Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

I like it. I really do. Sam Beam has found the fuzz bass and the whah-whah pedal and it is good. This is a pretty solid album. A good mix of the classic Iron and Wine folksy sound with some late 60's early 70's space rock. Another enjoyable aspect of this album is the vocals. It appears that Beam is more confident in his voice and they decided to turn up the vocal knob. With each album they put out, they get more experimental and it is working. I really liked Shepherd's Dog and this is just building off of that album. Often when artists get away from what made them popular it doesn't work, but Beam appears to take his time and make quality work, not just quantity. And honestly he couldn't really keep doing what made him popular, it would have gotten stale. Don't get me wrong, I hope he eventually makes another hushed bare bones album, but as long as he keeps putting out good material I can wait.

Van Halen + David Lee Roth = Too Late

So it appears that Diamond Dave and the rest of the Van Halen crew, minus Michael Anthony(why?) are recording a new album. All I gotta say is WHY? Seriously, why? I'm so confused. You guys are about 20 years too late. This is ridiculous. I cannot fathom that this is in any way a good idea. Diamond Dave burned out in the late 80's and Eddie Van Halen appears to be hell bent on ruining the legacy of this once classic band. Seriously, WTF, get rid of Michael Anthony, your bass player, back up singer, dude in the band who didn't appear to be a raging douche bag and replace him with your teenage son. Guh! Fuck off, Van Halen. You egomaniac. Bring back Gary Cherone!!!

Fringe Friday

I’m ignoring all the talk about Fringe’s move to the Friday night “death slot”. Period. Fox seems to be going out of their way to let people know they didn't move the show to kill it off, let's hope that's true. Friday’s episode “The Firefly” had all the ingredients that make a good Fringe Episode, plus a few cool extras. 

We got mad-scientist Walter, The Observers, Doc Brown, and a nicely placed Twin Peaks reference. Apparently Walter's glasses were a gift from his pal Dr. Jacoby from Washington. Awesome. The fact that those guys know each other makes all sorts of sense. 

Christopher Lloyd's burned out musician character fit right in with all the time-travelly business going on, nice that they worked the year 1985 into the script.  

As long as they keep cranking out episodes like these I don't see the fans going anywhere. 

Tron: Legacy

I don’t remember falling in love with the original Tron back in the day. It had some cool ideas like travelling back & forth between the real world and a digital world, and the idea that the digital world could be just as real as this one. At the time there was a crazy amount of buzz about the look of the film and the use CG for the light-cycles. However, if you go back and watch it you’ll find that your memories of the “cutting-edge” effects are much better than the real thing.

Tron: Legacy sports some badass visuals, no doubt about it, and is the kind of flick that’s perfect for 3D. I had pretty much dismissed 3D after my horrible experience watching Avatar. I love the Alamo Drafthouse but the setup they had for Avatar sucked. I’m sure part of that had to do with the type of 3D  glasses they had. They made my eyes feel like they were working twice as hard as they should be. The image was dim and blurry. The eye strain left me with a crazy headache by the end of the movie and no love whatsoever for 3D. Fuck that shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon! I’m glad I decided to give 3D another shot for Tron: Legacy as the 3D IMAX setup greatly embiggened the previously mentioned badass visuals. I’m not an expert on the tech but I’m guessing these were passive glasses instead of active shutter. The image looked great and no nasty headache so ….A+. The 3D was used mainly for depth and they kept it subtle, I didn’t feel like people were throwing stuff at me every couple of minutes. There’s so much going on visually that I really need to re-watch it just to look around at the environment.  I love the updated look of the new film; it references the original while reflecting much of the darkness that The Dude & Company encounter. The coolest moments for me were the nostalgia moments in the film’s intro.  PK Ripper!

There’s no need to dive into the story behind Tron: Legacy, you’ve seen it before and in greater depth in the Matrix. Real vs. Digital, Chaos vs. Order, the futile search for perfection.  Done.   Most of the cast  does what it’s supposed to do. Flynn’s son Sam plays the reluctant hero rather well but doesn’t do anything unexpected. After a ton of bitching he takes up his father’s cause and marches out to fight the bad guys. There are a ton of pretty ladies in tight leather if you’re into that sort of thing.

If I have one large gripe (ka ching) about the characters it has to do with Michael Sheen’s Castor/Zuse. If the Merovingian from the Matrix decided to have a baby with Chris Tucker’s character from The 5^th Element, this would be the over acted, jazz-handsy result.  Nuff said.

Bottom line is you don’t get attached to any of the characters once you finally meet The Dude.  Bridges is in full-on Lebowski mode for the Flynn character and it works for his newfound Zen master/Obi Wan role. It doesn’t ruin the flick but you definitely find yourself tempted to chime in with your favorite line during the frequent mid-sentence pauses.  “Obviously you’re not a golfer.” The digital Bridges, Clu, mostly works. Mostly. The CG modeling is spot on & looks like a young bridges but it tends to fall apart a little during dialogue scenes. Animating lip movements in a convincing way is hard enough, trying to match movements to a specific actor had to have been a complete bitch of a job.
 

The sound setup in the IMAX theater was about as good as it gets. Good thing because the score was DOPE. Don’t believe me? Here:

I never really got into Daft Punk that much. No particular reason I just never paid that much attention to them. I’m correcting that shit right now. There has never been a soundtrack more appropriate to this kind of film ever. It’s got that retro Nord Lead kind of sound to it but the music is very much from right now.

So there you go. Visuals = BAD ASS. Story = Ok. Sound = Fucking Awseome.

Beastie Boys Ready for New Album

The Beastie Boys have announced that The Hot Sauce Committee Pt 2 will be released as planned. MCA, Adam Yauch, has been given the all clear from his cancer, which is fantastic. The guys are gearing up and getting ready to film a video and get a tour together. I hope this album is better than the last couple they have released. The Mix Up was good, but it was all instrumental. To the 5 Boroughs had some gems on it but on a whole it wasn't that great. If they can find the magic of Ill Communication and Check Your Head that would be so badass. Keep your fingers crossed.

nme