Bad: VERY short, Dated
The Basics: Sting’s debut solo album, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles is a powerfully political pop album . . . if one is still stuck in the mid-1980s!


Sting lies. I mean, he probably does not lie all of the time, but in a recent documentary I watched, he sure lied. In Poliwood (reviewed here!), Sting tells director Barry Levinson that he layers his political songs with allegory, not naming names or specific situations when he writes a political song. He did claim there was an exception in his body of work, for a song about Pinochet. Perhaps this was a stance he developed, but originally, he sure did name names and write very specific political songs. Going back to his solo debut album, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles, songs like “Russians” where Sting calls out both Reagan and Khrushchev by name.

For a debut album, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles is ambitious in every way save duration. Sting, as he left the band The Police, did not come to his solo career with a wealth of songs ready to go, apparently. The Dream Of The Blue Turtles is short, specific and frequently murky-sounding for pop music. At the same time, Sting is distinctly Sting on The Dream Of The Blue Turtles and that makes the album very listenable for all those who love his works (solo and with the Police). In fact, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles is one of the better debut albums for illustrating how a musical artist’s career would actually progress. In other words, Sting starts out making the music he seemed to want to make on his own (even if it is not terribly different from the music The Police were making).

With only ten songs, clocking out at 41:40, the biggest strike against The Dream Of The Blue Turtles is that it is short. Sting managed to begin his solo career as an artist who seemed to have extensive creative control over his work. Sting wrote the music and lyrics to all ten songs (though he used some of Prokofiev’s music in “Russians”). As well, sting provides all of the lead vocals and he plays guitar and/or bass on each track. Sting also co-produced the album, so it’s hard to say The Dream Of The Blue Turtles was what Sting wanted to create at the time.

Musically, the songs on The Dream Of The Blue Turtles are very much pop songs, but they have a quality to them that is different from other pop music of the time (and certainly now). Songs like “Fortress” and “Moon Over Bourbon Street” are infused with keyboards, bass, and saxophone in such a way that they create a murky sound that obscures some of the vocals. In this way, Sting actually seems like a precursor to trip hop music on some of the songs on The Dream Of The Blue Turtles. When the album is not being upbeat-sounding, obvious pop songs like “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” or the repetitive ballads like “Children’s Crusade,” the songs are actually deep and rich in sound that makes The Dream Of The Blue Turtles sound surprisingly fresh even now.

Stings vocals on The Dream Of The Blue Turtles are mostly clear. His voice remains in the tenor range on The Dream Of The Blue Turtles and one his social message songs, he enunciates perfectly in order to make his messages clear. He has good lung capacity on “Children’s Crusade” and “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” but otherwise, the album has vocals that are unlikely to surprise anyone who has heard Sting perform with The Police or on subsequent albums.

Lyrically, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles is a fairly diverse album. The songs are largely political, though there are some personal/emotional songs as well. “Russians” stands out for its politics and liberal philosophizing. Sting reduces the Cold War to two impossible to defend sides that he nevertheless tries to humanize with lines like “How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy / There is no monopoly in common sense / On either side of the political fence / We share the same biology / Regardless of ideology / Believe me when I say to you / I hope the Russians love their children too” (“Russians”). Hearing the way Sting tries to illustrate how neither side is as monolithic as they appeared, one has to wish that Sting had written something about terrorists in recent years to try to combat the dehumanizing rhetoric used against their fanatical methods.

Sting isn’t against singing about relationships on The Dream Of The Blue Turtles. “Love Is The Seventh Wave” and “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” both have Sting singing about how people relate to one another. But the best of the relationship songs on The Dream Of The Blue Turtles might well be “Fortress Around Your Heart.” When Sting sings “Then I went off to fight some battle / That I'd invented inside my head / Away so long for years and years / You probably thought or even wished that I was dead / While the armies are all sleeping / Beneath the tattered flag we'd made / I had to stop in my track for fear / Of walking on the mines I'd laid”(“Fortress Around Your Heart”), he creates a vivid image of emotional distance in the face of love that makes for a compelling song.

