Author: Cristina Córdova

Wanted comes on like a batshit crazy mash
up of a dozen other genre movies but manages to stand alone as something
more by the time it reaches its frenetic and bloody conclusion.

It’s probably (but only a
little) curmudgeonly to gripe about the apparently permanent change
in the visual language in action films in the post John Woo/Matrix era,
and Wanted displays no shame in borrowing (well, taking wholesale)
poses and sequences from these and other predecessors. Director Timur Bekmambetov refreshingly stands apart from lesser
imitators, though, by going for broke from the outset, invoking a jokey,
sardonic vibe that charges action confidently and unapologetically staged
in an R-rated universe.

James
McAvoy (last seen
in Atonement) plays Wesley Gibson, a corporate
minion suffering the kind of existential ennui that comes standard with
shackles to a cubicle. In a telling bout of self pity, Wesley
confirms his insignificance by Googling his name and returning zero results.
Unknown to Wesley, however, is his status as the lone heir to a world
class assassin and his latent ability to assume a role in the Fraternity,
an ancient order of executioners carrying out the will of fate, killing
few to save many. Angelina Jolie (Fox, a member of the Fraternity)
and Morgan
Freeman (Sloan,
its leader) soon save Wesley from an attempt on his life and in harrowing
fashion force him to confront and release his true nature as peerless
killer.

Wanted is adapted from
the best-selling six-issue comics miniseries (now compiled as
a graphic novel)
by popular writer Mark Millar and artist J.G. Jones. Producers were so enthused
and eager to translate the comic to the screen that they began developing
the project while Millar and Jones were still completing the series.
Though not a completely faithful translation (the comic portrays a
world in which villains conspire to successfully eliminate all
the world’s superheroes) the film retains many key characters, sequences,
and elements, and the series’ playful mean streak and dark wit.

Bekmambetov is known to film
and horror fans as the director of the Russian blockbuster Night Watch and its sequel Day Watch. Wanted is his first
English language film, and his sensibility immediately injects a swagger
that has been missing from recent action fare. Though some of
the movie’s better set pieces and visual treats are partially betrayed
in trailers, ads, and other movies from which they are borrowed, inventive and entertaining sequences abound, and the aforementioned
embrace of adult-oriented mayhem is welcome and long overdue for action
fans weaned on the stuff that supposedly inspires these types of movies
in the first place.

Wanted will be far too
outlandish and lurid for some (perhaps many), but it crashes into theaters
mostly self aware and with those traits going for it as much as against
it.

Wanted opens in theaters Friday (June
27)

Given Edgar Allan Poe’s well-known fear of being buried alive, the
claim that the horror writer and poet "must be rolling over in his
grave" at the prospect of Sylvester Stallone writing and directing the
biopic Poe is more than rote recitation of cliché. It’s definitely a
curious way for 61-year-old Sly to follow-up the cinematic Cialis he
recently gave to both the Rocky and Rambo franchises.

It’s also yet another bizarre turn in the trajectory of Poe’s
pop-culture legacy. First an NFL team, the Baltimore Ravens, takes its
name from his poem (its raven mascots are named Edgar, Allan, and Poe).
Then Poe’s great-great nephew, actor-musician Edgar Allan Poe IV,
appeared as the ghost of his great-great uncle on the sitcom Sabrina,
The Teenage Witch. A fictionalized Poe was also found sleuthing murders
with King of the Wild Frontier Davey Crockett in The Alienist-ish novel
Nevermore.

Yet it’s not the idea that the star of arm-wrestling epic Over The Top
or Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is doing a Poe movie that bothers me (the
man did write his own ticket with his script the original Rocky; let’s
show him some respect).

Even Stallone’s rumored casting notions (Robert Downey Jr., Viggo
Mortenson) seem on target—if too buff—for his portrait of the tortured
genius. So what’s the problem? It’s just that prospect of any Poe movie
being made renders Michael Jackson’s long-dormant dream of starring as
Edgar Allan Poe even more unlikely-and that’s a problem for me. Could
Wacko Jacko fall in the footsteps of Apollo Creed and Clubber Lang, and
become yet another black man knocked out by the Italian Stallion?
That’s no way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Thriller.

