Did you enjoy the intimate poignancy of last week’s review? No. It made me sad and uncomfortable. Well, you’re in luck. I’m just reviewing The Avengers this week. Also a little drunk. Woo bonus issue!
The Avengers (2012):
The Plot: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes—and for some reason Black Widow and Hawkeye—have to fight a Loki-commanded army of aliens! Will they save the Earth, or will they have to…AVENGE IT?!?
Before I go on, there’s something I want you kids to remember: a lot of money and talent went into making this product for your enjoyment, so be nice and make sure you say thank you. And maybe buy some action figures or something.
You don’t necessarily need to have seen any of the preceding films to enjoy watching The Avengers. It helps, though. Since (most) of the characters already have fully established back stories, there’s a richness to the film that would have been lost in exposition. The audience is probably familiar with everybody’s powers at this point, and everybody definitely knows that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a super-charismatic, hyper-intelligent bag of dicks. Just look at that goatee and tell me I’m wrong. Hulk (computers) has anger issues, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) hammers things with Dutch angles, Captain America (Chris Evans) is old school and in really good shape, and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) has boobs. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner!) uses a bow, I guess? Again, I’m not sure why the last two were there. The film never justifies them beyond “they were in the comics, you guys.” Well, that and eye candy. More so ScarJo in that respect, but Jeremy Renner makes up for his lack of leather-clad curves with some serious charisma. I was more disappointed by Black Widow. Joss Whedon is usually better at writing the ladies.
Dead weight aside, the film does a good job of giving a group of strong personalities equal screen time. Thor, Cap., and the Iron Liver—because Tony Stark is an alcoholic—are all characterized with equal depth and attention. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), too, gets some great moments. Actually, out of all of the heroes, he might develop the most over the course of the movie. Or at the very least, he develops the most between his last cinematic outing and The Avengers. Everyone else is basically static. Thor is still a head-strong Norse God who wants to give his crazy adopted brother a second chance. Iron Man is still incredibly smug most of the time, and smugly heroic when the plot needs him to be. Captain America is still adorable. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is still Sam Jackson in an eye patch. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is still greasy and inept, yet somehow lovably so. Aaaand you just used the word “still” five times in five sentences. I’m thinking of going into bootlegging, okay? Get me a hat and cut me in, man. Let’s make some moonshine.
The characterization in the film is less about development than about giving the audience something human to connect with in superhuman characters. For all my sarcasm in the last few paragraphs, that’s a good goal to have, especially in a superhero movies. It’s impressive, actually. A fun blockbuster with likeable characters and witty dialogue. That’s, like, Die Hard level right there. Not quite that good, but similar in what it gets right. A crazy villain, a crazier plan. The team drama of Die Hard 3. And one of the stars of Die Hard 3. Huh. It’s the circle of life. You know, I never really liked that movie. What, Hamlet? You’ve never read Hamlet, have you? No, but the internet will back me up on this. Yeah, the internet is good for shallow readings of classic literature. Zing!
Overall, The Avengers is a well-balanced film. Action scenes are interspersed with dialogue, and vice versa. It’s two and a half hours long, but doesn’t feel self-indulgent. Joss Whedon has a story to tell, and he tells it in a refreshingly inventive way. That having been said, there’s a moment of unforgivable Deus ex Machina towards the end of the film. You could say that it’s… a nuclear missile fired at Manhattan by a shadowy bureaucracy, just so there’s an easy to way to kill the aliens and allow Iron Man to do something uncharacteristically self-sacrificing. Spoiler.
While I found many a fault with Marvel’s latest brand name, I did enjoy watching it. The Avengers is a near-perfect summer movie. Explosions and characters? My goodness, it’s a miracle. Honestly, if this became the template for blockbusters, we’d be in pretty good shape. Not marathon shape or anything, but definitely in better shape than I’ve been in since high school. There’s that word repetition again. That shit’ll kill you someday.
