Audio/Video Buzz

THE STRANGERS (2008)

2008-11-08T14:49:00.010-05:00

Title: The Strangers (2008)

Director: Bryan Bertino
Actors: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman
Length: 85 mins.

The opening sequence to this film tells you that it is based on a true story. It also tells you that all the details to the story are still not known to this day. And basically tells you what to expect for the next hour and a half.
You will see a couple terrorized for an hour. You will not find out why, because there appears to be no reason. You will not find out who the attackers were, because no one knows.
The problem with the movie is not with the two lead actors. Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler may not have shown a lot of dexterity in their young careers, but they know how to fill their characters with real emotion. Liv Tyler knows how to look at a man like she loves him, and she knows how appear frightened.
No, the problem with this film is that the movie is based on a true mystery. Mysteries are appealing because of the unknown truth. This is not Citizen Kane with a small offhand snippet to keep you engaged while the credits role. This is a film without any resolution.
It suffers from the same problem as did the original Hostel. There was no plot. People were randomly tortured for no other reason than it entertained the torturers.
So long as you not expect it to have a memorable conclusion, you can telegraph every big scene to come in this film.
It's not new, it's not shocking or rewarding. It's certainly not recommended.

RADIOHEAD - IN RAINBOWS (2007)

2007-10-10T08:13:00.000-04:00

RADIOHEAD

Title: In Rainbows (2007)
Producer(s): Nigel Godrich, Mark Stent
Label: n/a
Genre: Alternative
Length: 42:40

I recall many years ago when Coldplay was decreed as being the next Radiohead. It's a tiresome statement: The World's Biggest Band. I've heard such groups as The Rolling Stones, U2 and Oasis lay claim to the title. Radiohead have always been a quiet band, doing their own thing and enlisting large amounts of new fans over the years.
Now, 15 years since Creep first took over the radio waves, the band is back with their seventh long player. In Rainbows, available as a pay-what-you-want internet-only download album (at first).
While there's no Paranoid Android-type hit on the album, it’s a mesmerizing affair with equal amounts of catchy instrumentation and swirling synth loops reminiscent of Thom Yorke's recent solo effort.
All I Need sounds like a heart-wrenching soul-expulsion of humanity in a futuristic world where everything seems synthesized. Moving from a slightly depressive tone to a beautifully uplifting ending, it is an incredibly dense track for something that on distant listen sounds very minimal.
Bodysnatchers will sound familiar to most fans of the band. While catchy, it threatens to spiral out of control like a doped-up 70s jam band but clearly, Radiohead have always had a firm grasp on what they're doing, even if everyone doesn't.
Reckoner seems like background music until it slowly sneaks up behind you and grabs you by the ears, forcing you to listen to the too beautiful cries of Yorke and the swooning strings that float his words across a room.
At just under 43 minutes, the album feels a tad short but for those willing to hold on and shell out for the discbox release, you can get eight more tracks. I was worried too, about quality, as the band decided to offer the downloaded songs in a zipped 160kbps ratio, which is hardly top-notch quality when it comes to mp3s. However, I'm pleased to report that the songs are clear and crisp. AT 128kbps, I suspect most people would catch some distortion but at 160, most ears will be hard pressed to discern any issues.
The album on a whole is very stripped back. Some people will be off put by the lack of any outstanding single. But singles are an outdated model from the days when radio airplay and MTV determined the success of albums. That's no longer the case.
Only time will tell where In Rainbows stands in the history of Radiohead's discography. There are some fascinating moments and it's an album that won't tire the listener with repeated plays.
Simply put, there isn't any "next Radiohead". These guys are untouchable.

HATCHET (2007)

2007-09-20T08:23:00.000-04:00

Title: Hatchet

Director: Adam Green
Actors: Joel Moore, Tamara Feldman, Robert Englund, Kane Hodder
Length: 85 mins.

The caption reads: It's not a remake. It's not a sequel. And it's not based on a Japanese one.
But lets' be clear, this is a throwback to the slasher flicks of the 80s; the ones that had half a storyline to them and then spawned brain-dead sequel after sequel. To be fair, slasher flicks are meant to do one thing, and that's scare the audience. Jason Voorhees, Michael Meyers and Freddy Kreuger all did it well enough when the style was in vogue and who doesn't want to see a slew of university students get hacked up with knives while they're engaging in premarital boffing?
As opposed to other recent attempts to pick up the genre, Hatchet at least looks semi-respectable. Who cares that the swamp looks more like Cleveland than New Orleans? Well, some people will. I'm sure the Universal Studios rides are frightening but you also know they look a little fake. Just how many people have tried swatting Jaws in the nose when he pops up out of the water?
The casting director for the film needs a similar jab. The token black guy is not funny despite all attempts, there's a lad who pulls off a pretty decent, if obviously fake New Orleans drawl and then proceeds to withdraw into a horribly stereotypical, grammar-less asian accent (what gives?), two of the young, cute brunettes look strangely alike, making certain scenes ultra-confusing (not to mention that one of them has a red-neck grass-chewing father and brother but exhibits no similar characteristics herself) and the lead actor, well let's just say that he would have been more appropriate for the sequel to Napoleon Dynamite than the lad who saves the girl. There's nothing in wardrobe or style that can hide this kid's lack of chin, chest or hide the ginormous Adam's apple protruding from his skinny little neck. I'm all for supporting the McLovins in film but this casting pushed me to my limits.
The film is decently made and for fans of the style, it's a good way to spend an hour and a half. But be forewarned, what little there is in plot is not enough to make the killer or the film a classic, or even really memorable.

FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (2007)

2007-08-22T18:43:00.000-04:00

Title: Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane

Director: Scott Thomas
Cast: Richard Tyson, David Chisum, Erick Avari
Length: 71 mins.

The last 10 years have seen the return of the horror film in ways not seen since the mania of the 80s slasher flicks. For horror fans, this is great but it can also result in some sad consequences. For every 28 Days Later (2002) and Ichi the Killer (2001), there is something out there like Zombiez (2005) or Dead and Breakfast (2004). It was the same back in the 90s when disaster movies were all the rage and you'd get Volcano (1997) and Dante's Peak (1997) or Deep Impact (1998) and Armegeddon (1998) all at the same time. Once something's hot, you can bet your pretty pennies that Hollywood will shove it at us until we refuse to swallow it any more.
So, it's a good time to be a horror fan, but watch out for the crap. When I first saw the ad for this one, I thought it was going to be garbage. Pale imitation of Snakes on a Plane with zombies in lieu of snakes. And it is. But it's not crap.
I won't bother getting into the argument of what constitutes a true zombie here. I have my opinions on it and suffice it to say, Romero is King. I can deal with fast, plague-driven zombies so long as they're accompanied by a good script. Flight of the Living Dead has that, with a good cast made up of unknown faces and a few that you'll recognize but won't be certain where you remember them from. Remember the bad guy in Kindergarten Cop? Yeah, he's here. So is the dead(?) professor from Heroes.
I know what you're thinking. How can they make a flick over an hour long with rampaging zombies on a plane? Let's just say that they did and it works. Flight of the Living Dead is a very good addition to any zombie fan's collection. Some will have a beef with the logistics of shooting off automatic weapons in a pressurized cabin dozen of miles up in the sky but you know what, it's a movie about reanimated corpses. Pick your battles, huh?

ZODIAC (2007)

2007-08-22T14:13:00.000-04:00

Title: Zodiac

Director: David Fincher
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr.
Length: 158 mins.

It took me three damn days to get through this movie.
Yeah, great acting. Mark Ruffalo plays a bumbling moron who mumbles through his dialogue, Gyllenhall plays a weird outsider who likes to spend his spare time in libraries and Robert Downey Jr portrays a drug addict. I have never seen any of those actors in similar roles before.
Finally got to the end, only to find that there really wasn't an end and then realized, oh yeah, I've seen about four different incarnations of this film before but none gave Lord of the Rings a run for the longest bloody snorefest ever like this one.
The Zodiac Killer is probably still getting a chuckle out of it.

SUNSHINE (2007)

2007-07-24T09:43:00.000-04:00

Title: Sunshine

Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne
Length: 107 mins.

Sunshine focuses on a crew of astronauts sent to reignite the dying sun with a bomb the size of Manhattan strapped to their ship. From the very beginning, it seems a one-way trip for the pilots and when trouble hits, it becomes uncertain as to whether they will even make it there at all.
Brit director Danny Boyle has made himself a habit of not repeating the same style of movies over and over again. While his early films like Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting (1996) had macabre sensibilities and 28 Days Later (2002) proved that he really knew how to expertly chill audiences, he's also gone out on a limb with The Beach (2000) with Leo DiCaprio and Millions (2004), the brilliant little film about two young lads who discover a bag full of money that fell off a passing train.
Sunshine employs the cold futuristic feel of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the paranoid, claustrophobic entrapments of Event Horizon (1997). A superb multicultural cast do their roles well but apart from an ongoing feud between Murphy and Evans, there is little sense of any ongoing interrelationships amongst the crew. Most spend their screen time dealing with their own issues, chopped down to small little snippets, which proves a disservice to the characters and actors.
There is nothing here not already seen in the above-mentioned films. If you enjoyed those movies and would like to see more of the same, see Sunshine. If you'd rather see something more on the original side, go rent Boyle's Millions.

PREMONITION (2007)

2007-07-24T09:33:00.000-04:00

Title: Premonition

Director: Mennan Yapo
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon
Length: 110 mins.

You'll be forgiven if about halfway through this movie you start to feel like you're watching something that has borrowed heavily from Memento (2000). Sandra Bullock's Linda is a stay-at-home mother of two young girls with a distant workaholic husband. Unlike in Memento, it's never really explained why Linda is living her life out of order. Suffice to say, it's a cinematic trick that feels poorly employed and certainly better used elsewhere. Bullock brings her usual adequate skills and even in a film where she spends most of her screen time crying or looking worried, she's still as charming as we expect her to be.
Julian McMahon of the Nip/Tuck and Fantastic Four franchises is quite the opposite. He's both cold and wooden and even when the film's conflict seems to be resolved, we don't really care enough to give a hoot what happens to him. Too little, too late.
The always wonderful Peter Stormare shows up as a psychologist and is vastly underused but still a credit to the film's casting department.
Premonition is a decent Sunday night rental, but no more and no less.

THE GATHERING (2002)

2007-07-11T12:23:00.000-04:00

THE GATHERING

Director: Brian Gilbert
Cast: Christina Ricci, Ioan Gruffudd
Length: 92 mins.

Finally released to much of the world in 2006, The Gathering has received an unfortunate smattering of publicity that has left it relegated to the unpicked-child-in-gym-class status.
Admittedly, there are problems with this film, mostly focused around character motivations and editing. As is the case with most films, we may never know what took place behind the scenes, but it seems this one was hastily put together, for what reason I won't speculate, and what could have been a fantastic film has been downgraded to a good film, most likely because not enough time or resources were devoted to its creation and honing (Okay, I'm speculating).
For a quasi-religious thriller, there are surprisingly few special effects, but what is here serves its purpose well. Rosemary's Baby after all, did more with less. Good films too, can be made with relatively no discernable plot and strong characters. It is much more difficult however, to make a good film with weak characters and a strong plot. This is where The Gathering succeeds against the odds.
As I already mentioned, some of the character motivations are difficult to follow in this film. Ricci's character Cassie, is involved in a car accident in which she is relatively unhurt but jolted enough to lose much of her memory. She is taken in by a kind family and takes what seems like an immediate protective role in their troubled son's life. Menacing people in town are stalking her, she has violent visions and feels oddly determined to do her own dangerous investigation. There may or may not be a would-be murderer in town out to get the boy. And how does the mysterious church buried for thousands of years come into play? Why is the recreation of the Crucifixion of Christ facing with its back towards the congregation?
The Gathering perhaps tries to be too many things at once. Serial killers with haunting backgrounds, religious prosecution and cover-up, life after death, fate versus free will, it all kind of gets convoluted into a big soup and perhaps doesn't play out as strong as it should but at its essence, the very core story behind this film is one that is strong, stronger perhaps than the idea behind The Da Vinci Code, but without the fanfare of a true religious debate we're left with a film that is entirely fictional, less sensational for it but no less interesting.
The actors all do well with what they have to work with, which is little characterization. It is difficult to connect with these people and that hurts the overall feel of the film.
But its still a good rental with an original idea, and better than much of the regurgitated remakes and updates and sequels we're seeing these days.

True Colors Tour 2007

2007-06-24T23:33:00.000-04:00

TRUE COLORS TOUR 2007

Host: Margaret Cho
Featuring: Cyndi Lauper; The Dresden Dolls; Deborah Harry; Erasure
Length: Approximately 5 hours
Place: Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto, ON
Date: Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

When I heard that Cyndi Lauper was bringing her True Colors Concert to Toronto as part of our city's Pride festivities, I was thoroughly excited. Then I saw ticket prices and my excitement balloon deflated. However, with the wave of somebody's magic wand, three days before the concert date, two fantastically placed seats fell into my lap at half price. I was excited!

I urge the reader to take most of what I write with a grain of salt because I was thoroughly stoned for most of the concert; however, I definitely made mental notes (while high) on what I liked and what I loved.

The show started at six, but my companion and I arrived at about a quarter to the next hour, in time to catch the Dresden Dolls walk on stage.

Oh.My.God!

A duo that describes their sound as 'Brechtian punk cabaret', they embody every part of that description and then some! Incorporating wild theater antics with pseudo-screamo stylings, kickass musicianship, and unimaginably original vocals, the Dresden Dolls took my high higher! Coin Operated Boy would have had to have been my favourite of their performances - a piece that dealt with issues of love - how easy it would be to love a mechanical boy. I was think 'masturbation' but then again that could have had to do with my state of mind and the fact that I was mentally undressing everybody at the concert!

The legendary Debbie Harry followed.
Le sigh.
She performed no Blondie numbers and whoever the writers of her new material are, they need to be fired. She felt like a bad combination of Avril Lavigne and Dolly Parton. Yikes! Her dancing was an attempt to look cool and young and hip. Rather it came off as tired and slightly bitten by arthritis. The woman's got the pipes - she just needs the music to pull it off. Instead of working off her Blondie image, I felt it'd be better for her to move in a more mature direction - one that suits her current state of mind! It was still quite the thing to be sitting not fifteen feet from a legend - one I grew up dancing in my underwear to!

I believe at this point there was an intermission. I had the munchies. Mmmm hot dog! Phallic symbolism totally noted!

We came back to Erasure.
Did you know that the keyboardist for the group is a founding member of Depeche Mode? After all these years of listening to both groups, how did I miss that little piece of trivia???
Anyway, it wasn't just the vocalist's sequined suit that made me giddy! The performance was out of this world. It was dance and trip-hop and old school R&B(!) and show tunes all thrown together...All with a deadpan keyboardist, a fancy dancing vocalists and three beautiful backup singers a la Tina Turner! The only downside was the older woman beside us who, while reliving her clubbing days, whipped her arms into our faces! Ouch.

And then she came.
A bright pink wig and a GIANT sombrero.
The irreplaceable, timeless, wonderful, minute, gigantic, always powerful Cyndi Lauper!
This minuscule woman commanded the stage like there was no tomorrow! One tune in, she screamed at us, "You cats are wiggin' me out" and ripped off her bright fuchsia wig to throw into the audience! She did a number of new tracks, while crowd surfing, letting us smelly folk touch her beautiful shorn head, and multi tasking with a sound system full of glitches! Some classic Lauper elicited cheers of joy as we sang along to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and slowed down for "Time After Time".

The concert came to a smashing close with the entire line-up joining Ms. Lauper in a rendition of her "True Colors".

Minus the freezing cold, the evening was an unparalleled success - combining music and politics and Pride and human rights and excitement and entertainment at its best.

THE HOST (2006)

2007-04-02T08:23:00.000-04:00

The Host

Director: Bong Joon-ho
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Byeon Hee-bong, Park Hae II, Bae Doona, Go Ah-Sung
Length: 119 mins.

I don't know what it is about East Asia that's resulting in so many good movies lately, but it's not even Japan or China at the top of the pack, as one might assume. Instead, some of the world's best movies of the decade have been coming from South Korea, and Hollywood should really take notice.
On the surface, The Host feels like a traditional monster film, in the same kind of realm as King Kong or Godzilla, except modernized, and there are some genuinely awesome monster moments in this movie. Take for instance, the first scene where we see the monster. We see the events through one man's eyes - a first person perspective that puts the horror of the events in our own laps. When you see the monster galloping towards the camera, with slow, thunderous drumming to accompany it, you understand why people are running and screaming: you're right there.
But despite the very impressive special effects of the film, this is not strictly a science fiction-slash-horror film, in fact, it can probably fit into so many different sub-categories, including drama and comedy, that you can't help but feel that you're getting two or three movies in one.
And as impressive as this toxic waste-born monster is, it's not even the star of the film. Instead, the story focuses around a family of losers. There's a grandfather with a food stand on the beach, his inept son and her daughter. Two other siblings feature prominently, including a skilled but too slow archer and a college-educated twit who can't find a job in-between all the demonstrations and drinking he's been involved with. At first, the family seems deplorable. There's nothing to like in any of them, and then slowly, through mutual loss, their individual skill sets play out like a mildly retarded superhero team. It even outshines The Fantastic Four in that department.
There are little oddities of action in the film that probably play out a little closer to real life than many of us expect from big motion pictures but they are often, depending on the situation, either horrifying or delightful.
Take for instance, the military confinement officer who walks proudly and professional-like into a gymnasium full of people, but slips on his own bio-suit. That's classic, and you’d never see it from Hollywood outside of the comedy genre.
But elsewhere, we are subject to the horrifying ramifications of realistic people in tense situations. When one of them mistakenly believes he has one bullet left in his gun, his miscalculation costs them all dearly.
There's also a strange twist in the end, a conclusion that western audiences will likely find mildly unpalatable. But they do it differently in the East, and thank goodness for that.
The Host is a fantastic film and comes highly recommended from this film fan.

MARGARET ATWOOD - LADY ORACLE (1976)

2007-03-22T10:03:00.000-04:00

Margaret Atwood

Title: Lady Oracle

Publisher: McClelland and Stewart
Genre: Literary Fiction

I decided to read Margaret Atwood because of her iconic Canadian literary status. I had never picked up one of her books before, and felt some sort of strange sense of shame in that. So at my next trip to the local used book store, I picked up the only one of her novels for sale, Lady Oracle.
Atwood's third novel had me confused at first. There was no plot for the first half of the book, none that I could discern anyway. There was an introduction of a woman who had apparently faked her own death. She cut off her long red locks and hid herself away in a small European town for fear of her own celebrity. The story then rudely transferred to her youth as a fat girl with an overbearing mother and nearly non-existent father. The connection between her youth and celebrity status is debatable but my concerns with the beginning of the book were not.
I understand enough to know that Atwood and her like often chose to write about character over plot, so the lack of any concrete story points involving overly dramatic tension didn't entirely surprise me. What surprised me was that I asked myself when was I going to care about this story or its characters. Chubby little Joan Foster is one of those people who goes through life blind to the causes and effects of the influences that weigh down on her, moulding her into the woman she will become. It's as much true of her when she becomes an adult, not understanding how she wound up in one man's bed, or why she didn't want to be there any longer. I found it slightly infuriating to read about a character so negligent in their own choices.
For brief moments, she would see; like when she discovered it was her mother who made her fat, by deriding her for her weight, then perpetuating the cycle by leaving cake on the counter. There is a short-lived moment where it seems that Joan may begin to understand, see and confront her own demons.
Joan - as child and woman - chooses to hide from life. She is forever an outsider with no fully formed relationships or idea on how to have one. She lives in a world of imagination, where people wear costumes like they're new skin and new identities. From a young age, she learns to fear being noticed by others around her. She's taught that she's different and she should be ashamed of herself. She carries this baggage into later life, doing her best to avoid being spotted by anyone who might know her, going as far as to run away, to adopt new names, a new body with differently coloured hair. When she sees someone from her youth, she's frightened to death that one of them will remember her as the fat girl and unveil the ugly truth for all to see like fireworks.
It isn't until the last quarter of the book that Atwood infuses the story with a plot that elevates the danger and excitement, but by then, it practically feels pointless. Joan's fear are claustrophobic and her never-ending answer for problems is to run away, from her parents, her husband, and her success.
Joan's career as a successful writer doesn't have any bearing on the heart of the story. What it does do is allow Atwood the reach to instil some cleverly disguised messages on the reader through a story-in-progress. The novel Joan is writing mirrors her own life in some ways; though she is adamant that this is not the case.
The conclusion stops suddenly, when Joan is forced to accept and face the truth. For the first time, she's truly cornered in a way that her maze-like lies have enclosed upon her. It appears that there is nowhere left to go, but to the truth.

