Really funny somewhat romantic comedy minus the typical happy ending that you expect. Danny McBride has a small part, I'll watch anything with that dude in it. Worth a watch for sure.
Drag Me To Hell
So fucking crazy good. It was great to see Sam Raimi back on top of his game doing what he does best. There's a lot of good Evil Dead/Army of Darkness gags & camera work that you'll love if you're a fan.
No cameo by Bruce Campbell as far as I could tell but the famous car gets plenty of screen time. It didn't make up for ruining Spiderman 3, but I definitely feel like a Sam Raimi fan again.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
I knew better. I'd read the reviews & I still rented it figuring I'd just watch some eye candy while I was sick over the holidays.
If you dig really bad racial stereotypes or films without a coherent plot, this is the one for you. As far as I can tell the entire film is designed to do two things: provide opportunities for things to blow up and show Megan Fox running from them in slow motion.
I'm sure the special effects are great, but I never got a change to really see them because everything on screen moves at 100 mph and there's an edit every 2 seconds. It never slows down to let you look at things. 100% waste of time and money.
I've been reading really good things about this album and it does kick ass. I'm a little mad at myself for not getting it until now. The production is great, Rick Rubin strikes again. The whole album is solid and I cannot stop listening to it. Please go out and get this album now!!
Here is a bigger better version of the best damn Christmas song ever!!! Missing Katan and Morgan, but adding the Roots is a nice touch. Thanks to Kryssie Hagan for the heads up.
Peter sent me these the other day, these guys at Day Job Orchestra overdub Star Trek episodes & manage to make them watchable. Not sure what's behind their fascination with apple juice & Zeppelin but it works. "Who's bringin' the goddamn JUICE?!!!"
Yep. I'm guessing the apocalypse will kick in any minute now. The intro made me feel a little more at ease about watching it "99 cents .....of your hard earned dollars .....will go .....to getting my songs on your iPod. Is that cool or what? And the rest of it.......go fuck yourself on Christmas!!!" Not a bad way to go if you're gonna do a christmas song.
Those wacky Portisheads just released a new track called Chase The Tear. As you'd expect it's the jam. Kinda Kraftwerk/Nitzer Ebb sounding, which is all good in my book. If you're up for supporting human rights organizations you can buy the track here.
Meh. It's all right, but I wanted so much more. A band made up of Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones should knock you on your ass. This album, not so much. I really wanted something hard hitting and rocking, and at moments there is some rocking, but not hard enough. It is great to have Mr. Grohl back behind a trap set again and Homme and Jones are great musicians but that wasn't enough to make a great album. I tried. I left it in the truck for more than a week and listened to it as much as I could, but nothing grabbed me. I never found myself mindlessly humming a song or singing a track to myself at work. Just not enough for me. I'm sure live the songs are great, but on album they just didn't do much for me. Neither thumbs up or thumbs down, just kind of there.
I don't claim to be a huge Cormac McCarthy fan. I loved watching No Country For Old Men but I'll admit I haven't read any of his books. I plan to, but I guarantee I won't be thumbing through pages of The Road any time soon. The movie was more than enough to get the point across.
It's an excellent film, best I've seen all year, but I wouldn't use words like "enjoyable" or "entertainment" to describe it. The Road is a profound and brutal experience that was fairly uncomfortable to sit through. I've only laid the "Feelbad Movie of the Summer" rating on a few movies in the past, this one is overqualified. If you've seen stuff like Dancer In The Dark or Nil By Mouth you have a very small idea of the feeling you're left with at the end of the film. The difference is that this isn't a family or relationship drama, this is epic-scale horror/tragedy with one very distinct difference from the vast majority "post apocalyptic" films ever made.... this could happen. And that scares the living shit out of me.
This isn't the exaggerated world of Mad Max or 12 Monkeys. The only comparison I can make is maybe 28 Days Later, but a million times worse because there are no mindless zombies that you can use as an excuse for all the horrible things humanity is doing to itself. The Road shows humanity at it's absolute worst, devolved into complete barbarism. Every single person is an enemy, even if they're not trying to kill you and/or eat you they're going to rob you of every possible scrap of food or clothing just to survive another day.
The film is extremely successful at building tension, filling you with a sense of dread that the most awful thing in the world is about to happen to the seemingly last two good people left on earth. Then it happens, and you know that in another 10 or fifteen minutes it is going to happen again and it will be worse. And it is. The Road is THE worst case scenario, the absolute worst possible future you could imagine because it could actually happen. We're one nuclear war or asteroid impact away from this kind of bleak and terrifying existence and that's the scary thing.
I can only imagine the book going to more detail, but I don't think I could go through that particular journey again. I imagine that's the point. Beyond the well deserved awards I'm sure it will rack up, I hope it's a film that makes people think about how good they really do have it and how things could be much worse. That much concentrated fear and negativity is tough to shake off, I really don't want to watch anything on TV or DVD for a while unless it's a brainless sitcom.
I'll be very interested to see what Mr. De La Bacca thinks since he's a huge fan. I can see how some of the characters don't get fleshed out like they probably are in the book and some of the important moments might get lost in the middle of all the horror and action, but this really is the most insightful film I've seen in years. Yes you should go see it, afterwards you can come back here and watch my pals Ren & Stimpy sing Happy Happy Joy Joy to make yourself feel better about life.
Up In The Air
Drag Me To Hell
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