Some background: In 2000, USA Today reported that the King Of Pop had
finally seen the "very scary" script for his European-funded vanity
project The Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe and was gearing up to "devote
himself full-time to preparing for the role" of the author.

It was mind-blowing news, even by the (high? low?) standards of
tabloid staple Wacko Jacko, one that lends itself to jokes: Will he
instruct "The Tell-Tale Heart" to "just beat it?" Could we next expect
Jacko’s opportunistic sister Latoya to star as Virginia Woolf in A Room
of One’s Own? Would Emmanuel "Webster" Lewis be cast as Poe’s
child-bride Virginia? Would "The Raven" be replaced by Bubbles The
Chimp? Would we quoth The Raven "Mama-Say-Mama-Sa Mama-Tu Sa?"

And yes, the racial angle of the MJ casting also raised questions,
among them: How confused would’ve the late playwright August Wilson
been? But, let’s be honest — casting MJ as Poe is not as problematic
as, say, casting El DeBarge as Nathaniel Hawthorne. Whether it’s
because of the skin disease vitiligo, cosmetic bleaching or a
combination of both, Jackson’s pallid complexion looks even more Goth
than portraits of Poe’s pale visage. The issue here is not casting a
black man to play a white man; it’s casting an alien mannequin drag
queen apparently sculpted out of soap to play a white man.

Nonetheless, the King of Pop insists that he feels connected to Poe,
and maybe—DEFINITELY—because of the fact that I was obsessed with both
Jacko and Poe in elementary school, I believe him. Before we give
Michael’s movie a premature burial, let us consider the connections
between these two eerie American icons, "thrillers" both—and implore
Sylvester Stallone to do the same.

Both Jackson and Poe are arguably the most popular American export in
their respective fields, and major influences on those who followed.
Baudelaire was said to make his morning prayers to God and Edgar Allen
Poe, and Justin Timberlake and Usher are obviously both Michael Jackson
impersonators trying to moonwalk in MJ’s fleet footsteps.

There is also symmetry to their scandals. They both have been accused
of pedophilia; at the very least, they share a penchant for PYTs
(Pretty Young Things): Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia, and
Jackson has hosted many a sleepover with 13-year-old boys. Thus, their
sexuality has been wildly speculated about. In a posthumous
psychoanalysis of Poe, Dr. Maria Bonaparte theorized that Poe was
celibate, entertained thoughts of necrophilia and suffered from a
castration complex (her mentor, Dr. Sigmund Freud provided the preface
for this study).

Despite vehement assertions to Diane Sawyer, many said the same (well,
minus the necrophilia and castration stuff) of Jackson’s marriages to
Lisa Marie Presley and later, to his plastic surgeon’s nurse, Debbie
Rowe, even though they had two children together. (I’d also bet that
the paternity suit of a certain Billie Jean would get thrown out of
court in a hurry.)

They both struggled with financial difficulties despite being among
the best at what they did. Many historians say Poe was an opium addict;
Jackson revealed he had an addiction to the painkiller Demerol in court
papers. They both explored the pull of drugs in their work. Here’s
Poe’s narrator from "Ligeia," seeing visions of his dead lover: "In the
excitement of my opium dream (for I was habitually fettered in the
shackles of the drug), I would call aloud her name …"

Here’s Jackson, from Blood On The Dance Floor’s "Morphine":

Demerol Demerol Oh God he’s taking Demerol
Hee-hee-hee Demerol Demerol Oh my oh God it’s Demerol
Hee Oooh

Then there’s the Vincent Price connection. Price, of course, was the
on-screen embodiment of Poe’s work in such Roger Corman films as The
Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque Of The Red Death, and The Cask Of
Amontillado. He also provided the rap and maniacal cackle on the title
track of Jackson’s Thriller.

