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FILM: The Creativity Special Edition

Movies, these days, are slowly, but surely, growing out of the blur of mediocre film-making we know. These films are getting bought and perverted into money-making machines. More and more "indie" movies are being released each month because the American public has grown weary of the same melodramatic, over-the-counter formulas - we seek bigger and better things.
The definition of an Indie film is independent, hence the name, Indie. Movies such as Saw have been bastardized by Corporate America from the pull of greed, the promise of gold. Their original stories brutalized and gutted, as the producers sheer the essence of each movie. They take the art, the soul, and the best parts of movies. They crop them out, stick them into plastic boxes, mark them special edition, and suck on the material-driven tit of the American consumer.
And we buy it. We buy "Saw I, II, III, Special Edition, This time with more blood and gore." Why can't we have it the first time? Why can't we have the uncut, the brutal, the truth? Why must we wait as Corporate America finds another way to steal our hard-earned money? It steals from the true meaning of indie: self-produced, self-promoted, self-driven films.
The movie industry has turned from putting out movies, intellectually, worth less than the paper their titles are printed on to movies such as, "Little Miss Sunshine," "No Country for Old Men," and "Munich," movies that are worth a damn, if you'll excuse my French. The movie industry saw potential in what true indie films have and exploited it. Screenwriters turn to such places because there is nowhere else they will be able to receive the financial backing that a movie house like MGM or Lionsgate can provide. Nowhere. In turn, the screenwriters exchange their creative passion for the money they so blindly grind their teeth for. It seems worth, to the screenwriters and creators, to lose thirty minutes of their movie in order to turn a bigger profit.
Is it worth it? Losing ten minutes of gore in "Saw?" Or five minutes of dialogue in "No Country for Old Men?" Perhaps. Perhaps the dialogue was truly boring or poorly written. Perhaps it dragged the plot into unnecessary places. But, then, why put it into the uncut or director's cut editions of the DVD release? If it wasn't good enough to make it into the theatrical cut of the film, why should it be good enough to make it to the DVD release?
According to the New York Times, DVD sales have nearly doubled from the turn of the millennium (2000) to 2005, going from 8 billion to 15.5 billion dollars a year. All the while profit margins on DVD's soar at $17.26 per DVD. This means, when a consumer pays twenty dollars for a DVD, the production house paid a mere two dollars and seventy cents ($2.74).
This proves to be a good explanation as to why any production house should cut out bits and pieces of movies: we are willing to spend money on a movie we already saw just to see the extra 10 minutes we missed. We are willing to lose bits and pieces of the creative process in exchange for the material possession. Eventually, though, the materials that we have will have lost all beauty, and creativity and exuberance we wish we could witness once again, will be lost amidst the hours of special features and worthless cuts forever.

The "Colors" We Bleed: Between the Buried and Me's latest relase - Colors

"Colors," the spark the metal scene has been looking for. 64 minutes of power, emotion, and brilliance. The fifth release from progressive metal giants, Between the Buried and Me (BTBAM), prove to the world, and their fans, that metal is not dead and buried, but alive and pounding.
The CD starts with intricate, tranquil piano and vocals of Tommy Rogers, accompanied further in the song, by simple, yet driving, guitars, strained to perfection by Paul Waggoner and Dustie Waring. The CD flows from point to point, emphasizing what has already been said. The guitars unite in perfect harmonies, even at the most bizarre of chord structures and scale progressions. The band flows from one song to the next with the genius and precision a surgeon would take during brain surgery. The drums and bass, fueled by Blake Richardson and Dan Briggs respectively, add a backing as perfect as the timpanis and brass of a matured orchestra. As the CD crescendos, as does the awe of the listener.
"Sun of Nothing" and "Ants of the Sky" are the intros to the peak of the CD, luring one further into the paradise that spews from the accord their instruments forge. The CD reaches its highest at "Prequel to the Sequel." The song introduces the musical genius and understanding that BTBAM offer, towards the songs end, with a good ol' fashioned bluegrass-based hoedown. The song, nearing its end, retraces its steps back into what you were first introduced to: pure, heart-pounding, fist clenching metal that finishes with a long sustain of passion, leading to the serenity of "Viridian." "Viridian" draws a picture of cool, red, a warming color drowned by pain. The color of passion lost. As "Viridian" comes to a close, we are sent on the ride, known best as "White Walls."
This song is everything a metal-head, and BTBAM, can wish for. It takes one on a journey words cannot begin to describe. The song brought the feeling of the most perfect aria opera has ever been offered. The drive behind the song is enough to make any person feel energized and abused. The bridges and interludes keep adding to the emotion of the song. They lead into the final 5 minutes of musical intensity. The guitars start with a paced, simple, repetitive appregiation that leads to a solo that pulls you into itself with each note that Paul Waggoner plays. Each note, filled with passion, pain, and energy, emphasizes each note before it, and adds to each note after it, until it finally reaches the final stretch: the quick, nimble appregios. They fall and rise to a powerful, moving ending, to be finalized and closed by Tommy Rogers' solitary piano: the warm blanket to shield you from the cold reality that the CD has ended.
As bands come and go, Between the Buried and Me continues to prove to the metal culture that they are here to stay as one of the current leaders of metal. Backed by the upcoming tour with elite progressive metal gods, Opeth and Dream Theater, they prove that the hard work they put forth did not turn out for naught: it merely sealed the deal, after two long years of silence from their creativity, that they will be around for many years to come.