SEVENDUST - ALPHA (2007)

2007-03-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

SEVENDUST

Title: Alpha (2007)
Producer(s): Shawn Grove, Morgan Rose, John Connolly
Label: Asylum
Genre: Hard Rock, Metal
Length: 51:23

The album explodes with Sevendust's monster-heavy vocals and throbbing, explosive instruments. Sevendust's vocals have always been noteworthy for two reasons. Drummer Morgan Rose, with his guttural screams plays a call and answer routine with Witherspoon's equally heavy, but more harmonic singing style. For a band that's very nearly borderline ultra-heavy metal, it’s the singing distinction that sets them apart. Don’t get me wrong, because after six albums, a best of and a live release, there aren't many bands more surgically precise with their instruments than Sevendust. They tear it up and shove it down your throat as good as anyone and they do it very tightly too. But not a lot of other super heavy bands have the balls to put an actual singer behind the microphone. The trend in heavy music is to have a singer just as rough and violent-sounding. That all began to change with Tool's Keenan, who turned away from the scream-happy youngsters and moved more towards introspective melodies.
On Alpha, Sevendust have gone back to their roots. Perhaps they never really left it, because most of their albums have had a generous supply of kickass songs, but word is that previous record company execs pushed the band into creating radio-friendly material like Skeleton Song and Angel's Son.
There's none of that on Alpha. This is an album of punishing tracks that rarely lets up the pace. It's missing a single noteworthy hit and although there isn't a weak song on the album, there also isn't one that stands out heads and tails above the rest. That'll be a problem for some fans, and a welcome relief for others.
There is an anger inherent in many of these songs that many thought the band had long lost. Morgan Rose apparently wrote most of the lyrics in response to a divorce he was going through at the time. It's clear where the blame lays when he screams things like "How can you live with yourself?"
Feed shows off Witherspoon's powerful and gorgeous vocals. You get the feeling that if he had wanted to, Witherspoon could have been the next Lenny Kravitz or star in another, less angry musical genre. Lucky for us, this Georgia boy stuck with good old rock and roll.
Combine the double onslaught of singers, the rapid-fire drumming of Rose, the thunderous bass by Vinnie Hornsby and the razor-sharp guitar work by John Connolly and Sonny Mayo and you understand why the group probably shouldn't play the Family Values tour. They'd kick all the other band's asses right off the stage.
One of the few places where the band takes a slight diversion from the aural destruction is on Under and like many efforts from the band, it's like a double-headed dragon, one bold and beautiful and the other angry and menacing. Morgan Rose says the album was created with the thematic idea of a man losing his mind after all.
Most bands tend to slow down or take it to another level after 10 years time. Sevendust is still playing the same music, only tighter. Sevendust fans from 1997 will still be happy today with this incredibly hard-working and prolific band.

300 (2007)

2007-03-13T09:43:00.001-04:00

300

Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham, Dominic West
Length: 117 mins.

Director Zack Snyder was best known for his award-winning commercials. Impressive in their own right, they hardly seemed to qualify the director for full-feature films. Nonetheless, Snyder went on to helm the remake to George A. Romero's classic and beloved Dawn of the Dead. This gutsy move could have proved disastrous. Romero's zombie films have obtained a cult-like following and many of these fans questioned the need for redoing such a classic as the shopping mall zombie-thon. Although much of the social commentary vanished in Snyder's remake, he was able to make a fast-paced film that looked good. Snyder's film was adequately updated for a modern audience that thrives on violence and sex; visuals over anything else.
Such is the strongest asset of Snyder's rendition of 300. While it's allegedly a near shot-for-shot translation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, Snyder has created a two-hour stunning painting. Where The Matrix brought the future to life in stunning detail, 300 does the same for ancient Greece. Although the story feels similar on a basic level, this is no Clash of the Titans.
Snyder makes no apologies for the violence contained herein, and neither do the characters. Sparta is a land of warriors, a place that throws young boys out in the wild to face gargantuan wolves before allowing them to pursue a life of a soldier. They train to do their job everyday since they are young boys and it's for this reason that the belief that 300 men can outduel a million is possible.
300 feels slightly otherworldly, despite being based on actual events. The Persian army is filled with strange beasts, 9-foot tall androgynous kings, ogre-like soldiers and tents hiding genderless orgies.
King Leonidis, played by the chameleon-esque Gerard Butler does an impressive job as hard-as-steel but compassionate to his own people leader. He has the menacing stature of Russell Crowe's Gladiator and the brains and wit of Mel Gibson's Braveheart. It's also impossible to miss the fact that Butler is in incredible shape and every one of his soldiers boasts a set of six-pack abs hard enough to grate cheese on.
Leonidis' wife, played by Lena Headey, is equally strong and tough and likely the one person in the world that the king would back down from. Instead, their love is spoken strongest through body language. Leonidis makes love to her with an intense physical passion, befitting a king who lives by the sword. They both do whatever necessary to protect Sparta and Greece, without apology and when Leonidis leaves to face his possible demise in the face of the world's largest army, his wife's last words demand that he return either, "with your shield, or on it."
I've since heard the concerns of people around me, who worry that the film has no plot and focuses on violence and mayhem for two hours. While the latter part is mostly true, 300 has nearly as much of a plot as Troy or Gladiator did, but the vignettes that make it up are either considerably lengthy, like the Spartans battle against the Persian Immortals, or it's quick and to the point, as in the Queen's attempts to get Sparta's politicians to support her husband's battle.
In the end, Gerard Butler does a phenomenal job with his role as King. Snyder will forever be accused of creating superficial films, because they look so fantastic but refusing to look past the visuals is superficial in itself.
300 is an incredible film, and while it has some small flaws, it's about as perfect as we're likely to get.

GHOST RIDER (2007)

2007-02-23T10:13:00.000-05:00

GHOST RIDER

Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Cast: Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendez, Peter Fonda, Sam Elliott
Length: 114 mins.

I've got a total of four good things to say about this film.
1 - Nicholas Cage does his usual best, playing a slightly offbeat character.
2 - Peter Fonda does a decent turn as the devil, although his appearance is best appreciated when you consider that he's the original hog-lovin' Easy Rider.
3 - Put Sam Elliott in a cool cowboy role and you're guaranteed the kind of iconic delivery that he's given dozens of times in his career.
4 - Eva Mendez is hot, hot, hot. Her acting's pretty good too, but we especially appreciate her spandex-tight clothing selections.

There's four good performances in a terrible, wooden movie. Writer and Director Mark Steven Johnson deserves a solid shake for the horrible dialogue he supplies the actors; it's the kind of talk that wouldn't even work in a comic book.
The fight scenes are over in a flash, making the baddies look pathetic, although Wes Bentley does a pretty good job of making his Blackheart character look ridiculous all on his own.
The writers have also tried to pass Ghost Rider off as a modern cowboy tale. There's so many cringe-worthy scenes in this film that it makes Daredevil look like a wonderful work of art.
Don't get sucked in by the huge opening weekend for this film. A guy with a flaming skull sitting atop a very cool bike sounds like a great idea but the effort is completely wasted in this one.

LINWOOD BARCLAY - BAD MOVE (2004)

2007-02-16T10:53:00.000-05:00

Linwood Barclay

Title: Bad Move

Publisher: Bantam
Genre: Comedic Mystery

Linwood Barclay is a humour columnist for the Toronto Star, hardly the kind of credentials you'd think would make for a brilliant novelist.
There is something peculiar about Bad Move though. Its light-hearted farcical content will make it invisible to the kind of praise that Canadian critics like to bestow upon their finest writers. Canada is known for serious, grimy literary fiction that is loaded with burrowing gothic undertones, saying something significant about society.
Barclay's main character is Zach Walker, a stay-at-home sci-fi writer with concerns about his family's safety. His teenage son comes home from school and leaves his backpack at the top of the stairs; a hazard for anyone possibly carrying a load of laundry. His wife leaves her keys in the front door and her purse in the crook of a shopping cart while she peruses items in a grocery store. Both, Zach thinks, are plastered with welcome signs for neighbourhood thieves.
Zach is an everyman who watches the news and reads stories about children being abducted, about homes being robbed in the middle of the night and he worries that his family aren't taking enough precautions. He's about as normal in his worries as any guy you might encounter out on the street. And after attempting to change his family's behaviours through spoken words without success, he decides to teach them a lesson.
He takes his wife's purse from her grocery store cart one day and walks out to the van. The only problem is, it wasn't his wife's purse that he swiped and the contents of the stolen purse wind up getting Zach and his family into more trouble than he could have possibly imagined.
Barclay writes with zip. There's practically no letup in this novel, no hum-drum middle section. Zach continuously gets himself into further escalating moments of trouble, some that are very simply laugh-out-loud hilarious.
By telegraphing these scenes, Barclay treats the reader with respect. He sets 'em up and knocks 'em down and seeing the events play out miles in advance makes the reader feel more involved and takes nothing away from the simplistic brilliance of the tale. Everything is tied together perfectly in the novel. Nearly every single prop winds up playing a very intricate role in the story, minus perhaps his wife's snooty co-workers, but we won't tread there.
For an enjoyable quick read, definitely pick up Bad Move. Zach Walker may be a borderline idiot, but he's kinda like your adorable but occasionally inept father, who can't quite figure out how to light the backyard barbeque without singing the hairs on his knuckles.

THE WRECKERS - STAND STILL, LOOK PRETTY (2006)

2007-02-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

THE WRECKERS

Title: Stand Still, Look Pretty (2006)
Producer(s): John Leventhal, Rick Depoli, John Shanks, Michelle Branch, Paul Worley
Label: Maverick Records
Genre: Country
Length: 44:37

Someone gave me this album a while ago and I've resisted listening to it for a couple reasons. First, I was never a huge fan of the pop-sensation Michelle Branch, and secondly I was tired of listening to their over-played radio single Leave the Pieces.

Being single on Valentine's Day, I figured both the group name and the album name were ironic enough for the day to deserve a listen or two. After listening to it for the better part of the day, I believe the genre classification should specify this album as emo-country! Where Willie Nelson and Jimmy Eat World meet, that's where Michelle Branch and Jessica Harp, aka The Wreckers, stand still and look pretty.

The first track on the CD is titled "Only Crazy People" - Only crazy people fall in love with me. They come from all over to be with me. Bank robbers, and killers. Drunks, and drug dealers. I laughed out loud on the bus if only because I could empathize! It's an awkwardly funny song with a kickass lead guitar track. Branch's voice is a little too nasal-y for my liking but the harmony is good and the slow moving fiddle in the background makes you empathize with the girl for killing her lover's wife!

Rain is a quickly forgettable song if only because it sorta sounds like every other song Michelle Branch has ever put out. One More Girl - the third song on this disc though, gave me pause. It starts off with just vocals and soft guitar in the background. I'm one more girl on a stage. Just one more ass that got stuffed in some jean. One more day that you don't find true love because you don't know what it means. There's something haunting about the way the girls give voice to this track...It took me a couple listens to actually hear the lyrics because the music is too mesmerizing on the first few turns.

Lay Me Down and Hard To Love You are your generic, thrown onto every CD songs that'd've made the B side if we still lived in the age of tapes! Only true fans would appreciate them, and I don't know I'm quite there yet! Cigarettes isn't an exceptional song in terms of musicianship. The guitar playing is predictable and the lyrics have a fourth grade poetry quality to it! It's redemption lies in its lyrics which grabbed a hold of my heart and won't let go!

Someday maybe
Somebody will love me like I need
And someday I won't have to prove
'Cause somebody will see
all my worth but until then
I'll do just fine on my own
With my cigarettes
And this old dirt road.

The title track only appears past the halfway point on the CD. Being of the mixed tape generation, I automatically think the title track should be numero uno on an album! Also, the song is more Jimmy Eat World than I can handle. It's whiny and slow and boring and I didn't like it. My Oh My is kitchy and quick...Slightly painful but I survived. It reminds me a little of a naive Shania but I like the harmonizing thing the girls have going for them. Tennessee is another song that I could have done without. The only saving grace on this one is the fact that Harp takes on lead vocals. Her husky voice is far sexier than the often-whiny-sounding Branch's. The husk is also what saves a lot of the other tracks from falling into the dustbin of Branch's whine cellar.

The CD rounds off with Way Back Home and The Good Kind - again nothing spectacular save for some slightly-above-average lyrical crafting. The Good Kind actually makes use of some spectacular minor chords in between it's generic pre-packaged choruses! Again, it's something about Harp's lower voice that drew me in. Finally the CD ends with the much dreaded Leave The Pieces. I skip it multiple times not wanting to listen to it ever again. It's one of those songs that I'll know the words to for years to come and at some future point, sing drunkenly in a karaoke bar - like that Ace of Base song everyone knows!

For what it was worth, the CD was fine. It actually provided a sufficient soundtrack to Single's Awareness Day. I wouldn't recommend going out and spending your nine ninety nine though...Except for a couple of tracks, I may have had to have surgery to remove the screwdriver from my ears, if I'd listened to it any more.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

THE ROCKET - THE MAURICE RICHARD STORY (2006)

2007-02-12T10:03:00.000-05:00

The Rocket - The Maurice Richard Story

Director: Charles Binamé
Cast: Roy Dupuis, Stephen McHattie, Ted Dillon, Julie LeBreton
Length: 124 mins.

One might think that a story on Maurice Richard, the greatest hockey player of his time, would be in good hands with CBC, Canada's pre-eminent national broadcaster and deliverer of fine hockey moments.
Although a film on Richard's hockey accomplishments are enough, they would not necessarily make for an excellent film. Richard has been previously idolized in the animated short The Sweater, created from the book of the same name, a Canadian identity television moment and a television mini-series, the latter two both played by Roy Dupuis.
Dupuis knows the role well enough to don it again a third time and he plays it well, with Richard's laser-beam eyes and adequate skating skills.
For some reason hockey has always been turned into comedies on the big screen. Russell Crowe could barely stay upright in Mystery, Alaska. Paul Newman may have had a part to play in the greatest hockey film ever in Slapshot, but it still treated the subject as a joke. Let's try to pretend that the Mighty Ducks film and Sudden Death with Jean-Claude Van Dam playing a goalie never existed, shall we?
The Rocket showcases a superb cast of actors. In particular, Stephen McHattie does a brilliant turn as Habs coach extraordinaire Dick Irvin and acts like a heavy-handed but caring father to Richard.
Various modern professional players take turns as some of the secondary cast. Mike Ricci's beaten-up face looks perfect for Elmer Lach. Sean Avery's stitches galore make him seem the perfect candidate to play tough guy enforcer Bob Dill who has Richard in his dead eye. Blink and you may miss other pros like Stephane Quintal or Vincent Lacavalier as the legendary Jean Beliveau.
So yes, while The Rocket has all the usual adversary one would expect in a sports film, making it at least equal to The Cinderella Man or however many other down-on-his-luck hero films you want to point out, The Rocket rises above the others because The Rocket had more to deal with. Although the director Charles Biname deals with the material delicately, it's difficult to ignore (just as it is for Richard himself), the escalating racism that he, his teammates and his wife have to endure despite the fact that he's the best player in the league.
When Richard's wife says to him, "you're the only star that the league doesn't protect," you can see the wheels begin to turn.
When an eager journalist tells him that things won't change unless he stands up for himself and other Quebecers, he's still a reluctant hero. It is only when he gets chopped over the head by an opposing player who doesn't get penalized for the infraction, that the bottled up anger spills over. Richard breaks his stick over another player's back. He gets suspended for the rest of the season and the playoffs by an unsympathetic league commissioner. When the arrogant league official shows up to Montreal's next game and sits in the crowd amongst fans, the whole city erupts in a monstrous riot.
Richard pleads for peace and vows to return the next season after deliberating over retirement, leading his Hobs to a record five consecutive Stanley Cup championships.
The Rocket is a good story because of the man behind it, who did so many extraordinary things. His tale is brought to life by a great core of actors and really shines through the writers, producers and director who aren't afraid to paint certain legendary figures with an ugly brush. While the years comprised in the film may now be looked back upon with a wondrous zeal as something magical, The Rocket gives viewers a clearer view of what life was really like 50 or 60 years ago for men who just wanted to provide for their families, not start a cultural revolution. Maurice Richard one day spent hours moving his family's furniture into a new home, then went on to score 8 points the very same evening. He was a hockey player first and foremost, but not all his greatest accomplishments were achieved on the ice.

SKINNY PUPPY- MYTH MAKER (2007)

2007-01-29T09:33:00.000-05:00

SKINNY PUPPY

Title: Myth Maker (2007)
Producer(s): Mark Walk, Scaremeister, Ken Marshall
Label: Fusion
Genre: Post-Industrial
Length: 49:01

Skinny Puppy, the Canadian bred grandfathers of Industrial music, have risen from the dead, for about the fifth time. Influencing a whole range of industrial acts - from Nine Inch Nails to Ministry - it had appeared many years ago that their best days were past them. Enduring a history of modest commercial success, bandmember's drug issues and even accidental death, main members Cevin Key and Nivek Ogre have pushed on to deliver Myth Maker, album number 12.
Twenty-five years after the formation of the group, they've rarely sounded better.
Magnifishit is a bit of a throwback to their older sounds, albeit updated with crisper sounds and electronics, the music is still dirty, cybernetic and ominous. It's uncertain what, or more specifically who, the song is about, but there's a definite tongue-in-cheek sarcasm inherent in the "I'm so great" lyrics.
Dal opens with some incredibly heavy beats that would destroy a dancefloor. These first few songs seem to be put in place to gently lead the listener into what will later become a more daunting and experimental sound.
Pedafly is an awesome track that starts off delicate and soft and explodes like Godzilla's footsteps down the middle of a Tokyo street while Politikil sounds like the Chemical Brothers meets Marilyn Manson in a surprisingly enjoyable sound.
Ambiantz is a slightly different step for the band in that this number is almost purely a dance track, albeit with the usual distorted and off-putting vocals.
Jaher is one of the group's prettier numbers, yet it still retains a gothic vibe, like a slightly unnerving quiet track performed in the middle of a graveyard. It harkens back to days when many thought the group were at their peak in the Last Rights album.
Haze feels like a half-finished that weaves in and out of good quality. It highlights one of the longstanding issues behind Skinny Puppy's music, that while they've had a couple spectacular songs on every album, the rest of the songs have often felt like B-side filler that was never fully materialized.
Ugli is the darkhorse candidate for best song on the album. Most people will likely find it abusive to their tastes or strangely interesting. A driving, pounding track coupled with repeated vocals about how "Jesus wants to be ugly," it's hardly a song that's easy to ignore.
Better known perhaps for their live shows - ones that make their audience think and reflect on some kind of message, often political - rarely has Skinny Puppy's music ever progressed past a purely sonic one so well. You don't have to give a damn what they're singing about to like Myth Maker, it's all lies anyway, but if you dig progressive, original music, then you'll have something to keep your ears happy for a long time here.

36 CRAZYFISTS - REST INSIDE THE FLAMES (2006)

2007-01-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

36 CRAZYFISTS

Title: Rest Inside the Flames (2006)
Producer(s): Sal Villanueva
Label: Universal
Genre: Alternative
Length: 42:36

I am not shy about expressing my dislike for most things emo and metalcore. The thought of combining them puts me at a state where anyone within projectile distance should clear out. Emo acts these days are trying to pawn themselves off as post-punk-rock prognosticators, but have brought nothing from that legendary scene apart from clothing and hairdos. Metalcore all largely sounds the same to me, and although the speed and precision inherent in some of that music's riffing is mind-boggling, the vocals still sound like the stuff that Suicidal Tendencies put out in 1985. The style in vocal delivery is deliberate, I realize that, but people listen to music for a number of relatively few reasons. I have a preference for the melody in music; its not just the way a singer uses his voice that entertains me but the way it sounds as well.
I was surprised a few years ago to find myself liking 36 Crazyfists. I like them a lot.
36 Crazyfists can get pigeonholed in the metalcore movement rather easily. The songs sometimes take on an effect that sounds like post-thrash. But the speed and ferocity displayed in most of the songs is often paired with a distinct sense of toned down sensibilities. Screams are paired with pleasantly sung choruses and mile-a-minute instruments are slowed down in places to offer some semblance of tune to shine through.
I'll Go Until My Heart Stops is the group's lead single for this album, it has great attitude and energy.
Midnight Swim is possibly a better choice for a lead single due to the fact that it could reach a broader audience, the drumming, while spectacular in each of the album's songs, is particularly easy to focus on in this track. Thomas Noonan's drum work would easily exhaust a less capable drummer. It is near inhuman sounding in its unrelenting power.
Aurora is a song that's sung almost entirely in clear and easily discernible vocals. The guitars still sound like jackhammers at times but there is definite melody combined with the aggression.
Killswitch Engage's Howard Jones appears on Elysium and it's clear Jones' group is a big influence on the music of this band. Here, the music sounds like something one would take on a suicidal breakneck drive through the city and just to pound home the visual, chainsaw and engine-revving sounds roar before the chorus comes in.
On Any Given Night has a very cool guitar riff that breaks down into moodiness, and that's not an easy thing to accomplish in a style of music that values speed over atmosphere.
The City Ignites is a slow piece completely out of sync with the rest of the album, although one can tell that it's still the same band, only playing at about 1/16th their usual speed. Will Pull This in By Hand, on the other hand, is a crazy, hard as fuck song that still keeps singability and foot-tapping capabilities intact.
All in all, melody in hardcore music is nearly an anomaly. 36 Crazyfists makes the impossible happen.

PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006)

2007-01-15T10:03:00.000-05:00

Pan's Labyrinth

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Actors: Ivana Baquero, Maribel Verdu, Sergi Lopez
Length: 119 mins.

In the last few years - more than ever it seems - many films have been misrepresented by the scripting of carefully publicized trailers and adverts, that are usually made without any input by the director.
It's quite possibly the very reason that critics and fans hated Jim Carrey's The Cable Guy many years ago, thinking it was going to be another silly comedy. The trailers and commercials certainly made us think this was going to be the case. The recently released film Primeval has a website and adverts that make onlookers think this is a film about a serial killer that a group of people are hunting. "He has killed over 300 people and remains at large," is all the information you get. Nothing is said about the fact the killer is actually a crocodile.
Pan's Labyrinth, if judged by much of the promotional material out there, seems a kid's fairytale. Let's get that out of the way first: this is not a film for children.
The story takes place in 1944, a few years after the end of the Spanish Civil War. Small rebellious forces still aimed to cause headaches for those with a stranglehold of power, medical supplies, food and just about anything else that people required to live.
12-year-old Ofelia is moving to a new home in the countryside with her very pregnant mother. Awaiting them is Ofelia's new stepfather, Captain Vidal. Vidal is a vicious man determined to stamp the rebels out.
Ofelia has brought with her a collection of fairy tales and is not surprised to find that a fairy has found her. She is led to a labyrinth where an imposingly large faun tells her that she may be the reborn spirit of the princess of the underground world and that her father has been awaiting her arrival for a great many years. To prove her identity, she must undertake three imposing tasks.
Ofelia's fantastic adventures with the faun and the underground world are interspersed with the real life events at the large country home. While she has to face a horrific naked creature with sagging skin and eyes in its hands that will produce nightmares in adults, it is her stepfather who is the most frightening character in the film. When Vidal suspects a local to be an insurgent, he bashes his nose into his face with a glass bottle and the viewer is forced to watch every single blow in agonizing detail.
Director del Toro's fairy tale scenes echo the events and characters from the country-side house, namely Captain Vidal. The Captain, like the large frog who lives under a tree, holds the all important key, keeping invaluable supplies to himself.
The events that Ofelia is forced to endure throughout this film are torturous. Ivana Baquero does a fantastic job as the frightened and distracted little girl. Sergi Lopez plays a terrible fascist who is easy to hate. With the possible exception of Scorsese's The Departed, it is quite possible that gunshots have never been so loud on film, or so shocking.
In Pan's Labyrinth del Toro continues to use thematic symbols in evidence through most of his films. They include death, the undead and the afterlife. The working cogs of a machine appear in some form in nearly every film he's made.
While The Devil's Backbone (also a film in Spanish) was near perfect for its own reasons, Pan's Labyrinth is ultimately a statement on the ability of fairy tales - frightening, harrowing tales produced by the likes of the Brothers Grimm - to help those in the face of real terror, to transcend such experiences.
When monstrous things happen to Ofelia, we know it's not so bad, because her mind is elsewhere. Stories are a release for the trapped mind; salvation for the damned.

BABEL (2006)

2007-01-02T13:43:00.000-05:00

BABEL

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Actors: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Rinko Kikuchi
Length: 142 mins.

According to some, Babel didn't do as well as expected at the box office take. Suspected reasons are varied. Maybe Brad Pitt's makeup and grey hairs scared off the feminine audience. Maybe the overall tone of the film was too dark and depressing.
The movie blends through three different worldwide locations, all loosely connected by a string of events set off in Morocco. Cate Blanchett's character Susan is accidentally shot by children playing with a rifle. She looks pained, stunned, and essentially rolls around a family's hut for much of the film. Pitt as her husband Richard, does his repentant and concerned husband. Neither actor has the opportunity to flesh out their character much, although we get a slight glimpse in the beginning that this is no happy couple.
Back home in America, Richard and Susan's two children are in the care of their Mexican-born nanny. The couple's misfortune on Africa's coast has put Amelia (the nanny) in an unwanted position. Her son is getting married in Mexico and neither she nor Richard can find an emergency, yet trusted, person to take care of them in the meantime. Amelia makes the decision to cross the border with the children, with disastrous consequences.
The worst of all however, befalls the family of the children who shot Susan. Local police eventually trace the gun to the family and neither side is properly prepared for what ensues.
The loosest strand in the plot lies to the east, where the youthful Japanese woman named Chieko deals with being deaf and mute and the loss of her mother. The storyline in Japan is likely the strongest and Rinko Kikuchi does a masterful job portraying a young woman who's lost her direction. Her character is easily the most bizarre in the film, yet also the most human.
One may say that the film is about the destruction done by guns. There could easily be a strong message linked to that within, provided one looks for it.
It's also a film about the decisions people make and the consequences that follow. Babel is not a happy film but it is a good film that will make its viewers think and feel.

THE DEPARTED (2006)

2006-12-27T10:22:00.000-05:00

THE DEPARTED

Director: Martin Scorsese
Actors: Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg.
Length: 151 mins.

To start with the basics, Scorsese's The Departed is a film fan's kind of movie. It's also, obviously, an actor's kind of movie as well. Produced by Brad Pitt, it hosts a likely grouping from Pitt's circle of pals including Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. Going further than that however, the roles that some big actors took to be in this film shows how much they wanted to be a part of it.
Nicholson, believe it or not, actually does a decent Boston accent through much of the film. While some may have expected his character to be the filthy and vile mob head we're used to seeing in some of Scorsese's films like Goodfellas and Casino, Nicholson's actually a fun-loving guy whose thirst for more and more eventually costs him a great price in his luxurious lifestyle. To be certain, Nicholson's Frank Costello isn't the guy you want to mess with, but you also get the feeling he'd be a lot of fun after a few drinks out at the bar.
Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio's characters are like twin brothers whose paths in life have gone in parallel but opposite directions. They're playing the same people against one another, so much so that they're actually vying for the same girl unaware of the other guy's involvement.
Granted, such a predicament may only take place in fictitious stories and truthfully, it's one of the films only downfalls. The triangle between Damon and DiCaprio's characters and a woman named Madolyn does however expose another angle to the leading men and also serves as yet another example in heavily weighted symbolism throughout the film.
Scorsese clearly has something to say about sin, about lies, selfishness and violence.
In essence, there's a lot to love about The Departed and enough action and twists to keep the viewer entertained throughout the long running time. But make no mistake, despite the entertaining characters and the cat and mouse plot tangents, this is hardly a bubble gum soap opera. Scorsese makes it clear through the course of events in his film that relationship triangles are a dangerous thing. I can tell you that this is a old-fashioned tragedy from the get-go and you'll still be surprised at who gets the short end of the stick and when.

OUTBURST'S BEST of 2006

2006-12-18T08:43:00.000-05:00

MUSIC

Lou Rhodes - Beloved One
Don't shed a tear for the departed Lamb project, because Louise Rhodes covers similar territory but does so in a more organic and beautiful manner.

I Am X - The Alternative
Twisted fun, glamorous and gloomy, so forget the Sneaker Pimps, Chris Corner's newest alter ego deserves your close attention.

Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Not a return to form. It's a reclamation of their spot as a true alternative monster, unlike many of the cookie cutter hacks clamoring for radioplay these days. They may already be huge, but much of the world won't understand their greatness until they're gone.

Muse - Black Holes & Revelations
Are they at the top of their game or just taking another step up?

Stone Sour - Come What(Ever) May
Too hard for the alternative crowd, too soft for the metalheads, Stone Sour are no flippant little side project.

Tool - 10,000 Days
Music as art. Listen, learn, experience.

Evans Blue - The Melody and the Energetic Nature of Volume
These youngsters are about to show an entire tired scene how it should be done.

Dropping Daylight - Brace Yourself
A modern rock 'n roll album that's a whole lot of fun.

Faktion - Faktion
Masterful hard rock.

Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards
Three full albums of the strangest music you can't help but love.

MOVIES

The Departed
Okay, I haven't seen it yet, but it still garner's my top film spot nonetheless.

Lady Vengeance
Chan-wook Park is one of the best directors outside the U.S.. While his subject matter is possibly too dark for mainstream America, it's exactly the reason why he should cross over. Only slightly less disturbing than Oldboy, Lady Vengeance is beautifully shot and has a brilliant plot with a talented collection of core actors.

Superman Returns
He's spent 70 years as a worldwide icon and he's now back to big screen goodness thanks to Bryan Singer. He may not issue a single punch in this film but Superman's always been about more than beating the baddies up.

An Inconvenient Truth
It's mostly a summary of Al Gore's worldwide speeches on global warming and its side effects but it's a message that's hard to ignore. Gore has the numbers, the visual proof and the charisma to bend many ears, although tragically few people will see this film.

Lucky Number Slevin
A film with Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu and an appearance by Bruce Willis in a near non-verbal role, what's not to like? The girls will love seeing Josh Hartnett dressed in nothing but a loosely tied towel for 15-minutes while the guys will prefer it was Liu. It may be yet another of the dozens of modern day Yojimbo rip-offs but Slevin at least treats the audience with some respect by not throwing an entirely stupid red herring in our faces.

Silent Hill
It unfortunately deflates greatly towards the end but the beginning is creepy enough to seem original, a rare and valuable thing in a time when more and more films seem to be sad little remakes. Keep the little kids away from this.

MISSES

Borat
Hearing that groups of people appearing in the film are now suing or punching out Sascha Cohen makes for better laughs than what appears in this movie. Although you have to give him his props for doing a disturbingly hilarious all-male nude fight scene.

The Da Vinci Code
Yawn. Tom, you were better at comedy.

Bloodrayne
I fell asleep within the first 15 minutes and was not surprised to learn that Uwe Boll made this stinker.

Lady in the Water
I wanted to like it too but M. Night's trickery has seemingly run out of flash.

Zoom
It could and should have been another Galaxy Quest but it's not even close.

TIMOTHY FINDLEY - PILGRIM (1999)

2006-12-04T12:03:00.000-05:00

Timothy Findley

Title: Pilgrim

Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Fiction

Pilgrim may well be the culmination of Findley's work in fiction. Published in 1999, it wasn't his greatest work but there a number of things that make it a great book.
Findley had a masterful hold on several aspects of fiction writing throughout his life. His pacing could be awkward and his transitions were at times purposefully mysterious but his prose and descriptions could at times hypnotize the reader as though it were music. His themes carry forward in Pilgrim with reference to dark secrets and mental illness. He even goes as far this time to place much of the story within the confines of a Swiss mental institution where the legendary Carl Jung worked at the beginning of the 1900s.
The story purports to base itself around a character, Pilgrim, who suggests he cannot die. Doctors have made note that he was without a heartbeat during multiple suicide attempts, only to have him miraculously revived and unaided too, several minutes later. Whether the reader believes him or not, is a decision solely up to each person who opens the book.
Findley was wise to attempt not to outright persuade his readers one way or another. Throughout his career, he has brought characters to life (often characters based on real people), put them in situations and let the reader make up his or her own mind about them. In Pilgrim, many of the main characters have their flaws, their dark sides and secrets. Jung himself would have later called this the Duality of Man, a concept that is repeated throughout the book. We care for Jung to a certain degree, even though he is not always the hero we would wish him to be. Likewise for Pilgrim and for Jung's wife, the latter of whom appears to make a decision that some readers will find unforgivable.
Undoubtedly, there are aspects of Findley's personal life that have seeped into the novel. Gay and sexually ambiguous characters make appearances throughout the tale and the relationships and sex that do show up are not the pristine variety found in romance novels. To be certain, Pilgrim is more reflective of the real world than that. Legendary and iconic figures we would think untouchable are shown to be deeply flawed and what makes it all the more delightful is the way in which Findley puppeteered it all.
The components of Findley's typically wonderful prose is all in place. He often took real places and real people and real events and put them together in a fictional story that almost could have been real. If you know Toronto, you can picture the streets and homes and institutions that make up the setting in books like Headhunter and The Piano Man's Daughter. Read Famous Last Words and you can envision the encroachment of the Nazis onto Europe's doorstep.
Pilgrim takes Findley's penchant for these realities and turns it up another notch. It is a brazen and risky move and something that Findley excels at. Many of the characters, many of the places, simply were. Findley did his homework with this novel and where there were gaps in truth, his imagination tied the facts together in a very compelling tale that when taken as a whole, is essentially fiction that is very believable. Such a notion - I would think - is the goal of the majority of fiction writers.

SMILE EMPTY SOUL - VULTURES (2006)

2006-11-22T14:53:00.000-05:00

SMILE EMPTY SOUL

Title: Vultures (2006)
Producer(s): James Murray, Smile Empty Soul
Label: Bieler Bros
Genre: Alternative
Length: 63:54

Along with other Lava Records artists like Cold and Nonpoint, Smile Empty Soul got lost in the shuffle when Lava was absorbed into Atlantic Records division of Warner in late 2005. Their second album, Anxiety, got shelved, resulting in band members encouraging fans to download it for free from the Internet.
Moving on to a smaller label resulted in the band quickly coming up with Vultures, an album heavily drenched with the side effects of that nasty break-up with Lava.
The Hit in particular, has terrible lyrics obviously showcasing the angst brought upon the band during the label problems. Even though the angry imagery is applied to other examples of frustrating life experiences, it is so in-your-face and abrupt in its imagery that it's very off-putting and unpleasant.
Loser is still so negative you wonder how the band recorded the album without slitting their wrists. It's not a joke, the lyrics really seem to imply that the writer at least feels like a failure who hates himself. While the melody and musicianship are all present in spades in the song, it's a hard one to associate with if you're not in the same headstate.
In contrast to the whining found on some of the other tracks contained herein, Morning Light displays singer Sean Danielsen's vulnerabilities in a way that is easier to sympathise with because instead of raging about his own failures, he extends a hand in a plea for help.
Here's To Another is a A fun but emotionally packed drinking song while Jesus Is the Manager at Wal-Mart is a ridiculous title and chorus are forgiven due to the song's strong energy, but just barely.
Out to Sea showcases shades of better days for the band. Catchy, raw and powerful that show the band should have been a similar route as the more successful Seether. There is a delightful ending to the track that ties in the theme with gulls squawking (much less irritating than you would think), waves rolling and a sense of being lost.
A typical but well-done song is Better Off Alone, that deals with the breaking up with someone and knowing that it was a good decision. The band put it much more bluntly however, as the title would suggest.
Adjustments is a track where the band rages in a good way. The line "I know you think I could be great with just a few adjustments," is followed by heavily cursed lyrics about standing up for yourself when everyone's trying to change you. It goes without saying that several levels could be applied to such a statement when it comes from a musical act whose boss wants them to sell as many records as possible.
By the time the album's done playing for the fifth time, I can safely that this is a disc that gets better with each listen. That's not to say that I was ecstatic after the first play however. The move to a smaller label has resulted in a more raw sound for the band and depending on your vantage point, that may be a good thing but the best producers are the ones who know what sound to bring to the forefront and much of that thinking seems absent in this recording. The bass and drums are often loss in the mix and while the band's natural talent still shines in many places, it's not as solid from one song to the next as it was in album's past. This is a good Smile Empty Soul album but the sore feelings of a band mishandled by their former label border on the childish.
To get a good Smile Empty Soul album where the member's hurt feelings aren't getting in the way of their music, I'd still suggest trying to obtain last year's unreleased Anxiety album first.

Prozac Nation (2001)

2006-11-20T12:14:00.000-05:00

PROZAC NATION

Director: Erik Skjoldbjærg
Actors: Christina Ricci, Jason Biggs, Michelle Williams, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anne Heche, Jessican Lange.
Length: 99 mins.

It was wish fulfilment says Lizzie about the story she wrote in which her father returns to the family he'd abandoned four years before. Wish fulfillment - a term used only by those who've studied Freud or been studied by his descendents. Lizzie, the protagonist of Prozac Nation falls into the latter of these categories.

A troubled teen, Lizzie finds herself on a journalism scholarship at Harvard, unable to leave her disturbed past or depression behind. She merges quickly into the student culture of sex, drugs and all-night parties...But they are not her. The person she is has neither the urge nor the motivation to rise out of bed each morning. Gradually and then suddenly she finds herself at the bottom of a barrel of depression.

Surrounded by a stellar supporting cast, Ricci does a convincing job of the role of Lizzie. From her facial language to her body language, she becomes the role. Lange's portrayal of Lizzie's controlling, slightly neurotic mother was the most fulfilling for me. She embodies the spirit of mother whose heart is breaking to watch her daughter crumble before her very eyes - unable to patch the pieces together. It's ironic to watch her hold herself together for her own mother's sake - keeping up the appearances that her daughter is unwilling and unable to.

Niether Williams, Biggs or Meyers knocked my socks off but I suppose they were simply there to add flesh to Lizzie's freshman year...A target they met.

Dr. Sterling (Heche) is a cold, objective, lens through which Lizzie gradually, then suddenly, rises out of her depression. Depression, especially the kind riddled with paranoia, suicidal tendencies and bouts of mania, does not go away. It may lift a bit from time to time, but it will be an issue to deal with for a lifetime.

This radical change seemed a bit contrived to me. A wish fulfillment on the part of the writer, if you will.

DE/VISION - SUBKUTAN (2006)

2006-11-07T12:33:00.000-05:00

DE/VISION

Title: Subkutan (2006)
Producer(s): Arne Schumann
Label: Dancing Ferret
Genre: Electronic, Synthpop
Length: 65:52

In discovering I AM X a while back, I had been fanatically trying to find more of the same style and substance that Chris Corner was able to create on two wondrous albums that the world is largely ignorant to. I can safely say that there is nothing else out there like it, despite the fact that some synthpop bands have similarities that hit the right notes in places, the quality is few and far between.
Synthpop is essentially bred and born out of the ashes of Depeche Mode's heyday, a time when the borders between pop music and experimental noise and dance blurred and merged into music that could be enjoyed on various different levels.
De/Vision, oddly enough, have been plying their trade for nearly as long as Depeche Mode, having released an astounding nine full-length albums in the last 13 years.
While the band members are German, their music is mostly done with English vocals and while the German habit of crafting deeply synthetic and slightly unnerving mechanical sounds for melody is in evidence here, the vocals and overall mood are largely clear and uplifting in a very pleasant fashion.
The End has a futuristic edge to the music, a very healthy pace and great vocals and lyrics. The chorus in particular has a wonderfully animated and infectious tone to it despite ridiculously off-putting lyrics in-between about what sounds like duality of a persona. The multi-faceted elements of the band continue on My Own Worst Enemy, a truly epic track that is the stuff of moving movie soundtrack material. Listen and you will hear the denouement of a powerful film that requires an equally enormous track to infer emotion into the viewer.
Star-Crossed Lovers is a slow, brooding track with a threatening feel in the distance and when it kicks in it sounds like Marilyn Manson done right, without the act or pomp inherent in the latter's music. Some of De/Vision's music is like the 90s electro-meets-industrial onslaught of LFO or Leftfield with De/Vision's usual slick vocals thrown overtop, like on the frenetic E-Shock. It is a slightly claustrophobic track that picks up in parts but generally never has much of a direction.
Subtronic is a very danceable track that is nicely paced and repetitive and suited for trance dancefloors although its big beat vocals and dreamy landscape sounds a bit dated. Obey Your Heart on the other hand, is the music of the future and if you can imagine robots dancing around a single male singer on a stage, you've got a small idea of what this sounds like. There is enough emotion and passion in this song that you will believe it can bring the inanimate to life.
Addict sounds like Depeche Mode with cybernetic beats and cool laidback vocals and by the time things reach the midway point it's practically floating on clouds it's so delirious in tone and quality.
No Tomorrow is a slow song with hints of introspective sadness while Still Unknown is a beautiful love song that will melt the most chilled of hearts.
Subkutan may not be a perfect album but there is enough quality material present to adequately show that almost two full decades of successful touring and album producing was and is not a fluke. There are some pure moments of brilliance contained within and some filler too. While album #9 may not be the ideal place to make their acquaintance, it is still a good place to get hooked on the talent of a well-oiled machine that still has lots of gas left.

Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (2006)

2006-11-06T18:56:00.000-05:00

NEKO CASE

Title: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (2006)
Producer(s): Neko Case & Darryl Neudorf
Label: Anti-
Genre: Alternative, Alt-Country
Length: 35:43

Best known as one of The New Pornographers - royalty on the Canadian indie scene - Neko Case has an unmistakable voice that floats across any expanse, grabs your ears and twists your body till you are listening to her with all your pores fully alive. I realize that there is a tinge of violence to that description, but that's exactly how I feel every time I listen to Case, and this record is no different. It's a compulsion to pay attention and appreciate, a call to recognize thorough musical genius.

Unfortunately for many, Case's music gets stockpiled under Alt-Country most often - neither a genre she labels herself with, nor one that is suitable for containing all that Case has to offer. I say unfortunately because in this day, alt-country is tantamount to musical leporacy. Unless of course, you like alternative country music...In which case, it isn't unfortunate at all! I happen to like alt-country! I discovered Case's voice over a year ago through a rotation on pandora.com. It was after hearing that voice a couple of times that I caught onto its garishly haunting quality - something I hadn't heard since...Well, I'd never heard it before.

What I love about Case's unique lyrical ability is encompassed perfectly in Margaret vs. Pauline - the first track on this album. The tune is lilting and quick paced, supplemented with instrumentation that is neither overbearing nor cowering. This happy fuzziness is juxtapositioned fantastically against morbid lyrics, my favourite of which is "Two girls ride the blue line/ Two girls walk down the same street/ One left her sweater sittin' on the train/ The other lost three fingers at the cannery/ Everything's so easy for Pauline"

Hold On, Hold On and The Needle Has Landed are my favourite for their zest reminiscent of days past when I'd wave a hairbrush dangerously and sing at 50 decibals in my underwear with nary a care in the world. Fine, fine, those days haven't passed yet, but these are the kind of songs that make me unleash my inner popstar!

The lyrics of Lion's Jaws and Maybe Sparrow take me back to a simpler time of Sunday morning iced tea and bring to mind fancy hats, waving hands and a giant man preaching from the pulpit of a white clapboard Baptist church. The most country of all the tracks on this album, to me at least, is John Saw That Number - in which Case manages to capture and deliver to my ears the spirit of John the Baptist himself! I'm not the track's biggest fan but I feel connected to it because it was recorded in a stairwell of the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto - a venue at which I've listened to many a superb artist play, and at which I've even worked the merchandise table a few times!

What makes an already stellar album even more spectacular is the fact that it draws on the talents of other artists that I love: Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico, as well the eternal multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson (of The Band fame) make valuable contributions, along with The Sadies, Rachel Flotard of Visqueen, and Giant Sand leader Howe Gelb.

This is not an album for the faint of heart. It doesn't soften its blow on your ears simply because you've been conditioned to listening to pre-fabricated bubble-gum shit. Case is melodic and drastic, naiive and seductive, gentle and ravaging...She's an oxymoron and a redundancy all in one neatly wrapped, brightly coloured, often underestimated, brilliant package.

Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

2006-11-06T17:41:00.000-05:00

LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN

Director: Paul McGuigan
Actors: Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Sir Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci, Danny Aiello
Length: 109 mins.

Admittedly, it was the stellar cast that lured us into renting this crime drama. That, and the fact that Josh Hartnett really is the Tommy Lee Jones of our generation!

We meet and instantaneously fall in love with Hartnett's Slevin (who spends the first twenty minutes of the flick in a barely-there towel that runs the constant risk of falling off his extremely sexy hips!). We don't know much about him but he seems genuine and down-on-his-luck - which of course made me fall for him even more. Hartnett does a stellar job of compiling the character's earnest sincerity, boyish charm, and air of mysteriousness.

He is dragged into a web of deception that isn't of his own making through a case of mistaken identity! Lindsey (Liu) plays his spunky and coy run-of-the-mill girl-next-door-plus-coroner neighbour. I have to admit, grudgingly, that she did a rather fine job with the part too - being neither vapidly over dramatic, nor spinelessly insipid. My distaste for the actress stems from my days of watching Ally McBeal at a young and impressionable age...I'm trying to get over my bias against Liu as an actor!

The A-List team that supports Slevin on his journey through this thriller adds that much more panache to the movie. Freeman and Kingsley play rivaling mob bosses who once shared something akin to friendship and now wage war on each others' empires. Freemans voice will always remind me of ol' Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, but he plays the character of "The Boss" eloquently - his character's composure never wavering, even in the face of death and destruction. There's just something eternally cool about that man!
Sir Kingsley on the other hand, is like a thespianic chameleon. As "The Rabbi" he adopts the persona of a tough talking, aging, Jewish, Brooklyn-born-and-bred gangster. He stays so thoroughly in character, it's easy to forget that he ever owned another role! And own this role he does!

Willis's role is nameless until the very end when we learn that he is the dreaded Mr. Goodkat. I believe Tucci's Officer Brikowski phrased it best when he said that Goodkat shows up, people die, Goodkat disappears! Willis's role is just as poignant and brief - integral to the plot and impactful due more to quality rather than quantity of screen time!

Brikowski is the epitome of the police officer that shows up thirty five seconds too late to a crime scene. Another small but well fleshed-out role.

Other than character snapshots, I can't say a whole lot about the plot without giving away what made this one of the better movies I've watched in a long time! I enjoyed its fast pace and ability to keep me asking questions! It had twists and plot turns that were unexpected; secrets were well kept, albeit not unpredictable. The good-guy-bad-guy polarizations were much appreciated in this day of mediocre personalities that silver screen characters are taking on! All in all, definitely a fantastic way to spend an evening!

Now go do the Kansas City Shuffle! ;)

PLUMB - CHAOTIC RESOLVE (2006)

2006-11-03T12:33:00.000-05:00

PLUMB

Title: Chaotic Resolve (2006)
Producer(s): Matt Bronleewe
Label: EMI
Genre: Alternative
Length: 45:53

There is much to like in Plumb's music, which makes it all the more surprising that so few people know about her. Plumb, for the record, is Tiffany Arbuckle, now a 10-year veteran in the professional music business and likely brand new mother around the timing of this review. She has been pointed out by Amy Lee of Evanescence as an influence and the similarities are obvious in many ways apart from commercial success.
Chaotic Resolve stretches out into multiple directions almost simultaneously, as I Can't Do This showcases hard-driving guitars and subtle electronic elements that backup Arbuckle's singing on a track about self-empowerment and willpower. The midway point of the album features a delicate piano-led piece that is reminiscent of Sarah McLachlan in some pleasant ways.
Electronic Influences swirl around the singer in Manic, where other more conventional instruments anchor Arbuckle's ability to keep the whole frenetic effort together with strong song-writing skills. Plumb even goes so far as to offer up a disco-inspired track for the club crowd with Good Behaviour that may not be played in London's biggest clubs on a regular basis, is still good fun all the same.
Harder alternative elements show up on Better, a dangerous track with lyrics that show Arbuckle's wordy wizardry. There is both wisdom and innocence in her lines that are difficult to pass off as being anything but brutally and emotionally honest in content. Good Behaviour is a mid-tempo track that kicks serious butt with overdriven guitars and impressively strong vocals. Female singers and rock are hardly an easy sell and despite the formulaic soft-loud verse-chorus template in evidence here, there's still enough variety happening elsewhere in the track that it manages to work.
Jekyll & Hyde is a gorgeous song with one of the best opening lines of the year in any song. For a vocalist who has a reputation among Christian rock circles, Arbuckle has some seriously sharp gender and relationship-based wit.
Twangy guitars give way to a jingly, happy and pop-like tune about love on Blush (Only You) and likewise on Real Life Fairytale, both songs sound like the kind of thing that teenage girls would adore but there is an undeniable amount of skill present in these tracks that easily distinguish itself from the pre-packaged and super-polished plastic dished out by the likes of Hillary Duff.
Sleep is an upbeat and happy track about being able to rest happily because of good experience and a nice world. While it does largely contradict much of the mood elsewhere in the album, it makes a fitting closer to an album that is nearly as multi-faceted as the musician herself seems to be.
Plumb is capable of deftly handling multiple formats and styles under a single album and still making it feel uniform throughout. An artist willing to take such risks and mostly pull it off deserves the credit of being recognized for such efforts. There is most definitely something here for just about anyone.

DEFTONES - SATURDAY NIGHT WRIST (2006)

2006-10-25T11:23:00.000-04:00

DEFTONES

Title: Saturday Night Wrist (2006)
Producer(s): Bob Ezrin
Label: Maverick
Genre: Alternative
Length: 51:27

What a difference a decade makes. 10 years ago, Deftones decided to stop touring with Korn and other nu-metal acts because they were getting typecast into a genre that they had little affiliation with, apart from some heavily down-tuned and aggressively played instruments. The Deftones always had aspirations outside of the normal realm of music and while groups like Korn, Staind and Linkin Park were putting a new twist on metal, fans began to think that the Deftones were of the same style and structure simply because they played with them. Whether it was wise foresight that allowed the group to depart a short-lived scene or just an attempt to be as original and independent as possible, five albums into their career, the Deftones now find themselves fully in control of a style of music they share with no one.
Nowadays, Deftones are back to touring with Korn on the Family Values tour, their own individual identity clearly cemented as their own. Trying to pinpoint just what that identity is however, is not as easy a task. While the band are comfortable playing dark music that seems to fit with a metal scene, they are an anomaly in many senses because their music often wanders away from traditional song-writing schemes into the kinds of opuses which sprawl outwards in creepy, spacey or introspective manners.
While visually the group espouses images of skateboarding kids, this is a group of men whose music has grown with time into something other than wheels and rails, high schools and getting angry. With that said, Saturday Night Wrist was not an easy album to create for the band. Several producers came and went over the last few years, Moreno recorded and toured with his side project Team Sleep in the middle of recording sessions and writing was sidelined several times because of rumors of infighting.
Still, fans are chomping at the bit to get a hold of this album and for good reason too.
There are tracks which harken back to times where the band was just starting out, like Rapture, a manic, claustrophobic track that sounds like schizophrenia put to audiotape and Rats! Rats! Rats! which sounds like a familiar throwback to the their early days, when elements of post-punk, hard rock and prog were combined to create a hallucinatory take on youthful sense of anarchy.
There are fantastic songs here, like Hole in the Earth, a gorgeously melodramatic song that perfectly showcases Deftones' ability to craft magical tracks completely unlike anything else out there on the market. Likewise, Beware really does sound like a muted alarm and the allusions to water and nature sounds in the words and backgrounds may be some kind of a hint about the message within. Chino Moreno's unique style of singing and intonating sounds is brought to the forefront here although the rest of the band get to have their time in the spotlight during the last minute of the track, which is a really cool jam of hard rock that will kick you in the ass. It's a wonderful fadeout for a brilliant song.
Cherry Waves is another beauty that sounds like a gentle lullaby taking a slumbering listener across a calm ocean on a raft, but make no mistake, danger looms on the horizon.
There are oddities here too, not surprising from a band with so many different influences and ideas. In what seems like a titular nod to console playing of video games, U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start unfolds like a breeze blowing through a ghost town. It is both haunting and attention-grabbing and shows that former Pink Floyd producer Bob Ezrin being chosen to help out on the album was a wise choice. Through another band, this could have been unnecessary nonsense, but the band here turns the number into a masterful effort, despite the fact that it barely ever picks up past a crawl.
Pink Cellphone has programmed beats and a feminine guest singer (Annie Hardy) that interweave throughout its length in a strange, brooding number that sounds little like a regular Deftones track.
Most likely named after the extinct American butterfly, Xerces seems to be a homage to a person who's no longer around and it is both sentimentally melancholy and beautifully made.
Mein has a weird, mesmerizing guitar drone in the background that really disorients the listener, as if the musicians are swirling around you as they play, but Abe Cunningham's drumming keeps things together and manages to stop it all from floating out too far. This is experimental rock goodness, like Tool without the menacing aspect of their music.
Saturday Night Wrist may not be the group's crowning glory, but it's a good one and unlike the slightly backwards progress made on their last studio album, it shows them back in a form that allows them to come up with their best kind of material: the free-flowing, fly by the seat of their pants kind that will shock and wow you and make you scratch your head.

Check out the band's Myspace page for a full stream of the entire album prior to its release.

ZEROMANCER - ZZYZX (2004)

2006-10-24T12:53:00.000-04:00

ZEROMANCER

Title: ZZYZX (2004)
Producer(s): Zeromancer, Rico
Label: Universal
Genre: Alternative
Length: 43:06

Take a look at any number of this group's publicity photos and you'll get a pretty good idea at what their music sounds like. Dressed mostly in black or monochromatic colors with spiky hair and piercings, this Norwegian group were among the new breed of industrial metal heads coming out of Europe at the turn of the century.
To be fair though, there is more to Zeromancer than any single sentence description could imply. Their closest musical comparison would be America's Orgy, but Zeromancer blend elements of metal, industrial, gothic, cyberpunk, and synthpop, just like the kind of band you would expect to hear play in Ridley Scott's Bladerunner.
ZZYZX is a collection of songs under a kind of new direction for the band however, and tracks like the light and bubbly Famous Last Words and the gorgeously soft sound of Hollywood are two of the more pop-like tracks on an album that shows a band moving away from the industrial and metal roots that they came from.
Teenage Recoil has a breath-catching chorus and sing-along vocals. It sounds like a modern version of Duran Duran minus the silly themes that band used to focus on. It has a pop-like vibe but still employs a very futuristic cyber sound as well.
This is where Zeromancer's strengths lay: in their songwriting and crisp digitalized sound and it's one of the better examples of how traditional musicians with guitars and drums can integrate their music with computers and synthesizers in a way that doesn't completely deny the fact that much of it is synthetic. Zeromancer, more than most, almost seem to embrace it like the way of the future and it works well for them.
Idiot Music is a somewhat dark track with driving guitars that propel the music into the kind of territory Stabbing Westward and Filter had a stranglehold on in the late 90s. Chorus is great but regrettably brief.
There is filler here too, as on the forgettable Erotic Saints and on Stop the Noise! which is decent but nothing that stands out.
Feed You With a Kiss is nice and dark, moody with a cool mysteriousness lurking behind the notes. Mosquito Coil sounds like a mixture of Depeche Mode and The Cure, a deadly and infectious mixture resulting in a song that's easy to like.
ZZYZX is missing much of the dangerous element that was on their two previous albums but there's still a handful of top-notch tracks here. Generally, things are lighter, and more radio-friendly which isn't entirely a bad move but they had nearly monopolized an entire sound previously whereas the music found on ZZYZX is similar to much of what's out there.
Here is a slightly above average grouping of songs from a group capable of so much more. The biggest disappointment is that this is the last thing we've heard from these talented men in the last three years. We can only hope that ZZYZX won't be Zeromancer's last.

PROOF (2005)

2006-10-18T15:47:00.000-04:00

PROOF

Director: John Madden
Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Gweneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal
Length: 99 mins.

The imcomparable Hopkins leads an A-list cast in a story about a woman (Paltrow) dealing with her father's death, his genius, his life, and her legacy.

We meet Catherine just after her father has died, cleaning up his cluttered room, drowning herself in memories of years past. Through many a flashback sequence, we're informed that Catherine dropped out of college after her freshman year to care for her father - whose mathematical genius was coupled with an increasing battle with schizophrenia. The pinnacle of the flashback sequence is a time during which Robert (Hopkins) is at his worst mental state, and at his best mathematically...He is working on a proof that would revolutionize the mathematical world. He encourages Catherine to work alongside him, each racing to complete the proof before the other.

The flashback ends when they both finish at the exact same moment. Flash forward to the day of Robert's funeral. Catherine has developed a friendship of sorts with Hal (Gyllenhaal) - Robert's assistant. Hal has been helping her clean out her fathers offices at the university where he did research and taught. The night following the funeral finds Hal in Catherines bed - an act of trust for her, because she finds it extremely hard to be vulnerable to anyone.

Catherine's older and overbearing sister - Claire, played by Hope Davis - does not understand Catherine's tumultous state. She doesn't see her younger sister's fears of turning out exactly like her father - alone, miserable, with no one to understand her. Clair believes that Catherine's malaise will lift as soon as she leaves her fathers old house for the city.
Hal seems to be the only one who really "gets" Catherine.

This movie didn't affect me the way I thought it would when I picked it up at my local Blockbusters. First off, there was glaring lack of chemistry between Gyllenhaal and Paltrow. This may be, in part, due to the lack of make up Paltrows charachter was wearing - to keep with the role. However, all it served to do was highlight the age difference between the two - making Paltrow seem a lot more than eight years older than her male counterpart. Secondly, with no intent at a pun - I found Paltrows portrayal of Catherine, slightly schizophrenic...Swinging rapidly from vapid and teary eyed to fierce, aggressive and emotion-filled.
Gyllenhaal came off as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed freshman - which, in a way, suited the character of Hal. However, he didn't seem engaged enough, in the role, to make him a noteworthy character.

In typical, big-budget, Hollywood fashion, all is well that ends well. We're left to decipher for ourselves whether or not Hal and Catherine make it as lovers. We learn that her mathematical genius will garner much buzz in the academic community. As the credits roll out with an aerial shot of the Autumn-tinged campus, I was left with a distinct distaste for having wasted almost a hundred minutes of my life. In all honesty, I started this review about four and a half months ago, leaving it in the "drafts" pile with a note attached: This movie made me cry like a little girl. I don't recall that emotion whatsoever. Perhaps when I wrote it, I had had to consume some amount of alcohol in order to forget that I had watched it. Or maybe, I wept for having, once more, thought that a movie so hyped up, could leave me with anything more than a bad taste in my mouth!

GOLDFRAPP - WE ARE GLITTER (2006)

2006-10-18T13:03:00.000-04:00

GOLDFRAPP

Title: We Are Glitter (2006)
Producer(s): Goldfrapp and guest artists
Label: EMI
Genre: Electronic
Length: 76:24

When you get right down to it, there's two kinds of music remixes. There's one where an artist takes a song and re-envisions it, tweaks it around and turns it into something fresh and new. The other kind is the one where a remix artist will zero in on a band he or she likes, such as U2, Nine Inch Nails or Goldfrapp, and do a kind of homage to the group by remixing their work. The second kind often baffles me because the music is usually good enough as it is but artists will hear a catchy chorus or melody and think they can make their own hit with it. When done wrong, it's an exercise in excessiveness. When done right, a remix album can be an extension of the pre-existing music; a retelling of a familiar tale in ways that can keep something that has aged new again.
Three albums in, Goldfrapp don't exactly require the assistance of a remixer to make their music better known. Saddled with the unfortunate and inappropriate label of being the modern day Portishead, they have continuously made great strides towards commercial and critical success.
Much of the efforts here are in keeping with the house/disco/club feel of Goldfrapp's latest album like on the redo of Ooh La La. Benny Benassi, the master of manufacturing or massacring - depending on your opinion - of other people's hits, Benny Benassi into an acidy trance track that sounds like it was made 15 years ago. Likewise, the T.Raumschmiere Remix of Lovely 2 C U is a thick and bouncy club track that's built for rump-shaking. The chorus is still relatively unchanged although the slight changes are infectious, they barely mix up the song from the original version apart from moving it into mindless and overly repetitive club territory.
Alan Braxe and Fred Malke turn out a boring and bland rendition of Number 1 that sounds like Goldfrapp paired with Kraftwerk, circa 1988 and the We Are Glitter mix of Strict Machine sounds very much like the original except that it plays around with the vocals a little bit.
The problem with most of the songs here lies there, in the fact that they are mostly too similar to the original versions, or not daring enough. The Shortwave Set's Satin Chic breaks that habit right off the bat by toning down the original into a more minimal affair with a thick organic synthline that seems to reverberate with a unique intensity. There is an otherworldly jazzy feel to this number that teeters on the edge of chaos but manages to keep things restrained enough to be suitable for a comfortable and funky lounge track.
Mum also shows up on a retelling of You Never Know, that sounds like it was recorded in the middle of a pool on a distant spaceship. Elements like pianos and guitar strings gently weave their way through the effort and disappear again to allow Allison Goldfrapp's voice to shine. This is an example of a good remix, one that takes the original and throws it in the blender with a bunch of other unique ideas.
The C2 Rmx 4 version of Fly Me Away has a blend of glitchy electronics and gently sweeping melodies that carry along like a slow-running train while the Mum version of Number 1 sounds like a distorted and screwed up nursery rhyme. It's the kind of song that really makes hallucinogenics unnecessary.
On the whole, the album is missing much of the over-the-top "glitter" that the originals had. It's a pressing that will moderately please either hardcore fans of the group or remix aficionados but it's not one that I can hardily recommend, nor can I pretend to pass this off as a proper Goldfrapp album, despite the fact that it occasionally sounds like it could be.

