Where's the welcome choir?!

I repeat… where’s the welcome choir?! I’m sure many of you remember me. If you don’t, you don’t matter.

What’s this column you ask? This, my friends, is the beam of light in this horrid place. When I come to BP.com, all I see is music, music, music and some more music. It says “a new take on entertainment” right under the name, for christ’s sake! Not “a new take on music”! And thus, the raven up there have come down to save the day! Here, I deliver to you comments, reviews and plain all-out nuttiness on everything that’s NOT music. And before I start my first commentary, I’d like to clarify one thing:

I hate music.

You read that right. If you hate music haters, you would be doing yourself a favor by navigating your muse over to the forums right now.

Still here? Great. For my first column, I’d like to discuss a obscure movie that was made back in 2002 and released in theaters between December 2002 and January 2003. The release, unfortunately, was small, so I missed it. But when it came out on DVD, I was first in line in my local Best Buy. This movie, my friends, is “Equilibrium”. Never heard of it? I don’t blame you. But after reading this column, if you reject to watch it, I WILL blame you. Very much.

The setting: a future utopia where drugs are distributed to it’s citizens to suppress their emotions. The movie occurs after World War III, where the costs are huge. The government decided that to prevent future wars, the people must be emotionally suppressed. This logic follows the fact that wars are fueled by emotion; hate, fear, love and jealousy. The movie focuses on a character, Preston, who is one of the Clerics, a elite group of agents that hunt down and capture people who refuse to take the emotion-suppressing drug. The punishment is death.

I will reveal no more of the story. I want you to go and see the movie. Or else.

Now for my opinion… I think it’s obvious that I love this work of art. The film brings a innovative martial arts system called Gun Fu. It’s fighting with guns. It’s diffcult to describe, and you won’t truly understand until you see it. But let me tell you, this Preston fellow, he is the ultimate badass. The Matrix? Bah! Keanu Reeves is a pansy nancyboy compared to the Cleric. And something you’ll notice in the movie is that Preston remains a badass… right to the end. Ever been annoyed by movies where the character is portrayed as a bad ass, but close to the end, the film “reveals” his weakness, and have the villain beat him up a bit, THEN he turns all bad and blows the villain away? Not in Equilibrium. The Cleric literally came in, saw the villain and killed him. In-out. The ending is a bit anticlimatic, but fits the character very well. The directing and action in the film is amazing, considering it’s low budget. Yep, this is a low-budget film that beats the pants off the Matrix. The camera angles and settings drips style. The actors, while mostly no-name actors, did great. Christian Bale, who played Preston, was awesome. The acting also drips style. This film is all about style. There are some plot holes throughout the film, and as much as it hurts me, I will have to admit that a few of them are glaring. But the holes aside, the story is very interesting and enjoyable. There are many deep issues brought up, and you will have something to think about after the rolling credits hit.

I won’t waste any more of your time ranting about the movie today. My last message regarding this is

Equilibrium. Go see it. Now.

That’s it for today, check back next week for non-music rants.

Raven out.