Why Warner Music Group should be sued

By now I assume a lot of you have heard about the conflicts between Youtube and Warner Music Group. If you haven’t,then I’ll start with a quick crash course (Skip this paragraph if you at least know what Youtube is): Youtube is a website that was created for the purpose of social networking, video blogging, and independent movie producing, among other things. Its a website where you upload a video to share it with some of the close-knit community and have them comment on it, potentially gaining a criticism or two on how to improve. As more people caught on to the website, it was bought by Google for a large sum of money, causing the creators to rake in a whole bunch of money combined with what they got for advertising. Even more people caught on after this, especially businesses who saw an opportunity to milk the cash cow for all it was worth. Some, like Viacom, set out to sue everybody involved in the website and steal a portion of their money, as well as exploiting the website for their own advertising uses. Others sought to partner with Youtube, offering videos and assistance in exchange for another portion of money.

One of these companies was Warner Music Group, and it was more instrumental to the site. Recently, though, business negotiations between the two entities have completely collapsed, and Warner Music Group has stated that until negotiations re-open, they will be removing any and all Youtube videos containing any of their copyrighted material, effective immediately. This has resulted in what can only be described as a metric fuckton of videos from various artists, including Disturbed, Slipknot, Stone Temple Pilots, Van Halen, Killswitch Engage, and Linkin Park (Meh, not too concerned about this one) being completely purged from the site.

Now, I understand that WMG needs to find ways to make money in order to keep running. I understand that when you aren’t being paid for your work, you have full license to remove it from use until payment is made. That’s basic economics. If that was all there was to it, then I’d take it in stride and just get over the fact that about 4/5 of the music I listen to is no longer available on Youtube, will not be for at least a good deal of time, and, worse comes to worst, may not even be available on Youtube any more.

Except for the fact that-you know-they’re not only removing their own material, but the material of other labels.

Recently, I checked all the dead links in my favorites, and I noticed that among all of Warner’s actual material, a bunch of my George Carlin clips, as well as a slideshow set to “Don’t fear the reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult, had been removed due to WMG copyright claims. Now, as far as I know, I might be wrong about the Carlin material. To my knowledge, the only corporate entity to exercise control over George Carlin’s stand-up routines was HBO, but maybe Warner got a hold of it as well, I don’t know. But Blue Oyster Cult’s music is owned and copyright by Sony Music Group, NOT Warner. In fact, many people have taken notice of WMG’s actions, so much so that it is even listed on WMG’s Wikipedia article.

This means that Warner Music Group has no interest in keeping its media from being used unfairly. Warner Music Group is simply trying to remove as many of Youtube’s most viewed music-related videos as possible, thus reducing traffic at a slow yet steady rate until Youtube concedes and finally gives up the bribe money. Warner Music Group is, essentially, extorting Youtube. This is not copyright enforcement, this is typical corporate bullshit in an attempt to scrounge up a few more measly bucks. It’s pathetic, and why nobody has bothered to take action against WMG (As they are clearly violating the copyright of Sony Music Group, as well as others) is well beyond me.

My Bloody Valentine 3D

Shit was SO cash.

Seriously, though, it was a good movie… great by remake standards, considering the industry standard is a foreign horror movie with different actors, slightly tweaked dialogue and maybe a minuscule detail or two added. The marketing was a bit cheesy, but beyond that, I was pretty psyched for this. And as opposed to a few other movies I’ve planned on seeing, I didn’t walk out with crushing disappointment and a seething urge to buy The Anarchist’s Cookbook from the nearest Barnes & Noble just so I know the best way to torch the involved studios to their foundations.

The movie starts out on a surprising note-the text “BURIED ALIVE!” appears on the screen in bold headline text, accompanied by a loud thump and a classic “doo doo doo DOOOOOOO” suspense track made up in Pro Tools. As the movie cycles through various news stories, both through newspaper articles and assorted radio clips, we learn the backstory, which stays somewhat loyal to the original-a freak explosion has trapped a group of miners in the Harmony coal mines. On top of the economic stand-still brought on by the loss of the small town’s most important revenue source, innocent miners are trapped helplessly underground, and before long, the rescue effort becomes a body search. That is, until the comatose Harry Warden is discovered in the mines. Harry is hailed as a hero by the townspeople until autopsies are done on the bodies…turns out the miners were killed by pickax injuries rather than asphyxiation or explosion trauma, meaning that Harry murdered all of the other miners to save air for himself. Things only take a turn for the worse when Harry wakes up from his coma and decides that he needs to viciously slaughter random townspeople to vent stress.

Fast-forward 10 years: Axel, Tom, Irene, and Sarah, the only 4 people who managed to escape Harry’s massacre, aren’t doing too well for themselves. Axel acts as the town’s sheriff with a stub of a fuse, Sarah is his mistreated wife, Tom is a jaded drifter, and Irene sleeps around with other people. Tom returns to town, making his intent to sell his father’s mine in a misguided attempt to leave the past behind public, and further complicates Axel’s marriage to Sarah in the process. And just when things seem to be as bad as they can be, Irene is found dead in a motel room, bludgeoned to death by a pickax.

