The Ten Greatest Death Metal Albums of the 1990s

A countdown of the absolute best extreme metal albums from the genre’s golden decade

Both black metal and death metal came to prominence in the 1980s, but I think we can all agree that it wasn’t until the 1990s that both genres hit their respective peaks. While the pioneering efforts of bands like Venom, Bathory and Possessed remain fun little relics of yesteryear, it’s hard to deny that even masterpieces like “Black Metal” and “Seven Churches" don't sound just a tad outdated today. The 1990s, as such, represented the maturation of death metal as musical genre, with titans like Death, Cynic and Emperor releasing innovative albums that completely expanded -- and in some cases, totally obliterated -- musical boundaries.

While ‘80s death and black metal was all about the Satanic imagery and gore rock -- complete with squealing solos that, beyond the guttural vocals, could’ve been lifted off any Grim Reaper track -- the genres grew both musically and lyrically in the 1990s. With the unlikely injection of fusion jazz techniques into the genres, what started off as slightly heavier riff-raff turned into sonic marvels, with blast beats and symphonic guitar wails accompanying the incomparable growls of such iconic heavyweights as Lord Worm and Chuck Schulinder. And structurally, the 1990s saw death and black metal poetry shift away from the over-the-top blood and guts of the decade prior, instead focusing on more introspective issues, and even making some legit commentary on contemporary society and politics.

Today, I’ve taken it upon myself to countdown what I (and I alone) consider to be the ten absolute best death metal albums of the 1990s. Of course, with such a major overlap between black and death metal (not to mention emerging subgenres like grindcore and Gothenburg melodic metal), the countdown interprets “death metal” as a genre rather liberally. For the sake of the article, I’m more or less clumping all of the extreme, technical skill-driven metal genres under the umbrella here, so if you’re a super hardcore purist or genre traditionalist -- well, honestly, I don’t care what you think, anyway.

Before we hop into the main countdown, I would like to take some time to address a couple of albums that, for various reasons, almost made the final cut, but ultimately wound up eliminated from competition.

Honorable Mentions:

“Slaughter of the Soul” by At the Gates (1995) -- This is an album that’s worthy of the top 10 for its impact on the genre alone. Even now, “pop” extreme metal acts like Meshuggah owe more than a bit of gratitude to ATTG, and in particular, this album, which was really way ahead of its time in terms of production techniques. And even now, wannabe “metal core” bands continue to rip off the album’s innovative sound, sometimes copying riffs from the CD nearly note-for-note. Alas, the album did come out relatively late in the decade, and there are quite a few albums that I think were even more pioneering than this one -- hence, “Slaughter of the Soul’s” position as this countdown’s unofficial number 11 entrant.

“40 More Reasons to Hate Us” by Anal Cunt (1996) -- The “Weird” Al Yankovichs of extreme metal, shock-maestros A.C. were undoubtedly one of the most appealing grindcore acts of the decade -- if nothing else, for the utter absurdity of their lyrics. It’s hard to pick just one album to represent their impressive oeuvre as a whole, but if I had to make a snap decision, I would probably go with “40 More Reasons to Hate Us,” as it contains some of the band’s absolute best/most offensive lyrics (“Van Full of Retards”  and “I Hope You Get Deported” being personal favorites of mine) as well as two legitimately amazing cover tunes -- one being a sludgy re-do of “Gloves of Metal” by Manowar and a downright amazing rendition of the “Three’s Company” theme song.

“Venereology” by Merzbow (1994) -- Easily the heaviest album I have ever heard, but since it’s technically an electronic/noise album (despite its obvious death metal inspirations), I had to reluctantly cut it from the list. It’s still worth a play at your next family get-together, though -- and at full volume, of course.

“Morningrise” by Opeth (1996) -- It would be pretty stupid to have a countdown of the best death metal albums of the 1990s and NOT have an appearance by Opeth, but while doing my homework for the list, it quickly dawned upon me that the group’s finest recording from the decade is hardly a death metal album at all. Although “Morningrise” is undoubtedly a beautiful work of art (with “To Bid You Farewell” remaining my favorite track from the band), it’s kind of hard to lump this one in with the heavier hitters of the decade. It’s arguably the finest Gothenburg-tinged album ever produced, but to consider it a true death metal album is just stretching it too far.

“Destroyer” by Gorgoroth (1998) -- I SO wanted this one to make the cut, but at the end of the day, I had to let objectivity trump subjectivity. The first time I heard this album, in particular the track “Om Kristen Og Jodisk Tru,” my jaw just hit the floor. So heavy, so fast, so distorted, and at the same time, so eerily melodic -- this was a truly amazing death/black metal fusion recording, but alas, I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling it a truly iconic or innovative release -- let alone one that genuinely deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the upcoming master works of metal glory.

And with those also-rans out of the equation, who is ready to jump head first into what I deem the ten best death metal offerings of the 1990s? Put in your earplugs and throw up the horns, folks…it’s about to get all kinds of LOUD up in here momentarily.

Number Ten: 

“Heartwork” by Carcass (1993)

From the first time I heard the title track on an episode of “Beavis and Butt-Head,” I was absolutely floored by “Heartwork.” Traditionalists may scoff at the album’s inclusion, and to be fair, a bit of subjectivity may be creeping into my ranking selections here, but this, at least, is unmistakable: Carcass’s 1993 album, in every sense of the word, kicks ass.

The fourth release from the U.K. noise merchants is a tremendous thrash/technical death metal fusion album, and easily the best record in the band’s discography. Tracks like opener “Buried Dreams” and “No Love Lost” have an almost sludgy, “groove metal” tempo, which of course, is complemented quite nicely by Jeff Walker’s prickly vocals, while “Carnal Forge” and “Blind Bleeding the Blind” just roll with blistering guitar work from Bill Steer and Michael Amott. And of course, how could we forget about drummer Ken Owen’s thundering performances on “Death Certificate” and “This Mortal Coil,” either?

All in all, this is simply a terrific album, the sort of ahead-of-its-time, technique -driven metal offering that’s equal parts pounding and proficient. It may not have re-invented the wheel, so to speak, but when an album sounds this excellent from start to finish, how could I possibly discount its inherent greatness?

Number Nine:

“Pierced from Within” by Suffocation (1995)

Just pure technical brutality -- that’s how I’d describe Suffocation’s mid ‘90s masterpiece. Frank Mullen has to have one of the absolute best growls in all of death metal, and never have his guttural vocals sound as crisp and haunting as they do on “Pierced from Within.” Not only is this album the band’s undisputed magum opus, it’s easily one of the best metal releases of the entire decade.

You can really feel the Atheist and Death impact on this album, and that isn’t a negative at in the slightest. Whereas so many bands from the era felt the need to sound as “brootal” as possible, Suffocation was a rare act that placed actual technique above sonic viscosity. That unique cross-pollination of sheer impact and sheer talent is what makes Suffocation, and this album in particular, stand out from oh so many Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse facsimiles from the era.

