Top 10 of 2012

As voted by yours truly, and as part of a time-honored tradition, I now present the list of the ten best films of the year of our Lord two-thousand twelve. As always, if you disagree with me you are wrong.

10. The Amazing Spider-Man
If you know the business behind why this movie was made, it means that like me you're probably a huge nerd and spend way too much time on the Internet. But it also means that we were sort of doomed to dislike this film.  However, because I'm also a die-hard fan of the character, I waited with bated breath to see how this movie turned out. Legal issues aside, and ignoring the money machine that demanded it, Spider-Man's return to the silver screen, while not glorious in every regard, turned out way better than I expected it to. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is a revelation, and the pieces are in place to turn this into an *ahem* amazing franchise.
Sorry about that.

9. Skyfall
In a year full of reboots and remakes and sequels (that's the nature of the beast, live with it), Skyfall actually manages to stand out and meets the standard set by Casino Royale so many years ago. Daniel Craig is perfect, the new additions to the story were well implemented, and the use of practical effects, amazing stunts, and engaging set-pieces make Skyfall a candidate for one of the best Bond films of all time. A perfect marriage of the old and the new, and one of the best experiences I had in the theater all year.

8. Killer Joe
William Friedkin seems to have this new thing about making movies based on plays about characters who are fucking insane. And that's exactly what makes Killer Joe so damn entertaining. Matthew McConaughey plays a deranged hitman hired by a family of trailer-park dwellers to off their mother and collect her life insurance policy. You can already guess that things go wrong. What follows is a treat to behold. Friedkin gets incredible performances from his actors every time, and the last fifteen minutes of this movie (much like Michael Shannon at the end of Bug) is one of the stand-out moments of the year for me. Unforgettable, shocking, crude, darkly hilarious. Seek it out.

7. Indie Game
This year's documentary slot goes to a film about three independent video game developers that allows us to learn about their lives, their craft, and the passion they have for what they do. Although some of them have differing philosophical ideas about what they do, they are all artists. They are all human beings. And the best documentaries should be about just that: humans and their nature. Even if you don't play video games, this movie is entertaining, emotional, and enlightening.

6. Moonrise Kingdom
Coming in to this film fresh and unclouded, I found it to be just as amazing as die-hard Wes Anderson fans did, and I don't even watch Wes Anderson movies. It's innocent without feeling kitschy. The power and immediacy of young love is captured perfectly, and it's combined with Anderson's visual flair, striking photography, and a roundtable of great performances from an ensemble cast. It's like a capsule of joy and good feelings waiting to be opened.

5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Not a whole lot to say about this one. If you don't like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you aren't going to like this either. If you do, then you've probably already seen it or are waiting to see it. It's not perfect (it's a little too long, little too much WETA magic, story kind of meanders and takes liberties with the source material) but it is a fun and joyous return to Middle-Earth, which is all I could ask for.

4. Looper
I knew I was going to love this movie going in, but I honestly did not expect it to end up as high on this list as it did. But it's a testament to just how great original ideas are, and how desperately we need more of them in Hollywood. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays an assassin who takes out criminals sent to him from the future, then the older version of him (played by Bruce Willis) shows up and everything gets topsy-turvy. Sound confused? Don't let it deter you. Very few films about time travel are this risky, and you could drive semi trucks through the plot holes, but that would destroy the purpose of the film. Rian Johnson doesn't want to bog you down in semantics and logic of time travel and its implications. What he does want to do is a little difficult to talk about. Good sci-fi is hard to come by, but we faithful know it when we see it, and Looper fits the bill.

3. Prometheus
Our other sci-fi candidate of the year, and it just barely edges past Looper on the count that it has slightly more to say and is made by a master of the craft, who after an extremely long wait has returned to the well to deliver a film that is big, bold, thought-provoking, thrilling, visually arresting without sacrificing believability, and includes enough fan service to satisfy us faithfuls (who are notoriously picky and difficult to please) but also remain welcoming to newcomers, reminding the new school (Chris Nolan comes to mind) to respect their elders. A mighty achievement indeed.