On “We Work The Black Seam,” Sting sings about environmental and economic issues that were actually talked about thirty years ago that no longer are spoken or sung about in popular or political discourse. Indeed, while some of the songs are very dated, the themes embodied by the lines “One day in a nuclear age / They may understand our rage / They build machines that they can't control / And bury the waste in a great big hole / Power was to become cheap and clean / Grimy faces were never seen / But deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen / We work the black seam together” (“We Work The Black Seam”) remain as compelling now as they did when The Dream Of The Blue Turtles was first released.

Ultimately, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles is a strong debut and one that one wishes either there was more of or had more of a universal quality to it. As it stands, it is one of the defining albums of the mid-1980s and because it has so many specific allusions to that period, it sounds like exactly what it is.

For other works featuring Sting or The Police, please visit my reviews of:
If On A Winter’s Night...
Songs From The Labyrinth
Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 - 1994
Sacred Love
Every Breath You Take: The Singles - The Police

7/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page where the albums are organized from best to worst!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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So This Is What Sting Wants To Do . . . If On A Winter’s Night…

The Good: Good vocals/harmonies
The Bad: Short, Musically unimaginative, Vocally unimaginative, Lyrically dull
The Basics: If On A Winter’s Night... has Sting doing what he wants, which is apparently making bland holiday music.


When I reviewed the Sting album, Songs From The Labyrinth (Here!), I cut Sting a lot of slack. After all, there is something inherently awesome about a musical artist getting to the point in their career and personal development where they say to hell with commercialism and produce exactly what they damn well please. Songs From The Labyrinth is cool because Sting wanted to make an Elizabethan music album and he pulled it off admirably. The same cannot be said of If On A Winter’s Night.... If On A Winter’s Night... is a very similar album to Songs From The Labyrinth, save that it is a thematic album: all of the songs are about winter, Christmas, and holiday bonding. Where Songs From The Labyrinth was a cool musical experiment, If On A Winter’s Night... sounds much more like the artist got stuck in a rut. If On A Winter’s Night... is a vocally-driven album that sounds like Renaissance light rock. Largely, it sounds like b-sides from Songs From The Labyrinth and those who come to Sting’s music because of his pop-rock foundation will find that he has strayed to an utterly unrecognizable place on If On A Winter’s Night….

With fifteen tracks, occupying just over fifty minutes of the c.d.’s capacity, the biggest strike against If On A Winter’s Night… is that it is boring, with a close second being that it is short. I suppose it’s a catch-22, but I prefer an album be packed, even if I do not particularly enjoy it. What does appear on the album is largely the musical vision of Sting. Sting wrote (or co-wrote) the lyrics for three of the songs and performed the English adaptation of another. While that might sound somewhat unimpressive considering how much influence Sting usually has over his own albums, most of the songs on the album are traditional or adapted from poems that are now in the public domain. As well, Sting came up with music for a Robert Louis Stevenson poem on “Christmas At Sea.” Sting performs all of the primary vocals and he plays an instrument (percussion, lute, etc.) on almost every song. Sting is a co-producer of the album, which means that If On A Winter’s Night… is the album he intended to make at the time!.

Sting presents his usual, smooth vocals on If On A Winter’s Night.... He stays safely in his alto range on If On A Winter’s Night... and it seems his purpose is largely to get those not into classic poetry into it; as a result, every line, every word is sung crystal clear. Unfortunately, because the album is dominated by his voice (the instrumentals are, truly, accompaniment to the instrument that is Sting’s voice), the songs have a tendency to blend together. Sting holds notes, sings sleepily, and evokes a very chill mood. Sting goes lower on “You Only Cross My Mind In Winter,” but by that point in the album, it’s hard to believe most listeners would still even be awake.

Instrumentally, If On A Winter’s Night… is similarly dull. The guitars and lutes blandly follow Sting’s vocals. Outside the annoyingly repetitive “Soul Cake,” which utilizes trumpets and up-tempo guitars, If On A Winter’s Night… is depressingly slow and musically bland. The strings are soft, the percussion subtle, and the net result is that there are no real hum-able tunes on the album.