That’s not all. They both had a less-talented, oft-maligned brother
named Tito. Yep, that’s right — Tito Allan Poe. They both (except
Jackson) are widely credited with inventing the modern detective story.
They both (except Poe) were known for wearing a single white sequined
glove, allegedly wanting to buy the Elephant Man’s bones, and getting
their scalp burned by a pyrotechnic mishap while shooting a Pepsi
commercial.

Sure, skeptics may assert that Poe has a better chance of writing a
sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym before The Nightmares of
Edgar Allan Poe would take any Oscars, or even Golden Globes. Then
there’s always the camp that will insist that Prince does and will
always do everything better than Jackson. But those people obviously
haven’t seen Under The Cherry Moon lately, and I think Michael’s turn
as The Scarecrow in 1978’s The Wiz proves he can update classic
material,) These maybe nonexistent critics are also forgetting that
Jackson has worked with both Francis Ford Coppola (Disney’s 3-D Captain
Eo, to these eyes, a primary influence on The Matrix and Neo) and
Martin Scorsese (MJ’s "Bad" video, which featured Wesley Snipes as a
gang-banger challenging prep-schooler MJ’s manhood) back when that
meant really something.

Whether Jackson as Poe is bad meaning bad, or bad meaning good, or so
bad it’s good, who knows? But even if you don’t take into account
movie’s off-the-scale camp genius potential (R. Kelly’s "Trapped In The
Closet" would be rendered a trifle by comparison); think of Jackson as
an ambassador of American literature. I don’t know how big Poe’s work
is in Filipino prisons, but I bet he’ll be huge there after this movie.
So it is with this argument that I must ask Sylvester Stallone
resurrect another ‘80s icon, and cast Michael Jackson as Poe. C’mon
Rock, make a nightmare come true.

After six million three hundred
and seven thousand two hundred minutes, Rent’s lease on life will expire
in the Big Apple this fall. In the Mini Apple, aka Minneapolis/Saint
Paul, it will expire in a few days. Through June 22^nd the
touring company of the iconic musical will be at the Ordway Center for
the Performing Arts before packing up its things and leaving for good…at
least until the next national tour. I’m excited to be joined by
Emily Stagg who saw the show with me at the Ordway, as we dissect
Rent’s impact and cultural relevance 12 years later, as well as our
thoughts on the traveling cast.

How is the traveling show?

B. In academia, those
who can’t do, teach. Apparently in entertainment, those who can’t do,
tour. With the American Idol everyone-can-be-a-star revolution,
a symbiotic mutant sucker fish has attached Broadway to Idol and vice
versa. The first time I saw Rent? Pre-Idol Constantine Maroulis.
This time? Fourth season AI alum Anwar Robinson and South African
Idol Heinz Winckler. It’s not necessarily that bad, you get some
killer voices out of the deal. If there are tickets left, I would
say grab some just to hear Heinz Winckler belt through "One Song Glory."
On the downside, producers just love to jam notable stars into parts
whether they fit or not. Anwar’s higher register is fantastic,
but since he plays Tom Collins, a part written for a rumbling baritone,
it’s not like you get to hear it. Also, Winckler’s Roger is a
bit uninspired.

E. As an American Idol
fan (and when I say fan, I mean scary obsessed junkie), I was excited
and just a bit apprehensive to see Anwar and Heinz headline one of my
favorite musicals. And, in true national tour style, both of them were….fine.
As Brandon said, the worst part about Anwar’s performance was his beautiful
tenor/high baritone squashed into a low bass part. Memo to the casting
company: just because this semi-famous man happens to be an African-American
with long dreadlocks, he is not necessarily an ideal Collins. Oops.
Heinz on the other hand sang like an angel, which was enough to overshadow
his somewhat weak attempt at acting. Speaking of Angel, how can she
have been overlooked so far in this review? Played by Kristen-Alexzander
Griffith, this Angel’s singing was occasionally lost in between genders,
but her strutting sassy queendom elicited some of the finest and most
humorous moments of the show.

