issue 17 // volume 43 Boston strong on patriots day > ‘Patriots Day’ film review Jerrison Oracion Senior Columnist kkeknkx he Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 was one of the worst terrorist attacks in United States history since 9/11. An event that many people in Boston thought impossible took place. It not only affected a lot of people, it caused the city to come together during a very difficult time. Patriots Day is the first of two films that talks about the Boston Marathon bombing. The film shows a detailed explanation of the events in the bombing before, during, and after. Patriots Day follows various people involved in the event, from first responders, including Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons), and FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon), to some of the victims including Patrick Downes (Christopher O’Shea), Jessica Kensky (Rachel Brosnahan) and Sean Collier (Jake Picking). The second half of the film focuses on the manhunt for the two brothers that planned the bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff), with the entire city and an international student community trying to find them. With the help of an international student named Dun Meng VJimmy O. Yang) who is held hostage by the brothers and escapes from them, the police are able to get Dzhokhar. Throughout the film, we see on screen graphics allowing the audience to know who is who in the bombing. We also see graphics that show how many hours have passed since the blast happened. The film has handheld camerawork which makes it look like Friday Night Lights. Patriots Day combines the actors with actual footage and pictures from the events to seamlessly connect what really happened during the bombing. It is interesting that the actors cast as Dzhokhar, Tamerlan, and Dun look almost exactly like the people that they played. Some of the people in the film were overwhelmed by the eight-year- old boy that passed away during the bombing, Martin Richard. One of the things that I learned from the film is that Tamerlan passed away because Dzhokhar accidently ran over him. Overall, three people passed away in the bombing, and the entire city worked together to recover from the tragedy. Boston is a unique city because it has a long history of major events. In the movie there is a bar scene in which Sean offers an international student (initially thought to be the student who passed away during the bombing) the chance to see a Zac Brown Band concert. This is an example of a community coming together during a major event, like when New York came together during 9/11 or when Vancouver came together after the Stanley Cup riots to clean the city and identify the rioters. There is another film about the Boston Marathon bombing that focuses on the victims: Stronger, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany, which opens soon. A note on history: Rock and rap's fusion and fame > The short-lived success of nu metal Caroline Ho Arts Editor N: metal, sometimes written as nti metal—not “noooo it’s not metal,” although you might hear that screamed by the plenty of heavy metal purists—as a genre has the reputation for being what kids listen to when they think they’re trying to be hardcore, but whether or not it truly counts as metal is up for the listener to decide. Nu metal is about as fusion as you can get for a genre, as it is derived from heavy metal, hip hop, funk, grunge, rap, and a little of everything else. With so many different influences across a broad sonic spectrum, it’s hard to name just a few. From the rock and metal side, acts like Anthrax, Rage Against the Machine, and Pantera can probably identified as forerunners; for hip hop, various nu metal artists have named musicians from Dr. Dre to the Wu-Tang Clan as inspiration. Although the stylistic sources are diverse, nu metal definitely emerged from the era of grunge and alternative metal in the early ’gos that had pushed metal into the mainstream. Metal had gotten popular, and in music popular usually means stale. The genre needed something fresh, something reinvigorating. That innovation was introduced by Korn (stylized as Kon), widely hailed as the first nu metal band. Formed in Bakersfield, California in 1993, the group released their self-titled debut album in 1994. The record’s angry vocals, down- tuned seven-string guitars, and hip- hop-reminiscent riffs were later cited as influences by a lot of other groups. As for Korn’s own influences, they point toa lot of big names in heavy metal like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Slayer, but Korn’s sound is also drawn from funk and hip-hop, and in a 2015 interview with Vice music channel Noisey, frontman Jonathan Davis said he’s always considered Korn a funk band. Alongside Korn, Deftones—also from California—were12w another pioneer of nu metal, with their first album Adrenaline (1995) featuring an experimental blend of metal, progressive, grunge, and rap. But it was still a pretty niche genre, and didn’t gain much attention outside its fanbase. Brazillian metal band Sepultura, with 1996's Roots, marked a more definite push into the wider metal scene. It’s not completely clear when the label “nu metal” was first applied. At first the genre was known as neo-heavy metal, but at some point it got shortened to “nu metal.” The term is often credited to producer Ross Robinson, who’s been given the title “Godfather of Nu Metal,” as he was the producer for some of the genre’s giants. Robinson was behind Korn’s first two albums, Sepultura’s Roots, and the band that would really launch nu metal into the spotlight: Limp Bizkit. With Robinson, the rap-rock group from Florida released their debut Three Dollar Bill, Yall in 1997, with a sound that was intentionally aggravating and abrasive, as much designed to repulse listeners as their name. Also in 1997 came the debut albums of Coal Chamber, Sevendust, and Papa Roach, and the second album by Deftones. Nu metal had taken on a definite sound, and it was starting to take radio waves by storm—and not just in the rock world. Korn’s third album Follow the Leader hit number one on the Billboard 200 in 1998, a feat repeated by their next album Issues the following year. Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other did the same in 1999. Slipknot also landed onto the scene in 1999 with their self-titled debut, and, although they had a sound that was significantly harder than the more rap- and funk-infused sounds of others in the genre, they were still often labelled nu metal. One latecomer to the genre, but one of its most significant, was Linkin Park, who released Hybrid Theory in late 2000 to massive commercial success. It was the best-selling album of the year, and the best-selling debut album of the 21st century. Around the turn of the millennium, nu metal was everywhere, topping charts and dominating MTV with the backing of major record labels. But, like so many musical trends, it grew too huge to the point of oversaturation, as record companies pushed forward band after band that tried to reproduce the sound. Album sales for Limp Bizkit’s Results May Vary (2003), while still high, were significantly lower than their previous releases. The same was true arts // no. 7 te ye ea Tae ey KEVIN CT ee U| WN aT mT Poster for ‘Patriots Day’ Image via korn.com for Korn’s Take a Look in the Mirror (2003). Deftones had already diverged significantly from nu metal with White Pony in 2000, which was considerably more musically experimental, and a lot of other artists similarly turned away from nu metal. Slipknot delved deeper into death and thrash metal; Papa Roach went for a straight rock sound, dropping rap from its style; and emo, metalcore, and other genres started to grow in popularity. By the middle of the decade, it was clear that tastes had turned. Nu metal certainly isn’t outstandingly popular anymore, but for all the flak it receives, it has definitely left its mark. Linkin Park is still one of the biggest bands out there, and although the electronic-infused style of their later albums doesn’t bear much resemblance to their early-2000s releases, 2014’s The Hunting Party was something of a musical return to their earlier style. Korn has been churning out music with their characteristic groove the entire time, and their twelfth studio album The Serenity of Suffering came out in late 2016. It sounds like there is still new life for nu metal.