EVANESCENCE - THE OPEN DOOR (2006)

2006-10-03T13:03:00.000-04:00

EVANESCENCE

Title: The Open Door (2006)
Producer(s): Dave Fortman
Label: Wind-Up
Genre: Alternative
Length: 54:15

The entire world knows by now who this band is. The basics are that it's fronted by a very pretty frontwoman who has a very beautiful but equally powerful voice. Fallen, their debut album, went on to be multi-platinum in sales. It was a monster of an record, going on to sell over 14 million copies worldwide. Somewhere in-between then and now, the group lost their main songwriter and guitarist in Ben Moody, who was then replaced by former Cold axeman Terry Balsamo, who suffered a stroke in the midst of the writing and recording process.
The biggest question for fans of the band will undoubtedly be, how will all these changes and issues affect such a successful sound?
First off, Balsamo's guitar work is astoundingly crisp. It won't garner a lot of attention only because Amy Lee is the only member of the band that the media will ever care about. The praise for Lee is deserved and her vocal abilities turn an average song like Sweet Sacrifice into something more, while Balsamo's guitars fling it into something dangerous, like the soundtrack to a bewitching siren in the middle of a dark and frightening forest.
Call Me When You're Sober Is the lead single, already getting airplay the world over. The lyrics seem to suggest a direct correlation to the demise of Lee's relationship with Seether vocalist Shaun Morgan, who ironically entered rehab for substance abuse around the time the single hit the airwaves. It's a traditional sounding rock song that will appeal to fans of the last album.
Elsewhere, the songs play out like the band is comprised of a symphony of both electric and acoustic musicians. Lee's piano-work surprisingly work well swirling around the thick bass and chainsaw guitars.
Weight of the World has some great work by Balsamo, pounding drums and Lee surprisingly and softly growls her way through much of the song until she lifts the effort into a soaring chorus. Likewise, Lithium almost sounds like Enya updated for the modern rock ground. It is sweeping and epic and backed by guitars that vibrate at such a low frequency they could probably defibrillate a stopped heart. Where Enya sings about swaying trees and boats in the sunshine, Lee sings in similar themes and styles on the other side, where a cold wind makes the night more wicked.
Some programmed beats are introduced underneath Lee's vocals in Snow White Queen in what sounds like a bit of a messy track that's not entirely finished.
Lacrymosa is by far the best track on the album and best exemplifies the slightly new direction the band has taken. Beautiful strings and a backing choir create a disturbingly beautiful gothic mood behind Lee's haunting vocals. By the time the chorus kicks in, there is a wonderful tornado of all the instrumental pieces and it literally sounds like the world has picked up and swirled around Lee as she tells her story about the tears that follow a lost love. The track is orchestral and magnificent despite only clocking in at three-and-a-half minutes.
To judge The Open Door against Fallen is hardly fair. Lee isn't capable of delivering the catchy lyrics that Ben Moody supplied the band in its last incarnation. Moody wrote hits best suited for superhero action movies. They moved at a good pace and delivered simple but memorable lines. Lee's words in contrast, are gloomy and introspective like the very best and darkest fairytales. There are only a handful of tracks here that will have you singing along happily.
Balsamo's guitars often sound like warning alarms behind Lee, creating a wonderful sense of danger to the music that was mainly only hinted at through the quick pace on Fallen. The group wisely change things up on The Open Door and there are less hooks and easily remembered melodies which will make the album less of an instant hit. At the same time though, Fallen grew old fast. It was one of those albums that you listened to 200 times a week and by the 53rd week, you couldn't listen to it anymore because it was like a record player that skipped in your head, refusing to stop.
The Open Door has the kind of variety and chance-taking that will make it an enjoyable listen in 10 or 20 years and the reason is that it's not a paint-by-numbers excursion. Whether it's the second or 502nd listen, there should be plenty of new things to be taken away from The Open Door.

HEADSPACE (2005)

2006-09-29T13:33:00.000-04:00

HEADSPACE

Director: Andrew Von Dan Houghton
Actors: Olivia Hussey, Christopher Denham, Erick Kastel
Length: 89 mins.

Headspace is an independent film that aims to be more and while it succeeds in many ways, in fails just as equally in other places.
It's an interesting move for the producers to use a bunch of great actors that have since fallen out of the mainstream eye. This movie has a fantastic cast list of names that make you jump up from your seat and say, "Hey, I remember him!"
Olivia Hussey, best known for her roles in 1968's Romeo and Juliet as the teenage heroine and Canada's low-budget horror success Black Christmas in 1974 shows up as a shrink who has unfailing faith in the lead character, whose sanity is crumbling right before our eyes. Sean Young makes an appearance in flashbacks as a loving mother on the road towards quick damnation. Mark Margolis shows up with a wonderful Russian accent in a relatively wasted scene but it is Udo Kier and his razor sharp steel eyes who steals the movie with a turn as a priest that takes up no more than a few minutes.
All these has-been big names make minor appearances in a film that could have used more of them. The two leads are relatively unknown, unattractive and unlikable and when their lives are threatened by monsters in the dark, it's hard to feel any concern for them. I had more sympathy in fact, for the drunk, gay homeless man who met his destiny face down in a park bathroom stall.
Headspace is a film that looks professional. The shots, the music and even the special effects look impressive to a degree. It fails however, to live up to those high standards elsewhere because of a plot that promises much and instead just throws a weak monster tale our way.
It strives to be a cross between Donnie Darko and Jacob's Ladder. Alex Borden, the anti-hero, has strange superhuman abilities that are hardly explored. He looks and acts like a washed out version of Kurt Cobain and stumbles around the movie like he's in a house of mirrors.
He's screwed up and he's looking for an answer, wondering if he'll find it in the equally screwed up chess wizard in the nearby park. His obsession with the new character isn't even touched upon for a while and although it was probably not the intention of the director to create a sexual tension between the two scruffy characters, there is an unsettling one, especially when Alex follows him up to his apartment like a kid being lured by candy.
We're held in suspense for the big revelation but the only kind we get is a letdown. Alex, and by association, all the other characters are screwed, big time.
By the time it unravels we don’t really care.
You're screwed, big deal, hurry up and die.

DROPPING DAYLIGHT- BRACE YOURSELF (2006)

2006-09-15T15:03:00.000-04:00

DROPPING DAYLIGHT

Title: Brace Yourself (2006)
Producer(s): David Bendeth
Label: Octone
Genre: Alternative
Length: 35:30

These Minnesota boys have been subject to some unfortunate rumors, namely being that because they've toured with some emo bands combined with the fact that they're a young group of lads, that they too must be emo, screamo or any other hardcore fad that's taken a strong hold midway through this decade.
I'm proud to report that the rumors are completely false and apart from their young age, these guys play a brand of alternative rock that's mature beyond their years.
Starting out with Tell Me, the group shows a clear talent for crafting the kind of song we wanted to hear on the Lostprophets' latest effort. It's got great energy, honest coming-of-age lyrics, fantastic grinding guitars and a piano selection that won't lull you to sleep like anything coming out of Coldplay's albums.
Brace Yourself sounds like Jimmy Eat World, with a frenetic pace, yet still happy and optimistic, upbeat with fantastic hooks and singalong lyrics while Soliloquy is a sweeping epic journey all bundled up in a tight three minute package, it's a wonder they can do this so well and so tightly.
Apologies is very catchy, although slightly juvenile, a connect-the-dots kind of pop/rock track that will probably work very well with the younger set and Lucy is a fun track that shows the band's range and will make make people who liked 90s college radio groups like Train and Dishwalla quite happy.
Take a Photograph is another fine example of softer sentiments combined with aggressive playing. It's a brilliant business move as the band could easily slide into a number of different genres.
Answering Our Prayers is the lone slow-burning track on the album, and Sebastian Davin's vocals are hauntingly smooth without being overly soft and his voice unquestionably carries the track. Listen closer still, and gasp! you'll find he actually has something to say too.
Like Weezer without the inside joke, Til You Feel Something is straightforward modern rock that's easy to like. It's got all the intangibles, foot-tapping drums, guitars capable of propelling a train down the tracks, deep and heavy bass and a vocalist who knows melody and energy and how to combine the two. Add a free-style jazz sensibility conveyed through the piano plunked overtop and you've got the blueprint for an instant hit that still has an edge and a wild carefree side that much of rock has lost somewhere along the way.
With not a song over four minutes in length, this is a quick-running album but there isn't a bad track on the disc and few acts can claim to have such an album up their sleeve these days. David Bendeth deserves some credit for crafting such a solid album from a group of unknowns.
The album's last moments run out with laughter and you'll be laughing along by the time it hits. This is a fun album and if rock could be danced to, this is your disc.
TAGS: music reviews

LOU RHODES - BELOVED ONE (2006)

2006-09-05T11:33:00.000-04:00

LOU RHODES

Title: Beloved One (2006)
Producer(s): Emre Ramazanoglu, Lou Rhodes
Label: Fullfill
Genre: Alternative
Length: 46:13

Rhodes formerly recorded as one half of the trip-hop outfit Lamb but here branches out on her own with more of an emphasis placed on her lovely vocals. The stripped down backing instrumentation can be somewhat misleading because although it rarely moves at a pace faster than a spring stroll, there is much to be taken and enjoyed in the fantastic sounds found throughout the album.
While there are definite similarities to Rhodes's music and Lamb's, Rhodes defies the odds by beating Lamb at its own game. While Lamb was somewhat experimental, combining jazz elements with drum 'n bass and even putting organic instruments into place, the efforts (aside from Rhodes's voice) always felt more programmed than natural.
Rhodes meanwhile, still uses familiar songwriting and singing styles, but backs it up with a grouping of musicians who know how to get the most out of one single note and build each song like a jigsaw puzzle, where each sound folds into the other to create a work that is greater than its individual pieces.
Rhodes on her own, is a marvellous vocalist, a throwback in many ways to the days of Billie Holiday, when an original technique was as important as basic range. Combined with instruments that turn each number into an incredibly unique aural landscape and it's no wonder that this album was plucked to be a finalist for Britain's prestigious Mercury Prize (with a winner to be announced tonight nonetheless).
Most of the instruments found on the album are featured in each song and the opener, Each Moment New showcases most of them. Gentle looping guitars are slowly merged with Rhodes's gentle singing, slow drums and the most gorgeous, deep and thick strings possibly ever recorded. Rhodes delicately infers her belief in that each moment in one's life is a gift, as the song undoubtedly is too.
Tremble is a fun and mellow love song that's both sexy and chilling while Beloved One has a slow build into what becomes a beautiful track that gently soars, taking the listener's heart along for the ride.
Inlakesh is possibly one of the purest examples of how such a minimal composition works so well for Rhodes. It barely runs faster than a raft on a lake without inlets but is by no means background music to be ignored.
It's tough not to tie Treat Her Gently into the dissolution of her marriage a few years back and while it's one of the few instances on the album where the lyrics aren't impressively deep, the message and music is still infused with such heart and soul and Rhodes does a wonderful job of holding back. We know what she's capable of, and she doesn't have to do vocal acrobatics to impress us here.
Rhodes has done the unthinkable here, moving out onto her own and stripping back the layers, yet still managing to push the envelope with less. Beloved One isn't just a great album, it's my frontrunner thus far for album of the year from an artist anywhere in the world.
So long as you can enjoy folk music that takes chances, you need to get a hold of this. You need it.
TAGS: music reviews

JAKALOPE - BORN 4 (2006)

2006-08-29T15:53:00.000-04:00

JAKALOPE

Title: Born 4 (2006)
Producer(s): Dave Ogilvie
Label: Orange
Genre: Alternative / Electronic
Length: 50:46

First off, I desperately wanted to like this album (and the previous one).
Anyone who has ever enjoyed Nine Inch Nails or Ministry, Tool or Korn owe a large debt of gratitude to Ogilvie's involvement in 80s industrial rock group Skinny Puppy, who although were never a massive commercial success, made their mark by influencing such a vast array of up-and-coming artists like the ones above.
Ogilvie teamed up to bring the world Jakalope's premier album a few years back and it was welcomed warmly thanks to a couple good songs and the fact that Trent Rezner's name was in the liners, albeit just how much involvement he had in the music is unknown.
The follow-up, Born 4, had a North American release date that was consistently pushed back and back, surely a sign that something was wrong. The Japanese release has been available in limited numbers for a few months now, should you be willing to shell out the extra cash.
Born 4 unfortunately sounds like it was thrown together a little too hastily. There's nary a big hit to be found to rock the radio world and the album is fragmented, half of it falling into an alternative dance field and the rest sounding like a folk karaoke release.
Instigator sounds like KMFDM with 80s teen star Tiffany on vocals. Ogilvie and company do some interesting work with the background music, which is ever fluctuating and doing interesting things, but Katie B's juvenile vocals make it hard to focus, even when they're inundated with silly sexual innuendo that is neither seductive or chilling.
Code 4 Love is a track in which it sounds like the young singer is competing in a small-town battle of the bands. There's nothing technically wrong with her delivery but women have always had a tough time being taken seriously in the rock world and her vocals really grate against a solidly produced sound.
The handclaps in Upside Down will either make you nod your head like Carlton Banks or make you want to plug your ears with hot candle wax. I'll let the lyrics speak for themselves: Upside down, I've been breaking, baby turn me down, I've been shaking, take a little time, you're messin' with my mind, you just trip, trip, trip.
There are spots where the duo make things work, such as on Throw It Away, a rare example on this album of a nicely paced and energetic track that doesn't get preposterous in its creative pursuits. Digging Deep also has a great level of energy and an upbeat synthpop style more suitable to the singer's style that makes for a fun number suitable for a Friday night drive to a party.
Intervention features a strange smoky blues number that's just too polished for anyone who has an ear for the blues, there should be pops and hisses and glasses of beer hitting the table. The notes are too perfect, too repetitively perfect and Katie B singing overtop of them is too much.
Forecast 42 sounds like a Jewel throwaway from 1993 while Something New is not an easy listen but given the chance has a lot to offer in a subdued delivery that's very reminiscent of 80s-era Depeche Mode or New Order.
When you get right down to it, the previous album was too poppy. This album is too alt-country and/or confused as to what exactly it is or isn't. Katie B still sounds like she could be Hillary Duff's 12-year-old pristine sister and Ogilvie relies too heavily on sounds that harken back to the 80s, and although the 80s are back in vogue in a variety of different ways, no one wants to hear Tangerine Dream looping Kraftwerkian sounds over Kylie Minogue-like vocals. How the premise on paper made someone sign a cheque is beyond me.
The saying is three strikes and you're out, but why bother letting him take another swing in a well conceived but poorly executed Jakalope project at the cost of your hard-earned dollars?
TAGS: music reviews

NEVERENDING WHITE LIGHTS - GOODBYE FRIENDS OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES (2005)

2006-08-22T14:53:00.000-04:00

NEVERENDING WHITE LIGHTS

Title: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies (2005)
Producer(s): Daniel Victor
Label: Ocean
Genre: Alternative
Length: 79:44

This tragically overlooked gem is the creation of one Daniel Victor, featuring a revolving door of guest singers accompanied by music that is often slow and hushed, yet amazingly bold and provocative.
Nearly every song here is neither simple nor modern and the music itself often sounds whispered and lazy, but closer listen reveals it is complex and highly emotional and vibrant. Victor's own take on the subject is that modern music listeners have become lazy, fuelled by the ADD-causing environment we've all been subject to since the turn of the century.
"Look at a Nickleback song," Victor says in a recent interview with Chartattack. You could put 15 of them over top of each other and they'll all have the same parts, and they all sound the same. I like music that is more challenging, but the masses don't. So what rises to the top of the charts is the really simple, easy to understand, easy to like music. People don't want to take the time to reflect. They don't have the patience."
He's right of course, and the fact that this album hasn't blown up like it should have is a testament to its quality and made all the more humorous by a video award he won through MuchMusic, who like MTV, now seem to play more reality television shows than they do music videos.
Many of the songs here alternate back and forth - and often within the same song - between dark and sad and light and happy tones, as is demonstrated on From What I Once Was, with its light piano melodies, strings and gentle vocals that slowly play out the theme to sleeping on clouds.
Return of Our Lives starts out dark and slow and transforms into a meditative and lush track with meandering atmospherics. It's the kind of love song that Tori Amos could be capable of were she able to ditch the pomp associated with her terribly inflated creative edge. It's a track that's perhaps a tad too repetitive but that can be applied to almost song on the album and despite that, the majority are still lovely all the same.
Nick Hexum of 311 shows a softer, more emotional side than can be heard on his regular punk outfit on the languid, jangly Age of Consent. It invokes images of a carefree cowboy taking his time on a pleasant trail while Angels & Saints sounds like an edgier, moodier Coldplay, if you can imagine Chris Martin ever being justified writing about such dark material and still making it sound beautiful.
One of the prettiest pieces, I Hope Your Heart Runs Empy, features Finger Eleven lead singer Scott Anderson reflecting on and enjoying a particularly lovely moment. Anderson's soft vocals and the fragile strings are haunting enough to crack even the hardest of hearts.
The Grace is the album's biggest radio hit and finally lifts the album out of its tepid pace with Dallas Green from Alexisonfire on vocals while This Longing is just crying for a powerful soundtrack (like Crash) to prop up on its powerful shoulders.
There are a few songs that fail to impress a whole lot and some that grate on the nerves due to the unchanging tempo or the horribly irritating vocals of Raine Maida, that often sounds like he's imitating nails on a chalkboard.
Victor hasn't reinvented the wheel here like some would like to suggest. An album's worth of material with guest singers isn't new and neither is the style enclosed on this disc. What's Victor's near-minimal approach does do is steer clear of much of the trappings of modern mainstream music. It's not an album where every song will immediately jump out as an instant masterpiece but careful listen after listen will reveal tightly woven tales about the mysteries of human life with a delicate but challenging swirl of music in the background.
Goodbye Friends is the antithesis to Top 40. It's clever and beautiful and smashes the prison of modern verse-chorus-verse songwriting styles that threaten to turn us into obedient zombies who swallow everything thrown at us.
If you don't mind your music a little slower and gentler, get this one. Get it now and lay back in the dark with headphones and let it open your mind.
TAGS: music reviews

MARTHE BLAU - SUBMISSION (2003)

2006-08-19T11:49:00.000-04:00

Marthe Blau

Title: Submission: A Novel
Translated from the French

Publisher: Atria
Genre: Fiction

It was the cover that first attracted me to this book: Black and red with a lace-up corset. The size also intrigued me. Smaller than the usual trade paperback, which I love. That made me pick it up. But it was the title that made me open it.

I have friends that are into Domination/Submission, and I admit to being fascinated with the subject, mostly because I don't understand the whole thing. After reading this book, I don't feel that I've been enlighted, but I am more intrigued than ever.

The story is about Élodie, a Parisian lawyer who gets caught up in a sadomasochistic relationship. It's told from her point of view, and I had hoped to get some insight into why someone with a seemingly perfect life (wonderful husband and child, good career) would get caught up in this situation. The book doesn't do a lot of contemplating about the hows and whys, and it's apparent that Élodie herself doesn't even understand her own desires. She finds herself doing things that she never considered before, both in and out his presence. She becomes obessessed with pleasing him, being worthy of him.

In the end, we learn nothing about her motivation, but I think that's probably the point. It's about getting caught up, about our most personal and primal needs - ones that we often don't even know we have. It's a walk on the wild side from the safe harbor of your mind.

This is a quick, sometimes arousing, often disturbing read. But well worth your time.

