Walk [Above] the Line...

The comparisons between "Ray" with Jamie Foxx and "Walk the Line" with Joaquin Pheonix are out. So striking that the stories of both musicians growing up in the south, from a child who loves music, his brother, his parent, making it in music biz, drugs, wives, the road, groupies, cheating, a mistress, kids, seem to be common for growing stars in the 50's and 60's trying to balance stardom and a normal Christian life.

So, yes, let us compare.

So since both stories are similar and both were delivered in relatively the same manner, I'd say that "Walk the Line" wins out slightly. Why? "Ray" seemed to drag in places, where "Walk the Line" was more to the point, much like Johnny Cash's style.

And "Ray" did very well, as did Jamie Foxx. I expect a bit more success for "Walk".

Jamie Foxx really looked like acted and sounded like Ray Charles, as he did some method acting of being blind to get into the role and hung out with Ray himself.

But did the plot and dialogue carry Foxx's portrayal? Don't get me wrong, Foxx did an amazing job, but now in comparison to Phoenix, I can now see the difference and slight lack on Foxx's part. Slight. But I wish to emphasize that slight made a big difference.

Johnny Cash fully endorsed Joaquin Phoenix's typecasting. Phoenix, in my opinion, is an underrated actor. Not anymore.

I especially wondered if Phoenix poured his own soul and life into the role. He could honestly relate to Cash's life, as he too lost a dear brother to an accident and continually suffers from drug addiction. Now THAT's method acting--when your own life is similar to the person you're portraying. And I believe that aspect, coupled with Phoenix's many talents, gave him a slight edge over Foxx.

The camera production was excellent. When Johnny was drunk and on pills, you could FEEL it and relate to the character as the camera gave you first person view of the blur he felt. Yes, I know, can't really do that with a blind guy. But why not? Why didn't they black out the screen and only have sounds? Instead they went with flashbacks to Ray's childhood as the underlying theme.

You won't find flashbacks in "Walk" and I think it was more effective. Johnny seemed to lock up that pain of his brother dying and his drunken father telling him "the wrong kid died" way way down for a long long time, until decades later when it finally comes out at the Thanksgiving dinner table. But was it yelling? No. You could hear that pain and anger in his voice and see in his eyes.

This is a story about being saved. I didn't get that feel as much from watching "Ray".

Johnny needed saving. He loved his older brother, who was destined to be a preacher, as his best friend and companion. But no matter how successful he got, nothing was good enough for his father. The music that came out of his voice reflected that lament and suffering. He so badly wanted forgiveness. And early on in the tour with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, etc. he met June Carter and realized right there that she understood him like no one else.

So Big kudos to Reeses Pieces Witherspoon for an outstanding performance. Absolutely spot on to June Carter, a strong talented witty woman who saw that special something in Johnny and even after 40 marriage proposals (although he was still married!), dressing room trashing, spending time in jail for drugs, we know she finally says yes.

But before that, when her career wasn't taking off, she married a stock car driver but that relationship wasn't doing well. Johnny and her hadn't seen each other in a while until a music awards ceremony. He asks her to join his tour and says he'll provide for her no matter what. This was the first time Johnny truly offered anything to June and was a big turning point in their unusual relationship.

But while Johnny turned to other substitutes for salvation, he always knew June was the one. It was June and her parents who ultimately saved him from drugs by fending off dealers with double barrel shotguns from his lake side country home. He finally recovers and they get married. While not shown, you can tell his father is finally proud of him.

Phoenix's true and real method acting got to the core and soul of the character so much that I could really feel the emotion and relate it to my own life. And this made me understand Johnny Cash the man.

The only wish I had for the movie was showing more interaction with the other big stars of the 50's, like Elvis. There were a couple scenes, but Johnny's focus was always on June.

Snaky gives "Walk the Line", 4.12 fists out of 5.

Queens 4 -- Nails 2

When you go see a live band, what do you want to see and hear? You don't want to just hear the album.