2. Django Unchained
Quentin Tarantino doesn't make bad movies. Django is no exception. While still ostensibly a tale of revenge, do not make the mistake of thinking Tarantino is relying on old tricks to make a paycheck. Django and his journey is the most well-developed thing Tarantino has crafted so far. Django Unchained is about a lot of nasty things, things Tarantino doesn't want you to ignore, but he also doesn't want to make a film that is preachy. And so this thematically rich, extremely well-written film gets wrapped up in a bloody, Spaghetti western-style/exploitation homage package that fires on every cylinder. It's impossible to deny. Don't write it off as just a splatterfest either. Perhaps the most incredible thing about Tarantino's latest movie is that he has learned to temper himself: when the film explodes in a parade of violence and gore, it's because the story calls for it, and you will want to leap out of your seat and roar in satisfaction.

1. The Avengers
Call me biased, but The Avengers was always the obvious choice, if for no other reason than it is a goddamn miracle this film turned out this good. Joss Whedon flexes about as much muscle as a geek can and makes a movie that accomplishes several things at once:
A) being a gigantic, holy-shit popcorn movie that nerds wet themselves over,
B) making good on a promise made many years ago that some people (including me) have been waiting most of their adult lives to see,
C) representing the capstone to a franchise that began with Iron Man that is attempting (and royally succeeding at) something never tried before, bringing different fictional characters from the comic-book landscape together into one shared fictional universe of movies, just like the comic books themselves share one fictional universe,
D) being well-written enough to bring all those characters together at once, get at the heart of who they are, create believable conflicts between them, and make sure none of them feel flat or one-dimensional,
E) raising the bar for superhero films and summer action films all at once.
The Avengers, simply put, is a monument of this generation. No matter where the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes from here or how old I get, I will always remember the excitement, the anticipation, the apprehension of waiting for this film to happen, and the indescribable joy and ecstasy of finally seeing it on the big screen.

The Brazen and the Queer

David Foster Wallace, on many occasions, wrote about how irony had replaced sentimentality in our culture, and why this was an extremely dangerous trend for art. If you need that idea to be expanded on, then this little diatribe isn't for you.
There is no songwriter alive today who is more actively aware of this than Max Bemis, and his lyrics have reflected it since he was old enough to buy alcohol. Bemis ostensibly writes what we refer to as "emo" music, although that term is all too often used as pejorative and doesn't adequately reflect what the genre is trying to say and do (one needs look no further than the aptly titled "IN DEFENSE OF THE GENRE" available in a store near you). Bemis knows that our culture is on the brink of total annihilation if we don't get back in touch with a very deep and very real, one might say "human", part of ourselves.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that means [*cringe*] getting in touch with our feelings.
See, what separates us from the animal kingdom (apart from the literally hundreds of things that separate us from the animal kingdom) is our capacity for all sorts of different emotions that affect our behavior and decision making. We do not operate on instinct alone, much the way a dog or a cat inherently "loves" that which feeds it, but instead a part of our makeup that allows for a deeper connection with a shared psyche, and in turn use that to communicate in a language everyone can understand. I'm referring to the soul, and that language is art.
However, the postmodern attitude that has dominated since the late 80's/early 90's in American pop culture has all but destroyed the notion of the "emotional" (see: emo) and, with the help of mass media, replaced it with a hip, apathetic, ironic attitude that values individualism to the point of solipsism. While this may sound shallow and harmless on the surface, it is in fact a problem that permeates every aspect of our daily life, even if you don't realize it. But where it is most noticeable is in our art.
Let's all face it: the music on the radio is shit. It's been shit for a long time and we're actually starting to forget when it was ever good to begin with, but it's getting worse. We all hate it yet we keep buying it. On one hand, we cannot be blamed. After all,  it's far easier to listen to what's being effectively marketed to you (make no mistake: it's ALL marketing). Let's pull a page from Kid Rock's book. Love him or hate him, the man makes a good point:

If it looks good, you'll see it. If it sounds good, you'll hear it. If it's marketed right, you'll buy it. But if it's real... you'll feel it. 

