You may have been either avoiding this book or worse, unacquainted of its entire existence but I suggest you catapult away from any hesitation you retain and read this book . Don't be swayed by the befuddling synopsis or self-described pundits spatting the book every way they can, Catch-22 isn't just a piece of satirical anti-war fiction, mind you, it's much more than that.
An unconventional novel arose from the hand of an unknown author to the stature of a world classic and its messages remain relevant, nay, prophetic for all ages.
For the most part, the many characters carry out their tasks without questioning their own activities or their leaders; they seem happy simply to occupy their time.
Yossarian stands out of this crowd because he asks many questions. He wants control of his life, he wants to live, he “was willing to be victim to anything but circumstances.”
Wanting to escape the bureaucratic machinery makes Yossarian look like a coward to most people around him. For this reason, he is the protagonist, but not exactly a hero in the traditional or conformist sense – he is the anti-hero.
This novel’s world flourishes with characters moving about as an army of 
ants, running in circular logic from which they cannot step free, nor do many of them seem to care even if they were aware.
Yossarian and Dunbar stand out almost as villains. Yossarian flows against the social current as the anti-hero; he recognizes the absurd logical loops by which others around him consider their lives perfectly normal.
Although most people might view WW II as a highly justified war, it nevertheless played out with all the graft, corruption, and big-money contracts as any other. WW II ushered America into the world theater as a superpower with the moral credibility that would feed the ego-centric hubris of a sleeping giant with an unmatched thirst for power.
Every decade that followed WW II showed America how to become an empire at the cost of the republic, how to garner an emperor’s war power for the President, at the cost of Congressional restraint.
Catch 22 captures the essence of the credulous, poorly educated, and uncritical citizens who follow mindlessly the Pipe Piper of bureaucratic institutions from government, military, and big business.
Heller began writing this novel in the late 1950’s to see it first published in 1961. This period saw the rise of the Truman Doctrine and the Cold War era during which the U.S. fought to ward off any spread of communism in places like Korea.
In order to uphold the Truman Doctrine, the U.S. military budget began its exponential growth into what now fattens into the largest military spending in world history. Heller’s novel satirizes this transformation of America from a republic into an empire that runs on a bloating bureaucratic military-industrial complex, the dangers of which Eisenhower warned.
Given this background, Catch 22 reflects a larger transformation of America than simply a reaction to the Vietnam War. In fact, by 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred and the U.S. was just beginning to escalate toward an official and publicly recognized conflict in Vietnam.
The novel reveals the logical loops in which the citizens run about in their daily occupations. All people need is a logic, an ideology, a belief system to guide them, and they’ll do whatever the program requires for the sake of fitting-in and getting along in life. Catch 22 is a law structured in mindless, uncritical circles.
This circular and absurd logic pervades throughout this story, in almost every conversation between the characters, in their actions and thoughts. It creates an eerie Kafkaesque atmosphere that continues through the real world.
This looping logic could not be more obvious than in America’s present war in Iraq. As a timeless classic, one can now read Catch 22 as if it were written today.
Bush Jr.’s initial justifications for his blind invasion of Iraq were based on lies, now obvious and abundantly proven, about imminent threats of WMD’s and later of terrorism.
When these reasons were proven as valueless as the large quantities of chocolate covered cotton that Heller’s seemingly innocent entrepreneurial character, Milo Minderbinder, sells, Bush Jr. explained that the war was necessary because terrorists overran Iraq. Of course, this statement spins in its own circle because regular Iraqi citizens as well as foreign intruders appeared on the scene as insurrectionists only after the U.S. occupation.
When this reason for war no longer sufficed, Bush Jr. told Americans that we must continue fighting in order to honor the soldiers already killed in battle. Obviously this logic, too, loops on itself into an absurd infinity. If Americans were silly enough to follow this logic, soldiers would go to war endlessly in search of honor of those who died before them regardless of whatever the initial reasons were at the war’s beginning.
We know about the lemmings, the small rodents who run over the cliff only because their companions did so before them. Once the program is put into place, no American is really silly enough to run in step like a mindless hamster on its exercise wheel.
Likewise, the many Generals and other military leaders at the Pentagon could have resigned when they first opposed the unplanned, unjustified invasion. Instead, they held onto their careers and their government salaries, despite their courage to serve the greater good of the country.
Americans are much smarter than that. But then, sometimes reality plays out more phantasmagorically than the most wildly imagined satirical fiction. Sometimes reality is less believable than fantasy.