Never before have I felt the ease of life roll over the Adirondack earth as smoothly as it has for the past four years. St. Lawrence is like no place on earth, nothing compares, nothing. When I graduate, I’ll become a part of an alumni network that at any given moment will drop whatever they’re doing to grab a beer and talk about the good ol’ days at SLU. Times change, buildings are built, rugby teams famish, and Frisbee team flourish. Who knows what will happen over the next four, eight, or even sixteen years to this campus? The thing that makes St. Lawrence so beautiful is its sacred spaces. We are nestled amongst some of the kindest folk in New York State. The North Country represents more of what New York State is actually like than any other place in the state. Of course the big cities like New York, Buffalo, and Syracuse represent an industrial society with constant economic development, but the North Country represents people who are legitimately happy. People who live here want to be here. It is a simple life, one that lacks economic stability but a life is surrounded by people who are in your likeness. Neighbors share more than just a cup of sugar, they exchange food, work, transportation, art, farm equipment, education services; the list is endless because people in the North Country live together, much farther apart than NYC block housing, yet are able to share, exchange ideas, and help one another as if they are one family living in the same house. It’s not odd that our campus kind of feels the same way. The energy of the North Country seeps into this campus like water does a in a garden. Students create relationships at SLU as if we were locals in the community. We work together, sleep together, drink together, play together, camp together, we literally do everything together…we live together. Back in the early days of SLU, every student male and female lived, slept, ate, and took classes together in the same building—that building was Richardson. It is a stretch to say but I believe the community we have on this campus today is because of how it all began back on April 3rd in 1856!
So, as I leave the tight community of students, I’ll enter the even tighter community of alumni. As wild as it is to hear myself say this, “I’m psyched to graduate!” Finally I’ll be on my own, no Dana meals, no sweet theme house of twenty-five people to hang out with 24’7, no free speakers, artist lectures, library services, concerts, java, outing club trips, everything is going to change. I think what SLU alumni do best is they take their lives at SLU to wherever they go beyond graduation. We honestly know how to do life well. To be cliché, we work hard and we play hard. To be perfectly honest the people I see on the campus partying the hardest are the same people I see in the library almost every time I’m there. In terms of categories of life that I’d like to fit into beyond college, the work hard play hard category is the most enticing. Appropriately, this is most of St. Lawrence too. When I return for alumni events I know we’ll all end up in the same places; the Hoot because it’s the only place to go as alumni but also because we all want to come back to the bar where we celebrated all our hard work.
St. Lawrence is surprising. One minute you’re laughing the night away until four a.m. with friends and the next you’re watching those same people sing with the Laurentians, dance in a dance show, play in the ensembles, present a poster on four years of research, score the winning goal, present their art work in the gallery, student teach in the Canton schools, or get their 46’er. The list is endless, and I can’t wait to come back for my reunions to see where you all are today. We get each other, and that is where are community comes from. As your boot and paddler I can honestly say that unfortunately this won’t be my last boot and fortunately it will definitely not be my last paddle. Fare thee well now. Oh, by the way there is lunar eclipse on June 4th.
This week, rock connoisseur Will Standish ‘14 brings you his pick for the perfect album to start off a summer even more bodacious than the last.
It’s the end of another semester, you’ve survived your final exams, packed your bags, and as you kick back and prepare for what promises to be a super-fly, radical summer (people totally still say that. I’m not out of touch, you’re out of touch), you’re probably looking for the right music to kick off the season with style and panache. And if you’re jonesing for some excellent summer music, you need not look any further than Stuck on Nothing, the debut album from Philadelphia-based power-pop outfit Free Energy.
Released in May 2010 and produced by LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, Stuck on Nothing is 45 minutes of sunny, feel-good, old school rock. From the first line of the album’s opening track “Free Energy,” the band states their intention and philosophy–“we’re breaking out this time/ making out with the wind/ and I’m so disconnected, I’m never gonna check back in–over strains of electric guitar and cowbell (yes, cowbell); Free Energy are here to have a good time. The song is the perfect soundtrack to cruising around with the windows down on a summer day.
The album only gets catchier from here. The second track, “Dream City”, is dangerously singable and utilizes a horn section like a champion. The album’s third track, and the first single from the album, “Bang Pop” will be aggressively stuck in your head for weeks. And you will be glad that it is.
As a band, Free Energy wears their influences on their sleeves. Elements of some of the best and most diverse hard rock bands from the 70s can be heard in their songs. Bands as diverse as Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, The Cars, and especially glam rock legends T.Rex can be heard in some form on this album–and on a side note, if you’ve never listened to T.Rex, you need to drop whatever you’re doing and find yourself a copy of their 1974 album Electric Warrior right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait here.
Tracks such as “Bad Stuff” and “Light Love” demonstrate the band’s devotion to the rock of yesteryear (the band has previously issued their album on both cassette and eight-track tape via their website), without ever coming off as cloying or gimmicky like so many other “retro-rock” acts. Free Energy is a modern band with modern sensibilities playing the music that makes sense to them.
From the opening song, to the bitter-sweet electric piano driven closer “Wild Winds,” Stuck on Nothing is a catchy, fun, light-hearted rock album perfect for long, cool summer days. And with a new album set to drop later this year, Free Energy can be expected to, as their obvious influence and the Cars lead singer Ric Ocasek once sang, “Let the good times roll.”