The other day I was invited to go the Nine Inch Nails (NIN) with Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) concert. I know a few QOTSA tunes, and thought I might recognize a couple NIN tracks and I heard their show was pretty cool, so what the hell. I accepted the free ticket.

So last night, six of us dudes went to Rexall Place. The radio and the ticket said QOTSA started at 7pm and we got their at 6:50 and they were already playing. So I grab a couple beers and we find our seats near the top back of the coliseum. We all then moved up to the standing 'room' part so we could place our beers on the ledge. It was perfect.

The crowd was right into Josh Homme's haunting smooth voice and trying to find the off time rhythms in one of the tightest and original bands I've ever seen live. Unlike Pearl Jam, they weren't jammin'. They were cookin'. While most of us were musicians ourselves, we quickly picked up the timings but by that time, the band was already zooming onto another part. We simply couldn't keep up and I appreciated every nuance. Even one of the guitar players jumped on the keyboards for a very original groove undergroundish rock tune.

They say Josh used to do a lot of heavy drugs. Well, they sure churned out some originality, weird note patterns, lyrics, and textures that you were sure they were probably on 'em during the writing process. Tell you what, if they're pumping out killer progressive tunes like that consistently, I'll let 'em do all the drugs they want on my behalf.

We then hear Josh talking to some dude in the crowd on the floor who was apparently lipping him off or something. Josh showed a lot of class in his responses: "Hey dude, we're just tryin' to have some fun here. Am I right folks?" (Crowd roars.) This "conversation" continued for a few more songs but then Josh steps it up and insults him, his mother, and the whole crowd laughed. Then he says, "Okay, this next is for you, man. It's called 'Little Bitch'". And then of course they go right into 'Little Sister', an awesome hit and they nail it.

I mentioned to one of the boys that most of their songs are about four minutes. Put a shoe in my mouth, 'cause right after I say that, they play a wickedly fast 1 minute instrumental. Good variety.

The sound at the coliseum is wanting, but I was surprised at how good the Queens did sound. I guess it's because they play so tightly that the sounds don't blend into each other when it reverberates on the back wall.

Then they encore with their big hit, which my band also plays, "No One Knows". But the Queens decide to speed it up ... a lot! See, wasn't expecting that. Then they play quieter and quieter (is that a word?) to nothing and Josh beautifully sings out the words ... pause, and finally they kick into the last part. But I was disappointed they didn't do the solo of the song, which is really really freaking difficult for a band to play -- trust me, I know. We've worked on it and worked on it, and Queens decide to not even do it! Oh well, it still kicked ass.

Needless to say, at no point of watching QOTSA was I bored. Actually, I was blown away. They had enough stage lights that complimented the music nicely, flashes in time with the drums, etc., but the music is what was really bright. I would definitely see them again.

Then...

The stage was then box curtained in a transparent white. The lights go off. The music blars and Nine Inch Nails takes the stage in silouette behind the curtain. Very cool stage design, lots of power lights, and a high energy show all 'round.

But I think only a couple songs actually stood out. The rest were all basically the same and the cool light show seemed to be making up for a lot in the lack of originality. Sure NIN is different than the mainstream, but compared with their own music, there didn't seem to be a lot of variety.

Then for about 20 minutes, they refused to play because everyone at the front was pushing forward. It was general admission on the floor. I wanted to skedaddle, but we stayed and I even heard some people chanting "Let's go Oilers!" Funny.

Finally they came back but projected news footage on the front curtain screen for about two songs, showed George W and Laura ballroom dancing. I thought, "Are we at the movies?" "This is CNN." I'm all for visuals, but this wasn't artistic. I really don't like musicians getting involved in partisan politics, because they really don't have any sway, nor do they have anything to say. USE YOUR MUSIC TO COMMUNICATE DUMBASS.

Anyway, then some droning unoriginal and depressing piano part comes on. I sat down. I fell asleep. That's right, I fell asleep. I yelled out "BORING!" But I don't think anyone heard.