And he's absolutely right. But we can seek out that which we feel; we can rebel. We can rage against the machine. That's where the "emo" comes in.
Emo is my favorite genre of music, and Max Bemis's band Say Anything's most recent album "Anarchy My Dear" is my favorite record of the year for this exact reason. No other genre of music today is more in touch with this profound philosophic idea than emo. When I was in high school, I listened to nothing but heavy metal because A) I was a rebellious teenager and B) it made me feel powerful. The lyrics and themes of metal revolve around that concept almost exclusively, which is all well and good, but even that primal force of feeling is dipped in the irony-sauce, and some of my favorite metal bands from my youth seem less majestic in retrospect when I realize how un-serious and superficial it all was.
But Say Anything isn't like that. It's genuine to the point of nauseating. It takes all the things you're too afraid to think and say for fear of being laughed at and ridiculed and expresses all of them in way that's impossible to deny. Max Bemis is the paragon of it. He isn't afraid to say what he feels, in fact, he needs to say what he feels. He knows that saying what he feels is not only important but necessary, and the fans respond to it in a way that's hard to put into words. There's a reason fans of SA are more devoted than any you'll find who are hooked up to the mainstream teat (one of them being that it is actually impossible to be a die-hard fan of a popular band, but that's beside the point). It's the same reason that once a year, Max Bemis personally writes songs for and delivers them to individual fans: because we have a soul, and so does he, and when you put a SA record in your CD player and hit play, those two ethereal balls of light glow fiercely with a vibrant kinetic energy that is immediately heartbreaking, satisfying, cathartic, orgasmic; despite the fact that you and him could not be physically further apart. And for those of you out there who have never felt it, I genuinely feel sorry for you.

So fuck you, emo is awesome.

