Profile 

Comments

 0Posted on Jun 21st, 2009 | re: Bonnaroo 2009: Trent Says Goodbye, Bruce Says Merry Christmas (29 comments)

Now that Trent is calling NIN quits, will Axl Rose quit spending 15 years on each album to get that “new” NIN sound?

 0Posted on Jun 10th, 2009 | re: New MGMT Video - "Kids" (159 comments)

As an artist I understand they were attempting to show the world as seen through the eyes of a child, where everything is new and scary. However, they went beyond ?re-creating? and actually terrorized and traumatized the child both physically and mentally. Below are specific examples:

At 1:15 the baby boy is in a crib in the dark and surrounded by monsters (made of realistic expensive Hollywood class monster suits). There are 5 shots edited together where the child is shown screaming in fear as monster claws physically grab onto the boy and pull him back several times. The fifth shot at 1:25 shows the child screaming as he is pinned against the hard crib rails by a monster hand pressing against his chest. These 5 shots are all very short, but were taken over a longer time and edited down to seconds. Next the child is shown lying on it’s back screaming. At 1:40 there are monsters hovering over the crib with large hands that drop some kind of liquid into the crib. The child is then shown with three monsters behind him. The child is standing up, trying to escape the crib, with it’s arm stretched out for help, with a visibly disturbed face with flush red color, all while three monsters are behind it. This is followed by more shots of the child screaming with a distressed and fearful look in his eyes. From 2:00 to 2:30 the baby is held by a human female, who carries the baby past monsters on the sidewalk. The child is obviously now terrified of these monsters, but the female does nothing to console him, and instead ignores him while she texts on her phone. Around 2:32 the female literally throws the baby down to the ground from 4 feet in the air. The child is clearly too young to realize this is an act and will land safely. In slow motion, the baby is seen reaching out for the female before it disappears from the camera shot to fall on what we assume is the concrete sidewalk below. Hopefully there was some kind of safe “stunt” landing for the baby off camera, but it happens so fast it seems impossible to do this without some kind of whiplash to the young boy’s neck. This is the equivalent of shaking a baby. Not to mention that falling from 4 or 5 feet for a baby is like a grown person falling from 15 feet. Adults in stunt falls understand what’s happening while the child does not. Not to mention adults have a choice in participating in stunts while this child did not. The female, still uncaring about the dropped child, keeps texting on her phone. At 2:40 the child is shown running in fear down the sidewalk past monsters for 10 seconds. The child is crying and holding it’s hands forward for help as it runs. Around 2:45, you can see a hand appear into the shot from the right side of the screen. Clearly someone is off camera and getting the child to run down the sidewalk by holding out their hand to child yet running away at the same time. This is in effect teasing the child by telling the child to come here while running away from it.
The rest of the video shows the child in a car seat, being subjected to more monsters in a car next to them. The child is then forced to watch sinister and violent puppets on the car lcd tv. The images include an evil wolf in a druggy background and a menacing puppet beating another puppet at 4:25.

The video ends with animation, which is a much better and humane way to express artistic ideas without actually physically and mentally traumatizing a child.