With tracks like “Suspended in Tribulation” and “Thrones of Blood,” you’re getting the best of both worlds: super heavy, skull-crushing power AND unquestionable technical excellence. If you’re looking for an album that combines serious fretwork with pure intensity, you won’t do much better than this excellently produced offering.

Number Eight:

“Blasphemy Made Flesh” by Cryptopsy (1994)

It was a tough call deciding between this album and “None So Vile,” but at the end of the day, I think this one is not only the better of the two, but ultimately, the more dynamic.

Sure, sure, you could easily say that the follow up to this, the iconic Canadian band's debut album, is the more technical offering, but at the same time, I think you would also be discounting the uniqueness, and certainly the genre impact, of "Blasphemy Made Flesh." The technical death metal genre was well established when the record was originally released, but it sounded nothing at all like anything that had come before it. It was like Atheist on methamphetamine -- an incredibly skillful, well-produced album, only FAST as all hell.

Obviously, the pairing of vocalist Lord Worm and drummer virtuoso Flo Mounier is one of the greatest tandems in metal history, but I think due credit should also be reserved for Jon Levasseur, Martin Fergusson and especially Steve Thibault. With tracks like "Defenestration," "Mutant Christ" and "Pathological Frolic," this is a blistering, unexpectedly groovy offering that ramrods its way past the 40 minute mark like it was nothing; it may not be the band's most impressive overall work, but there is no denying that it's still a landmark -- and incredibly ass-kicking -- recording, worthy of all genre fans' reverence.

Number Seven:

“The Erosion of Sanity” by Gorguts (1993)

Speaking of awesome technical Canadian death metal, “The Erosion of Sanity,” note-for-note, might just be the single most impressive genre offering of the decade. While it may not have the overall impact of some of the higher-ranking albums on the countdown, there is NO denying the technical excellence on display here, which remains far and away the finest recording in the Gorguts discography.

Luc Lemay undoubtedly had one of the most possessed-sounding voices in all of death metal, and never has his trademark yelps and growls sounded so pristine and abrasive. On tracks like "With Their Flesh He'll Create" and "Orphans of Sickness," he unleashes some of the best death metal vocals you'll ever hear, an almost inimitable mixture of pure sonic power and surprising clarity. A lot of death metal frontmen could growl, no doubt about it, but very, very few had the ability to blast Cookie Monster vocals that sound as crisp, clear and shockingly decipherable as Lemay on this album.

Of course, you really can't talk about the album's inherent excellence without talking about Stephane Provencher's booming drumming and Sylvain Marcoux's skillful guitar work -- talk about two instrumentalists who really deserve more recognition when discussing the genre's heavyweights. Making the album even more impressive is the occasional drift away from traditional death metal leanings, such as the haunting piano into at the beginning of "Condemned to Obscurity" and the downright jazzy bass interludes in "A Path Beyond Premonition." Without question, this is one of the absolute finest death metals of the 1990s, and one of the best produced metal albums you'll hear from any decade.

Number Six: 

“Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk” by Emperor (1997)

Yeah, yeah, you could argue that this is more of a black metal offering than a death metal release, but what the hell ever. The important thing to note is that “Anthems” is one of the best-sounding, best-polished, best-produced recordings not only of the 1990s, but quite possibly throughout the history of extreme metal. It’s one thing for an album to sound brutal and symphonic, but for an album to sound as crisply brutal and symphonic as this release is a true feat of sound mixing and engineering greatness.

As soon as "Alsvartr" starts up, you just know you're in for anything but your typical black metal offering. As the super atmospheric intro track bleeds into high-speed ass-kicker "Ye Entrancemperium," the true glory of "Anthems" makes itself known: not only is this a aurally mesmerizing album, it's indeed one of the best track-by-track metal albums of any subcategory produced over the decade.

With standout tracks like "Thus Spake the Nightspirit," "Ensorcelled by Khaos," and "With Strength I Burn," there's nary a squandered second on the album, which to this day, remains more or less the blueprint for all modern black metal releases. Part symphonic power metal opus and part blistering technical death metal clinic, Ihsahn and the boys have never sounded as savage -- or as beautiful -- as they do on this unquestionable masterpiece.

Number Five: 

“Symbolic” by Death (1995)

Death may not have invented death metal music, per se, but they certainly reinvented it in the 1990s. The group released five full length albums in the decade, and each one represented not only a major evolutionary step for the band, but in many ways, the entire death metal genre.

With the trifecta of Chuck S, Gene Hoglan and Steve DiGiorgio, this is an album that sounds heavy beyond words. Each track rolls forward with the sonic equivalent of monster truck force and the graceful speed of a suicidal roller pigeon. And Schulinder's unbelievable fretwork on tracks like "Symbolic" and "Crystal Mountain" just begs the question of why this dude isn't routinely ranked alongside titans like Mustaine and Dimebag Darrell when it comes to talking about the absolute best metal guitarists of the Clinton and Bush One Years.

With haunting tracks like "Empty Words" and lighting-fast virtuoso showcases like "Without Judgement," this album is yet another reason why Death is remembered as pretty much the definitive technical death metal band of the 1990s. While this album may not have been as influential or innovative as some of the group's previous releases, it's sheer technical excellence and incredible production values more than makes up for it. This is just outstanding metal, at its purest, most uncomplicated best -- if this one isn't a prized piece in your collection, I have serious doubts regarding your sincerity as a death metal enthusiast.

Number Four:

“Individual Thought Patterns” by Death (1993)

I fought with myself for what seemed like hours to pick between “Symbolic” and this album, and at the end of the day, I decided both albums were awesome and innovative enough to earn spots on the countdown.

Following up "Human" is about as unenviable a task as I can imagine any band staring down, but somehow, the fearsome foursome of Schulinder, Hoglan, DiGiorgio and LaRocque managed to craft an album that not only lived up to its vaunted predecessor standards, but actually managed to improve upon the pioneering jazz fusion implementations that made the landmark 1991 release so revolutionary.

This is a thinking metal fan's album, through and through. Tracks like "Overactive Imagination," "Destiny" and "The Philosopher" are not only technical achievements (featuring some of the best basslines and dueling guitars you'll ever hear), but contain lyrics that are actually intellectually stimulating, to boot. Death was never a band to dumb itself down for the masses, and "Individual Thought Patterns" is, arguably, the band at its absolute creative zenith. From "Mentally Blind" to "Trapped in a Corner," the band's fifth album is an absolute maelstrom of lyrical intellectualism, musical dexterity and sheer virtuosity. The fact that this album, and the band as a whole, isn't recognized as a decades-defining cultural institution is simply beyond me, folks.