My Dearest Apollo

Wake up. What am I doing today? I don't remember.
Take your medicine. Brush your teeth. No, take your medicine first. You'll forget.
But what if my medicine is actually making it worse. Maybe I shouldn't take it today.
There's no way to know for sure. Better to be safe than sorry.
Maybe I really am addicted after all?
Not possible. That's the crazy talk.
But I'm talking to you too. And you say a lot of things. How does that work?
Hush.
Okay. Now what?
You need to work.
I can't.
You can, you choose not to.
That's even more frightening than not being able to. I would rather know that I am physically incapable of doing something rather than constantly choosing not to do anything.
You're really more afraid of yourself than you are of me?
Shitless.
Well I guess that makes sense. After all, it wasn't me that went out on that bender. It wasn't me that put that mark there. You know, the one everyone keeps asking about. At family gatherings. At friend's houses. In living rooms. In bars.
I don't remember who that is.
Yes you do. It's the real you. You think this is real? This is made up. You manufactured this. I'm here to make you confront your deepest fears.
But I can't face it. I won't. It's all made up anyway. That's all in my head. That's the alternate reality, convincing me of lies. And that's all you are: a liar.
You say this now, yet you allow the lies to become your reality. You know that the more we sit here and talk, the more you're going to realize that you're one-hundred percent completely fucked. And you should give up while you're still ahead.
Enough!
You're not even ahead as it is. You're so far behind it's stupid. You aren't in last: the race already ended and you're still crawling towards the finish line. No one's in the stands. No one's watching. They went home. So you can quit now. They don't care.
Well...
Exactly. Look at this: they all tell you it's okay, you're okay, everything's okay. How can it be okay? You've seen enough movies, read enough books to know exactly how these stories go. There's no possible way this is okay. Are you forgetting the part where
Stop!
Or the part with the crying and screaming. And all the things you shouldn't have said out loud.
That was you!
No, it was you.
No, it was you. It was always you. It was you to begin with. It was always okay, and it still is. The only reason I made things less okay is because you made me think it wasn't okay, so I said fuck it, let's make it as not-okay as it can get. But I didn't have to do that. I could have stopped it...
Right.
Wait...
Yes. Your fault.
No, that's not what I meant. It's yours. I didn't mean to.
You just said you did. You intentionally made it worse. You knew exactly what you were doing.
But that's because I thought I knew exactly what was wrong.
Which is everything.
Which is nothing!
Look: where are your friends now? They're afraid of you. They know what you're capable of now.
I'm capable of good.
But you only do bad.
No, you only do bad. You only cause me harm. Why can't I just get rid of you! Why do you fucking do this to me every day of my life!
Well, look at who's all upset now. And you've only been awake for an hour. Guess what.
Now what?
It'll be this way tomorrow too. And the day after. And the week after that. And next month. And the following year.
Oh Jesus...
So end it now! I mean, look at this mess!
There is no mess. There is no mess. There is no mess. Everything's fine. I swear to God everything's fine. I swear to
Oh dear Lord, this is hilarious! Look at you! You might as well be clutching your knees and rocking back and forth. You are a pathetic cliche.
Please don't let me cry, please don't let them see me cry, this is going to pass this is going to pass this is
This is your reality. Open your eyes. Everything you see right now: it's all real. You can see everyone's thoughts. You're a smart guy, put it together. They all know you're pathetic, because they see what I see right now: a baby! A whimpering child! And it disgusts them. They pity you.
I'm fine I'm okay I'm just fine everything's fine
So here's the deal. You're smart. Oh no, I'll give you that. Otherwise I probably couldn't have sprung up in the first place. So you know a thing or two. They're on to you, but you can still trick them. Trick them one final time. Smile, say hello, give hugs. Make promises. Sound cheerful. Make a joke, laugh along. Let them think I'm not here, and then when they turn their back, let it out. Let every black part out, bleed it out on the floor, let everyone see it, and show them what they were missing all along. And you can die laughing.
What will that accomplish?
Well, it'll silence me once and for all. That's what you want, isn't it? Plus it will prove them wrong. They all underestimate you. They don't take you seriously. They've never felt like you, they've never bled like you, you've known this all along. You were special. You were exceptional. You were genius! So show them. Make them all know. It's only fair, after all this torture. They can never give you what you need. They're only hurting you, while you hurt yourself, and hurt them, and hurt me as I hurt you as the whole big cycle of hurt perpetuates itself and never stops and you can't stop it because you don't even know where it begins or ends.
No. That's not what I want.
Okay, so then don't let them see it. Spare them the final act. They deserve that, anyway. I won't even deny that. I mean, you don't want your grand finale to leave them as fucked up as you, do you?
This isn't me! You are not me! I am me!
Or...could it be that the evil twin is the original to begin with? That I am in fact superior in every way? You know, that whole ego/superego thing. You studied philosophy. You know how this works.
No, you're made up.
Hmm?
It's all in my head. It's all in my head.
Keep telling yourself that.
I can just stop thinking about this right now and go back to...
Back to...?
What? Nothing.
What is it you were doing?
I guess I forgot...
You're getting nothing done today, are you?

"Hey man, what's wrong?"
"Huh? Sorry. What?"
"Look, you can't hide it. Something's upsetting you. Just tell me what's wrong."
"...I don't know man."

The Future is Now

Continuing with a series of pop-culture dissection pieces, let's shift gears and talk about video games.
Maybe art isn't dead after all.

In a recent video posted online by Adam Sessler (following his departure from G4 and subsequent acquisition from some corporation I've never heard of in what can only be described as the geek-version of the Conan O'Brien fiasco), he talks about the element of "choice" in video games. "Choice" here meaning: let's let the player decide how to play this game. Specifically, he mentions Dishonored, a recent title that has a singular, plot-driven story and characters but features nearly endless ways to play the game, assassinate targets, and accomplish goals. If you want to use magic, swords, sorcery, or any number of otherworldly, metaphysical powers; all options are at your disposal.
Now, this isn't a new idea. It's not groundbreaking, nor is it revolutionary. But in an era where we are constantly looking to the future and trying to decide what is going to break the mold or be the "next big thing," this is actually worth taking a look at. See, developers have had this idea for years, they just haven't implemented it properly.