REVELATION THEORY - TRUTH IS CURRENCY (2005)

2006-08-15T15:53:00.000-04:00

REVELATION THEORY

Title: Truth is Currency (2005)
Producer(s): Paul Ebersold
Label: Element
Genre: Alternative
Length: 38:06

You'd be forgiven for glancing at the album cover for this and thinking that it must be an underground punk band because it looks like a censored and angry Henry Rollins imitation setup made for loose change. Thankfully, it's not indicative of what's to be found inside.
Playing a familiar post-grunge style similar to Staind, the New York group kick off the album with M367 (Out of our Hands) that sports a driving, thundering, chugging bass, rhythmic drumming and guitar work that sounds like the energetic style of the late Trust Company.
Playing a style on the lighter end of hard rock, they are capable of playing with thunderous crashed and great, heavy guitars, as on Undone and the kick-ass heavy World to Burn. Singer Richi Uzzi displays a vocal delivery that sounds like a bit of a throwback to times when vocalists actually sung with some flavour, flair and emotion other than simply growling, screaming and using attitude alone to get through a song.
There are a few forgettable tracks here, as on Loathe, which is unfortunately terribly bland and unoriginal.
Elsewhere, the group sound undeniably seasoned and well-oiled and not at all like the newcomer, small-label band that they are. Clearly bigger things should be in store for this group as they show on the solid After the Rain, a number with both good quantities of attitude and artistry.
Quieter fare can be found on Slowburn, a medium-paced track with good melody that's instantly likeable and Over the Line, a nice quiet almost-acoustic track that closes out the album in a beautiful and revealing way.
If you've got money to spare and are interested in discovering lesser-known groups that few have discovered yet, check out Revelation Theory. There's certainly better stuff to be found on the mainstream market, but there's an awful lot that's much worse too.
TAGS: music reviews

BREAKING BENJAMIN - PHOBIA (2006)

2006-08-08T13:13:00.000-04:00

BREAKING BENJAMIN

Title: Phobia (2006)
Producer(s): David Bendeth
Label: Hollywood
Genre: Hard Rock
Length: 43:37

With their third longplayer, the pride of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Breaking Benjamin undertake a bit of a diversion from their usual sound. As is the case with most bands over the years, the group's sound has been toned down a bit, whether due to maturity or the differences in themes found in this album, are up for argument.
The previous two albums by the band featured heavy driving guitars with sounds and thuds that could conceivably tear a weak sound system to shreds. Led by singer Ben Burnley's clear and powerful vocals, the band has been able to successfully juxtapose an aggressive sound with somewhat uplifting moral lyrics.
The Diary of Jane has the same kind of hauntingly powerful and beautifully chilling tone that the band's hit ''So Cold'' had some years ago. The bass and drums are all devastatingly thick and heavy and yet the chorus and vocals elevate the effort into a brilliantly positive song that should appeal to a wide demographic.
Phobia has more diversity than Breaking Benjamin has deployed in the past. There are both strong, aggressive tracks and more laid-back thoughtful pieces intertwined.
Evil Angel is a strange combination of super-aggressive playing, with a delicately pop-like refrain and a happy chorus while Topless is a quick little number that sounds a bit like Chevelle's rigorous super assault power delivery with a more accessible vocal effort.
Here We Are is a slower song that takes the mask off a seemingly tough and rumble band and shows a softer side underneath of insecurities and failures, not to mention simplistic but beautifully effective melodies.
Had Enough is a great track that shows that the band hasn't completely lost their punch, even with the slower approach to things. To Burnley's song-writing credit, while many of his songs center around the darker subjects found in humankind, he does manage to infuse many of them with an overlying sense of overcoming them in one form or another. For parents who may be worried that their kids are listening to music that promotes violence or evil, they should buy their children this album. It's angry and violent in sound only. The lyrics are actually quite uplifting in many ways, supposing that one can get past the aggressive music that surrounds it.
Over the course of three albums, Breaking Benjamin seems to be coming up with regurgitated efforts at coming up with riffs and melodies, and although tracks like Breath sound awful familiar at times, they're still crafted with such a plenitude of style and skill that it's still a wonderful listen.
You, by far the best track on the album, has some absolutely stunning vocal delivery and guitars that sound like they've been channelled through a distortion that makes things sound better. It will enter your ears, make its way around your head and send chills down your spine.
Fans who preferred Breaking Benjamin's harder side will still find remnants of that here to keep them happy, but overall, the band appear to be headed in a more creative direction, and one that won't be constrained by the restricting qualities of being a band who's expected to be evil and wear black all the time.
TAGS: music reviews

VARIOUS ARTISTS - PINK FLOYD REDUX: A NEW MUSIC EXPERIENCE

2006-08-05T13:45:00.000-04:00

PINK FLOYD REDUX

Title: Pink Floyd Redux: A New Music Experience (2006)
Label: Universal Music Group
Genre: Electronica; Compilation

Normally, I am loathe to purchase a compilation CD because more often than not, they're garbage. However, I couldn't resist an all-female, all-Canadian Pink Floyd cover album. Currently reliving my Portishead phase, this album fits nicely into what my ears want to hear!

Eleven songs by four women who touch up the originals with seductive acid-jazz and a heavy-on-the-synthesizer sound! The first song - Breath - by Julie C, is an extremely smoky version of the song and stands up well beside the original. The musical embellishments are balanced by the fact that she remains true to the vocals! This however, cannot be said for the rest of the album.

I'd have to say that the worst track on this album is Giselle Webber's butchered version of Keep Talking, but she sort of redeems herself with Another Brick In The Wall. Ali Slaight's versions of Hey You and Learning to Fly are two of the more memorable tracks here - I think this woman has a lot of potential to make it on the alt scene - which is especially exciting since she is a Toronto based artist and I'm a Toronto-based lover of music!!!

My favourite Floyd song of all time is Wish You Were Here - and Pascale Picard's rendition of it was mediocre to say the least. Then again, when one compares a cover of a song to the legendary original, it's hard to sound anything but mediocre! Sarah Slean's Comfortably Numb, although not stellar was not half bad. Then again, I have a personal bias here because I love Slean's body of work and have watched her in concert more than a few times! Also, it's hard to not please me with a cover of Comfortably Numb because it was the first Floyd song that I had ever memorized all the words to - at the ripe old age of eight! So...Definitely not Slean's best - or even the best track on this compilation, but I liked it well enough.

The other two artists include Samina and Lulu Hughes who aren't bad, but then again, they aren't good either - so I'll let them be for now! All things considered, I think this was an interesting album with a funky electronic twist that I enjoyed - but it wasn't anything stupendous! Then again, when it comes to Floyd, nothing less than David, Nick, Richard, Syd, Roger and Bob ever is!

STONE SOUR - COME WHAT(EVER) MAY(2006)

2006-08-04T13:03:00.000-04:00

STONE SOUR

Title: Come What(Ever) May (2006)
Producer(s): Nick Rasculinecz
Label: Roadrunner
Genre: Hard Rock
Length: 49:01

Brutally non-witty title aside, Stone Sour's second album was a monster-in-the-waiting, with groups of fans salivating for its release.
Frontman Corey Taylor created Stone Sour back in 1992 but retired the group five years later when his other band, Slipknot, started making waves and demanding more of his time. Slipknot became monstrous in fact, but the large masked ensemble of players involved meant that Taylor only had a fraction of control over the creative direction of the group.
So during the band's downtime, Taylor and guitarist Jim Root reanimated Stone Sour to make the kind of music that didn't have a place in Slipknot's ear-splitting assault of machine gun guitars and screaming vocals.
Compared to the technically precise metal that Slipknot creates, Stone Sour's music was definitely slower and more melodic in tempo and structure although most alternative music fans would consider it to be on the harder edge of rock with some definite power at times and sharp corners. On the flipside to the first post-reunion album, were a handful of songs that seemed to contain little more than Taylor crafting a song with thoughtful and poignant lyrics layered over the top of acoustic guitars. It was a move that definitely pushed away the potential for carryover listeners from Slipknot, but it also brought in new ones as well.
Come What(Ever) May runs the gamut when it comes to fusing different rock styles. It can pummel the insides of your skull with the ferocious speed and precision of 30/30-150, an impressive, heavy workout with fast guitars and drums or it can meander its way through lighter fare, like on Sillyworld, a slow-burning track that gives the listener an idea of what Pink Floyd could have sounded like if they had come from Midwestern America.
More than not however, Stone Sour have a wonderful ability to leapfrog conventional stylings by interweaving so many different elements that you can see just how much of an outlet this is for Taylor and company considering the genre trappings Slipknot has been subjected to. Hell & Consequences is a song that for example, fuses power metal and catchy pop, a gutsy blend that shouldn't work, but does. Throw in some serious guitar work and you've got a very interesting track, the very thing that's sorely lacking in 2006, is risk.
1st Person shows exactly why Stone Sour made it onto the Family Values tour, with a dark and gloomy feel powered along train-track bashing drums and some inventive time changes.
The title track sounds like Nickleback without the gimmicky flourishes, a move that strips a bloated sound back to its basics with guitars that bring back the fun factor lost in much of modern rock and metal tracks ever since the current fixation of focusing on tight three-minute radio numbers came into play.
Through Glass is a gorgeous, mild song that has some surprisingly pleasant mood and theme changes throughout that makes for a pleasant listen.
With Come What(Ever) May, Stone Sour haven't crafted an album here that will run away with awards and platinum records, but they have created something rare and refreshing in today's music scene: an album's worth of inventive songs that clearly illustrate a band who don't give a shit about what's hot and what isn't.
TAGS: music reviews

THE LAKE HOUSE (2006)

2006-08-01T15:05:00.000-04:00

THE LAKE HOUSE

Director: Alejandro Agresti
Actors: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Christopher Plummer
Length: 105 mins.

How do you hold onto someone you've never met? This is the tagline that accompanies the half black-and-white, half coloured poster of The Lake House. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I turned to my date and said, "It feels like we've already watched the whole movie - I feel like I know what'll happen and I think I'm going to pass on it!"
Well, the other day, I was in the mood to catch a flick by myself and this happened to be the only film that I hadn't watched, at a convenient time. I said, "What the heck" and shelled out my nine bucks!

At the end of the movie I thought back to what I'd said about the trailer and realized that truer words had never been uttered. However, what this film lost due to predictability, it made up for something that the Reeves-Bullock duo brings to the screen in spades - genuine chemistry!

The Lake House is about a woman - Dr. Kate Forster (Bullock) - has recently moved out of her uniquely-architectured lake house. She leaves a letter for the next tenant politely requesting that future mail be forwarded to her new address in the city. There's only one slight problem - through a minor glitch in the space-time continuum, her letter reaches, not the next tenant but, the one before! They are separated by two years and through the lake house mailbox, communicate with one another.
What starts off as irritation at a communication glitch turns into disbelief, which morphs itself into wonder and then the rosey infatuation that one can feel for one who embodies a whole lot of mystery. They learn things about each other through their writings that they'd never have known were they to meet on the street. In fact, were they to ever meet on the street, they'd never have glanced at the other for more than a second - her world of medicine and wine never colliding with his world of construction sites and beer.

From two different world these two souls in time came together at a single house. Was it the house that was magic? The reason for the paradigm shift is never really explained. However, the way the movie revolved, I didn't feel my normal need to know!

Sandra Bullock is, as always, superb. In most of her movies, I relate to her - both as a performer and the character she is portraying at the moment. She's a dark heroine - under a sarcastic, witty exterior lies a brooder. Her eyes always speak volumes over her words. Although I think the premise of this movie to be rather juvenile for an actor of her caliber, I also hold that she took it and did her best for it! And to top it off, there's no one better than her to bring out the charismatic side of Mr. Reeves
I've always adored Keanu - his brooding good looks and often monotonous deliveries are cut in half, if not less, in this flick - I loved what seems to be a genuine on-screen chemistry between these two.
The two bit-parts in this film were true gems: the eternally effervescent Christopher Plummer played Keanu's aging and jaded father with some spunk. Hardly a role worthy of this legend, it was nevertheless good to see Cap'n Von Trapp in the twilight of his years. The other role was that of Kate's fellow doctor - Anna Klyczynski, played by Iranian native Shohreh Aghdashloo. This actress is a brilliant character actor - I have seen her in several roles now and she's always convincing. She always manages to make you believe that she is who she says she is - and you're often left with a sense of I've seen her before, but I don't know where!

All in all, the movie did for me what I wanted it to - distract me for a hundred and five minutes. It wasn't a tear jerker, as someone told me it would be. Nor was it a comedy - albeit, not free of it's comedic moments: like the look on Reeves' face when he's running down the train station and sees Kate for the first time. True pricelessness! It's a sappy romance that comes nowhere close to meeting the magic that the two found in Speed. I think it is unfair to think of this movie on the same level merely because the same two actors come back together. I find often I am tempted to, mentally, allot actors to roles which they previously played - simply because, as a viewer, I am more comfortable with them being there.

Anyway, there's chemistry but hardly a story. There's a plot, but no real reconciliation of what could have been an interesting facet. Other than that, it wasn't worth the nine dollars! However, in a couple months, you can spend half that when there's nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon!

MUSE - BLACK HOLES AND REVELATIONS (2006)

2006-07-13T10:03:00.000-04:00

MUSE

Title: Black Holes and Revelations (2006)
Producer(s): Muse, Rich Costey
Label: Warner Bros
Genre: Alternative
Length: 45:02

The first few times I gave this album a listen, my ears and head immediately wanted to dismiss it as a disappointment. While it was still clearly a Muse album, the band had slightly changed their approach to the music and Black Holes and Revelations initially sounded like a throwback to times when rock albums were made like operas, vibrant and dramatic with a strange mix of both light-hearted fare and the subject matter that hit a little deeper.
Bands like The Who and Queen knew that music wasn't always just a recording. Music isn't always for the ears alone and instead can be part of something much bigger including visuals and images and colors, about politics, nations, cultures and people.
Black Holes and Revelations isn't your typical rock album for 2006. It simply isn't that single-minded. If you compared it to an amusement park, it's the equivalent of going on every single ride, sampling every single food outlet, watching the animal shows and feeling like you actually got your money's worth by taking it all in.
The album's opener, Take a Bow, takes you into the fray slowly, with a creeping build-up chock full of monstrous intergalactic synthlines that wobble on the verge of explosion for a few minutes until the ominously sombre and SOS-laced bass comes in and turns the entire affair into a giant global wakeup call.
The album ranges from the funky and happy Starlight, sounding like the group's instruments should give off different colored notes of light when they play it's that uplifting to the mile-a-minute jackhammer assault of Assassin, with its incredible guitars and pummelling drums.
Soldier's Poem is a quiet number that could be taken as a joke but they craft a beautiful song out of it with very poignant lyrics about the state of the world and Exo-Politics has some very creative exercises in sound that show that the band is capable of playing just about any style they want and pulling it off like masters.
Supermassive Black Hole sounds like a Prince-inspired rock tune, from the days when he was actually rocking fairly hard with an electric guitar. It's a strange move, but Muse have consistently proven themselves to be capable of taking risky chances and pulling them off with flair. That custom continues here on a fun track.
Kicking the guitars back into overdrive is Map of the Problematique. These are the kind of moments when you listen to this group and you just can't believe they're a three piece capable of playing these incredibly energetic songs live but not only do they do that but they've been known in England for many years as one of the very best live bands out there right now.
Crazy fun elements that twirl around in the near-chaotic style that Muse has mastered in City of Delusion. They often sound like they're playing in the middle of a hurricane, with calm moments and then strange sounds flying by your head capable of taking it right off. Throwing in trumpets, flamenco guitars, pianos and other culturally exotic sounds along the way just adds to the greatness of this band. Almost any other group would be chastised and hung for it.
Black Holes and Revelations is a blast as a rock album and comprises a diversity that will leave your head spinning by the time the final track stops.
This is Muse's The Wall. It's a very theatrical album that was probably as fun to make as it is to listen to, but throughout each song is a undercurrent theme that shows more worldly awareness than this one-time party band ever did before. If Green Day can make an epic punk-rock opera masterpiece with a couple chords, Muse has shown they can do their own rock opera with much more dramatic and artistic flair.
It's not an album full of songs that will knock your socks off right away. There's too much happening in this album to not give it at least a few dozen listens before making a definitive judgement on.
They may still only be in the beginning of a long career, but four albums in, and Muse has created a monumental showpiece certain to cement their foothold as one of this decade's best young bands.
TAGS: music reviews

PAUL AUSTER - ORACLE NIGHT (2004)

2006-07-12T10:53:00.000-04:00

PAUL AUSTER

Title: Oracle Night

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Genre: Fiction

I had originally picked up and made my way through Oracle Night on the recommendation of someone who enjoyed it considerably. I usually take recommendations with a couple grains of salt, finding over the years that people's tastes in literature can be much more diverse than people's tastes in food, music, movies or any other item that can be critiqued and loved or despised simply because of its contents.
Oracle Night is a quick read, and author Paul Auster seemingly writes like his fictional self. The story revolves around Sidney Orr, a writer only recently on the mend from some near fatal health problems, trying to get his life, career and finances back on track. Orr writes frantically, so much so that he ostensibly disappears from his environs while writing. He nearly becomes invisible to others and fails to hear the phone ring. Oracle Night reads like it was written by such a man. The pacing is fast and although much takes place within its short number of pages, one can easily race through the contents in a number of hours and not feel the lull of over-magnified descriptions or lengthy dialogues.
Auster uses anecdotal footnotes to elaborate on thoughts that don't fit tidily within the confines of the story but the footnotes do at times awkwardly break up the pacing of the story, creeping across several pages at times, after which, one will have to flip back a page or two to find the spot where they were interrupted. It's not a terribly inconvenient method and in a number of ways, it's actually quite brilliant, especially when you consider that it's very much in keeping with the memoir-like tone of the story and the way Orr writes, it makes sense that he would bluster his way through a tale and go back and add footnotes after the fact.
Auster only provides us with a few weeks in the lives of these characters but they quickly sum up all the past, present and future as being related to a few recurrent themes and the evidence is presented almost as by a detective, but not by one who purposely walks around looking for clues. Auster's Orr has stumbled upon some dramatic realizations that slowly come to the fore over the course of this story and they are not coated with sugary goodness that sit happily and heavily within your belly. Orr is ignorantly oblivious to his own destiny until his path becomes one from which he can not veer from.
The fact that Sidney Orr and his friend John Trause are accomplished writers brings little to the story. It is a profession irrelevant to the main themes of the tale and while it shows that Auster prefers to write about the kind of vocations he knows to an intimate degree - he continues to make his central character a writer in further tales - it does provide him with an interesting opportunity to hammer home his subject in a number of different ways through the various stories within stories found in this book.
At first Orr writes a tale about a man who has run away from his life, certain that destiny has given him a chance to follow his true path, one that leads him to a cell of sorts with no possible escape. In another short tale, a couple travel through time to stop the assassination of President Kennedy. They succeed in the details of their plan but fail in the outcome.
Orr himself moves through life like an apparition, often without aim or will. It is not until he begins to figure things out, when the past, present and future become vividly clear to him that he finally begins to feel in control. It is then that Orr discovers how wrong he is.
Oracle Night is an easy read but by no means an easy book. A reader can enjoy it on a surface level as a tale with a randomly zig-zagging plot course with strange and loveable characters or it can be delved into on a deeper level and viewed as a work of genius by a mad scientist.
Auster wills the reader to foresee the devastating conclusion of this tale, and better yet, challenges them to defy that future.
TAGS: book reviews

SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006)

2006-07-06T12:43:00.000-04:00

SUPERMAN RETURNS

Director: Bryan Singer
Actors: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey
Length: 154 mins.

