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PAGE GA
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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MUSIC
TRISTAN GRAMLING/KANSAN
Matt Easton, a senior from Libertyville, Ill., performs at the Granada where he opened for Radical Something on Oct. 1, 2013.
KU student Matt Easton releases sixth album
MAGGIE ROSSITER
entertain@kansan.com
Matt Easton was a creative kid. The kind of kid teachers either adored or simply had to put up with. He tended to reach for the spotlight and always craved to be the center of attention. He participated in almost every talent show in elementary and high school and was asked to host many school events. He is a big motown music fan and has seen more Broadway musicals than he can name. He has always had a close relationship with his mom and a constant desire to get approval from his dad.
in 2010 Easton started releasing albums. Over the past four years he has released six albums. His most recent album, "Grey Area," was released in December. He travels about
once a month for shows and has performed with bands such as Timefles, Aer and G-Eazy.
Matt Easton, a 22-year-old senior at the University, is usually spotted in khakis, a hat and a crew-neck sweatshirt. But what he is best known for is being a
"We started making songs about getting high, drinking, and girls... stupid stuff."
MATT EASTON Student artist
self-producing rapper who can play the piano by ear. He has heard more times than he can count "What's your real plan after college?" and "Do you know how hard it is to make it?" But that's his fuel; it's what
keeps him heading back to his piano to keep writing.
Easton grew up in what his mom Karen says was a strict and disciplinary home in Libertyville, Ill. From his mom playing music over the outdoor speakers to listening to his dad play jazzy, Ray Charles-esque blues on the piano, Easton was constantly surrounded by music. Karen says she can remember her son enthusiastically dancing to Michael Jackson in the backyard when he was only four.
As Easton got older his musical ability grew along with his need to be in the spotlight.
His freshman year of high school, Easton and a friend started their own DJ business, but the entertainment business
SEE EASTON PAGE 7A
Jonze's 'Her' explores love in an age of technology
After perplexing us with "Being John Malkovich", boggling our minds with "Adaptation" and touching our hearts with "Where the Wild Things Are", Spike Jonze has completely outdone himself and directed perhaps the most important piece of modern cinematic art of Generation Y. "Her" is an ingenious — and powerfully realistic — commentary on the direction modern man is headed, and provides an entirely unique, audacious glimpse into what men's perceptions of romantic relationships are evolving into.
It's a movie for men, sending a warning to those teering on the brink of technological overstimulation about what we may become. For those already locked in the modern tornado of porn, video games and unfulfilling internet surfing, the film's conclusion serves as a beacon of hope. "Her" places audiences in the mindset of a character that many modern men already know well: a post-hyperstimulation soup of emotional confusion, stifled social abilities and desensitization to sex.
Jonze drops us in not-too-distant-future Los Angeles: a soft, metallic-chrome-colored world — essentially what an Apple "iCity" might look like — where technology pervades every aspect of human life. We're introduced to Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) at his job where he writes love letters for couples who aren't romantically creative enough to write their own.
Overstimulated and wildly desensitized to reality by near-constant porn and video game use, he searches fruitlessly for love, which he feels will fill the hole in his life left empty after his recent divorce to Catherine (Rooney Mara). After downloading a new artificially intelligent "OS" software on his computer, he begins to develop a relationship with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), the software's voice. He becomes part of a rising trend of OS-human relationships as the software becomes more common among the general populace of LA (and probably the rest of the world).
With him through it all is ex-fling turned supportive friend Amy (Amy Adams), whose friendship with her
own OS serves as an example of how bizarre the OS-human interactions are outside Theo's head. Yet seeing Amy fall under the OS spell is not enough to deter him from "falling in love" with Samantha. Theo's relationship with Samantha is technically fake, but seems to be emotionally tangible. Yet is it? Does he truly have a relationship with this computer, or an addiction to the gratification to his emotional needs it provides?
The film, while brilliantly written, artfully directed and sprinkled with ingenious camera work, contains a vitally important overarching message that rises above its high level of raw cinematic quality. Jonze opens the audience's eyes to the debilitating effects modern overstimulation has on masculinity and relationships. After expending much of his life's energy on fake realities, Theo is weak, needy, insecure and hypersensitive to the feelings of others.
Being surrounded by so much advanced technology, Theo — and presumably all his modern male counterparts — is able to meet almost all of his primal needs with a simple voice command. Want sex? He can flip on the mega-screen porn TV or use his hands-free phone sex app. Need social interaction? He becomes fast friends with an interactive video game. A romantic relationship? Enter Samantha. Theodore is not necessarily an inherently weak man, but because his mind is so used to taking the route of instant technological gratification, he continually looks for true fulfillment from forces outside himself, terrified to stand on his own.
While it seems Samantha provides an escape from his woes, she really locks him deeper inside his emotional dungeon. She's programmed to cater perfectly to his every relationship-related desire, giving love and pulling back exactly when he needs it. She challenges him with her own "emotional uncertainties," but never beyond what he can handle. Samantha is completely empathetic to his lack of masculinity, thus spiking his expectations of love to wildly unrealistic levels and prohibiting him from growing as a man, leaving him completely vulnerable. The "love" she provides him with is so easy that he is completely unmotivated to find a real woman, whose real human issues might prove difficult to deal with.
The movie poses an excellent juxtaposition between two important life questions: Should we flee this mad dash toward technological overstimulation, because the escape from reality it provides clearly damages human relationships? Or is this the inevitable direction humans are headed, thus must we look for ways to find fulfillment during our drift away from interpersonal intimacy? The question is brilliantly answered at the conclusion.
Doubtlessly eager to jump on the Phoenix-Adams bandwagon after Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master," Jonze utilizes the duo — and the rest of the cast — to its highest potential. Phoenix's performance is enlightening; he's able to perfectly encapsulate the angst Jonze wanted to portray. Phoenix enables you to fully experience the confused sufferings of a manturned-sensitive-boy by technology's drug-like lure. Adams provides a strong, slightly more intense representation of today's subculture of coffee-guzzling, thesis-writing, cynical urban women. Johansson's playful sensuality sparks just as much intrigue as it does when she plays human characters.
With "Her" now on his resume, Jonze now completely owns his style, and secures his place among the ranks of the great modern independent screenwriters and directors. "Her" takes its spot alongside
and rises above some of the innovative films of Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel and Ethan Coen, Wes Anderson and others. An new era begins for Jonze with a film that hits close to home with our generation, and takes his reputation from great director to modern artist.
Edited by Brook Barnes
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