Number Three: 

“Elements” by Atheist (1993)

In many ways, Atheist is sort of the great grandfather of the technical death metal genre. While pale Death and Possessed imitators were busy singing about entrails and doing their best Dave Lombardo double bass stomp impersonations, the boys in Atheist were more or less molding the subgenre together with their bare hands, crafting 1989's landmark "Piece of Time" when most extreme metal acts still sounded like Mercyful Fate and Slayer cover bands.

While the band's 1991 release "Unquestionable Presence" is probably Atheist's most celebrated work, I would actually call "Elements" the better overall album, as it featured more experimental recording techniques and time signatures. Even more amazing is just how great the album sounds from start to finish despite the fact that the band was more or less forced to record the album due to contractual obligations and their lead guitarist was sidelined with carpal tunnel syndrome throughout the production process.

If you're looking for complex, cerebral metal, you're not going to find many genre recordings as nuanced and impressive as this one. From the dizzying opener "Green" to the album's concluding title track, this is just a technically mesmerizing album that feels worlds apart from its death metal contemporaries. Songs like "Samba Briza" and "Earth" are the kinds of counter-intuitive, genre-deconstructing tracks that were a good thirty years ahead of their time, and sound just as fresh and cutting edge now as they did back in the heyday of Pepsi Crystal and "Jurassic Park." If you ever wondered where bands like Strapping Young Lad and In Flames culled their stylistic leanings, this album is more or less the two-decades-old Rosetta Stone from which practically all progressive-death metal bands since have stemmed.

Number Two:

“Focus” by Cynic (1993)

Very few albums, within any genre, had the kind of widespread impact that “Focus” had. The release completely reinvented what we thought was possible with the death metal genre, paring back the ostentatious aggression for a more nuanced, cerebral, and stylistically diverse sound that’s STILL being imitated by metal up-starts the world over.

"Focus" did so many things new with the death metal genre that it might as well get full credit for kick-starting the prog-metal revolution that more or less is responsible for bands like At the Gates, Opeth and Meshuggah even existing at all. Production-wise, the stuff Cynic did on this album truly was a good decade ahead of its time, incorporating digital voice box manipulation, clean female vocals and abstruse instrumentals (at one point, even breaking out the Chapman stick) at a time when death metal, as a genre, was still synonymous with Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel. From "Veil of Maya" to "How Could I," the record is a half-hour whirlwind that genuinely feels like an audio adventure -- you have no idea where the album is going to take you next, but wherever that place is, you know it's going to be awesome.

At times sounding like the bastard fusion of Atheist, Obituary, Tool and Black Sabbath, "Focus" is one of those watershed releases that completely changed an entire genre's trajectory. Needless to say, Cynic's grand experiment paid off big time, becoming one of the most beloved (and imitated) genre releases of the last 25 years. In fact, it might just be the single most important death metal release of the 1990s; barring one extremely noteworthy exception, of course....

Number One:

“Human” by Death

Simply put, “Human” is the single most important death metal album of all-time, and in my personal opinion, the single best ever pressed to vinyl, cassette or compact disc. Even before the release of this 1991 masterpiece, Death were already genre titans, having released undeniable classics “Scream Bloody Gore” and “Leprosy” in the late 1980s. However, “Human” absolutely shattered the group’s own hand-sculpted mold, eschewing the horror dressings and on-the-nose political symbolism for an experimental musical undertaking that instead sought to peer inside the until-then-untapped cerebral elements of the genre. Instead of being fast, heavy and vicious for the sake of being fast, heavy and vicious, “Human” instead focuses on technical proficiency, complex song structures and introspective lyrics, representing a gargantuan step forward in the maturation process of death metal.

Sean Reinert's fade-in drumming on "Flattening of Emotions" might as well be the death metal equivalent of the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" opening bass line; an instantly iconic introductory salvo that represented an overnight pole shift in genre style. With Chuck Schulinder, Steve DiGiorgio and Paul Masvidal rounding out the quartet, "Human" has arguably the greatest line-up for any death metal album released in the 1990s, and every single song on the album has a unique sound of its own. "Suicide Machine" has a certain power that is wholly different than the force of "Lack of Comprehension," and the sonic pull of "Cosmic Sea" is something altogether different from the aural assault of "Vacant Planets." As technically amazing and pioneering as the album is, I still think even the most hardcore of death metal enthusiasts have a tendency to discount just how versatile "Human" is as a record.

At a little under 40 minutes, "Human" is a tour de force that, to me at least, comes to symbolize everything that was great about death metal in the 1990s. It was rich, and well-produced, and powerful, and experimental and technically marvelous. It had raw force and sheer power, but it also had an underlying beauty and grace to its structure that was largely lost on all of those snobby music critics who are unable to hear past Schulinder's beastly growls. While "Human," Death and the extreme metal genre as a whole will likely never receive the accolades and acclaim that they individually deserve, the true believers require little convincing at this point: not only is this revolutionary 1991 offering the definitive death metal album of the decade, it's easily one of the greatest recordings ever...regardless of genre, and regardless of the timeframe.

Steven Spielberg: The King of Child Exploitation Cinema?

A look at the most successful director of all-time’s peculiar interests in celebrating (or is it abusing?) child actors

Many, many years ago, Adam Parfrey wrote an essay titled “Pederastic Park?” The piece made a fairly shocking -- but convincing -- claim concerning the oeuvre of Steven Spielberg; namely, the fact that his films allude to a staggering amount of seeming paedo subtext.

Now, I’m not really the biggest Spielberg fan out there; generally, the only two films of his that I can say that I truly enjoyed were “Schindler’s List” and “Lincoln,” whereas the totality of his filmography I would describe as flippantly overrated. With Parfrey’s little thought nugget in mind, however, the cinematic works of the most acclaimed Hollywood director of all time becomes something a bit more interesting -- and without question, more unnerving as well.

To begin, pretty much EVERY movie Spielberg has directed or produced has had a pretty huge emphasis on child actors. “E.T.,” “Hook,” “The Goonies,” “Super 8” -- all films rife with young thespians, whom frequently find themselves coming into close contact with older male characters. Whether it’s Roy Scheider kissing his son on the lips in “Jaws,” Sam Neil giving that one kid mouth to mouth in “Jurassic Park” or even Daniel Day Lewis draping his son over his back and lugging him around like a potato sack in “Lincoln,” there’s certainly an aberrant amount of adult-on-young person touching going on Spielberg’s movies.