Ultimately, outside those utterly sick of every other holiday album in the universe, I am at a loss as to for whom If On A Winter’s Night would appeal. The best track is “You Only Cross My Mind In Winter,” the rest of the album is pretty forgettable and bland.

For other works featuring Sting or The Police, please visit my reviews of:
Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 - 1994
Sacred Love
Every Breath You Take: The Singles - The Police

2/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page where the albums are organized from best to worst!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Jumping The Gun; Sting’s First Compilation Album: Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994!

The Good: Some truly memorable singles, Vocals, Many of the lyrics, Duration
The Bad: Only five truly recognizable, enduring, songs
The Basics: Sting was struggling to find his own sound for his first solo decade, which undermines much of Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994.


When it comes to compilation albums – albums that claim to be either the “best of” or “greatest hits” of an artist or group without providing much (if any) new content) – I am often amused by studios and artists who jump the gun. While the most severe example of this phenomenon might well be James Taylor’s Greatest Hits (reviewed here!), my current Artist Of The Month, Sting, is another artist who may have prematurely presented the “best of” with Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994. To his credit, Sting only claims these are the best works for his first decade as a solo musical artist and the album is not bad or claiming to be “greatest hits” from that era.

Unfortunately, Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994 is a lackluster compilation album unlikely to sell the enduring greatness of Sting as a musical artist. It appears in his first decade – and I was conscious and a music listener during that time – he struggled to find his own, distinct and interesting sound. Some of the songs on Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994 sound like they could have been b-sides from The Police and that diminishes some the idea that Sting is presenting on his own (or it strengthens the concept that he truly ruled the Police and they might as well have stuck together and followed his vision for a few more years).

With fourteen songs, clocking out at a hefty 65 minutes, Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994 is very much the embodiment of Sting as he made music on his first four albums (plus two singles new to the compilation). All fourteen of the songs were written by Sting and he is the primary vocalist on all of them. While he is not credited as a producer on Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994, the albums from which the songs were culled had quite a bit of Sting’s creative influence so even if this album is not one he endorsed, it is indicative of his work.

On Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994, Sting is presented as a pop-light rock musical artist who foreshadows his future works with the new singles on the album. “When We Dance” is a melancholy pop ballad that has a musing quality that sounds distinctly like Sting. Instrumentally, Sting’s works on Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994 are dominated by keyboards, bass, and drums, with a few guitar-driven tracks. The keyboard/piano sound helps create a more mellow, light rock feel for the album and while it is not the most energetic album, it is not at all bad. The most musically distinctive song is probably “Fields Of Gold” as it does not sound like any other song on the album or like any tracks made by The Police.

Vocally, Sting is known for his smooth, tenor voice and that is well-represented on Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994. Sting has a very natural voice on almost all of the songs (“Be Still My Beating Heart” is a little more produced), but in general, he sings clearly in the mid-register vocals that give him a slightly smoky sound that is very listenable.

Most of the songs on Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994 are about romantic relationships and Sting’s poetics evolve over the course of the album. On one of the album’s two unique songs, Sting captures the intensity of desire incredibly well when he sings “If I could break down these walls / And shout my name at heaven's gate / I'd take these hands / And I'd destroy the dark / Machineries of fate / Cathedrals are broken / Heaven's no longer above / And hellfire's a promise away / I'd still be saying / I'm still in love” (“When We Dance”). In that way, he proves he is an artist who planned to remain relevant long after this album was released.

Sting is poetic, but Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994 is a mix of popular songs like “Fields Of Gold,” “All This Time” and “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” and utterly forgettable songs, like “They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo)” and “Fragile.” The result is an erratic compilation album that is not as enduring as (one hopes) a career retrospective of Sting’s works will eventually be. Only for the singles-only fan who wants a little more than just the radio hits, Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984 – 1994 is otherwise an average album easy to pass by.

The best track is “Fields Of Gold,” the low point is the unmemorable “Why Would I Cry For You?”