Enter Bethesda Studios. Bethesda is on the cusp of this trend, and have been championing it for years. They're all about crafting a world where each player can have a unique experience. All their current-gen releases have been exemplars of this philosophy (Elder Scrolls, Fallout), and Dishonored continues the tradition but, from what I'm observing, adds a new twist to the formula. A game like Elder Scrolls: Skyrim features a robust, sprawling world and endless ways to interact with it, but lacks a concrete, plot-and-character driven story. That's not to say the plot is necessarily bad, it's just that the focus of the game is not on narrative. It's on gameplay and aesthetics. This relates back to what Sessler is talking about, though. The biggest push in video games today is towards player choice. Whereas before, we were focused on cinematic, big-budget entertainment in video games. Look at Call of Duty, Uncharted, and ultimately the pinnacle of cinema-driven games, Metal Gear Solid 4. The focus of making a game that resembles an interactive movie is slowly eroding away, and being replaced by something much more exciting: making a game where you are the director of your own movie.

Now, let's look at Rockstar Games, and Naughty Dog. Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne) are already well-known pioneers of story and character driven games. Just look at Red Dead Redemption or the arcs of Niko Bellic in GTAIV and Tommy Vercetti in Vice City. Not to mention the titular character of Max Payne, whose most recent outing on consoles featured a story many critics hailed as being as well-written as any novel or Oscar-winning film. Rockstar knows how to make great games with great stories, and it's due in no small part to the work of Dan Houser, who writes all their games and comes up with the plots. He and his brother Sam started out as two film nerds in London who decided to start developing games, and they bring that sensibility with them to the studio. However, one thing their games have lacked is strong player choice. GTA and Max Payne can only be played in one way: shoot, shoot, shoot.
And Naughty Dog? They're behind The Last of Us, one of the most highly anticipated titles of 2013. Nerds are foaming at the mouth over this game, even though there's only one proper gameplay demo of it in existence right now. Why all the fervor?
I have a theory. It's player choice. The main character in the demos for The Last of Us is shown dispatching enemies in an abandoned, run-down building in very spontaneous, organic ways, indicating that the player is free to choose how to get rid (or not get rid) of them however they want. It helps that what would once be a context-based quicktime event plays out dynamically (or not at all) and that the execution animations are beautiful, but I feel that Naughty Dog is picking up on this as well. And it's incredibly exciting. If a game like The Last of Us can truly deliver on the promise of organic, choose-your-own-adventure combat the way the advertisements look, it will be one of the most mindblowing video games of our generation.
Rockstar seems to understand this as well. This past week, details have been dropped like bombshells on the internet regarding how GTAV, the next major Rockstar title also due to arrive next year, is going to look and play like. The first object of note is the sandbox itself. Rockstar has always been on the forefront, along with Bethesda, of creating wide-open worlds to play in that breathe and pulse and come to life on-screen. This time around, the setting of GTAV is expected to be five times larger than its predecessor.
Let that sink in for a moment. A map that large will be the largest sandbox world in the history of video games, which is a feat in and of itself, but Rockstar is not stopping there. GTAV is also going to feature 3 playable characters that you can switch to on the fly, and when you're not controlling 2 of these characters, they function in this real world on their own, with their own set of priorities and ideals. Missions that involve all three characters is where all these new mechanics will meet and introduce an entirely new level of choice to the player: each character has a different role to play in each mission, and you can choose which role you want to assume. Theoretically, every player could go through this scenario and not have the same experience. Instead of Rockstar holding your hand and showing you this "movie" they've created, now you are in control of how it plays out and what it looks like. Combine this new aesthetic with the already concrete idea of fleshed out characters and deep, engaging story that Rockstar waves around like a war banner, and you have a recipe for an entirely new type of game on your hands.
Other, more mainstream developers are taking notice. Look at the most recent Call of Duty game that just hit shelves this week. Black Ops II features a single-player campaign with multiple playable characters and events where you choose how they play out and where the story goes, and the game is receiving ludicrous praise for it.
The evidence is in: today's generation of gamers no longer want to be pointed in what direction to go, they want craft an experience for themselves through an interactive medium, and it becomes its own reward. There is no more need for high scores and trophies if by the time the credits roll you sit back and realize you just experienced something you're not likely to soon forget.

