MINISTRY IN BEST PICTURE WINNER THE HURT LOCKER
Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl RosenbergAnyone else relieved that Avatar didn’t win Best Picture last night? Not that the Oscars matter any more than any other award in the scheme of things, but, seriously. I’m over it with the blue cat people.
ANYWAY, the movie that did win, The Hurt Locker, is notable to metalheads primarily because the film implies that its protagonist, SSG William James (Best Actor nominee Jeremy Renner), is a metalhead – or, at least, a really big fan of Ministry. When the audience first meets James, he’s blasting “Khyber Pass” by Ministry, and two other Ministry songs, “(Fear) Is Big Business” and “Palestina,” are also used during the course of the movie.
Some may find this offensive – you could argue that metal is, once again, being used as short hand for “something’s seriously wrong with this dude,” as is the case in so many films – but here’s what I think is really interesting about it: some of the biggest criticisms against The Hurt Locker are that it is (allegedly, at least) apolitical; it doesn’t take a stance on the war in Iraq, it just portrays some of the soldiers fighting over there. But Ministry are anything BUT apolitical, and one listen to their music gives away their stance on the issue at hand. Did the filmmakers realize this when they selected that particular band’s music to be in the movie? It’s hard for me to believe it was just an arbitrary decision…
-AR







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The latest 

Fear Factory singer Burton C. Bell is finally back with a new project, Ascension of the Watchers, along with John Bechdel (Killing Joke, Ministry) and Edu Mussi (Still Life Decay). As other Fear Factory members have gone forth and prospered in the metal world — Dino Cazares with Divine Heresy, and Christian Olde Wolbers in the producer’s chair for Mnemic and Threat Signal — Bell has been relatively quiet in recent years, and has taken a decidedly different path than his former Fear Factory brothers.
It’s that time again; the Meshuggah camp is starting to stir with various news and rumblings. Yesterday the band announced that they finished recording their new album, titled obZen, a few weeks ago, and will tentatively release the album in early 2008 via Nuclear Blast.
Prong’s new album Power of the Damager comes out tomorrow via 13th Planet Records, but why wait until tomorrow when you can hear the best track, the album’s namesake, right here? Prong singer/guitarist Tommy Victor produced the effort, and received some mixing help from Ministry’s Al Jourgensen. Prong is an interesting band with a long history I’m barely aware of, but I’m sure lots of our readers really like this band.