For other works featuring Sting or The Police, please visit my reviews of:
Songs From The Labyrinth
Sacred Love
Every Breath You Take: The Singles - The Police

5/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Barry Levinson Makes A Statement, But Not A Point, With PoliWood

The Good: Great participation from both sides of the political spectrum, Raises a few good questions.
The Bad: Fails to land on a number of key points, Levinson talks over several of his subjects.
The Basics: Barry Levinson explores some important questions about how Hollywood celebrities influence politics without coming to any real answers in PoliWood.


When it comes to movies, my wife has a pretty simple formula for figuring out how to pick out a film I’d want to watch when we have a night to spend together: she looks up Anne Hathaway’s IMDB page and finds projects Hathaway has been involved in that I have not yet seen and she picks them up for us. That list is getting increasingly short, but my wife managed to find one such movie tonight: PoliWood. Given that my wife and I are politically active, PoliWood seemed like a documentary that we would have quite a bit of interest in and because I have largely enjoyed the works of Barry Levinson, it seemed like a good fit. PoliWood is a documentary or video essay by Levinson and it stars a number of Hollywood celebrities who are active in politics . . .

. . . admitting they are active in politics. While Levinson has some narrative to his video essay, PoliWood rambles with surprisingly little in the way of purpose. In fact, it was not until I sat down to write a review of PoliWood that I realized how little point there was to the movie.

The concept of PoliWood is simple: several actors and actresses who have gained a level of celebrity have publicly made political statements and supported candidates. The assumption has been that most of the most wealthy and outspoken celebrities are liberal and have exerted an undo influence over the American political process. Director and essayist Barry Levinson follows around several members of The Creative Coalition (a group that has largely come together to advocate for government funding of the arts) during the 2008 Presidential election. The documentary follows Anne Hathaway, Richard Schiff, Ellen Burstyn, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tim Daly, Giancarlo Esposito, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Modine and Josh Lucas as they attend political, sporting, and entertainment events.

Levinson follows the group to both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention and he comments (and documents comment from others) on the process of advocacy the celebrities utilize as they reach out to voters about issues important to each of them.

The problem is that the film does little more than that. PoliWood starts with the premise that Hollywood actors are blurring the lines between politics and entertainment. The film ends in the exact same place with no real growth in between. The subjects of Levinson’s documentary do not sufficiently address the concepts Levinson seems to want to explore with PoliWood. In his opening narration for PoliWood, Barry Levinson laments the role of the television in the American family; he talks about how daily life was changed by the invasive nature of the television and then how politicians were remade into television stars in order to get elected.

After that, Levinson follows his subjects around. PoliWood meanders around with the director asking the question of “Do Hollywood celebrities have too much influence over American politics?” and then shows them advocating for their cause and “common” Americans complaining about how out-of-touch those celebrities are with “middle” America. Perhaps the best moment of PoliWood is when Tim Daly discusses all of the non-actor related jobs he had and how he devotes quite a bit of time to “normal” things like car pools and coaching little league. In a smart, reasonable way, Daly quietly dispels one woman’s utter ignorance about how celebrities are somehow not as human or real as other people are.

But the documentary falls apart outside that. While there are decent moments, like Anne Hathaway admitting she hates talking about political issues she is not adequately informed about and some of the members of the Creative Coalition rejecting the refusal of a couple members to even hear out a successful strategist for Fox News, but largely Levinson asks questions that go unanswered or he asserts his own statements without actually backing them up in any demonstrable way in the film. For example, a number of misconceptions about celebrities are brought up during the film and one of the big ones is that right-of-center actors have a harder time getting work in Hollywood than leftists. It is not pointed out how Jon Voight and Clint Eastwood (for example) have almost constant work, even as they advocate for Republicans. Actor Robert Davi talks about a personal experience where a fan was turned off by his conservative activism, but he did not detail any issues he had with getting acting work as a result of the same activism.

Levinson also neglects to discuss at all how the influence of “Hollywood liberals” is, in part, a response to conservative businessmen advocating against social spending or progressive issues. It’s hard to say that Hollywood actors have more influence than the businesspeople who spend more money against their causes.

