the Color of Context

Stop-Loss: Boys don’t go AWOL
Release date: 28 March 2008
By Jerilyn Covert

Hope and hopelessness go together like peace and war. One is rendered meaningless without the other. And in Stop-Loss, hope hangs like an intangible smoke and threatens to disappear at any moment. However, Sgt. Brandon King, played by Ryan Phillipe, certainly has enough emotional kindling to keep any fire burning, especially after his happy homecoming is tarnished by orders to return to Iraq against his will even though he’s fulfilled his contract with the army. When an angry speech to his lieutenant colonel proves ineffective, Brandon decides to drive to Washington D.C. with his childhood friend Michelle (Abbie Cornish) under the naïve assumption that a friendly Texas senator will help him. But as reality sets in, Brandon realizes his only real options: return to Iraq or move to Canada.

Read the rest of this entry »

Panic at the Disco: Emo rockers trade fad for Fab
Pretty. Odd., Decaydance, Fueled by Ramen
Release date: 25 March 2008

By Joe Derosa
“You don’t have to worry, because we’re still the same band.”

So proclaims lead singer Brendon Urie in the opening track to Panic at the Disco’s sophomore album Pretty. Odd. I have to disagree. This¾ literally¾ is not the same band. Urie (vocals), Ryan Ross (guitar) and Spencer Smith (drums) have been joined by Jon Walker, who replaced Brent Wilson, on bass. They’ve dropped the exclamation point from their name and traded in their eyeliner, gimmicky song titles and even producer Matt Squire. So, you may ask, what’s left, then, of Panic at the Disco? Quite frankly, not much that resembles the same band.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shutter: The Ring is still king
Release date: 21 March 2008
By Joe Derosa

In the 1970’s, American moviegoers were introduced to a new kind of horror known as the slasher film. Based on the popularity of movies like Halloween and Friday the 13^th, more and more slasher films hit the theaters, each trying to capitalize on the elements that seemed to have made those films popular in the first place¾ a specific date or holiday such as April Fool’s Day, or a masked killer as in The Prowler. Unfortunately, even today, 30 years later, we are watching watered-down versions that just aren’t as good as the classics they feebly try to imitate. Though the slasher film doesn’t really have an audience in Asia, that doesn’t leave them without a horror genre of their own: the ghost story. When films like Ringu (The Ring) and Ju-on (The Grudge) first came out, they were fresh, interesting¾ and scary! But much like the American slasher film, we have seen, with the passing of each year, yet another movie released that tries to capture the same lightning in a bottle as the originals they sought to emulate.

Shutter is the latest in this ever growing line of Asian horror remakes. In this supernatural thriller directed by Masayuki Ochiai, the ghost haunts the protagonists, not through a videotape, but rather, the lens of a camera. This particular brand of haunting is dubbed spirit photography, an event in which images of the dead are caught on film. Of course, the notion that ghosts can be caught on film is not nearly as eerie as its implications; because if that blurriness of light behind the people posing in the photo truly is a visitor from the beyond, then not only are we the living able to see spirits, but even scarier, they can see¾ can watch¾ us, and without any physical boundaries to deter them. Scarier still, this particular ghost is out for vengeance.

Read the rest of this entry »