I have made a concentrated effort during this last year to not write my reviews in a first-person narrative. I don't think I have anything to do with a music album or a film, so I keep all my "I"s out of these things as much as possible.
Superman Returns is one such exception to this rule.
My father took me to see Superman: The Movie when I was three-years-old for my birthday. My comic book-inspired dreams were brought to an even larger and livelier near live experience in 1980 when Supes had to face off against three equally powered bad guys from his home planet.
The Christopher Reeve-era Superman movies were certainly flawed in many ways. Reeve's Clark Kent portrayal was over-the-top bumbling awkwardness that almost pushed things too far. Margot Kidder's Lois Lane was so irritating at times that the audience secretly wished that the Man of Steel would just not save her once.
What did make the first two Superman movies work was an innocence and a simple heroic tale that people of all ages could enjoy.
When news leaked that Bryan Singer had left the X-Men franchise after two films to take over the directing helm of the new Superman film, expectations soared that he could bring the big man in tights back to a respectable motion picture status after a few films in the late 1980s almost completely buried the franchise.
Like many young boys who grew up with mouths agape at Christopher Reeve soaring across the sky, Singer has obviously made the film as a tribute to the great aspects of those films. He has referenced them almost everywhere in order to retain a continuity. Newcomer Brandon Routh obviously has modelled his approach after Reeve's. While he looks somewhat different, there is a familiarity to his shape and his voice. Direct lines are completely swiped from the original movies, Lois Lane still has atrocious spelling and a digital re-creation of Marlon Brando is put to better use than he ever was in the originals.
But Singer is wise to have altered the themes from those movies slightly and in turn, he has improved upon those films infinitely.
Gone from those films is much of the hokey quality that surrounded them. While they made Superman believable and larger than life, they always seemed to be two steps away from breaking out into a disco-dancing contest between Luthor and Supes.
Singer hasn't approached Superman Returns like it's the latest Lethal Weapon movie. Superman is not funny, although the movie does have a number of humorous moments.
Superman does return to Earth after a five-year hiatus searching the stars for remnants of his home planet and finds that Lois has moved on with another man played by X-Men's James Marsden and has a five-year-old boy as well.
It becomes a love triangle of sorts and one in which Marsden's character has no chance in hell of living up to the standards of the caped wonder, but does magnificently well considering. Singer provides Marsden with a very plum role that lets him do more than he ever had the opportunity to in three X-Men films and he does a great job.
Kate Bosworth is a capable Lois Lane and is provided the opportunity to bring more brains to the table than Kidder's pushy and headstrong but rather light-headed Lois had.
Kevin Spacey has the unenviable position of filling the legendary Gene Hackman's shoes and is one of the few spots where the film doesn't entirely improve upon.
Brandon Routh is young and handsome, confident yet brimming with a boy-next-door quality and he fills the costume quite well, no doubt making the film more appealing to the female crowd.
The pacing in this film is near perfect and the action is cataclysmic and jaw-dropping. If you thought Superman could fly in 1978, you will believe that he can manhandle an out-of-control airplane and make the entire world adore him in the process of a few minutes in 2006.
The biggest feat of all for a movie like this is that every single person involved in the film had to face the shadow of a movie loved by an entire generation and Singer and company don't shy away from that fact.
Fans of the original films will also be delighted to find that the theme John Williams created for the 1978 film still shows up in parts, although it's woven into a very moody and brilliant score conducted by John Ottman that brilliantly supports the writer's and Singer's main idea for the movie.
In parts of the film, Ottman has used a vocal choir that sounds like it comes straight from the heavens themselves, which is entirely appropriate given that Singer has based his film around the premise of Lois Lane's Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial titled, "Why the World doesn't Need Superman".
Singer tackles this issue directly through the man sent via the stars. Alone, in the sky with his super-hearing, Superman hears the cries and prayers of everyone looking for help. God and Jesus-like references are made throughout the film, although very delicately and Singer's final statement on the issue is that we do need him. We need someone to represent the good in us, someone to emulate and have lead the way.
And in doing so, Singer has not only crafted the best superhero film of all time, but he's created one of the best films in recent memory.
That's no small feat for a man who flies around in tiny red underwear.
TAGS: movie reviews

LOSTPROPHETS - LIBERATION TRANSMISSION (2006)

2006-07-04T13:13:00.000-04:00

LOSTPROPHETS

Title: Liberation Transmission (2006)
Producer(s): Bob Rock
Label: Sony
Genre: Alternative
Length: 48:52

Two years ago this young band from Wales had the world eating out of their hands. They were critical and commercial darlings, bringing great hooks and lyrics to a form of music that was easily accessible yet artistically on the fringe, catchy enough to garner radio play, yet cool enough to be welcomed by the mainstream haters.
Work up to 2006 and the Lostprophets have a mountainous heap of expectations to live up to.
Liberation Transmission was apparently recorded as quickly as possible to appease ravenous fans with short attention spans. Long-time fans have of course complained that the band has become softer over the years and catered their music towards the larger North American market, despite being able to play massive shows in the UK.
Hideously long song names aside, the Lostprophets have always had a good level of energy in their music and that continues here, as on The New Transmission, that sounds strikingly like Hello Again, but like all sequels, never as good as the original. Likewise, Rooftops serves as the album's hands-in-the-air anthem, with familiar refrains and guitar work that will ring like deja-vu for people who listened to Start Something a half million times.
Tracks like Can't Stop, Gotta Date with Hate and Broken Hearts, Torn Up Letters and the Story of a Lonely Girl both come alarmingly close to emo territory, the latter being the best evidence here that perhaps the Lostprophets are trend chasers. They have devolved into pre-pubescent rockers concerned with love notes and passing on the wisdom of a 14-year-old virgin boy.
There's an overwhelming sense of optimism on this album however, as on Can't Catch Tomorrow and Everybody's Screaming!!! that sounds like the soundtrack to a rich fratboy house summer party.
The few places where the group attempts to take a chance in some new territory, like on 4:AM Forever, easily showcases the best guitar work on the album, on a slow, trippy number with an emotionally wrought chorus that shows the group can be so much more than shallow lyrics and pop-punk melodies, when they choose to be.
There's nice energy on Heaven for the Weather, Hell for the Company, a track that's relatively free from aimed-for-radio garbage that permeates the rest of the album. There's an edge to this song that teeters on a precipice and threatens to fling itself out of control but stays dangerously right there, and quite nicely too.
The main problem with Liberation Transmission is there's no attitude and no risk. Lostprophets and Hoobastank could be the leading contenders for the next bands endorsed by the church itself, they're so positive and sun-soaked and free from grime of any sort.
Top that off with the notion that the group is just playing by old numbers and plugging in some new lyrics and you have a band that's churning out a sound that was great in 2004 but now sounds dated, likely because what sounded fantastically fresh in 2004 is ultimately passé in 2006.
TAGS: music reviews

JAMES CLAVELL - SHōGUN (1975)

2006-06-30T09:13:00.000-04:00

JAMES CLAVELL

Title: Shōgun

Publisher: Dell
Genre: Fictionalized History

Built loosely around real events and real people in the turn of the century in 1600 Japan, Shōgun deals with the story of an English sailor who arrives with a depleted, sick crew on the coast of a Japan that is already dealing with its own internal issues.
Pilot John Blackthorne is plucked directly in the middle of a turbulent time when the island of Japan is divided by five distinct and power-hungry rulers and is headed towards war as leaders and peasants alike pick sides.
Christianity has already arrived to these lands via the Spanish and Portuguese and apart from a brotherly spat between Blackthorne and one of their pilots, religious differences immediately make Blackthorne an enemy of the Jesuits in Japan.
Blackthorne is given a rude welcome, but he quickly learns the basics of the language and customs and becomes a useful source of information for the powerful lord Toranaga.
Shōgun has a number of different themes and a multitude of characters that appear and vanish but the storyline follows the trio of characters in Toranaga, Blackthorne and Mariko, a Christian convert who has to balance her faith in religion and her duties to her lord.
Mariko is quickly put in charge of teaching Blackthorne the language and ways of the Japanese and the two interact over such an extended period of time that one really gets a sense of a relationship slowly budding into something romantic.
All however, are pieces on a chess table, and the bulk of Shōgun's story deals with political manoeuvring and backstabbing. Every single decision and event happens with purpose and meaning, as does the life of every Japanese man and woman.
The politics of Shōgun are one of the few areas where the novel lags. Characters have lengthy monologues in private thought about what they should do that lengthen the book painfully in parts.
The positives in this story do far outweigh the overlong length of the book however.
Shōgun works wonderfully as a study of an extremely intelligent leader in Toranaga, whose steely exterior and brusque communication skills are belayed by Clavell's decision to lend us his thoughts.
It's also a grand love story that treats all of its characters, even its villains, with utmost respect and class, infusing in each of them a life and personality that seems as real as our own.
Some of the best parts of Shōgun are hidden underneath all the exterior layers however and Clavell wisely never preaches to his audience even though he could. A wondrous aspect of the story is the it allows the reader to perceive things from almost all sides. Blackthorne and his men are called Barbarians. When first arriving, the Japanese were astounded to find that they didn't shower, they ate meat and did everything for money.
Blackthorne, in trying to fit in, discovers the benefits of regularly bathing and eating a clean diet of fish, rice and vegetables but is equally astounded to find that the Japanese have a far different approach to life that seems ignorant in some ways too.
Male and female readers alike will take delight in the inclusion of the genesis of Geisha and the legendary samurai and ninja among these pages.
It's a long read, and it does suffer for it in parts, but as is wise for a story about two strangers coming together, a great many things are learned by both the characters and in turn, the readers.
TAGS: book reviews

GODSMACK - IV (2006)

2006-06-29T13:03:00.000-04:00

GODSMACK

Title: IV (2006)
Producer(s): Andy Johns
Label: Republic
Genre: Alternative
Length: 52:44

Godsmack are like a whale out of water in today's music scene and have pretty much sat in that position ever since their arrival in the late 90s. While grunge has come and gone and re-emerged under a slightly more polished sound, Godsmack still sound like Metallica trying to do Soundgarden and while it's not a bad premise, or listen, it puts the group on shaky ground because while some see them as a unique, headstrong band, others will always identify them with a scene that died with a shotgun blast in Seattle.
The group's fourth full-length features a sound familiar to fans of the band but still manages to take a couple risks too as on Livin' in Sin, which really doesn't stray far from the Godsmack sound but does feature some tremendous guitar work towards the end and No Rest for the Wicked, that sounds like it could have been plucked right off one of the former albums.
That familiarity becomes absurd on Voodoo Too, an updated version of the band's former hit and a complete waste of time, because like hearing Peter Frampton play Do you Feel Like we Do? for the 50th time may bring back pleasant waves of nostalgia, it also shows he's had nothing new up his sleeves for a very long time.
The band shake things up a little with Shine Down, that incorporates some honky tonk country vibes and actually houses one of the band's more melodic moments recorded and on Hollow, a quiet number with pleasant backup singers that comes across as Sully Erna's confessional.
Bleeding Me is a good song that features a spirited effort and good melody and energy despite having typical woe-is-me lyrical content and The Enemy is very bottom-heavy and hard as hell, and there aren’t many groups more capable of embodying the sound of hell itself opening up in a dirty bar in the middle of the bible belt.
While Erna is still slightly reminiscent of the late great Layne Staley and while he's able to retain the former Alice in Chains frontman's otherworldly vocal styles, he doesn't put a lot of emotion in there, even when he's growlingly mad, he often sounds like he's just translating for someone who is.
IV is a decent album for a band that at best has had a steady and successful career by siphoning elements from other groups. There's nothing awe-inspiring here and really, the album's best moments are the instrumental portions that break away from the meat of many of the songs. Tony Rombola's guitars are astounding when he's not just trying to keep up the sludgy pace.
Godsmack is heavy and you have to love them for that, but all that weight is starting to seriously put them behind the pack.
TAGS: music reviews

THREE DAYS GRACE - ONE X (2006)

2006-06-22T11:53:00.000-04:00

THREE DAYS GRACE

Title: One X (2006)
Producer(s): Howard Benson
Label: Jive
Genre: Alternative
Length: 43:48

The Canadian post-grungers are back with their sophomore effort and an album that promises more guilt-laden pleasures with clichéd lyrics and slick, dark and bouncy grooves that will make listeners everywhere want to pick up an air guitar or invisible microphone.
One X has little that will have you e-mailing your mates about, but to be fair, there's a lot to like about the music here even if it isn't likely they'll ever be the next great legendary band from Canada.
The band's signature big crunchy guitars and Adam Gontier's husky and rebellious vocals are front and center on It's All Over, a song that also features solid, if fairly simplistic drumming.
Close to half the album slows down to near power ballad-like content, as on Never Too Late, a song about not giving up in the face of adversity. It's pleasant and well produced, even with the slightly sappy content that stands out like a sore thumb against the harder numbers. Let It Die follows similar trajectory in a track about heartache and looking back on a former relationship that shows a more rock-lite side of the band, and they do a decent job with it without completely going jello-like at the knees.
The first single, Animal I Have Become has a very funky bass line and catchy vocals while On My Own features a great rhythmic chorus that's both heavy and foot-tapping fun at the same time.
There are a couple missteps, as on the filler Get Out Alive and Pain, a repetitive, simple song with slightly annoying lyrics and melody that a typical high school rock band could probably come close to writing.
Three Days Grace hardly push any boundaries back in the alternative genre with Riot either, a song that's a bit juvenile in it's attempts to trumpet an anthem that will undoubtedly have crowds going mad live, but it works nonetheless. It's a unifying track for those who are presumably young and pissed off and have been pushed back against a wall. There's even a nice instrumental section midway through the track with some great bass playing.
Gone Forever has terribly formulaic lyrics but Gontier infuses them with such a degree of power and effort that it's hard not to feel moved by his feelings on the situation of dealing with a recently deceased relationship.
It may not be hall of fame writing, but the lines "So I'll stay out all night, get drunk and fuck and fight. Until the morning comes I'll forget about our life." will resound so well with the younger male set that it almost romanticizes losing a girl. And imagine that, a singer who can make getting dumped sound appealing!
While Gontier has confessed that much of the album was written while on the road touring for their first album and about dealing with the problems he had to wrap up that were left behind, every single track seems to center around a relationship with a girl that went sour. If it weren't for his deep voice and the heavy playing styles of his band mates, it would have emo written all over it. But Gontier is just as pissed off in these songs as he is sad and knows that often a guy's self-destructive first instinct is to get out and fight his way through it with a bottle in his hand rather than sitting at home and crying over old pictures (hear that Chad Krueger?).
And while Gontier and company may not be master poets, they have a good sense for tune. They may not be as artistically inclined as their compatriots Finger Eleven, but they do a good job of consistently coming up with catchy numbers that are a bit thin on lyrical depth but also without blemishes in the overall sound.
It's an album that's short on layers. It has attitude and pleasing arrangements and enough emotion to not be completely one-dimensional as well as having some talented musicians in the background. One X may not have much else, but what it does have, it works with quite well and you can bet good money on the fact that producer Howard Benson had a large role in that achievement.
TAGS: music reviews

OAKENFOLD - A LIVELY MIND (2006)

2006-06-21T15:43:00.000-04:00

OAKENFOLD

Title: A Lively Mind (2006)
Producer(s):
Label: Warner Bros
Genre: Electronic
Length: 56:32

Paul Oakenfold is one of the biggest DJs in the UK, if not all of Europe, with nearly 20 years of success under his belt. What has distanced him from many of his contemporaries who are equally adept at scratching records is his ability to craft his own music that will sell well in stores as a single or entire album of original music.
The problem for Oakenfold and other artists of his ilk is that electronic music has largely been losing it's ability to sell as anything other than a vinyl keepsake for the next door bedroom DJ. Despite a breakthrough period in the mid 90s, electronic music has refused to grow and transform despite being almost entirely based around futuristic themes and technological trends.
Oakenfold will always find a place for his music on the hippy beaches of India and Portugal, where partiers will dance through the night until the sun comes up the next day but consumers have evidently become frustrated with a sound that has changed so little in over a decade.
So it's not an entire surprise that on A Lively Mind, Oakenfold has retained some of the sounds that first brought him international fame and yet also brought in some guest collaborators in an attempt to move some of the other numbers down a different path.
Vocalist Ryan Tedder helps out on the surprisingly effective The Way I Feel, a quiet, enjoyable track with pleasant singing and wisps of piano and guitars and whooshes of wind breezing by your hair.
There is the techno meets pop meltdown on No Compromise that carries on the unfortunate habit of producers tweaking the crap out of vocals and overfuzzing guitars to the point where they barely sound like a guitar anymore.
Not Over employs some of the best examples as to why trance actually had great elements back in the 90s, like trip-happy melodies weaved into climactically heavy bass lines that made you want to reach for the sky. Ryan Tedder does a good job of turning another Robert Miles and Children influenced rip-off into something more, and it can equally be enjoyed for the music, the pleasant vocals or both together.
Sex N Money kicks off with the Knightrider theme song, a good idea seen better employed elsewhere but still cool for little reason other than being nostalgic in quality and thankfully, the track does morph into something else, that is slightly more appeasing.
Faster Pussycat Kill features Brittany Murphy. Yeah, the actor. You know the story by now, actors want to be musicians and musicians want to be actors and most of the time, they need to stick to their first profession. Murphy has a surprisingly smooth voice (and supposedly her own solo album coming out) in a rather bland track that's so devoid of anything interesting that Murphy's vocals are elevated to a level of satisfaction simply by default.
Praise the Lord is a brain-drained stupid dance track better suited for the next Need for Speed game. It's so uninspiring that it actually gives the best example of why perhaps, Orbital made a good decision to hang it all up after all.
Groan-worthy title and track that is Save the Last Trance for Me would have been barely digestible a decade ago. Now, it's just fodder for a pointing out a guy who doesn't know when to let go of a style that not only has commercially drowned, but is rotting and stinking and covered in rust at the bottom of the ocean in the middle of paradise.
Some of A Lively Mind is extremely dated, and other parts sound like a blatant attempt to cash in on the electroclash movement, which trend followers will tell you died several years ago anyway.
Make no mistake, Oakenfold still has boatloads of talent, whether he's making mixes or slicing together beats and melodies for the next summer anthem, but like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers have already recently discovered, listeners won't pay to hear the same songs sped up or slowed down with a big name singer splashed overtop.
When an artist has been making music for 20 years, it's fairly safe to assume that his audience is aging too, and it's entirely likely that a lot of them aren't popping pills and dancing the night away like they did in 1993.
Listeners change and so too, should the musicians.
TAGS: music reviews

HURT - VOL. 1 (2006)

2006-06-20T14:23:00.000-04:00

HURT

Title: Vol. 1 (2006)
Producer(s): Eric Greedy
Label: Capitol
Genre: Alternative
Length: 56:54

With a band named Hurt, one has a pretty good idea what the lyrical and musical themes will entail before hitting play on the music player. Musically, the word hurt immediately invokes images of Nine Inch Nails, or perhaps the inner turmoil of Kurt Cobain, or the sonic missile of anger blasted by Tool.
Bands these days tend to fall under one category or another, even if they’re all singing about personal hurts. Justin Timberlake dances his way through the heartbreak of losing Britney, metal overlords will threaten the world with fire and emo kids will whine and complain about how much their lives suck.
Allegedly coming from religious backgrounds that meant listening to more gospel than rock, this group is hurt but not in the way that you'd expect.
Hurt's music does little outright complaining in the manner so often heard of in today's alternative music - picture an image of a teenage boy three days after prom with a microphone in his hand. Instead, their music is more a telling of a story, being exaggerated and epic in some moments and stoically cool in others.
While moments on the album are heavy, there seems to be a softer, introspective aspect to Hurt's music and there are indeed moments when J. Loren Wince's singing, accompanied by sweeping strings, sounds like the disposing of long dormant confessions.
Listeners looking for a sound that's familiar will likely have a tough time consuming Hurt, as they switch back and forth between quiet and loud and delicate and abrasive styles.
Shallow sounds a bit like a quiet ballad, with a grandiose string segment and sudden moments of silence and quiet interspersed with an epic chorus that hopes to reach through your ribcage and flutter your heart, and it probably will.
Elsewhere, the band switches between art rock and nu-metal, as on Overdose and Forever, that slowly build from a symphonic hush to a crushing chorus with growling vocals that are still articulate and clear. Singer Wince sounds slightly reminiscent of HIM's lead singer in the former.
Lead single rapture is a dark and moody affair with a thick bass and squelchy guitars. The song doesn't really hit any emotion peaks but does manage to rumble through in a very unique way that is heavy without being angry or whiney.
Danse Russe shakes up the mix a bit with its happy and bright vibe accompanied by acoustic guitars. Losing is one of the most straightforwardly accessible tracks on the album with mysterious lyrics that do indeed hurt, but rock as well.
Vol.1 is a bit of a mixed bag in that it sounds different, but doesn't entirely thrill the listener. In style and mood it's more along the lines of an art rock version of Vast, and likewise, it can be equally enjoyable and unnecessarily convoluted in parts.
This is not a hit-making machine. Hurt are just as impressed with the space between the sounds as they are the sounds themselves which ends up making them a band better suited for a thinking music fan and not a mindless top 40 radio listener.
There are slight stumbles in those gaps to be sure, but there's also a large heaping of potential too.
TAGS: music reviews

JUNKIE XL - TODAY (2006)

2006-06-19T14:33:00.000-04:00

JUNKIE XL

Title: Today (2006)
Producer(s): Tom Holkenborg
Label: Ultra
Genre: Alternative / Electronic
Length: 55:14