As a result, much of the movie swirls around Levinson making his own assertions and spreading his philosophy. He ends the movie where he begins it: articulating his own personal philosophy that television might be a destructive force in substantive political debates. PoliWood fails to back up or present a sophisticated view of its own premises (Levinson, for example, comments on how Al Gore drew attention to the global warming crisis through An Inconvenient Truth - reviewed here! – by essentially becoming a Hollywood celebrity while completely ignoring that the documentary only became a phenomenon because of Gore’s political celebrity and that if he had not been Vice President, he never would have managed to get the documentary produced) and the result is a lackluster documentary that only serves to reiterate the idea that the political process in the United States is damaged.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
Craigslist Joe
Jedi Junkies
Trek Nation

4/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Learning To Appreciate Sting Through Songs From The Labyrinth!

The Good: Amazing instrumental accompaniment, Great vocals/harmonies
The Bad: I’m not wild about the readings . . . Duration (of the original)
The Basics: A very cool album, Songs From The Labyrinth is, nevertheless, a Renaissance music album with limited appeal, no matter how awesome Sting is!


Back in the day, I was a fan of Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (reviewed here!). In the course of that brief series, Sting made an appearance as himself. The album he was promoting was Songs From The Labyrinth, his Elizabethan Era, Renaissance music album. So, as I listened to the album on heavy replay – now that Sting is my Artist Of The Month – I was eagerly listening for the one song I would recognize from Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. It was “Come Again” and I geeked out appropriately when it came up on the latter half of the album.

Songs From The Labyrinth is very much a niche album, unlike the first Sting album Sacred Love (reviewed here!) that I reviewed. No matter how cool Sting is, Songs From The Labyrinth is a Renaissance music album and it’s not exactly going to make one fall in love with the genre. That said, let’s talk about how cool Sting is for just a moment. Sting is a world-renowned pop-rock artist and he’s at such a point in his career that when he gets captivated by something, he has complete freedom to pursue it, economic interests be damned! Regardless of how lukewarm I am to the overall album Songs From The Labyrinth, Sting is able to do what he loves and share it with the world and I think that is absolutely awesome.

What Sting wanted to do in 2006 was play the lute and share the music and letters of the 16th Century musician John Dowland with the world. Accompanied by lutenist Edin Karamazov, Sting plays the archlute, sings, and reads the words of Dowland. The result is a very mellow album that is half poetry, half a biography of a man who appears to have been bribed to do something (which is not entirely clear) in Europe which seems to give him access to information about an impending military invasion. The contrast, is more stark than simply two different types of vocal presentations (song vs. spoken word); the love poems are mixed with an unclear narrative that (after eight listens) becomes no more interesting over time.

Sting has amazingly smooth vocals on Songs From The Labyrinth and it appears that on some of the tracks, he harmonizes with himself (which he does masterfully). Songs From The Labyrinth comes in many forms; the original release was a 23-track album that was less than fifty minutes long. That version (which was the one I listened to ad nauseum) is adequate to get the point across, but with two different Deluxe and Anniversary Editions released since, fans of Sting who want the most bang for their buck should probably go with one of those.

For other Artist Of The Month reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Modern Times - Bob Dylan
American Favorite Ballads (Boxed Set) – Pete Seeger
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page where the albums are organized from best to worst!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sting Is My New Artist Of The Month! We Start With Sacred Love!

The Good: Instrumental accompaniment is varied and interesting, Some good lyrics, Good vocals
The Bad: Unsurprising vocals, Remix of “Send Your Love” is not great, Experiments do not come together for a cohesive album, Somewhat repetitive lyrics.
The Basics: I begin my exploration of the music of Sting with Sacred Love and find an intriguing, but hardly cohesive, experimental album.


As I looked into who should be my new musical Artist Of The Month, I found, much to my surprise, that I no longer had my old review of Brand New Day by Sting. I was then pretty shocked to discover I had no reviews of any albums by Sting; the closest one I had was a review of a compilation album of singles by The Police (reviewed here!). That settled it! My new male Artist Of The Month is Sting! The first album I managed to get in of Sting’s is Sacred Love.