B. To me, the real drain
on the show is Dustin Brayley’s Mark who is, conservatively speaking,
fucking terrible. During the opening number I was horrified that
we might have stumbled on some horrible amateurish nightmare production.
Was he a replacement? Was he the replacement’s replacement?
Was he simply lost? No. In fact, he has the longest theater
bio in the cast. He improved after the opening number, but clearly
lacked the chops to complete with the vastly more talented cast like
Jennifer Colby Talton’s fantastically legato Mimi.

E. Brandon, my dear, you
exaggerate. Mark was not atrocious–merely mediocre. If he was atrocious,
we could have at least laughed at him throughout the show. Instead,
we merely shrugged, and occasionally winced when Brayley took five seconds
too long to get his cues. Overall, this was a perfectly good version
of this classic show, worth seeing (and occasionally wincing at.) Like
all other performances of Rent, what makes the musical sparkle with
energy and enthusiasm is the audience-the teenage girls who know every
damn word and scream when Roger and Mimi are introduced, the parents
who are notably uncomfortable at every use of the word "fuck," and
all the others who got dragged along without quite knowing what they
were getting into (but somehow find themselves enjoying it nonetheless.)

B. Like Emily said, it’s
not perfect, but it’s still the Rent you know and love. Though
two new tours are likely to start up next year, grab tickets when you
can, because Rent is definitely on the way out.

Why Rent? What is
its cultural significance?

B. I would like to propose
an addition to the blog Stuff White People Like. White
people love Rent. Glancing around the Ordway it was impossible
not to notice the word on everyone’s lips. I couldn’t make it
out, but it was either Ikea or lutefisk. Why then is Rent so popular?
After all, it’s impossibly complicated, and preaches a pretty selfish
way of life. It’s not as if we identify with the characters–we’re
not Roger or Mimi, Mark, or Maureen. Let’s be honest, to shell out the
$80 for tickets, we’re all Benjamin Coffin III. Then again, it’s
great music, and it actually has something to say. In an industry
where Young Frankenstein: the Musical is like saying "Young
Frankenstein: You See, They Sing on Stage, Which Makes it Funny," Rent
does a great job of differentiating itself.

E. It was really remarkable.
On the way out after the show, I turned the corner to leave the auditorium
and was momentarily stunned by a sea of texting cell phones whipped
out by 16-year-old high school suburbanites. What exactly is it that
makes this particular audience (my suburban self included) connect with
Rent’s very urban portrayal of drug use, depression, illness, and death?
Maybe it just so happens that the answer is in the question. Whether
we are from the city itself, or from Eagan, or from Scarsdale, NY (Mark’s
hometown in the show), our lives intersect with sadness. We may not choose
to live like the characters in Rent, but we experience similar emotions,
and the show carries itself in its emotions. When Angel dances, we feel
his joy. When Maureen gives her protest performance, we moo right along
with her, timidly at first, and then unabashedly enthusiastic. When
Collins speaks at the memorial service, I can say that even in my fourth
performance of Rent, I cried. As complex as the show may be (and I think
on some level, you’re right about that, Brandon), I think it is the
simplicity and the rawness of its emotions that fills up a 1900-seat
auditorium on a Tuesday night 12 full years after it was born.

B. Is it still relevant?
I would say yes and no. We don’t have an AIDS cure, but it’s a
manageable illness now in the US. I think today it’s easy to brush
Rent off as "that musical where everyone has AIDS," because its
not a part of our common experience the way it is in Africa, nor is
it as terrifying as it was at the end of the ’80s. There is a
real irony having Heinz Winckler here in the states since that issue
would probably resonate more in his home country. I think Rent
has been—and still is—extraordinarily important for helping push
GLBT issues into the mainstream. And honestly, I think it’s pretty
impressive to inspire shrieking 16 year olds 12 years later. Ultimately,
Emily and I came to the following conclusion:

We might not live like the
characters in Rent do, but in the end, Rent is a celebration of life
the way we wish we could live it.