Similarly, a large portion of Spielberg’s oeuvre relies upon the same motif: a young child encounters a “magical” grown up who, to some extent, helps them in the uneven transition from adolescence to adulthood. In “The Temple of Doom,” Indiana Jones became “guardian” of Short Round, John Malkovich shows Christian Bale the ways of manhood (in the absolute creepiest of tones, no less) in “Empire of the Sun,” Chunk in "The Goonies" forms an unsettling intimate bond with mutated man-child Sloth and in "A.I.," the robotic facsimile of a youngster is shepherded by what, for all intents and purposes, could be adequately described as a real-life “pedo-bear.” Of course, the ultimate example rests within perhaps Mr. Spielberg’s grandest work: the bald, wrinkly, loose-skinned E.T. becoming Elliot’s literal savior via the power of skin on skin touching. Hell, Spielberg even takes this thing trans-species, with the peculiar mentor-mentee relationships of both teenage soldiers and thoroughbreds in “War Horse.”

If you’ve ever taken a class on film theory (or, unfortunately, any kind of "gender studies" course), you’ve probably heard of something called the “male gaze” before. In essence, it’s the concept that the camera that records the film itself is a male, and as such, has a tendency to linger on the female form during scenes. Well, needless to say, there is not a whole lot of lingering on the female form in Spielberg’s works, but there sure is hell is a lot of lingering on the form of the child. Who can forget the obsessive lock on Haley Joel Osment in “A.I.,” or the way the lens basically fawned over 12-year-old Christian Bale throughout “Empire of the Sun?” Word has it on that last one, more than FOUR THOUSAND boys were screened before Spielberg found the right “lead” for the picture, too.

Similarly, have you ever noticed how much bare skin Spielberg has his younger actors showing in his films? Elliot in “E.T.” spends half the movie shirtless and hooked up to medical equipment, the “Lost Boys” in “Hook” merrily prance about in their skivvies and even in “The Goonies,” executive producer Spielberg has an overweight kid rubbing his fat much to the amusement of his abusive colleagues…and, perchance, the man behind the camera, as well?

While Spielberg seems to have a fixation on the male child form, he seems to have an opposite obsession with the young female, with an over-representation of child actresses in his films serving as terrorized objects. Carol-Anne in “Poltergeist,” the girl that’s almost turned into a velociraptor chew toy in “Jurassic Park,” Dakota Fanning in “War of the Worlds” -- and of course, the little girl in the red dress in “Schindler’s List,” who ultimately found herself heaped upon a tower of dead bodies sans a single line of dialogue. In Spielberg’s works, the boy (or at least, the image of the boy) is endlessly celebrated, while the young female is perpetually imperiled. Even in Spielberg’s animated forays, such seems to hold true; main character Fivel (via the assistance of an elder cat voiced by Dom Deluise) embarks upon epic adventures in the “An American Tail” films, while his sister is constantly on the (usually, unacknowledged) precipice of death. Taking things a step further, there doesn’t even appear to be female children in the director’s lackluster “The Adventures of Tin Tin” from 2011.

That’s not to mention the heavy amount of incestuous overtones in Spielberg’s films, be they directly stated (“The Color Purple”) or slyly implied -- lest we forget Michael J. Fox’s  played for laughs spit-swapping session with his mama in the first “Back to the Future” flick. Even more damning are the ideas that Spielberg never got off the drawing board; an ill-proposed sequel to “E.T.” would’ve consisted of Elliot being tortured by menacing alien creatures throughout the film, while an early draft of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” made mention of Indiana Jones’ proclivities for bedding minors. If nothing else, it definitely gives a less enthusiastic ring to the Spielberg produced spin-off "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," to be sure.

Of course, none of this is to say that Spielberg himself has a thing for young actors and actresses. Maybe, just maybe, the guy does have a huge “Peter Pan” hang-up, and he finds it easier to capture that iconic “Spielbergian” glow through child actors. But, with such unusual recurring themes playing out through his entire filmography, it does make one wonder a bit.

Perhaps, or perhaps not, the following may be worth noting. According to Wikipedia, among other properties Spielberg has considered turning into film projects are the titles “Chocky” and “A Steady Rain.”

“Chocky” is about a young boy whose mind is possessed by an alien spirit, who hails from a planet with only one sex. Meanwhile “A Steady Rain” is a drama about a young Vietnamese child who is ultimately killed and eaten by a Jeffrey Dahmer analogue.

Needless to say, it’s hard to think of an auteur better suited to handle the material at hand, no?

Why 3D Printing is Stupid

A technological revolution, you say? Why three dimensional printers, much to the chagrin of anti-state nerds the world over, AREN’T on the fast track to improving, or impacting, humanity as a whole

Sometime last year, you probably heard stories about that one dude that had a website that got shut down by the Feds because it showed people how to use a 3D printer -- then an ultra-obscure piece of technology -- to manufacture plastic guns capable of launching real bullets.

Well, flash forward a year, and the 3D printer itself has become something of an overnight symbol of post-Gen Y free-floating anti-authoritarianism -- you know, that really nondescript, lazy kind of pop-anarchism glibly unaware that its entire subculture is propped up by an advent created by the government itself.

Needless to say, the demand for 3D printers has shot through the roof, and we’re at a point now where machines of the like are getting pretty close to becoming affordable home appliances. Even now, some upstart companies that have invested in such devices are reporting high earnings off the three-dimensional printing requests of the masses, which, in and of itself, raises more than a few questions.

Let’s take a look at the basic functionality of these printers, why don’t we? As is, unless you’re chunking down NASA money or something, the absolute best device you’re going to have access to will be hardly capable of anything grander than spitting out some gaudy looking plastic jewelry. Or, as one Radio Shack commercial hilariously depicts, the ability to replicate the house keys of others, presumably so you can invade their home and murder them at some point. Of course, 3D printers do hypothetically give you the ability to print out sturdier materials (like, oh say, metal) with more wide-ranging functionality (like, as actual mechanical parts, or even medical apparatuses, like makeshift socket joints), but for most contemporary consumers? Pretty much all the devices allow you to do at the moment is create relatively useless homemade trinkets, making the “revolutionary” pieces of hardware really no more “revolutionary” than arts and craft tools like the Silhouette and Cricut.

The “appeal” of the 3D printer -- itself romanticized to the point of absurdity by the anarchocapitalist crowd -- is that it allows you the supposed “freedom to design your own wares." Instead of buying chintzy jewelry any kindergartner could cobble together in five minutes, you now have the ability to manufacture your own crappy doodads without ever having to pick up a hammer or a wad of plastic string. Methinks the sci-fi nerds are celebrating the “greatness” of this thing a bit prematurely -- lest we forget, all these things are doing now is shatting out nonfunctional plastic shards and super flimsy alloy metals, and NOT giving us our own X-Wing building material or anything.

In the future, I suppose these things could become more advanced, but it’s hard to imagine the really impressive applications of the device -- mass manufacturing, mostly -- ever leaving the domain of industrial appliances. For one thing, the general functionality of the devices don’t necessarily lend themselves to consumer grade applications. No matter how technologically advanced 3D printing gets, I have a hard time imagining American consumers using such devices to cobble together their own furniture or electronics, when they can just amble down to Best Buy or IKEA and buy the already-assembled product. For all the hubbub about the devices being used for more nefarious purposes -- like homemade armaments -- you have to also consider the resource component. Yeah, you can technically create a gun using plastic chunks cobbled together, but without springs and actual bullets, the things will likely do you little good, no matter one’s intent. The fact that many “3D handgun” owners have reported the devices literally exploding on them is but just one testament to the engineering flaws of such “homemade” devices.