Sacred Love is an experimental album by Sting and in the words of Tom Petty “. . . I don’t hear a single!” Sacred Love is interesting and largely enjoyable, but the musical experiments do not come together for a cohesive album the way Sophie B. Hawkins’s Timbre (reviewed here!) or Heather Nova’s South (reviewed here!). While Sting has a beautiful and familiar voice, on Sacred Love his vocals are more familiar than audacious. As a result, Sting does not seem to stretch vocally the way he does instrumentally on the album, which is somewhat disappointing.

With eleven tracks (ten songs, one remix of a song on the album), clocking out at just over an hour of music, Sacred Love is very much the work of Sting. Sting wrote all of the songs on the album and he provides the primary vocals on each song (though “Whenever I Say Your Name” is properly a duet with Mary J. Blige). Sting plays guitar or keyboards on each song and he is a co-producer of Sacred Love. Sacred Love is very much his musical vision.

That vision on Sacred Love is one of mellow experimentation. Sting mixes the music types up for very different flavors on each song. “Dead Man’s Rope” is light rock with a Latin undertone, while “The Book Of My Life” uses Anoushka Shankar on sitar to deliver a more Indian sound. The Flamenco guitar utilized by Vincente Amigo on “Send Your Love” bring an upbeat sound that is very different from the more contemplative “Inside” and “This War.” Musical experimentation is prevalent on Sacred Love and it largely works. The upbeat dance sound for “Never Coming Home” does not quite work and the extended instrumental solo at the end of it does not fit the flow of the rest of the album.

Vocally, Sacred Love is exactly what one expects of Sting. His vocals are a comfortable tenor and outside his fast-singing on “Never Coming Home,” there is nothing surprising or different from Sting’s vocals on Sacred Love. Sting harmonizes expertly with Mary J. Blige on “Whenever I Say Your Name” and it is impressive how articulate he is able to be at speed on “Never Coming Home,” but otherwise Sacred Love is (un)characterized by predictable and safe Sting vocals.

Repetition is one of the other issues facing Sacred Love. The album begins with “Inside,” which has contrasting lines about what is inside versus what is outside and while I enjoyed the song, it sets up the album with a lot of lyrical repetition and that accents how many of the songs that follow repeat lines and choruses an unfortunate number of times. Even so, on “Inside,” Sting actually uses the repetition well and he contrasts the repeated words “inside” and “outside” with some remarkably specific imagery that resonates. With poetics like “Inside the doors are sealed to love / Inside my heart is sleeping / Inside the fingers of my glove / Inside the bones of my right hand / Inside it's colder than the stars / Inside the dogs are weeping / Inside the circus of the wind” (“Inside”) Sting manages to hook the listener.

One of the things that surprised me as I begin my monthlong study of the works of Sting was how Sting actually has some musical storysongs on Sacred Love! Sting tells the story of a relationship dissolving with “Never Coming Home” where he creates a musical protagonist who “. . . wake[s] up in an empty bed a road drill hammers in my head / I call her name there's no reply it's not like her to let me lie / It's time for work it's time to go but something's different I don't know / I need a cup of coffee I'll feel better / I stumble to the bathroom door, her make up bag is on the floor / It really is a mess this place it takes some time to shave my face / I'm not really thinking straight she never lets me sleep this late / I'm almost done and then I see the letter” (“Never Coming Home”). Sting captures perfectly the uncertainty and wrenching loss of abandonment on “Never Coming Home.”

Sting also has message songs on Sacred Love. Amid the musings of interpersonal relationships, Sting sings a rock song about warmongering. While it may have been born out of a rejection of George W. Bush’s military pushes, “This War” actually has a much more universal quality to it. Sting sings “Yes, I'm the soul of indiscretion, / I was cursed with x-ray vision, / I could see right through all the lies you told, / When you smiled for the television / And you can see the coming battle / You pray the drums will never cease / And you may win this war that's coming / But would you tolerate the peace” (“This War”) with a universal sentiment that makes the problems of the specific war an indictment of war itself.