The response from critics was
so harsh it allegedly kept David Lean away from the director’s chair
for 14 years. Pauline Kael’s oft-discussed review is so scathing
it makes you wonder if Lean put gum in her hair or something.
And while The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor
Zhivago were enormous films to follow up on, the response to the 1970s film, Ryan’s Daughter, has nearly become the stuff of legend. But
was the response justified? Or is this a case of critics banding
together and doing their best to sully the reputation of a successful
filmmaker?

A film like Ryan’s Daughter
is certainly unusual, especially when comparing the story to the size
of the film surrounding it. A loose adaptation of Madame Bovary
transplanted to WWI-era Ireland, the small story of love and adultery
doesn’t necessarily merit the epic scope given to it. Like Lean’s
previous epics, the film is gorgeously shot in Super Panavision 70 by
Freddie Young and scored lushly by Maurice Jarre, both frequent collaborators
of Lean’s. But many critics at the time tore into the style
of the film, declaring that it didn’t fit with Robert Bolt’s comparatively
intimate screenplay.

Bolt and Lean turn Emma Bovary
into Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles), a spoiled and detached Irish lady who
finds everyday life far too boring. She falls in love with Charles
Shaughnessy, the local schoolmaster (Robert Mitchum, another unusual
choice by Lean). Hoping that their marriage will add some excitement
to her life, Rosy is disappointed when she discovers that is not the
case. Her wishes come true in the form of English Major Randolph
Doryan (Christopher Jones), a man scarred by the trenches who’s come
to take command of the local Army base. As their affair develops,
political unrest in the land grows. The Irish cajole Rosy’s
father (a British informant) into capturing German weapons. When
Ryan tells the government, Doryan is sent to stop them and the mob turns
their sights on him and the woman he’s been lying with.

The possibility that critics
were offended by the portrayal of the Irish in the film is pretty likely.
As the political angle of the film becomes more concrete, the hordes
become less and less of an angry mob and more disloyal beasts, attacking
the closest thing they can in their savage attempt to lash out against
the British. They ridicule the soldiers and deride Rosy as "a
British officer’s whore." When they finally get their hands
on Rosy, the results are devastating. The townspeople in Madame
Bovary were never this bloodthirsty. In fact, the only relatable
Irish characters in the film are placed on a higher moral ground than
the rest: the conflicted schoolmaster/husband, the local priest and
the village idiot. More on that last one later. Even Rosy
is depicting as something other than the Irish mob — detached from
her village and longing for a different life. This becomes all
the more apparent by the casting of the decidedly un-Irish Sarah Miles
in part.

Still, once one gets past the
stereotypical raging Irish crowds, the film is mesmerizing. The
epic scope, slammed by so many before, offers up the most thrilling
moments of isolation the film has. Freddie Young’s Oscar-winning
camera work is truly something to behold, easily standing up to his
other work with Lean. The image of Shaughnessy standing alone
by a giant rock on the beach, with brief glimpses of Rosy and Doryan’s
lovemaking cut in, is absolutely thrilling. The beautiful Irish
background and the wide beach on Dingle Peninsula gives the film all
the visual splendor one would expect from a Lean epic. And it
is completely justified. The three main characters are molded
into a love triangle, lost in something too vast for them to understand.
And it is only a matter of time before the world comes crashing in on
them. The only epic element of the film is Jarre’s curiously
upbeat score, which is often far too intrusive and big for the film’s
more intimate moments.

The performances are a bit
of a mixed bag. As stated earlier, Mitchum is an unusual choice
for the quiet, conflicted Shaughnessy. While he does his best
to play against type, he never seems quite comfortable in the role.
By contrast, Sarah Miles is astounding. This is hardly surprising,
as the role was written specifically for her by then-husband Robert
Bolt. She plays with Rosy’s more self-centered ways delicately,
so as not to make her unsympathetic. And her final moments, when
the extent of the mob’s anger is finally shown, her face is a quiet
masterpiece of devastation and tragedy. The film is anchored on
her performance, and she is one of the main reasons it should be viewed
as successful. Christopher Jones, whose voice was dubbed in the
process, barely registers a blip on the radar. This is hardly
a bad thing, since he’s mostly required to be looked at and desired
than to talk or hold a great deal of dramatic weight.

