MCLA Beacon Online

By Eli Jace

A&E Editor

I’d like to thank the Academy for blowing down the dividing wall between an alright film and a phenomenal, knee-buckling film.The Academy will pick a winner from ten nominated films Sunday night. Usually only five films get nominated.

This now widens the playing field for movies vying for this kind of attention. This should be a good thing because so many gut-stabbing movies go unnoticed year by year, but it’s not. Nothing too significant takes over the open spots.This year’s list gives a really distorted view of American entertainment in this new decade set to drop and crumble. We take a flight to Iraq for an education, meet a serious man before going up in the air to Johannesburg.

After landing, Sandra Bullock splits in half and we’re abducted by iron-faced blue Na’vis who send us back to World War II Nazi Germany. All in 3-D.I was surprised by how much I enjoyed “District 9.” The plot was goofy, but somehow believable and oddly relevant.

The suspense carried me right along with every plot twist. However, I’ll probably never watch it again and a Best Picture should demand multiple viewings over a lifetime.

Tarantino the Elemental crafted a vicious history-mending opus and brought his greatest dialogue since “Kill Bill,” but give him the Screenwriting Award for that opening scene.

“Up,” one of Pixar’s narcotic gems, is on the list. However, Pixar makes this movie every year, and I’m sure a lot of people reading this are saying “I liked ‘Up,’” just shrugging their shoulders.

Why fight for a Pixar movie when Wes Anderson puts out “The Fantastic Mr. Fox?”And, you know what? They made room for Bullock in the Best Actress cube. Why is “The Blind Side,” a copy of a copy of a copy of a centipede shedding its skin, in this category? What about “Angels & Demons,” “The Soloist,” “2012,” “This is It,” “Twili –” Actually, this year sucked for movies, but the story of a teenage girl who gets knocked up by her father, twice, makes the most sense for America’s slimy soul in 2010.

The artists of the Gallery 51 exhibit gave a musical performance last Thursday night.

By Eli Jace

A&E Editor

Okay, I admit it. I arrived five minutes late to Gallery 51’s concert last Thursday night. When I walked in Lesley Flanigan already had everyone’s jaw unhinged and mine dropped the same. A soaring wave of feedback blanketed the room as I sat down to take part.

Flanigan is one of four artists with work on display in “The Amazing Acoustaphotophonogrammitron,” the gallery’s present exhibit. Art and music are squarely connected so Flanigan, along with Tristan Perich, Ven Voisey and Paul de Jong, performed a piece of music to coincide with their work.Flanigan’s music came from instruments she shaped for “Amplifications,” displayed in the back right corner.

She manipulated her voice to sound like a choir of ghosts. Dressed in a black dress surrounded by her wooden instruments, she looked like she was summoning spirits from the vibrations. It was a feedback consortium totally deconstructing notes.

Voisey, who pieced the exhibit together, sat down before a silver bass drum with guitar on lap. Behind him were video projections. The close-up of a light bulb turning on and off dominated the opening minutes. Voisey’s music eased into a swampy, melodious static.

Voisey stomped the bass pedal along with his airy vocals. Pretty little birds fluttered onscreen. Butterfly figures dissolved into the sun spreading out over the ocean. Voisey’s third and final song was a fast, syrupy 4-trak bedroom punk song.

The highlight of the night was Paul de Jong’s short, but hypnotic performance. De Jong, who plays in the electro-soothing band The Books, came out all dressed up in black. Jonathan Secor wisely stuck three strips of duct tape on the floor to keep his cello from sliding.

De Jong fit into his chair, propped his instrument upright, and launched into two songs. He urgently sliced the strings with full bore concentration. The music was beautifully cinematic and moody. De Jong buckled down on the bottom strings to coincide with a metallic drum pattern and some pre-programmed strings.

His black boots swished across the floor.“I’m a little bit out of steam,” he said quietly before tuning for song number two. If Jimmy Page got lost in the forest and found a cello there, this is the music he’d create.

Static crept up the back of my neck and I was very sad when de Jong stopped.

Gallery 51 will hold the exhibit, with work by these four artists and more featured, until March 21.