To be fair, at least one company has been able to create a fully “3D printed” metal firearm, but said weapon was also designed using powdered metal (good luck finding that at Staples) in an industrial (read: that which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars) printer, and oh yeah -- the artifact itself still had to be manually pieced together, and compared to the junk you could buy at Wal-Mart for $199.99, it’s clearly an inferior consumer good. More expensive, lower quality, and less functionality: that’s pretty much all that 3D printing is promising us at the moment.

Actual products (as in, the stuff you can go into stores and purchase) tend to cost money because of the resources used to assemble said products are either limited or really, really hard to design. I think it’s going to be a long, long time before you see 3D consumer-appliance printers capable of cranking out sturdy, construction-quality 100 percent steel objects, and an even longer time before such devices will EVER be capable of producing complex, high-tech objects, like semiconductors or resistors. Some scientists with too much time/funding on their hands have experimented with “downloadable” food, but don’t get your hopes up -- unless you enjoy “ink” made out of bug guts, it doesn’t look like 3D printing will be a solution to world hunger, either.

Now, COULD 3D printers have gigantic implications on industry, medicine and science as the century continues? Well, it’s pretty hard to argue that it won’t, but at the same time, I have a hard time believing that hardware of the like will get so advanced that it can completely eliminate the handiwork of laborers or designers altogether. Sure, 3D printers might give us a ton of affordable replacement hip joint devices, but the unstated reality here is that said medical apparatuses are clearly inferior to professionally engineered and manually assembled products serving the same purposes. Hell, even the gaudiest handmade and hand sculpted senior citizen jewelry tends to look glossier and better assembled than the 3D jewelry being paraded about by oh-so-many 20s something hipsters these days.

So, why the popularity of 3D printers and 3D printed junk among today’s generation, you may be asking yourself? Methinks it has something to do with the illusion of craftsmanship and production -- i.e., the idealized idea that by plugging in some coordinates on a computer program and clicking a mouse, the individual in question can “create” a tangible, physical good of his or her own “design.” Perhaps all of this “additive manufacturing” hubbub is simply pursuit of futurisms for the sake of pursuing futurisms -- it’s not the functionality of 3D printing that has such an appeal to the “Star Wars”-weaned masses as it is the conjectural applications behind the concept, which, more than likely, will never come to fruition in their lifetimes.

Or then again, maybe it’s just a testament to today’s post-Obama, Reddit-anarchist freedom-loving Libertarian-Internet dweebs and their bewildering consumerism as activism mentalities. Notice the namesake chosen for the “3D” gun that caused such a ruckus last year: “the Liberator.”

Now, as to what 3D printing is liberating the masses from, precisely? That’s a question, it seems, that today’s 4Chan Patrick Henrys are all but oblivious to.

B-Movie Review: "Clownhouse" (1989)

What's the only thing scarier than a bunch of kids being stalked by murderous clowns? Try a movie about a bunch of kids being stalked by murderous clowns that was directed by a convicted child predator!

The name Victor Salva may not ring a bell to most folks, but odds are, you've probably seen at least one of his movies before. Despite his no-name status as auteur, he did manage to helm at least one major Disney-backed feature -- 1995's "Powder," aka, that movie about the supernatural albino kid -- and 2001's "Jeepers Creepers," which, in turn resulted in two sequels.

That said, Salva's probably best known for his 1989 film "Clownhouse." Unfortunately for Salva and everybody else in the universe, that's only because during the shoot, Mr. Salva took it upon himself to molest the film's young lead actor, which ultimately led to his spending 15 months in the slammer. Now, as to WHY a film starring an abused child was given a wide-scale release after the fact, and especially what kind of black magic Salva used to salvage his career afterwards -- landing a gig with Walt freakin' Disney, no less -- are just two of those frustratingly unexplainable enigmas of existence. You know, sort of like how nobody has called him out on how the first "Jeepers Creepers" movie totally ripped-off a segment of "Unsolved Mysteries" and stuff.

The really problematic thing about "Clownhouse" is that, as a stand-alone film, it's actually a fairly decent B-movie offering. Of course, there's no real way to look at the film without viewing it through the lens of an individual that KNOWS the kid onscreen was subjected to heinous abuses, and the guy that did said abusing found a way to profit off the experience, to some extent. Subjective moralism aside, "Clownhouse" is a pretty well-constructed, suspenseful lite-slasher, and with its emphasis on imperiled middle schoolers, it definitely feels quite different -- an WAY more unnerving -- than the myriad "Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th" sequels that were being churned out during the same timeframe.

The film wastes NO time at all making you feel really uneasy about things, as it begins with a shirtless kid traipsing about a house, bathed in a spooky glow, during a thunderstorm. While investigating the abode, a flyer featuring an illustration of a clown smacks into a window, and the kid promptly responds by urinating all over himself. Utilizing the old "it was only a dream" hook, the kid awakens, to find out, yeah, he indeed wound up peeing all over his bed. His older brother walks in (sporting no doubt Salva-recommended tighty-whities) and tries to discard the sheets, but in walks the trio's oldest brother (played by Sam Rockwell, believe it or not), who then proceeds to mock his youngest sibling mercilessly.

Pssh...why would a kid ever be frightened by such a sight?

Downstairs, mom chides her kids for a grotesque hanging man decoration they left in the front yard. In the next scene, the brothers walk home from school and scope out some police activity going on at the local mental institution -- not that such will be a prominent plot point in the movie or anything.

While mom is out of town, the trio decide to visit a traveling circus act, despite the youngest brother (named Casey) having a major clown phobia. He has his palm read by your stereotypical blind hag, who tells him that his life line may be cut short. The two other brothers -- Geoffrey, the middle child and Randy, the eldest -- argue for a while before they take Casey into the big top.

While Randy tries to make it with one of his gal pals, Casey spots a clown playing peek-a-boo with the girl behind him. The ringmaster introduces a trifecta of jesters -- Cheezo, Bippo and Dippo -- whom seek a volunteer from the audience. You will NEVER guess who they try to pull out of the crowd either. Go ahead, try and figure it out.

Casey, after being yanked on by one of the clowns, runs out of the tent screaming his head off. Geoffrey tries to ease him a bit, and Casey explicates his mortal apprehension of clowns by declaring "you never know what they really are." Casey then plays one of those baseball tossing carnival games, and his reward is a talking clown doll. Meanwhile, somebody is lurking in the shadows, and whoever he is, he sure does have a keen eye for balloon animals.