And now we come to the village
idiot. Played by Sir John Mills, the character of Michael is probably
the closest thing to a disaster that this film contains. Far too
broad and comical for a film of such seriousness, Mills’s performance
is truly perplexing. It’s true that his role does serve some
purpose in the story, but one wishes Lean and company would have handled
it with more subtlety and finesse. Instead, they’ve got the
Hunchback of Notre Dame running around WWI-era Ireland with Rosy as
his Esmeralda. However, Mills’s performance makes good on Kate
Winslet’s words on Extras: playing a retard really can win you an
Oscar.

Something must have struck
a nerve with critics when Ryan’s Daughter was released, and it wasn’t
a good one. While far from perfect, and definitely the weakest
of Lean’s epic film period, it hardly deserved the critical drubbing
that it got. The film is not another case of style over substance;
to say it is one of Lean’s most thematically complex epics would hardly
be a ridiculous statement. Even if its attitude towards the Irish
is muddled and its inclusion of Mills’s performance is off-putting, Ryan’s Daughter truly is a misunderstood piece. With its epic
starkness and its astonishing performance by Sarah Miles, Lean should
not have felt any regret or remorse about this film. And it definitely
should not have taken 14 years for him to return.

Mother of Tears is bad.
Unfortunately, "bad" is a word so far past its usefulness in describing
the horror genre, that I may as well call it a cherry red bicycle.
I mean, are we talking bad-good or bad-bad? Good horror is an
all together different animal, some unusual mixture of great execution
and that elusive makes-your-hair-stand-on-end mystery that shocks you
into remembering why we think fear is so fun in the first place.
Suffice to say, Mother of Tears falls into that other category.
The it’s-so-bad-it’s-good type of thing that goes down better when lubricated
with all manner of hard liquor and jeering friends. The sort of
thing you know you can talk through because the plot doesn’t make a
lick of sense. A refuge you seek with your significant other where
you can watch a savage disemboweling between bouts of making out.
Yeah, Mother of Tears is pretty awful, but is it bad enough to
be awesome?

There isn’t much reason to
care, but Mother of Tears is actually part three of writer/director
Dario Argento’s "Three Mothers" trilogy that started with Suspiria
in 1977, and Inferno in 1980. The series is so old that
leading lady Asia Argento (yes, his daughter) was two years old when the
first one came out. The film begins when an evil urn is opened
and restores powers to the Mother of Tears, a powerful witch who
compels other witches to come hang out in Rome and get naked.
With such overwhelming evil emanating from the young people, who
have bad hair and, let’s be honest, probably don’t even have jobs, the
locals start going crazy. But don’t despair! Our heroine,
Sarah Mandy, is actually the daughter of a good witch. After bumbling
about in creepy derelict buildings with a revolving cast of extremely
convenient, entirely coincidental, and quite often naked pals, she and
the Mother of Tears battle it out in a naked, wet t-shirt, gory slug-fest. But it’s OK; only the girls get naked. Duh.

The real charm of the film
is how it brings you back to a time when our greatest fears were young
people with bad hair, no jobs, and tongue piercings. In other
words, like, 1980. I mean c’mon, witches? Harry Potter,
Buffy, and Wicked have so thoroughly beaten the scary out of witches,
every kid wants to be like Elphaba. Just ask Mulder, Scully, and
the cast of Independence Day what happened to the aliens.

I love bad movies, but Mother
of Tears doesn’t have that extra zing, that twinkling of self awareness
that vaults some films into cult classics. The best bad movies still
have the capacity to surprise, and though it’s not bad for a weekend
with the gang, I’m afraid this one is doomed to slog, dribble, heave,
and grunt into obscurity.