Finally at 11:30pm, the show was over.

Keeping in mind I probably recognized 5 songs total that night...

Snak gives Queens of the Stone Age a 10/10 for musicianship, 6/10 for stage show. So an even 8/10.

I give Nine Inch Nails 2/10 for musicianship, and 8/10 for stage show. So 5/10.

But since we were at the coliseum:
Queens 4 -- Nails 2.

The Answer To Life, The Universe, and Everything

This isn't necessarily a critique, just some deep thoughts about the universe and God. As a Mason, I continually challenge myself to pursue this of all subjects, reading about science, exploring the cosmos, and how religion fit in. Some say science and religion should stay far away from each other. I don't, dogma aside, I think they fit just nicely.

Remember when Einstein used to say things like "God does not play with dice"? He was able to keep God into the scientific mix so well and always made us wonder. He showed that yes, science is limited to what we can observe or theorize based on existing facts and calculations. But what IS beyond that?

Not long after that, Hubble showed that the galaxies were moving away from each other. This gave us the first notion that they must have been closer together and even closer ... and even really really close -- that they formed a singularity and exploded into the Big Bang.

So they've recently calculated that our universe is 13.7 billion years old, that it is expanding exponentially (or perhaps like the Fibonacci sequence ???).

There are theories like Cosmic Inflation that say the universe will continue like that forever into a cold dark spance or that it will reach a point that gravity will pull it all back into the Big Crunch and maybe it all starts over again, because total energy doesn't change.

So in one sense, the universe is finite because it is expanding, in another it is infinite because we'll never know or see the end of it. But that's because of human limit, from our ego, from our limited mind.

So if our universe is finite, then what's beyond that?

What about multiple universes? If there are multiple universes, then they must be finite otherwise they would all be one in the same. Think about a bunch of bubbles that get bigger and bigger, but what's between them? Nothing? Do they collide? Do bigger ones swallow smaller ones? So what's holding all these universes? Another universe? And what holds that? Now were into infinity again. Whew.

Now let's go the other way. Nuclear physics continually explores smaller and smaller things. Everything is made of something smaller. We're made of cells and our cells are made of things like mitochondria, then DNA, which is made of chemicals, which are made of elements, atoms, protons, quarks, ... it just keeps going.

So will we ever come to the end? Science still does not explain everything, and perhaps it never will as long as things are infinitely large and infinitely small. It seems when atheists use science as their mantra, they can only go as far as we know.

Stephen Hawking is another well known physicist whose explanations on black holes, the universe, light, gravity, time, quantum theory, string theory, relativity, are fun to read and understandable. He, much like Einstein, does not count out God in the equation. In fact, he says that's what we're doing with discovering theories and exploring science -- is knowing the mind of God. What motivation!!!

Because when we ask "Why are we here?", who do we expect to answer this question? Is it chance that we're here, or IS there a reason?

So now the question is, "Is God playing with dice, or is He blowing bubbles?"

Report du Gomery Part Un...

So the report is out.

Justice Gomery puts the blame on Chretien and his cronies. Gee, I coulda told you that!

He also exonerated Prime Minister Paul Martin, yet blames the entire Liberal gov't cabinet at the time of the scandal 10 years ago, when Paul Martin was the Finance Minister.

I'm guessing that Paul Martin knew full well what was going on, but took active steps in making sure it looked liked he didn't know and made sure information was given to him at arm's length. Smart move on his part.

What's interesting is just under two years ago in December 2003 when Paul took the reigns of the PMO, he ordered a full sweeping audit of gov't finances, but this was not done by the Auditor General. To me, that indicates he knew something was up before the AG did her bidding on the gov't who eventually exposed the whole scandal.

Well, with the second part of the report due in February, and Paul promising to call an election 30 days after that, we're now looking at an April election. Isn't it nice for all those post-secondary students to get closed out of participating in the election while they study and write final exams? Isn't that ... oh, I don't know, a bit convenient?

About as convenient as not blaming Paul for gov't finances.