Backstage, the clowns drink and smoke cigarettes and complain about the business, when the lights suddenly go out. One takes a gander outside the tent, and he's grabbed while two other mysterious individuals rush in. After the blood dries, the three individuals -- whoever they may be -- decide to steal a few costumes and clown horns and smear pancake makeup all over their faces.

...but seriously though, it's not Matthew Lillard. Or is it?

In the next scene, the kids are all hanging out in the bathroom (another Salva suggestion, I can only imagine) and they decide to tell each other ghost stories. This cues a quick cut of three clowns psychotically ambling their way down the streets of suburbia -- in case you haven't put two and two together yet, these clowns are the same people that escaped from the mental institution earlier in the movie!

While the kids have a pillow fight, the clowns outside bat the front lawn hanging display around for awhile. One of the clowns makes eye contact with Casey, but he appears to shake it off as an illusion. The brothers search for some popcorn, and after being unable to find any, the youngest and oldest siblings decide to walk to the local general store to procure some. By the way, it's almost midnight at this point...

Casey and Randy have an impromptu race to the store, while a clown stalks the unknowing youngest brother. Afterwards, the owner of the store decides to walk out into a barn for some reason, and he quickly has his head twisted off by a clown who bears an uncanny resemblance to Matthew Lillard.

A radio announcement gives us a little bit of exposition on the clowns, while Geoffrey gets his first gander at one of the clowns himself. Meanwhile, Randy makes fun of Casey for not having pubes and peeing on his bed, and one of the clowns chases the youngest brother around for awhile.

The two kids return home, and Geoffrey tries to scare his elder brother by pretending to hang from a tree. Once inside, Geoffrey yells at Randy for eating popcorn too loudly, which deteriorates into a a shouting match about their dad playing favorites. The lights go out, and they all argue about who should be the one to march up into the attic and fix the fuse box. And yes, the clowns do appear to have made their way inside the house at this juncture.

Eventually, Randy heads up stairs, and observes some smeared white paint all over the place. Downstairs, Geoffrey reads comics to Casey, while the clowns observe them from a distance. Randy, ever the asshole, decides to dress up like a clown himself, and starts banging some pots and pans together to freak out his siblings. Unfortunately, Randy makes a bit too much racket, apparently, and one of the clowns responds by yanking him through a plate glass window.

And now, it's up to Geoffrey and Casey to thwart the clowns' murderous plans. They manage to off one of the clowns by sending him tumbling down a stairwell, and following some frying pans and lamps upside the noggin, they are able to chunk another clown out of a window.

Strangely enough, the boys uncover Randy's (presumably dead) body in a closet, but neither one of them seem all that concerned about their older brother being all murdered and stuff. This, of course, leads to the film's ultimate clown chase, complete with the old "the survivor tries to call the police because the villain is momentarily incapacitated but the police don't believe him and when he hangs up the villain has mysteriously vanished" bit. Casey hides underneath a table, but he accidentally alerts the last remaining clown by squeaking the doll he won at the carnival earlier that evening. And just when it looks like Casey is a goner, here comes Geoffrey to make the save with a fire ax. Cue a truly weird quote about how fear follows an individual throughout his or her lifetime, and I do believe we have ourselves some end credits to watch, folks.

Well, that was a decisively unpleasant thing to watch. As stated earlier, the film itself isn't really bad at all -- I would liken it, in atmosphere, to perhaps the most extreme episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" that Nickelodeon ever dare televise. That said, for all of the film's positives -- it's pace, tension-building and stronger-than-average performances -- it is damn near impossible to take your mind off the horrible things that happened behind the cameras while this thing was in production. Ultimately, the torment Casey goes through eerily parallels the heinous abuses that actor Nathan Winters went through at the hands of the film's director, and that makes "Clownhouse," as a whole, unbelievably hard to sit through.

As pure cinema, "Clownhouse" is a respectable, moderately above average genre offering for its time, and as long as you remain oblivious to the backstage horrors behind the film itself, odds are, you'll probably enjoy it for what it is.

But with the horrific tales of Nathan Winters buttressing your filmgoing experience here? Yeah, be prepared for 90 of the most uncomfortable minutes you will likely ever have watching a motion picture, amigos. 

Book Review: “The Next Decade” by George Friedman (2011)

According to one of America’s most respected strategists, the United States’ biggest dilemma is managing the consequences of being an unplanned global empire while simultaneously upholding the founding virtues of the Republic. So how will this dual-problem impact geopolitics until 2021?

A few years ago, I reviewed George Friedman’s 2009 speculative fiction title “The Next 100 Years.” It was an entertaining read, to be sure -- what, with all of those hypersonic missiles and wars with a united Turkish-Japanese-German front over intergalactic battle systems and all -- but the thing that really struck me most about the book was just how much the author knew his stuff regarding U.S. sociopolitics. As a high ranking official for STRATFOR -- one of the premier geopolitical intelligence groups in the United States -- Friedman is a guy who definitely has his thumb and forefinger on the pulse of international stratagem, and his straight-and-to-the-point explanations of how and what the U.S. must do to maintain its hegemonic influence in the world in “The Next 100 Years” piqued my curiosity in “The Next Decade” quite a bit.

“The Next Decade,” despite having a tighter locus than “The Next 100 Years,” is actually the sequel, having come out two years after “100.” Whereas the first book peered into the future with somewhat rose-tinted glasses (microwave technologies and loosened international immigration policies will save the world, Friedman predicted) this book is a lot more blunt and sardonic. Indeed, the opening chapter of the book emphasizes the need for a good Machiavellian leader a’la Lincoln, FDR or Reagan, as the POTUS during the ensuing decade will have to be an expert at finagling and fudging with an almost unlimited number of ever-changing geopolitical alliances. The core thesis of the book, then, is Friedman’s assertion that the United States -- unintentionally -- has become a global empire, and the role of the U.S. President is to more or less serve as the world’s most important political diplomat and agenda-setter. Of course, Friedman also notes that the President -- whoever he or she may be -- must also be able to at least promote the virtues and ethics of the homeland, despite the fact that his or her duties as a global leader now far supersede his or her role as a domestic figurehead. The great internal political battle of the decade, Friedman predicts, will be how the U.S. people react to an executive leadership whose primary interests rests not in serving the American people, but in maintaining a stranglehold on the rest of world’s military and economic doings.

To begin the book, Friedman says that the ongoing decade will be a quest to emerge from underneath the two defining aspects of the aughties -- the late 2000s global recession and George W.’s War on Terror. Regarding the former, Friedman asserts that downturns of the like are natural endpoints of boom and bust cycles, citing the downfall of municipal bonds at the end of ’70s, the late 1980s Savings and Loans scandal and the dot.com doomsday scenario of the early 2000s as hard-to-deny proofs of his theory. Ultimately, he believes the inevitable fallout from the Great Recession will be a general shift towards greater individual state involvement in the world markets, which in turn, will likely lead to a resurgence in economic nationalism.