First off, the movie is marketed as a date movie, and that could not be more true. The movie is so full of jump scares that one of its main reasons for existing is obvious. A good portion of the scares are a bit cheap, on top of that… the movie utilizes the technique of “distract the audience with some happening on screen then HOLY SHIT LOUD JUMP TRACK AND SUDDEN POP OUT FROM OFF SCREEN” to a good extent. If you ever need a good excuse to snuggle with your fright-stricken mate, here’s your chance.

As you’ve probably noticed from the corny commercials for the movie, it’s filmed in RealD-3D to make the movie more immersible and scarier as a result, and this is used very well throughout the movie. Blooming fire licks hungrily at your lenses, the point of a pickax is constantly coming too close for comfort, flecks of blood pop out at the unfortunate viewers, and a drunkard punches a mirror positioned in front of the screen, causing a nice crack over everything. Despite this, it still isn’t incredibly realistic, and it was a bit milked at points, as if the director wanted the viewers to remember that it was a 3D movie… for example, there was one scene where a man dragged the barrels of his shotgun across the screen at a painfully slow rate, creating an ever so slight pop-out effect that had a strong air of “OH EM GEE U GUYZ THIS IS BEING DONE IN 3D! ISN’T THAT AMAZING?” But then again, neither of these really matter when you have the illusion that a pickax is sticking out of your bleeding eye.

As for people who have seen the original, don’t go into the movie expecting the same ending as the original. I did, and it started to look that way, but things turned on me at the last second. People complained about the execution of the big twist, but my jaw was on the floor. Maybe this is because I spent the whole movie thinking “oh it’s totally going to end this way” and had that notion quickly turned on its head, but I still felt like it was one of the better parts of the movie.

Overall, can I recommend it? Sure I can. It’s a bit over-the-top at times, but still fun. They find all sorts of wonderful, surprising ways to kill people with a pickax, so it’s never really one-note. Exposition was a bit minimal, but that meant more tense moments to keep people interested. And if none of this grabs your attention, you get to see a girl slowly decapitated from the jaw up with a shovel.

Also,on a creepy note, the night after I went to see My Bloody Valentine, I went downstairs to calm down my frantically barking dog. As I looked out the window, I saw what looked like a fairly good-sized flashlight shining only a few feet away from the porch, moving as if looking around. It almost seemed like the light on Harry Warden’s hard hat. Needless to say, I tore ass right upstairs. Something walked across the porch… and that was it. Kind of a weird experience, especially right after I saw a movie about a homicidal maniac with a flashlight on his head that spends all his time tearing people new holes with his mining implement.

The Spirit

This seems to be another one of those love or hate movies… a lot of the people who have reviewed this movie (At least as far as I’ve read) have panned it, while the people who like it pretty much balance the scale a bit. Personally, I find it a bit hard to see why so many people hated the movie, although I can think of one reason that I’ll go ahead and point out. If you’re interested in seeing The Spirit, keep this in mind… regardless of the fact that it’s directed by Frank Miller, it isn’t all grim and gritty, or even serious. About half the movie is, but the other half is a bit more whimsical, cartoonish, and tongue-in-cheek, so if you’re only going in to watch Gabriel Bacht backflip neatly over other people’s bullets and find out what he wants to by kicking ass and taking names, you’re going to be somewhat disappointed.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the actual movie a bit. In case you don’t know the story yet (And I’m not really spoiling all too much, since you can find this out on the official website), The Spirit is based on an old series of comics about a cop who gets killed on duty, only to awaken in his coffin a few hours later and find out that he recovers from any injury well and extraordinarily quickly. Taking up the mantle of The Spirit to protect his beloved city from outside the restrictive judicial system, he sets out to punish evildoers. The most notorious and recurring of these is The Octopus, a criminal mastermind who seems to have regenerative powers that directly match those of The Spirit’s.

The movie closely resembles a comic book feel. The mood is very bipolar, going from humorous to serious, morose to cheesy, and exciting to slapstick in no time at all. An example of this happens early on in the film, where a heated fistfight between the two quickly transforms into a Looney Tunes-esque “break ridiculously heavy things over each other’s heads” sequence. This probably doesn’t seem like the makings of an R-rated movie, but the characters swear and there are hints of graphically violent happenings, such as a man blowing his brains out with a pistol or getting sliced in half with a katana.

The setting of the movie is somewhat interesting-a semi-modern portrayal of the 1950s, when the comic began. Ford Mercurys fill the streets and most people dress up in suits, but people use cell phones and laptops. Frank Miller’s trademark gritty grayscale permeates the entire movie, but during the few daytime shots there are, it softens up somewhat and allows a few brighter colors to show, offering a little variety. The Octopus is a bit of an outlandish villain, getting sidetracked during serious occasions, constantly fighting an urge to kill everyone around him, and making everything he does into a comparison to eggs. Seriously, things that annoy him are egg on his face, he doesn’t like hurting The Spirit as much as he likes eggs, and the mere mention of the words free range chicken sends him into a tirade about how awful their big brown eggs are.

Overall, the movie is random, cheesy, and outlandish… and in the end, that’s what made it so fun for me. I’ve never read The Spirit, but I imagine the movie stays loyal to its namesake. It never takes itself too seriously, it doesn’t maintain a single mood throughout, and it exaggerates damn near everything it does. If that sounds like something you’d really enjoy, then I recommend that you see it. If you’re looking for something more action-packed and mature, I hear Gran Torino is really good.