Ultimately, Sacred Love is an enjoyable, but unfortunately forgettable, album that might be worth listening to, but is tough to pick songs from that might endure as the best of Sting when his body of work is ultimately examined.

The best track is “Dead Man’s Rope,” the low point is “Send Your Love” (Dave Aude Remix).

For other, prior, Artist Of The Month reviews, please visit:
Tunnel Of Love - Bruce Springsteen
Cold Spring Harbor - Billy Joel
The Next Day - David Bowie

6.5/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Singles That Descend Into A Better Band: The Police’s Every Breath You Take - The Singles!

The Good: Generally good writing and sound, Overcomes some limitations of a trio
The Bad: One or two duds
The Basics: A solid collection of (mostly) recognizable and great singles, The Police Every Breath You Take - The Singles remains relevant today.


While working at my manufacturing job last year and being subjected to the same sixty classic rock tracks over and over again day in and day out (thank you, academia for rescuing me once again!), the high point of the day for me often came when The Police song "Roxanne" came over the radio. This was the exciting part of my day not because of the quality of the song, but rather because when the first licks of the song began, invariably, the biggest guy in the plant (who goes from spending ten hours pipe bending to a weight room?!) would start shrieking out the refrain moments before Sting. Ahhh . . . the little things we do to keep ourselves amused. So, when I stuck in Every Breath You Take - The Singles by The Police, the most notably absent aspect of the experience was hearing the brute shrieking out "Roxanne."

With twelve tracks, Every Breath You Take - The Singles is a collection of recognizable tracks from the early eighties that remind us why we care when The Police reunite. The tracks range from "Roxanne" and "Message In A Bottle" to "Every Breath You Take" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger," essentially encapsulating the career of the Police from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. This is the essence of pop-rock of the time.

For those unfamiliar with the music of the Police, Sting - solo artist since leaving the group in the early 80s - was the writer and lead singer of a trio which included him, Andy Summers and Steward Copeland. All of the songs on "Every Breath You Take" were written by Sting and they are mostly about relationships, specifically wanting. "Can't Stand Losing You," "Message In A Bottle," "Every Breath You Take," and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" all contain notes of longing for relationships, for love to work. On "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" the group explores the joy of a relationship that works and on the penultimate single, "King of Pain" explores being trapped in a relationship that is not working.

The only track I did not know at the beginning was the generic pop single "Invisible Sun," which appears to be a socialist anthem for not wasting one's life away working. I like the lyrics of the song, but the melody is easily forgettable and the message is not as clear as it ought to be. I think it makes a far better poem than it does a song, at least with the music that accompanies it.

And more than anything else, the writing of Sting keeps the Police engaging even after over twenty-five years. The songs are all largely poetic, save the vastly chaotic "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da," which includes the title as a fairly witless refrain after such dark lines as "And when their eloquence escapes me / Their logic ties me up and rapes me . . ." It's especially disturbing given the upbeat music that accompanies it.

But the Police succeed, in part, because people do not listen too closely to their lyrics. What so many people assume is a love song, "Every Breath You Take," is actually a pretty terrifying stalker song. This is a man hunting his prey! Every time I hear it at a wedding (or, with more contemporary crowds Green Day's "Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)" - it's the parenthetical people always seem to miss!) I just shudder.

The thing about listening to Every Breath You Take - The Singles is that it becomes clear that The Police were getting better and better right before they disbanded. Their initial success of "Roxanne" and "Message In A Bottle" led to a somewhat juvenile period where their sound became upbeat and sometimes silly with such tracks as "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" and "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." The last three tracks, "Every Breath You Take," "King of Pain," and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" enter a more sophisticated, smoky, more mature sound in terms of music, strength of vocals, and quality of lyrics.

Then the album ends. It's enough to make one wish that Sting didn't go solo afterward, but the truth is his creative talents seem to have moved The Police, so his later works (like the one which includes "Desert Rose") seem to follow the direction he was going.