As for our post War on Terror fates, Friedman believes the United States will henceforward be caught up in a skillful balancing act in the Middle East, with the utmost goal of insuring that no single regional power rises to prominence while simultaneously keeping the Gulf’s oil supply from being disrupted. Doing so, Friedman suggests, requires the U.S. to slowly disentangle itself from Israel and seek accommodations with Iran -- primarily to “use” as a Shiite counterweight to an emerging Sunni powerhouse in Turkey.

In regards to European affairs, Friedman says that the U.S. strategy is quite simple: to prevent any single nation from dominating the peninsula. Since Russia is a natural resources-strewn titan and Germany is the continent’s lone economic super power, Friedman believes it is an imperative that the U.S. do everything it can to halt Berlin and Moscow officials from coming to any major trade agreements. To drive a wedge between any possible ententes between the two countries, Friedman suggests that the U.S. powers that be help Poland and the surrounding Slavic countries develop economically, as both a financial and geographically literal buffer zone. He also expects relations between the U.S. and U.K. to strengthen in the face of a hypothetical “Mediterranean Union” between Germany and France. The key to strategic success on the continent, Friedman believes, hinges on the sneakiness of the President of the United States. “The president must appear to be not very bright, yet be able to lie convincingly,” he writes. “The target of this charade will not be future allies but potential enemies.”

As made glaringly apparent in “The Next 100 Years,” Friedman isn’t buying the hoopla surrounding China’s booming, export-dependent economy. Rather, he believes the import-reliant Japan will slowly begin to pull ahead of China as Asia’s de facto regional powerhouse, quite possibly by outsourcing to China itself. As for U.S. strategies in the Pacific, Friedman believes more investments are necessary in South Korea, Singapore and Australia -- and as bizarre as it may sound, he wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. attempted to strengthen China’s market access in a preemptive strike against Japan, either. As for India -- considered by some to be a possible “democratic China” -- Friedman remains pessimistic; not only does he not believe the economy in southeast Asia will explode this decade, he actually believes that U.S. and Indian relations are likely to grow stagnant between now and the 2020s.

Friedman isn’t too concerned about what happens south of the border, although he does note a few things that could potentially transpire in Latin America over the next few years. For one, he believes it is possible -- although  unlikely -- that Brazil could open up naval lanes in the South Atlantic, and begin scoring oil shipments from Angola and Nigeria. Just to be on the safe side of things, the author suggests U.S. policymakers start looking at ways to beef up Argentina’s economy as a counterbalance. Regarding Mexico -- the number two buyer of U.S. goods -- Friedman believes that both sides of the Rio Grande will promote “the illusion of activity” regarding illegal immigration and the drug trade over the ensuing years, while the “threat” of an independent Quebec remains a remote, if not insignificant, possibility in the Great White North. Ultimately, Friedman believes there is little worth fighting for in Africa at the moment, outside of preventing Islamic extremism from arising in oil-rich hotbeds on the west coast. Allegations of an ongoing  “resource war” between China and the U.S. in the region, the author states, are also greatly exaggerated.

On the domestic front, Friedman zeroes in on the mass retirement of baby boomers, and their vast healthcare needs. Unfortunately, he believes that technology today is more about acquiring market share than true scientific innovation, and as such, Friedman doesn’t believe we’ll start seeing true breakthroughs in energy and robotics until next decade, at the least. For now, Friedman says U.S. strategy is about maintaining its naval power…and then we’ll start talking about space ops.

Despite all of the Machiavellian stuff Friedman says about the U.S. executive branch, he ultimately states that the greatest barrier to civic progression in America is the Cerberus of bureaucratic overkill and political infighting. “Americans prefer mutual vilification to facing up to the facts,” he writes, “they prefer arguing about what ought to be to arguing about what is.” As such, he concludes the tome by stating that “an enormous act of will for the country to grow up” is essential for the United States to maintain its Republican ideals as the 2020s approach.

At the end of the day, this book is really more of a no-frills, no-bullshit look at America’s geopolitical interests -- and the underhanded ways the executive powers maintain the U.S. hegemony -- than it is a work of pure speculative fiction. There’s not that many concrete predictions the author tosses out there, although the few that he does -- like the U.S. seeking to repair its relations with Iran -- have indeed come to light since the book was originally published. All in all, “The Next Decade” is a thorough, straight-to-the-point primer on international relations and the way the U.S. of A truly views its geopolitical sphere of influence; fantastical, this book may not be, but it’s certainly an illuminating little title nonetheless.

PROPAGANDA REVIEW: “The American Dream” (2011)

It’s the worst libertarian-themed cartoon you’ll ever see (that wasn’t made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, anyway.) 

There was a time in my life when I was a huge fan of “South Park.” That time, unfortunately, was called 1998, and it has long since passed.

Whereas other trappings from the era (Orbitz soda, I’m looking at you) have vanished into the miasma of yesterday, “South Park” continues to truck along, so far beyond its expiration date that you can almost smell the corpse meat of the franchise. To be fair, for a while the show was actually pretty decent -- you know, back when the extent of the program was one-off stories about chicken molesters and hunting Sasquatches with your drunken uncle. Sadly, the show decided to take a detour into the political sometime in the early 2000s, and my interest in the program has waned ever since.

I bring up “South Park” for two primary reasons. For one, the influence of the show on “The American Dream” is utterly unmistakable; indeed, the art style is so similar, it might as well constitute plagiarism. And secondly, the libertarian politics of Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to be shared quite equivocally by the producers of “The American Dream.” As preachy as some “South Park” episodes got, “The American Dream” absolutely takes it to the threshold and back, however, at times feeling more like the frothing, hastily drawn rantings of a Prison Planet lifetime subscriber than anything resembling an attempt at entertainment. It’s the cuckoo conspiracy theorist Ron Paul Looney Tunes bonanza that in the era of Final Cut Pro, was surely inevitable and even at a seemingly paltry 28 minute runtime, it still feels like it takes a lifetime for the film to drag towards its foaming, anticlimactic conclusion.

So, what is “The American Dream,” exactly? Well, it’s this cartoon made a couple of years back by some group called The Provocateur Network -- whom, three years later, still don’t have a fully functioning website, I might add. The film -- crudely drawn, with even cruder humor -- appears to be an attempt to explain to the unenlightened masses how debt-based economies work, but of course, the makers of the film have a not-so-hidden agenda here…and their ultimate thesis, I assure you,  is crazier than Charles Manson on an acid trip.