In Catch 22, Milo Minderbinder’s commercial operations reveal the only realistic reasons for the war despite the double talk of ideological calls to freedom, liberty, and democracy. Economic power drives men to many places and to many endeavors.
Milo Minderbinder represents the small time entrepreneur working the black-market. He claims that his growing enterprise offers benefits. “Every man will have a share.”
Compared to Colonel Carthcart, who sends his men to death only for the sake of his own promotions, Minderbinder’s profiteering seems moral, at least until he does a deal with the Germans to bomb his own squadron. Then his syndicate takes on the power of a multinational that no state laws or national loyalty can restrain.
Again, reality proves more surreal than the fictional satire. During the cavalier cowboy gunfight in Iraq, one wonders where the $9 billion of tax money disappeared?
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
I'm not sure how many knows the 1998 dud Dead Man On Campus, though yours truly does. He's not really ashamed of it, though he does wonder why. Most critics spit on it, calling it a degrading, unfunny black comedy that seemed to rely on sophomoric sperm songs and bombastic bong use to get most of its laughs. That's pretty true, though for some reason I saw more in this neglected oddity than most people. Sad, I know.
Josh is a conscientious pre-med scholarship student who has the misfortune to land in the same dorm room with Cooper , a wealthy stoner who's completely unconcerned with his education. And they're both stuck with Kyle, a Neanderthal in pants who lives in their suite's single room, until he mercifully abandons them to shack up with his girlfriend. Josh starts out the semester taking a slew of difficult science
classes, but his ambitions are thwarted by Cooper's distracting, bon vivant ways. After disastrous midterm exam results and a nasty visit from Cooper's dad -- the king of toilet-cleaning -- both lads are in desperate need of a way out of their bad grade predicament. Enter that old collegiate canard about how you automatically get straight A's if your roommate kills himself: They embark upon a quest to find the most suicidal person on campus and move him in to Kyle's old room.
The story's not much, but this dark comedy contains moments of unexpected wit. Gosselaar gives a spirited and funny performance, as does Lochlyn Munro in the role of Cliff, one of the more promising wackos. Unlike most comedies, this one actually picks up steam about halfway through, managing to find a fresh take on such all-too-familiar campus fixtures as depressed Goths and paranoid computer geek
I know what you are thinking: the premise is as believable as Paris Hilton eventually winning an Oscar. The lame story is courtesy of Anthony Abrams and Adam Larson Broder, who must have been on some serious mind-altering substances when they brewed this up. However, I have to give them credit for daring to write a black comedy on suicide, something most films would never do. Sure, it may still come off as a shallow movie, though Dead Man On Campus still has its fair share of funny elements.
This college comedy is better than you'd expect, given the lowbrow humor and scant plot.
Although it falls far short of fulfilling its full potential as a dark comedy of desperation, Dead Man On Campus is a modestly amusing trifle that merits a passing grade as lightweight entertainment.
Yep, my new years resolution: making reviews in the music scenery on just about anything. Anything but Hip-Hop, Trash Metal, Rap....errr maybe at least keep away from those morally depraved teens that believe they're making music by simultaneously hitting two trashcans together. Anyway, on to the first ever album review!!!!
I like to divide up the genre of pop punk into two subcategories. On one hand, you have the deep and profound bands – those like Say Anything or Brand New – and on the other, you have the plentiful mass of sunny-eyed, catchy bands – ala All Time Low, The Maine, We The Kings, etc. Both sides have their quirks and positives, and despite what may be the initial belief on the subject, the population of listeners throughout the world is probably divided almost evenly when it comes to the number of those that actually enjoy each side of the genre. There is a right way and a wrong way when it comes to the bands actually crafting their music within these sections, and unless the band is trying to push the envelope and create something original, many outputs – particularly those on the catchy side of pop punk – tend to follow a similar format and formula when it comes to the creation of the band’s album.
I’ll get right to the point: We The King’s Smile Kid follows the successful formula for a catchy pop punk release almost perfectly. The band isn’t Radiohead – or Brand New for that matter – and they aren’t out to crea
te something original. The band is just doing what they learned to do with their self-titled debut: the band is just making a summer album for teenagers. Lyrical subjects are what you would expect them to be – growing up, girls, and summer – and the emotions that come across from the music fall into the category of the mysterious and often unsettling area of angst.