If you are looking for a strong group sound that uses guitar, drums and keyboard to create a memorable collection of singles, Every Breath You Take - The Singles is certainly for you. It's a treat for those looking for something retro or relief from the drecht that is on the radio today.

The best track is "King of Pain," the worst is "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da."

For other classic rock artists, please visit my reviews of:
Words & Music - John Mellencamp
Alladin Sane - David Bowie
Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

8/10

For other album reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Possibly The Weirdest Film I Did Not Enjoy: Dune

The Good: Effects, Some acting, Directorial vision
The Bad: Clunky editing, Poor plotting, Dumb dialog, Obvious, Just plain b-rate.
The Basics: A sad, sad, sad attempt to make a movie that was big an epic and weird becomes long and tired and tiring.


First off, I haven't read any of the Dune books, but I watched the DVD with a friend who had. Second, it doesn't matter, because I'm reviewing the film, not the book! I like strange films, don't get me wrong. Brazil (reviewed here!) is amazing, Magnolia (reviewed here!) is simply wonderful and I'm a big fan of science fiction in film and television.

That said, all I knew about Dune was that, growing up, it was the first film I ever knew about that had a PG-13 rating on it. I'm still not sure why it did; perhaps because anyone under 13 is liable to die of boredom or be killed for asking a nearby adult "what's going on" near-constantly.

Before I get mired in where this film fails, I'd like to mention where it succeeds. First, the effects are pretty impressive both in terms of realism and in scale. It's a very easy film to watch in terms of being nice on the eyes; there's a lot going on visually and it's a pleasant sightseeing trip.

David Lynch succeeds in Dune in creating a strong sense of place and time. It's a very unique feel that is too often not captured in science fiction of any caliber. That is, on both a personal and technological level, there are enough nuances to let the viewer easily slide into this completely different place. It's nice.

Some of the acting is even competent.

That said, Dune is probably the weirdest film I've seen that I have no desire to ever see again. In truth, to keep myself entertained, I ended up doing a Mystery Science Theater commentary on the film. Dune was, in the final analysis hokey. Hokey, weird, eye-candy, blah.

The insipid plot focuses around the planet Dune which is taken over by House Atreides, which is almost as quickly reclaimed by House Harkonnen, under the aid of the Emperor. The Emperor is a political figure who keeps the various Houses of the Empire in check. Paul Atreides is basically a messiah figure on Dune, a prophesied youth come to liberate the worm-infested planet from the spice mining of the off-worlders. In the process, he becomes a member of the nomadic inhabitants of Dune and fights to save them from the tyranny of the Harkonnens and the Empire.

Unfortunately, the obviousness of the plot is coupled by a repetitive reminder of things the audience figures out in the first few scenes. In fact, the only way the film's final line has any significance is if you've been asleep for the two hours preceding it. It basically insults the intelligence of the viewer by stating the painfully, blindingly obvious.

Add to that dialog that hurts. I mean the writing is so simplistic, so third-grade, that it hurts to listen to the canned, tacky, hokey lines for even fifteen minutes. If the film is any indication, I'd imagine that Frank Herbert spent huge quantities of time, many pages, describing the places and situations rather than how people are speaking. Regardless, David Lynch's lyrical sense is sorely lacking in sophistication. A film like Star Wars tends to get away with the same problem, because it succeeds in having interesting, charming characters in an interesting plot. Dune fails in that regard. It fails hard. Paul Atreides is boring and obvious, his adversaries are doltish and laughable and his friends are all relatively flat on the character level.

In fact, none of the characters are compelling and it's pointless to get attached to most of them; many appear and are killed off within a half hour.

It's a sad day in movie-making when the special effects are the hallmark of a film, especially when the film is made in the early-80s. Dune also has the feeling of being edited - there are gaps in the story that take place over years, many of which work, others that just seem either silly or misplaced or downright confusing.

It's hard to take Dune seriously in the end because it has the feeling of being a kid (in dialog and plot) trying to be an adult, but it never quite lives up to its potential or the incredible universe it hints at in its best moments.

For other weird films, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
The City Of Lost Children
Dark City

3/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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