The main protagonist of the film is your age-less, Anglo-Saxon everyman, named Pile. The cartoon begins with Pile procuring loans to buy a home (as visualized by a giant truck, with the word “BANK” scrawled on it, literally tossing money at people), which is ultimately foreclosed. After his dog, appropriately enough named “Dream,” is taken away from him, a very familiar looking DeLorean shows up, and the film’s secondary protagonist -- Hartman, who was the lead character’s protectorate against bullies in the fourth grade -- shows up and starts rambling on and on about how his old chum needs to grow a set of cojones…which concludes with Hartman literally gifting his buddy with a set of red balls. Hilarious.

Nothing says cutting edge satire quite like advocating for the execution of people, no?

This leads to Hartman doing a really uninspired Rod Serling impersonation, in which he “explains” how the great housing market crash of 2006 came to be. You see, the problem was, those nefarious banks were just lending to everybody, including frat boys and random street urchins, and to top it off, they even started circulating credit cards as a means of obtaining more loan monies. With some tired Scooby Doo and “The Wizard of Oz” references tucked in there -- alongside a sight gag in which one of the characters yanks the bikini off a woman -- Hartman then proceeds to explain how American over consumption and predatory lending eventually frothed to a point that the housing collapse could transpire. So far, so good…nothing too crazy, and nothing you really can’t argue against either. And then, the film turns its eye towards the Federal Reserve.

Per the characters in the film, the Federal Reserve is so clandestine that not even Jesus Christ can get in there. Funny, seeing as how the Fed was audited by the GAO as recently as 2011, no? The two characters then break into the Federal Reserve, “Mission: Impossible” style, and talk about how the bank is actually a private, non-federalized entity -- an assertion that has quite a few things wrong with it, obviously. And as the film explains, normal banks get their money from the Fed, and the Fed makes the U.S. mint produce more money to help keep up with the normal banks’ demand. As such, the makers of the film accuse the Fed of unconstitutionally controlling the U.S. money supply, even though that little function STILL resides in the hands of the U.S. Treasury. The kicker is when the film states that because the Fed loans so much money to the government, the taxation system as we know it had to invented to keep up with payments. This, despite the fact that the federal government had been collecting excise taxes and tariffs monies for well over a century prior to the ratification of the 16th Amendment, but clearly, that’s a point that doesn’t matter.

From there, we jump to 10th century Arabia, where Hartman explains how fiat money came to exist. A segment featuring a riff on “The Candyman Can” ensues, which leads to a diatribe against inflation and “worthless” paper money. The sequence ends with the gleeful hanging of a banker (really) and paper currency being denounced as un unstable evil on par with nuclear power (no, double really).

Because the New World Order is run by the same guys that run M.A.D., it appears.

And here’s where things start REALLY going wacko. The characters discuss the Rothchilds, who in the film, are literally symbolized as “Red Shields.” According to the film, the Red Shields made their fortune by lying about the outcome of the Napoleonic Wars and engineering a British stock market collapse -- which facilitated their outright “buying” of the country. Their goal ever since, the characters in the film tell us, has been the objective of bringing that ungodly “fractional reserve banking” to the U.S., which leads to some highly suspect claims about early American governance. After heaping praise upon slave-fucker Thomas Jefferson and unabashed Indian-killer Andrew Jackson, the film alleges that the U.S. entered a time of unfettered economic bliss throughout the 19th century and early 20th century, primarily by avoiding a debt-based economy. You know, the same time frame that gave us financial collapses in 1873, 1884, 1893, 1901 and 1907 and all that jazz.

Which brings us to the infamous 1910 “Jekyll Island” meeting (the masturbatory fodder for many a conspiracy buff) in which several industrial titans and bankers allegedly came together to hash out some grandiose blueprint for control of the planet or some other stupid bullshit. Perhaps honing up to their own nonsense, the makers of the film themselves don’t even know who the ringleader of the covert plan was, in turn just referring to the Cobra Commander-like figurehead as the “Supreme Master Leader.” But, uh, Woodrow Wilson did have something to do with it, they reassure us.

The IRS is then shown as a towering robot that literally opens up the Capitol building and starts eating its contents. Pile and Hartman travel back to 1955 (meeting Michael J. Fox, no less) and discuss how the Fed and the IRS work together to “tax inflation.” Hartman talks about how expensive goods are today compared to their price points 60 years ago, completely overlooking the fact that prices 60 years before 1955 were also cheaper, too. Cue a reference to “A Clockwork Orange” -- in which Pile is forced to listen to Kennedy’s “Secret Societies” speech -- and we get a brief history lesson about Executive Order 11110 and how it resulted in JFK getting whacked. A montage of the Feds consolidating more banks and printing more money leads us to the dénouement of the film, a super-dated homage to “300” in which the main character does battle to the death with Henry Paulson. And…credits.

...which, of course, means the "bad guys" have to be REALLY, REALLY bad. 

Psychologically, I can understand why stuff like “The American Dream” exists. The great economic collapse of the late 2000s resulted in a lot of people losing their life savings, and staring your own economic destruction in the face, it sure is comforting knowing that your downfall had something to do with an orchestrated, evil plan instead of things just being the  unplanned consequences of a seemingly-endless number of interconnected variables charging towards a perfect storm. Random chance, we can’t accept, but we sure as hell can believe in a devil-worshipping global conspiracy, I tell you what.

As for the film itself, it really doesn’t have much to say, besides that banks (our designated Orwellian foe, of course) are inherently evil, and that our current financial systems and consumption cycles are really just ways for the “elites” to trick us into servitude. The gigantic problem with the film, then, as that even with this thesis (as shaky as it is) in place, the film makers don’t even BEGIN to outline a solution to their own problem. A gander at the movie’s website has something of a battle plan, but its suggestions range from the cockamamie (back to the Gold Standard, amigos!) to ironically statist (I mean, how else are you going to encourage people to live within their own means without excessive state interventions, no?) The entire point of the film, and the motionless movement the filmmakers wanted the movie to kick off, seems to be nothing more explicatory than “things suck, and the suck because of these guys, so be really, really pissed off at them.”

The two masterminds behind the film -- Tad Lumpkin and Harold Uhl, whom look like bad Create-a-Wrestlers of Trey Parker and Matt Stone -- really haven’t done much before or after the movie, outside the aberrant appearance on such hard news outlets as “The Alex Jones Show.” Of course, you can always visit the official website for the film, which has links to all sorts of Drudge Report wannabes and historically inaccurate profiles of individuals like Lyndon Johnson and J.D Rockefeller (whose head, apparently, actually was an oil drum.)

So, what to make of all of this flimflam and hubbub? Well, not much, frankly, as anyone with access to Wikipedia can shoot down virtually every single accusation the movie makes in the span of ten minutes. It’s a boring cartoon, and even worse propaganda; ineffective, unconvincing and about as inspired as a warmed over Egg McMuffin, “The American Dream” is visual agitprop of the absolute worst variety. Preachy and inaccurate is one thing, but to be preachy, inaccurate AND unentertaining? That’s just an unpardonable offense, fellas.