Let Your Imagination "Runaway" with You!

"Runaway" marks Kanye rising, after a year in exile, from the ashes to reclaim his position as the voice of a generation (his words, not mine). You may recall his little faux-pas at the VMA's last year when he unceremoniously stole the mike from Dakota Fanning and claimed Shakira was and always will be the best music video of all time. If you don't recall, you haven't been on the internet in about twelve months, and for that I salute you for not getting lol cat references (I can haz a bullet in the head if I see one more lol cat?) Yes, it was a sad time for Kanye. Jay Leno basically told him he was bad person (Jay Leno asshole joke), his mother had recently died, and he was the scourge of 12 year old internet bloglings (that's a term I coined meaning small bloggers. I've talked to Webster about putting it in their next edition...no I haven't). It seemed like he was doomed to become the Hip-Hop Pariah of the Facebook generation.
And then came 'Power.' A one-and-a-half minute music video tableau featuring Kanye basically depicting himself as a God. And now, there's a butt-load of hullabaloo over his new album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy." Alright! (C'mon, Kanye, I'm plugging your album for free. All I want is a hug. Why won't you hug me?) Don't call it a comeback (mostly because I'm not sure it is. It may be a mid-life crisis).
In the past, Kanye's sense of self-worth has gotten in the way of his career. Now, some say Kanye West might have a bit of an inflated ego, (Annnnnd understatement of the year goes to…..! Oh. Uhm, apparently Darryl McAlister in New Fields, Oregon. For saying that Aaron Jones from down the block is pretty good at softball. According to Alex Hannon, he is “ More like the best EVER! Are you kidding dude? Understatement of the year goes to….” He then opened an envelope to reveal that it was actually, indeed, “Some” who claimed Kanye had a bit of an inflated ego.

Did I blow your mind? Cuz I definitely blew something in my head…) but I think it is actually a boon to the persona that he has created. 

I told Kanye that joke and this is the face he made.

"I'mma let you finish...?"

Anyway, Kanye's movie answers a question that has lingered for centuries. The age old question that has  troubled many minds and will trouble many more. And that question is: art? Yes, upon viewing the movie, I found myself asking the question, "Art?" And all I can say is that it is art in the same way that Twinkies is food or LoL Cats is literature (by the way, I was lying earlier. LOL Cats got me through my uncle's death). I'm not saying it wasn't good or well-intentioned or deep. I just wanted to compare Kanye to Twinkies. Yeah, this is art. It's the product of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotions and/or intellect (Wikify that, bitches). 

Wow. So that made about as much sense as a narwal. 

The unicorn of the sea.

The movie starts with a half woman/ half phoenix falling from the sky. Kanye falls in love with her and they begin a lovely relationship. His friends are disgusted by her though, and then she's horrified when they eat a turkey. She gives a pretty little metaphorical monologue about how afraid our culture is of change. She then explains how she has to burst into flames to be reborn. Hmmm... rebirth, eh? Phoenix from the ashes? A fresh start? Yes, the movie is supposed to parallel Kanye's music career ending with where he is now. Yes, it's symbolic portrayal of himself as a misunderstood artist. But it's also really pretty. With images like this:

Oorrrrr this:

And even this!

Is that a small child in a Klan outfit? No, it's a conehead child in a ghost costume.
How dare you.
The movie is 34 minutes long, the first ten minutes or so focusing on the plot of the two main characters falling in love and song singing. It was nice. It was a cohesive, albeit weird, narrative. Then, it was dinner time. Kanye's family gathered in a very white room (including white servants... little bit of social satire never hurt anyone) to meet his girlfriend, whom they find repulsive. Kanye had a delightful time talking with his friends about his girlfriend. They laughed jovially. They ate bread, drank wine. Then some jackass pulled out this beauty:

Rude dinner guest: “Your girlfriend is really beautiful.”

Kanye: “Thank you.”

Rude Dinner Guest: “Did you know she’s a bird?”

Kanye: “…No, I never noticed that.”

 How that fact escaped him is beyond me. It may be a veiled statement that we should just see people as who they are on the inside, but the way he delivered it made him seem more like he was just really fucking stupid...
That's it. I'm not going to mock Kanye's intelligence. Not for me to judge. I ain't Jesus or Judge Judy or Sarah Palin.
Eww, those were horrible choices. I apologize, that was a truly awful handling of that joke. But it's 12:30 am and I'm starting to see things that aren't there. Like Kanye's humility.
BAM GOTCHA!
Shit, that was a long one, but we finally got there.
This makes Kanye sad (The dinner guest, not my joke), so he goes to sing a song as he uses his awesome might to summon dancers.

Hold up! I'mma let you finish dinner, but I'm about to do the best pissed off song of all time!


So he begins his song (Runaway) which is basically an ode to assholes. Before he does that, he summons (using his MIND) a group of ballerinas in black leotards.
No man should have so much Power.... I mean dancers.
The dancing is nice, if a little out of place. But around the fifth minute I begin to get bewildered. I begin to feel lost, out of synch. Where am I? What's going on?
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NARRATIVE?!
I blacked out, then regained consciousness for the last four minutes which featured the song "Lost in the World" featuring Bon Iver. On a serious note, I think this is probably going to be the best song on the album. It's haunting.
Speaking of haunting, there is not one but TWO Sleepy Hollow references in Kanye's lyrics.
Cracka, please. You had me at "I got so much head, I woke up to Sleepy Hollow."
Also, you will NEVER rock this hard at a drum machine.
I don't have a joke for this.


Also, I'm becoming concerned that there may be a veiled message promoting bestiality in this movie. I counted six different species of animals galavanting around a basically nude woman dressed up as a bird. I became mildly disturbed after this happened. A lot:





By the end, the distinction between "sexy" and "not okay to have sex with" was blurred... there are some things that's okay to blur the lines between. Lunch and dinner. Soup and broth. Literature and pulp. But this is NOT one of them.
But, what can you expect? It's Kanye. He's going to do things differently. He's going to show you things that you would never expect to see. Like this:



Here's something ELSE I bet you've never seen:

It's an annoyed rat dressed as Dracula!
It's Halloween, give me a break...
gimme a break....
break me off a piece of that...
....
.....




3.9/5.0


Our lives are inextricably linked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg5wkZ-dJXA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_(Kanye_West_song)