It's exciting to think about the future of video games heading in this direction, especially when you consider how young the art form itself actually is. Video games are barely forty years old, and already are going lightyears beyond what film can hope to accomplish today in terms of legitimate artistic expression. Even more inspiring about the whole endeavor is surveying the popular landscape now and noticing how undeniably shit the art we're producing today is. Everyone always complains about a lack of ideas in Hollywood anymore; everything is either a sequel or a remake. Literary fiction struggles to capture an audience in a market dominated by teen paranormal romance or outright smut (see: "Twilight" and "Fifty Shades of Grey," respectively). Music that's produced by corporations and written by computers and more accurately resembles a turgid slime pours out of your radio every morning on the way to work. So where do we look for a shining beacon of hope?
The real ingenuity, creativity, and wellspring of ideas are currently in the video game industry, and I for one am excited for this revolution.

Evil Empire

It was announced today that Disney bought Lucasfilm Limited, the production company started by George Lucas that has produced, along with its subsidiaries, every major Star Wars property in history. Star Wars itself is arguably the most massive, easily recognized, all-encompassing fictional media franchise in the United States, and goes way beyond the six movies (which alone have grossed over $4.3 billion).

This is the main reason people are paying attention to the story, and is what is currently dominating your news feeds, twitter accounts, news sites, blogs, and basically every other medium in the multiverse seeking to force images and information into your eyeballs. It is likely what people will remember from this story years from now, and it's understandable why: when Disney bought Lucasfilm Limited, they simultaneously announced that they would be producing Star Wars Episode VII. The seventh Star Wars film has already become one of the most highly anticipated films of all time (probably even moreso than The Avengers or The Hobbit). It will make a bajillion dollars and everyone will watch it.

But I'm not here to discuss Episode VII, or George Lucas. It's too early to care. I want to talk about Disney.

The Walt Disney Corporation is the world's largest media conglomerate, and it's about to ruin your fucking lives. You see, the United States has a set of what are called antitrust laws that are put in place to prohibit unfair business practices and to encourage competition in the market, which is the driving force behind our economy. When one entity has control over the products, competition decreases and the economy slows down. When this same practice is applied to the arts, the quality of art decreases while profit increases. Everyone suffers, no one wins.
Why do I mention this? Because now, Disney owns practically everything. You love Disney and you don't even know it. Disney decides what you're going to see and what you're going to like. Disney has become a monopoly. Oh sure, they're not doing anything wrong in the legal sense, but to the arts they are practically getting away with murder. This affects you.
Let's break it down real quick.

List of shit owned by Disney:
ABC 
ESPN (No, really)
Hollywood Records (A major label that owns acts ranging all the way from Demi Lovato to Breaking Benjamin)
Hulu
Several local television stations from coast to coast
Saban (The guys who brought you Power Rangers, among others, although they are currently fighting to get their intellectual property back)
Pixar Animation Studios
Marvel Entertainment (This means every single comic book character you love, and every medium they appear in)
Lucasfilm Limited
And every other thing with DISNEY slapped on it that you see in stores.

If, upon reading through such a list, you feel a slight pinch in your stomach, sweat break on your forehead, or your asshole clenching, don't worry: this means you are still human. Disney will not stop until they strangle everything you love in their clutches. And why? Why must one single entity have so much power? You need not look to Disney himself. Walt Disney was a spectacular man, a real American hero. He wanted to provide entertainment to children all over the world at prices every family could afford. But did you know that nearly every major Disney acquisition of the last decade has occurred without the Disney family's consent? In fact, no Disneys are even involved in the company. Roy E. Disney, Walt's nephew, died over seven years ago. Since then, all major decisions have been handled by this man:

