Good News / Bad News or Beastie Boys vs. Stellastarr

"If it's gonna be THAT kind of party...I'm gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

Good news first. The remaster for Ill Communication rocks in all the right ways. Good sound, packaging, all that stuff. It took me well over two weeks to take this first disk out of my car, brings back memories from my 1st year of college where I was at the height of my Beastie nerdiness. The hip-hop tracks are every bit as good as Check Your Head and I think I like the instrumental stuff a bit more.

You probably have most of the b-sides but the acoustic version of Heart Attack Man is worth the cost of the 2nd disk. The commentary has some good stories about Biz Markie, the origins of Futterman's Rule, and Mike D's ever expanding vocabulary. This is it for me and the remasters unless they do License to Ill.





And the not so good news. You'd think an album with song titles like Prom Zombie would be right up my alley. Stellastarr's last album, Harmonies For The Haunted, was a big step in the right direction. It took everything they did right from the first album and did it bigger and better.

This time around, Civilized just feels like the songwriting was either rushed or just second-guessed in an attempt to try and sound more like a straight up rock record. I end up getting bored and skipping to the next track after about a minute or so of each song. I guess I was hoping for Harmonies Pt. II and I didn't get it. Not bad but not all that good either, which sucks cause I love me some Stellastarr. Maybe next time....

- Coop

A Serious Man

Trailer for the new Coen brothers flick. That's gotta hurt....



- Coop

WOOKIE EDIT - I love the fact that the Coen's now have the pull to make a movie with practically no stars and it looks fantastic. I saw this trailer yesterday and I got pretty stoked about it.

- Mr. De La Baca

Tron Legacy VFX Test

Yes please. You can make the movie now.



- Coop

We’re Rootin’ For Ya Mr. Yauch

Bad news today about MCA fighting off cancer. Here’s hoping he can get through the surgery and back on his feet soon. Fuck you cancer.

- Coop

Update: Here's a message from the man himself.

The Cure: Plainsong, Live In Paris 08

While I'm at it, another one of the best songs ever written.

The Cure - Underneath The Stars

I can't stop listening to this song in the car. Easily the best song they've written in 15 years. Wish they'd do an album full of songs this good. Maybe someday we'll get the remasters for Wish & Disintegration. In the meantime.....



- Coop

Brüno

This movie made me laugh non-stop. There's also a lot of dicks in in it. So....pretty much like Borat. If you hated that movie, you'll really hate Brüno & vice versa. Much better than I'd anticipated as this was my least favorite character on the Ali G Show. The interview with Paula Abdul discussing her "humanitarian efforts" was my favorite. You have to draw the line somewhere I guess.

I'll let somebody else get all serious about reviewing it. My advice is: if you like to laugh and aren't the kind of person who's going to walk out of the theater the first time (or 10th time) somebody flashes their junk on screen.....then you could do a whole lot worse than seeing Brüno.

- Coop

New District 9 Trailer

I think I just pooped my pants a tiny bit.

The Killers "Spaceman"

The 2 yr. old loves The Killers now. "I want hear Killers again!!!!" Ok, there are worse things in life for sure. I want hear Killers too.

Mike Judge's Extract Trailer

It's Mike Judge, you should watch it.

Not music, not movie, just GOOD!

If you are looking for a good beer to drink on these hot summer days and nights, may I recommend New Belguims' Mothership Wit. Very light and crisp and it gave me no hangover. A good taste and very smooth. I don't know if it is because it is all organic or not, but I drank quite a few of these and woke up with no hangover.

http://www.newbelgium.com/beer/mothership-wit

-Mr. de la Baca

Happy 4th!!

This video pretty much sums it all up for me. FUCK YEAH!!!



- Coop

I Survived The Twilight Movie

"You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil. Just one calorie....... not evil enough."

If you like these books you have already seen the film and are well on your way to page 750 of book 78 of the Twilight series. If you know someone who is reading these books it has most likely been strongly suggested that you read the books and/or see the movie. A hundred times or so. I chose the option with the least time investment as I knew it was going to be useless to fight it off much longer.

If you're one of those folks that thinks they'd like vampires if they were nothing like vampires at all, you know without all the blood and the killing and evil, and fangs and stuff.... If you'd like them to be more like normal people and maybe just talk about being vampires.... oh yeah and do everything in the daytime cause nighttime is a little scary.....then Twilight is the movie for you.

Other than a lot of jumping / tree climbing there's not a lot of supernatural stuff going on. Garlic, crosses, daylight, silver, stakes through the heart, coffins, pointy teeth....dark & moody atmosphere? Nope. I guess there are one or two shots where somebody is bitten, but it's all off camera. Apparently changing your eye color is about as crazy as it gets. So yeah...... not really a vampire movie at all. They could substitute the word vampire with "loner" or "emo" and you'd have pretty much the same movie.

It's not a bad movie, just not a particularly well put together movie. Like I said if you've always wanted a shinier, happier brand of vampire you should check this out. I like my vampires old school and evil and at the end of the day even the bad guys in Twilight didn't seem like they were all that bad. I didn't have to read the books, so that's a plus.

- Coop

WOOKIE EDIT - How can you be so mean? I'm going to go listen to some fall out boy and slit my wrists in the bath tub. I hate you. I haven't seen the movie or read the books, so that makes me better than you.