Very
occasionally, this critic can get it all wrong. Looking at the
bespectacled electronic trio (black rectangular frames, black
rectangular frames, and ’80s nerd chic frames) with their unobtrusive
fashion (jeans, jeans, and khakis), I drew a few conclusions. Later, I
asked keyboardist Ryan Olcott whether I had Mystery Palace figured out.

Erin Roof: Are you vegans?

Ryan Olcott: No. We’re conscientious about what we eat, but no.

ER: Do you drive hybrid cars?

RO:
I wish we did. That’s a good goal. But, unfortunately not. I’m driving
a mini van right now, and it gets OK mileage, but its a far cry from
anything economically and environmentally sound.

ER: Do you appreciate Moby for his technique?

RO:
I hope Moby doesn’t read this. I respect him, but I’m not a fan of Moby’s
music. We were labelmates for a little bit, but no… I have a loose
affiliation with Moby, very loose, he wouldn’t know who I am.

In
other words, no. I struck out. Then again, it’s difficult to fit
Mystery Palace into the neatly manicured categories music writers love
to use. The laid back electronica sounds a lot like Hot Chip if they
took a night off from the club hits. The music blurs the line between
ambient techno and pop, yet it’s not either. With live drums, a
keyboard, and a bass, it’s an odd conglomeration to tack any label onto.

"We’re
kind of in between this experimental faction and pop," Olcott explains.
"We’re just treading this fine line of what our audience is."

This
is the biggest problem, he says. Music lovers tend to like one genre or
another. For a hybrid band like Mystery Palace, it can be difficult to
find its footing.

"[Our
audience are] the experimental electronic kids that appreciate a pop
song and really like it," Olcott says. "But for the most part, those
kids don’t. They want to hear atonalities and dissonance and what not.
Even though that’s where we come from, we’ve kind of alienated that
crowd almost because we’re kind of a pop band. But the pop scene is
still warming up to us because we’re not like a guitar band."

If
the band had to drag around a genre, it would be that catch all phrase
"indie" because, as Olcott happily espouses, Mystery Palace has its
main component: a lack of technique.

"A
key thing in indie music is that element of innocence I think that
really connects with the indie crowd," he says. "That charming sense of
‘We’re just having a good time, but don’t know what the hell we’re
doing.’ That’s the endearing quality of indie music. Me, personally, I
lack a lot of keyboard technique. Ask me to sit down behind a piano and
play an A tune and I’ll be like, ‘What?’ We lack the element of
technique, but we also have a great amount of technique. I have a
technique as a producer to create a sound, to envision a sound. As far
as, like, playing, performance technique, I’m about as indie as it gets."

One
aspect that does define Mystery Palace is its penchant for
experimentation. Olcott employs a method called circuit bending, which
he describes as "the art of the creative malfunction." Much like
classical composer John Cage plucked piano strings and discovered
methods of playing instruments outside their intended uses, Olcott uses
a rewired keyboard to elicit the strange "clicks and bleeps" that
anchor his music. While Mystery Palace’s songs may be bleeping, they
are not bleating. It’s music that could accompany listeners throughout
the day– happy to be the soundtrack to morning cups of coffee,
commutes, and lingering moments before sleep. It’s about enhancing life
through layers of stark emotion. It’s not flashy, but it’s not to be
ignored.

It’s non-confrontational, just like the band’s approach to its performance.

"I’m
never the guy on stage who’s hyping the crowd or getting in people’s
face. I’m just not into that. It’s cheesy," Olcott says. "I try to be
as mellow as I possibly can on stage. The way I write is pretty abstract
lyrically and musically, so any emotion I would portray on stage would
definitely have an influence on how people connect to the music. I
don’t want to do that. I want the music to kind of like evoke a
response on a personal level. So the way I act on stage, the way we all
act on stage, we downplay it all because we don’t want any of that to
misrepresent the sound."

Whatever genre-bending style Mystery Palace plays, it’s the music that matters.