His name is Bob Iger, and he's the goddamn devil. He has even been quoted as saying that the Walt Disney Corporation seeks to "buy characters or businesses that are capable of creating great characters and great stories."  That article's tone now has an ominous foreshadowing quality to it, realizing that the "next big thing" was Lucasfilm Limited. Keep this in mind: Marvel Entertainment (Disney) produced one of the highest grossing films of all time this year (The Avengers). Lucasfilm Limited produces way more than just Star Wars material (but make no mistake, they produce a shitload of Star Wars material). They also own Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, two major effects companies that produce visual effects and sound effects for all sorts of big studio films worldwide, and are considered to be some of the best in the business (I agree).
What this all has to do with, what I'm getting at here, is a new world order. You see, you don't realize it yet, but today is a major turning point in history. Today, with the acquisition of Lucasfilm Limited by the Walt Disney Corporation, marks the death of the new pioneers. In the post-Cold War era, America (arguably) would come to know two major entities that redefined visual entertainment forever: George Lucas and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, of course, was the founder of Apple and Pixar Animation Studios, and his legacy since his death has proven his influence on the popular culture. His name speaks for itself, I need not delve into his accomplishments or remind you of his renaissance-man stature. George Lucas was the hive-mind, singular creative consciousness behind Star Wars and every other major Lucasfilm property (including, to an extent, Indiana Jones). Now, say what you want about Lucas: say he ruined Star Wars with the prequels, say he raped Indiana Jones and shit on your childhood and say he can't write his way out of a paper bag. These things may be true. And you're free to believe them. But do not deny the impact he has left by creating those properties to begin with. The man is a goddamn genius. And now he's gone. With Disney gobbling up his brainchild, Lucas is no longer the man behind the scenes, pulling the strings. You're celebrating this now (want proof? Just look at all the fanboys on Facebook jizzing themselves in anticipation for a Lucas-free Episode VII), but you've simply traded in one devil for another. And this one has much larger, sharper teeth.
As for Steve Jobs? Oh right, he's not around anymore either. These men were true artists, people to be admired. They epitomized the American dream. And with them, that dream dies today.

Creativity : stifled
Competition : nullified

Welcome to the new dark ages.

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest

Did you enjoy "The New Aesthetic"? Then maybe you'll take some time to swing on over to America's Next Author and vote for it to be a finalist in the first ever social media based online writing contest! While you're there, feel free to leave an honest, constructive review and share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media outlet!

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. V (The New Aesthetic)

A crisp breeze rolled down the street and nipped at Nicholas's face, and he drew the collar of his jacket up around and his chin and braced himself against the cold.

It was rush hour. All around him, on both sides of the street, pedestrians trudged along back to their homesteads. Working men, men in suits, women in heels, people with coats and blazers and dresses and large hats. None of them looked at each other as they passed, bumping into each other with barely a murmur of apology as they hurried along. Nick saw all this and felt even more despair. He wondered how so many men and women could occupy so small an area and see each other every day, coming and going, yet never even acknowledge them or realize that they were all people, all the same deep down. He wanted to reach out and grab them by their lapels and shout at them, demand that they explain why they had all abandoned their fellow man. An even worse chill was blowing through him, and it wasn't just the weather. It was the cold, impersonal way every person on the street treated each other. For a moment, Nick marveled at the irony of how technology had utterly failed in its one sole purpose: to bring people together. Cell phones and social networking and personal computer tablets. Instant messaging, emails, texts. None of this was improving the way human beings interacted with each other, Nicholas realized. In fact it was having the opposite effect. Technology had revolutionized communication, all right, but it had turned everyone into isolated, solitary beings. A whole new generation of people living a life aesthetic, self-absorbed and tone-deaf. A text has no warmth to it, no real sense of connection or understanding. It is cold and impersonal. It rings false. Friend requests are not friendly. Emails cannot be sealed with a kiss. And you can not hug someone, kiss their lips, feel their heartbeat next to yours, through a video chat. Nicholas watched all the cars rolling up and down the street, breathing and undulating through the natural flow of traffic. It was like a living organism, he noticed, but even the drivers always stared straight ahead or looked at their phones or lit cigarettes. The only time a typical driver on the road ever interacts with another driver, he realized, was out of anger. Someone cut me off. Someone is speeding. Someone forgot to use their turn signal. It was pathetic. Didn't people care about one another anymore?