The opening track should all but cement what I have said thus far: ”Do, do do, do do, do do do…” follows behind a catchy pop punk riff, and the chorus to be found here is loaded with hooks and many possible interpretations:”She takes me high, she takes me high…” Suffice it to say, the song could certainly be the anthem of those searching for love and affection. We The Kings continue from there on and deliver summer anthem after summer anthem. “The Story of Your Life” is riddled with a naïve type of hope – the kind that only someone who hasn’t been hit with the negative side of life talks about – and for what it’s worth, I can certainly see a lot of girls falling for Travis Clark’s lyrics that encourage them to run away with the singer. As far as switching it up in terms of sound, “In-N-Out (Animal Style)”, with a healthy ammount of sexual innuendo in the title, has this reggae edge to the verses that later connects with the type of chorus that can be found throughout the majority of the album: catchy, hopeful, earnest, etc.
While the majority of the album is a happy and hopeful anthem affair, there does happen to be one moment where the band slows down a bit. “We’ll Be A Dream” features a duet between Travis and Demi Lovato, and while the track does evolve into another anthem for better and hopeful times, you wouldn’t be incorrect in calling it the album’s ballad. Unlikely as it may be, the album’s closer may be the best example of a catchy, pop punk song. A jingle-bell type of pop punk riff enters the track, and the chorus accompanied by sets of well-placed: “Hey, hey, hey, hey!” make for the album’s defining track.
Smile Kid is an album of hope that is full of desires for better days. The band has decided to take the relative success of their self-titled debut and tweak a bit, creating an album that’s meant for the summer season but will have to do for the months of winter instead. As mentioned, the band follows the format for a successful and catchy pop punk release almost perfectly, and those interested shouldn’t expect anything below or above that threshold of quality. Listeners should be warned though: the contents therein are full of sugar; it is best that this album be enjoyed in small doses if this is your type of thing.
If you've had more than your fill by now of those cookie cutter, tearjerker music biopics that follow the inevitable trajectory from rough roots to fame, a fall from grace and final redemption, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story may just have the cure. And it's ab
out time. This satirical tongue-in-check musical, spoofs movies like the Johnny Cash weepie Walk The Line and Ray's over-the-top emotional frenzy, while parodying with a vengeance the whole mystique of celebrity sainthood. Move over, Britney Spears.
John C. Reilly does Dewey Cox as an initially troubled, hilariously beer gut middle-aged teen, courtesy of a makeup department that deliberately discarded the usual ridiculously youth-enhancing makeovers here for its over-the-hill stars, relatively speaking. In a wacko Abel and Cain setup, Dewey suffers second-class status in his dysfunctional backwoods family to favored brother Daniel. One day while engaging in a little fantasy swordplay in the barn, Dewey possibly not so accidentally severs his resented sibling in two. And it's a strangely comical disaster which seals his fate as family pariah, doomed to wander the earth a moody and moping sad sack, when not happily jamming on stage.
The movie, directed by Jake Kasdan, was co-written by Kasdan and the productive Judd Apatow, and they do an interesting thing: Instead of sending everything over the top at high energy, they allow Reilly to more or less actually play the character, so that, against all expectations, some scenes actually approach real sentiment. Reilly is required to walk a tightrope; is he suffering or kidding suffering, or kidding suffering about suffering? That I'm not sure adds to t
he appeal.Walk Hard, with its raunchy comedy skit-to-screen sensibility, not surprisingly has its frequent ups and downs, but with the buoyant moments offering plenty to forgive the more stagnant interludes. Among the coolest high-lights count the variously drugged Dewey indulging in controlled substance group activity with participants parading around in assorted states of undress; and his encounter as a little kid with some seasoned elderly bluesmen in the woods who hand over the guitar, and novice Dewey's belting out a number in raspy baritone like a pro who's eight going on eighty.
Then it's on to an early gig during his loser period, worshipfully mopping up a black folks' disco. Inevitably of course, Dewey drops janitor duty and begs his way on to the stage the one night that the main attraction rapper calls in sick. Not quite getting it that he's the only white guy on the premises, Dewey indulges his own inner rapper with some
off-color race lyrics - just the way the house star always does it - and ends up, well, getting the Imus treatment, to say the least.
Equally radical but tame in intent pulled off by Apatow and Kasden from just about but not quite going off that rude deep end, is a mock-lewd episode of nasty gyrations on the same house floor. And the devilish duo is not at all shy about taking what's really going on with those highly suggestive moves, to what might actually be marinating in the dirty minds of those too much information, sexually charged dancers.