He saw and felt all these things and shoved his hands in his pockets, looked down at the sidewalk, and began to silently weep as he put one foot in front of the other. Nicholas no longer wanted to be on this planet. He did not want to be alive, not with these people. He thought, what's the point of continuing on if things never get better? If you cannot reach out and touch someone? Humans were not meant to go through this life alone, and what exacerbated his feelings the most was the fact that he had become one of them. He, too, had fallen victim to the new system. Nicholas Allen had been sucked in and now, he feared, he would never return to the real world.

No one paid any mind to the young man shuffling down the street and crying as the sun sunk lower and lower, plunging the world into night.

Ariel sucked down the rest of her margarita in one long, exaggerated slurp and lightly pushed the glass toward the center of the table where it joined the other three. Emily wore a perpetual frown on her face and kept looking around, mostly staring down, occasionally looking back at her friend, wondering if she would say anything. Hoping she would say something first.

The two of them had not spoken in over thirty minutes. Once Ariel put up her walls, it was nearly impossible to tear them down. Emily did not even know how to try. What was especially distressing to her at that moment was the inescapable feeling that she had forgotten how to get through to anyone, be it a total stranger or her best friend.

Ariel opened up her purse and began fishing around. Emily, not without a small degree of hesitation, opened her mouth nervously. “Ariel? Are you leaving?”

No response.

“Hello?”

She reapplied some lipstick and examined herself in pocket mirror.

“Please talk to me. Say anything.”

Ariel straightened her hair and scooted to the edge of the booth. “We are two completely different people. And that's fine, we don't have to be like each other. We don't even have to like each other. What use are friends anyway? I have plenty of friends like you, they never did me any good.”

“You've had a lot to drink. I don't think you should be driving.”

Ariel swayed as she rose, and planted a hand on the table. “I don't think we should meet up anymore. Let me live my life, you do the same.”

Tears welled up in Emily's eyes. Her face started to grow red and puffy.

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “Look, it's not that big a deal. Okay?” She flashed a false smile, then whirled around and glided her way toward the door, her steps marked by a drunken swagger.

“Ariel, please don't do this.” But her words fell on deaf ears. She sat in a sort of stunned silence for a moment, and looked around the restaurant. Most of the patrons had left, drunks were now grabbing their keys and shuffling toward the door. She glanced at the bartender, who looked away quickly and pretended he hadn't been listening and observing. He looked back. Their eyes met. He shrugged.

A moment had passed while Emily paid her bill, when suddenly a car horn sounded outside followed by a god-awful screech. She turned on her heel and ran outside.

Nick approached the intersection and wiped tears off his cheeks, sniffing loudly. His heartbeat singularly pushed him along. What happened next was fast and nearly imperceptible. A harsh squeal of brakes, an abruptly loud car horn. A feeling of something extremely heavy and powerful slamming into his side. All of the breath being forced from his lungs. The ground falling away from his feet, a view of the sky that rotated, glimmered in twilight, and then concrete rushing up to meet him. A brief sensation of extreme pain. Blackness.

Ariel Schuler stared straight ahead, unable to believe her eyes. Her knuckles held the steering wheel in a death grip and turned white. For a moment she could not think, was paralyzed by shock, and then quickly yanked her seatbelt off and leaped from the car, ran to where the boy was lying on the ground, unmoving, and her heels nearly slipped in spatters of blood and chunks of hair and flesh that surrounded the body. She had struck him with her car, catapulting him ten feet in the air where he twisted horizontally before colliding with the pavement. His head had hit first.

Suddenly Emily was at her side, crying and hysterical. Ariel merely stared at the lifeless form of the young man. She did not know how much time passed while she tried to make sense of the scenario. A strange silence enveloped the previously chaotic street that deafened Ariel until the faint wail of sirens could be heard from far off, rushing to the scene, but all she could say when the paramedics and eventually police officers arrived, over and over, shaking her head, was “I never saw him.”