The first two Junkie XL albums at the turn of the century were loud, abrasive tunes in the style of The Prodigy and suitable for hardcore dance junkies who like their music pumped up with lethal doses of speed, bass and attitude. It comes as no surprise that Junkie XL has produced soundtracks and singles for video games and violent action movies. Throughout Junkie XL's (aka Tom Holkenborg) discography however, is a clear evolution away from the traditional big beats of European clubs, towards something more creative and mature.
The progression of Holkenborg's sound under the JXL moniker takes a large stride under the Today album, as if he underwent some kind of happy cult conditioning between the recording of albums. He did move from his native Holland to the United States, so you can make your own conclusions on that.
Holkenborg has shifted gears so dramatically on this one that there is a good chance that a great many music buyers will have picked this one up and wonder if they have the right artist.
Delicate guitar arrangements have been added throughout the album and on examples like Youthful and Honey, there is some resemblance to the early 90s works of such bands as Underworld, The Orb or System 7, who all incorporated synthesized elements along with traditional guitars and vocals, like the whole thing's played under water and someone's just pulled the plug. Because although these tracks have some great composition effects and elements are added and taken away from the fray in just the right order but despite the inclusion of guitars, the entire effort still feels too digital and far removed from an organic feel, and you get the feeling that an organic, earthy effort is one of the aims of the record.
I've Got a Xerox to Copy is more guitar, drums and synthesizer on an annoying spin that goes on ad nauseum until you hit the end or press the button for the next track. Holkenborg clearly seems unable to completely give up on his former dance excursions but the snippets of sunshine-stained goa trance towards the last half of the track won't save it from being a mediocre and bland effort.
Mushroom has a Depeche Mode-like melody to it with slight hints of Holkenborg's former bombastic programming styles. It teeters on the verge of exploding for the length of its near 7-minutes but never really takes off. It does have a nice, uplifting feel to it as does Such a Tease, which feels like an auditory recording of a leisurely afternoon lulling in the grass with the sun beating down on you.
Today is well suited to the trend in music this year, in that it sounds very much like rock meets new wave and even bears a striking resemblance in tone to Mobile's hit Montreal Calling. It is catchy and happy in a way that will leave you thinking that the 80s are indeed back again.
Drift Away and Yesterdays are both Coldplay-lite in style. The former is a subdued and moody piece that sounds like Chris Martin's band meets Enya. It's jangly and sparkly and so darn close to all-out dull that it could probably subdue an enraged John McEnroe into a vegetative stupor, and sure to be playing in a Starbucks near you soon.
Junkie XL was one of the few acts who brought an edge to an otherwise generic genre in big beat electronica. His production was solid and he had enough tricks up his sleeve. While it's arguable that Holkenborg ever really crafted a song that could be considered singularly inimitable, Today shows he's two steps away from pulling a Moby superstar game plan, as an album package full of glossy self-portraits and an organic restaurant can't be far behind.
Mind you, Today does have an album sleeve full of self-portraits suitable for the corner Gap store.
Today is happy, feel-good music, and for all intensive purposes, there's nothing wrong with that but it's also one foot in the path of a very trendy sound right now.
Taking the music of Junkie XL away from the suicidal death trajectory of big beat was probably a good idea for Holkenborg. There seems to be little future or growth for a band in that genre (ask Liam Howlett), but the music here seems to have gone from the back alleys of a hoodlum to the palm tree-lined streets of California. And who knows how many people have gone giddy over the lure of cash to be found in the land of stars and stripes, only to find that those who helped start them out, have been left in the dust for a more attractive crowd.
Regardless, the music of Today sounds good and it's pleasing, but it can also border on the overly repetitive and pretentious kind.
TAGS: music reviews

I AM X - THE ALTERNATIVE (2006)

2006-06-15T14:33:00.000-04:00

I AM X

Title: The Alternative (2006)
Producer(s): Chris Corner
Label: Major
Genre: Electropop
Length: 43:20

Chris Corner co-formed the successful electronic group Sneaker Pimps back in the mid-90s and quickly fired their glittery-sounding singer Kelli Dayton for a voice that would distance them from the sounds of the then popular genre of trip-hop. Corner wound up picking up the microphone and while the band gained more critical praise for the decision, the direction of the music changed just subtly enough to bypass the ears of a very finicky mainstream market.
There is gossip that the Sneaker Pimps' fourth full-length was rejected by the label because they were unhappy with Corner's vocals and again wanted a female at the front helm and while the band went about trying to reach a compromise on the issues, Corner went off to do his own thing.
Admittedly, in theory, Corner's I Am X project isn't miles and miles departed from the Sneaker Pimps' sound. Both feature electronic soundscapes crafted as much for the mind as the body and both feature very similar vocal and lyrical themes.
At times, Corner sounds like Morrissey meets Depeche Mode, or a male-fronted version of Goldfrapp's first two gloomy and dark meets sexy carnival-type music.
There are some serious stiff-arm jobs on the album - possibly messages to the critics who think his singing brought the Pimps down a few notches on the cool belt - like The Alternative, which is a hair's length away from Corner showing off like a superstar should. It's a song that's funky and danceable and sexy without Corner making an emotional martyr out of himself.
On nearly every track, the music is unique and far-out, like on President, a twisted elephant ride at the circus, spooky and weird, yet with just the right sense of fun to keep you from completely hiding under the covers.
Corner gets emotional in an androgynous kind of way on the gently hypnotic Lulled by Numbers, a poem set to music and melody with satellite bleeps and echoes and a hidden message lain underneath the great drums and overall feeling of the ominous track. On the other end of the sensitive scale, Corner rages on The Negative Sex, by spitting out contempt amidst a funky beat and a gaping void in the background that threatens to swallow the whole affair but doesn't, instead funnelling Corner's message into a furious assault that really shouldn't be danced to, but you'll want to regardless.
Spit It Out is a fun electropop track that could very likely have seniors twirling in circles with their arms in the air, it's so bright and happy while Bring Me Back A Dog is crazy, with anarchical beats that sound like a mechanical warehouse gone out of control with life. Lyrical content borders on biting social commentary without lecturing. Corner just tells you his take on it and whether you agree with him or not, he'll have you nodding your head to the music at least.
Corner has a soft and delicate voice that is sexy in a way that has nothing to do with his masculinity.
Much of the music sounds like a throwback to the 80s new wave movement, warped with less of a bubbly Abba-type surface and infused with more mood, emotion and swagger befitting a man who likes to flout his differences.
While I Am X may have started out as a side project for Corner to keep himself busy until the next Sneaker Pimps issue, he has hit his stride as a musician crafting unique pieces of art on The Alternative and to such a degree in fact, that he may have outgrown and outdone the Sneaker Pimps in the process.

Check out the free download of I Am X's "President" here.

TAGS: music reviews

APARTMENT 26 - MUSIC FOR THE MASSIVE (2004)

2006-06-14T13:03:00.000-04:00

APARTMENT 26

Title: Music for the Massive (2004)
Producer(s): Jason Slater, Troy Van Leeuwen
Label: Atlantic
Genre: Alternative, Experimental
Length: 50:42

Back during Apartment 26's inception, their music sounded like generic nu-metal with a solid production and style but nothing that deserved the kind of instant success the band achieved. Fingers quickly began pointing out the obvious connection between the group going from small shows hocking an indie EP to an almost overnight placement smack dab in the middle of the Ozzfest tour. People took quick notice to the fact that Ozzy Osbourne's former Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler was father to Apartment 26's leader singer Biff Butler.
It stank of favoritism and favors and people began to deride Apartment 26 for hopping on an easy ride without paying their dues.
At some point between then and the release of their second album, Music for the Massive, the young Brits in Apartment 26 must have taken notice and decided to shut everyone up with something unique and completely off the wall. And they succeeded in that.
Throughout, are songs that mesh elements of metal, jazz and electronica into one strange but compelling effort, as heard on the near swing jazz meets Soundgarden-esque Give Me More.
Strike sounds like The Chemical Brothers picking up guitars and drums and hammering away and New Year's Resolution has metal aspects merged with some ambient atmospherics that almost push the track into club territory. The guys here straddle a fine line between American rock and their European dance sensibilities. It also winds up wandering very close to a confused, convoluted effort because it fails to ever fully take one path at any point but it's also equally enjoyable throughout.
Elsewhere the group sounds like Linkin Park teaming up with Radiohead on Kick to the Head and Closer is a strong hard rock track with trumpets and tropical guitar licks. On paper, it just sounds completely wrong but they somehow make it work.
Two of the straight-laced rock tracks, 88 and Heaven, still employ some odd time signatures and slight hints of synthesizer nonsense amidst the energetic pace and catchy choruses.
Apartment 26 seem to have almost completely distanced themselves far away from the metal set that introduced them by creating an album that is beyond categorization here and maybe that's because a young man is attempting to step out from behind his father's imposing shadow, we don't know for sure.
It's a strange, fucked up album and no one in his or her right mind should have threw money at them to make it. But thank goodness someone did.
TAGS: music reviews

HOOBASTANK - EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF (2006)

2006-06-13T10:23:00.000-04:00

HOOBASTANK

Title: Every Man For Himself (2006)
Producer(s): Howard Benson
Label: Island
Genre: Alternative
Length: 51:09

Hoobastank are a group of California kids not far gone from school with lofty ambitions. After a solid premier album, it was their sophomore effort The Reason and title track that brought the band to superstardom and radio airplay everywhere.
Now on Every Man For Himself, the group's third big label full-length, Hoobastank have attempted to return to a brash post-grunge rocking style at a clip and pace comparative to Linkin Park but funky and catchy to such a degree that they're clearly aiming for more radio play and large stadium tours.
Tracks like Born to Lead and Without a Fight pull out all the stops to get a crowd moving, including the blatant use of a siren wale during the chorus of the former. It's something that has often been used in large dance clubs to get crowds going, and it's surprising that no one ever thought of it in rock, because although it detracts from the music, it is a useful motivational tool in pumping up crowds. Born to Lead does just that, like a war cry (with screaming drill sergeant) for Hoobastank's youthful listeners.
The band has a habit of crafting highly optimistic and encouraging numbers, sometimes played at a quick rock pace as in Look Where We Are or on a slower, softer vibe as in Moving Forward. They sound like they're playing in the middle of a city park amidst millions of people and skyscrapers and are looking to get everyone tapping their feet with a smile on their face amidst the sweet tunes. Depending on how you feel about that overwhelming positivity being levelled at you in a way that screams less than six degrees of separation from a boy band, it can either make you jump with glee or will have you looking for a barbeque skewer to shove in your ear hole.
If Only and Good Enough plunder familiar territory for the band with lyrics centered around not being good enough for someone or being alone and looking back on a lost love. It is slightly tough to swallow from a band who went platinum and have little to complain about anymore, considering that there's a good chance that they have a strong female following.
In an attempt to follow up the smash hit The Reason on the last album, Hoobastank have come up with If I Were You, allegedly penned for Velvet Revolver's Scott Weiland, whom Hoobastank shared a tour with a year ago. It contains a sleep-numbing pace and baby crib-like melody and lyrics that seem to suggest that Robb believes that Weiland should stop being such a diva and be thankful for the kind of life he's leading.
Hoobastank have slightly switched things up throughout the album by inserting goofy gimmicks, and while bands like Tool or Radiohead have been known to do the same, their efforts are never a simple cut and paste of sound snippets into their music. Hoobastank are adept musicians and know how to craft a catchy tune, but their attempts to break out of a particular style here are a thinly disguised ruse.
The one track that does stray from the pack is the best of the lot and surprisingly, it is the one that least sounds like a Hoobastank number. The First of Me, ironically, is a track whose lyrical content surrounds the concept of not selling out and keeping your nose to your own particular path. Hoobastank have often been accused of doing the opposite, sounding an awful lot like a more commercial version of Incubus during the course of their short career. Still the song is effectively moving, and singer Douglas Robb sounds like he's singing off the top of a mountain and his band does a great job of elevating the tone during peak moments.
Every Man For Himself will please most fans of the band. It offers a grouping of good songs in a familiar format and tries to pump up the energy with a couple tricks here and there.
It's hardly ground-breaking, something Hoobastank will likely never be accused of. With the exception of one track, those already familiar with Hoobastank will listen to this album and think they’ve heard most of it before and despite that, they will probably still like it, even if they feel guilty for thinking so.
TAGS: music reviews

THE OMEN (2006)

2006-06-12T13:03:00.000-04:00

THE OMEN

Director: John Moore
Actors: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Mia Farrow
Length: 110 mins.

I hadn't yet hit double-digits in age during the early 80s when my mother decided to allow me to stay up late for good behaviour on New Year's Eve and watch The Omen. I begged and begged assuring her I would not be scared. Combine one apocalyptic-toned evening with one evil little kid and you can guess that I had trouble getting to sleep that night, driving my mother to fits and promises of no further late nights with horror films.
Richard Donner's 1976 classic followed the success of The Exorcist and aimed to stalk and shock audiences with acts of violent terror of a supernatural kind. Its murder scenes were sensational for the time and only enhanced by a fantastic orchestral score accompanied by a haunting chorus.
30 years onward and Hollywood is smack dab in the middle of a lengthy trend of rehashing old movies with modern technology.
There are of course, plenty of critics and amateur pundits who say that a movie should not be remade unless it's going to be a re-envisioning of the original story. Rosemary's Baby, for example, is untouchable, but The Astronaut's Wife plays along strikingly similar plotlines amid a different setting and different characters.
The Omen however, is a straight-laced remake of the original, so much so that lengthy scenes and dialogue are plucked straight out of Donner's vision and placed in the new one. Moore does play with little bits here and there, such as moving the aggressive simians from a safari ride to a zoo setting. Moore also puts some rapid-fire image montages of evil into the film to let the audience know that some of the characters (in particular, Damien's adoptive mother) are having disturbed feelings in relation to their spooky kid.
Youngster Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick spends much of the movie silently. This is no different from the original though as his part requires him to smile demonically while people die around him and little more.
Liev Schreiber attempts to fill the big shoes of Gregory Peck here and while Schreiber is a consummate actor and attempts to infuse his role with a father's sense of emotion, somehow Peck's over-dramatization as an irritated father with raised eyebrows worked better in the original.
In general most aspects of the film were better parlayed in 1976 than in this version. The deaths are all updated for the teenage crowd who take delight in the gruesome murders in such movies as Final Destination but apart from that, little has been improved upon within a film that is simply reshot for a modern era.
There is little wrong with it as well, apart from one glaring mistake.
Gone from the 2006 version of this film is any tiny fraction of the original's lively soundtrack. This new version contains several lengthy scenes without any music whatsoever, and while Moore may have aimed to put more of a focus on his actors and the fear of what's coming, the silence only makes us more aware of the missing score.
Where there is music, there is only a bass thudding to announce the evil. It borders on an annoyance and only towards the end, where this thudding morphs into a tribal-like drumming pattern does it prove even remotely effective.
The 2006 version of The Omen is only recommended for those nights when you can't find another flick to rent. You will giggle with delight at the sight of Mia Farrow as the evil Ms. Baylock and you will cringe during some disturbing deaths but you will not get the chill of the original, nor will the soundtrack stay with you long afterwards. You are better off with the original.
TAGS: movie reviews

X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND (2006)

2006-06-12T11:43:00.000-04:00

X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND

Director: Brett Ratner
Actors: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen
Length: 104 mins.

Let's make one thing clear. The nerds who own every issue of the X-Men comic book series will never be completely happy with a film adaptation of this franchise. Bryan Singer is fortunate to have escaped with his head after a re-imagining of some of the characters, let alone coming out of the first two films with positive reviews.
Word is that the third and final film in the trilogy (which does not negate the possibility of future episodes outside of this grouping), was hastily put together after Singer departed for the lofty role of directing the upcoming Superman Returns flick.
The good side of things is that the film has moments of fun and it does fit in well with the previous films, despite a slightly rushed and sloppy feel for the script.
Hugh Jackman's Wolverine has his usual moments of anger meshed with cute one-liners. Halle Berry's Storm actually does work a little better under Ratner's direction and Kelsey Grammer does a convincing turn as the bouncing blue-haired genius, Beast.
The trouble with The Last Stand is that Ratner's script fails both to provide any character depth or full-on battle fun in place of it. It tries to squeeze so many characters in the film that it feels like everyone gets only a few seconds of celluloid throughout what feels like an extremely short film.
Anna Paquin's Rogue is reduced to a bit player and her relationship with Bobby Drake (Shawn Ashmore) shrinks down to a shadow of its former self. Drake has moments of romantic-laced intrigue with now grown-up newcomer Kitty Pride (Ellen Page) but Ratner fails to turn the moment into a love triangle, and utterly fails to resolve it at all, even though the audience is entirely too aware of the awkwardness of it.
Major characters are given rude endings very quickly into the movie. Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, while devilishly gorgeous in her return, does very little aside from glowering at the screen or other characters throughout.
When you go back to the beginning of the trilogy, and even throughout, the trilogy's premise is on Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto. They are the parents of a new generation of mutants with differing ideas on how they should behave in a society that welcomes them at a weary distance.
Singer's initial comparisons of the treatment of mutants with those of Nazi-controlled Europe had some very deep and impressive undercurrents in what is basically a fun tale for kids-at-heart.
The fact that Ratner's film has turned the trilogy into a shallow thing more along the lines of the recent Fantastic Four film should not have been as off-putting as it is. The X-Men title is the one - if any - that should lend well to an overwhelming fight-fest. It does deliver that in parts, as the fight in Jean Grey's childhood home has so many different elements happening at once that it's hard not to smile with glee at all that's taking place.
Ian McKellen, thankfully, has two strong moments suitable to his acting skills, both relating to what has happened to Professor X. They are brothers after all, and while they are at odds, there is no absence of mutual respect, even in the midst of war.
It is too bad however, that the ending of the film feels like a marked-down economy size version of a video game brawl. Even though a multitude of new characters have been introduced, (including, hold your breath, the Sentinels) there is no Sabretooth or Toad, who could have made welcome bit appearances. Rebecca Romjin's Mystique has little screen-time and you'll get a gold star if you can catch Nightcrawler anywhere in the film.
Those of us who did our research before seeing the film were told to expect a slightly messy script that mistreated characters we grew to adore over the last few movies. Making up for it however, was a fun flick with moments of sci-fi and CGI mayhem. This is true in parts but the film still suffers from awkward pacing. There is a fantastic intro with a sleep-inducing muddy middle and an ending that attempts to wrap everything up too quickly.
It is of course, still great fun to see our uncanny X-Men running around on-screen despite a less-than-perfect script, but at the same time it is a bit sad to know that it could have been so much better.
TAGS: movie reviews

EVANS BLUE - THE MELODY AND THE ENERGETIC NATURE OF VOLUME (2006)

2006-06-07T11:53:00.000-04:00

EVANS BLUE

Title: The Melody and the Energetic Nature of Volume (2006)
Producer(s): Trevor Kustiak
Label: Hollywood
Genre: Hard Rock, Alternative
Length: 45:11

The upstart Canadian band came out of what seemed like nowhere and strung an album together in a short supply of time. Most expectations, based on such vague and non-time-tested means would make for a quick dismissal by most music fans. Consumers like products they know and artists they can trust to deliver, time and time again.
Evans Blue rock that mindset with an album that towers over much of the early releases in 2006.
From the forest fire spread of such hit tracks like A Cross and a Girl Named Blessed and Cold (But I'm Still Here), Evans Blue play a form of alternative hard rock, infusing it with a great deal of melody, blown out of your speakers in a loud and boisterous manner, and fading into quiet, contemplative moments elsewhere.
Evans Blue is underground attitude meets mainstream sing-along choruses. It's cool enough that your mates won't slap you for playing it in the car and has enough heart and emotion that your girlfriend will dig it too. It's catchy music played by musicians who like loud volumes, and it's damn near impossible not to like.
Evans Blue sound like a combination of various different rock branches, at times using sounds that evoke images of 30 Seconds to Mars's Jared Leto as in Beg, or the calmer and cleaner alternative moments sometimes heard from System of a Down in Stop and Say You Love Me.
The problems with the album lay not in what exists on the plastic disc, but the possibilities for future directions for the band. On Quote for example, the quiet track employs a style most of us have heard countless times before, which is unfortunate because the rest of the album astounds the listener by sounding so fresh and new, even with the slightly clever lyrics within the chorus.
Some moments get a little too glittery, like boy bands doing rock songs and it's a road that Hoobastank has gone down with disastrous results and one in which hopefully this group will not follow.
To give full credit, the album is solid almost entirely from the beginning to the end, filled with hit after hit, an astounding feat for a first-time recording.
The band deftly communicates emotion through vocals and instruments, like on Eclipsed, where singer Matisyn really elevates an otherwise plain song into something special and moving. Matisyn is far from astounding with his vocals but his simple singing style is pleasant and easy to listen to. He has a clear, smooth voice that's like cotton candy on the ears, even if it does sound an awful lot like another dozen singer's voices out there.
Another trend these days for rock bands seems to be to find some old song from the past and update it with current sounds at least once an album. Disturbed has been doing it routinely, Lacuna Coil recently did it and Evans Blue pulls Possession out of Sarah McLachlan's closet for a remake that is faithful to the original, but aggressively played. It is a pleasant surprise that it works so well, and the only fault of the track is that the band didn't perhaps choose something more obscure from McLachlan's extensive catalogue. Most Canadian music fans were bludgeoned to death with the video back in the early 90s as it is.
In the end however, Evans Blue have crafted an astounding first album. All the great number of new releases in alternative music lately suggest a possible resurgence in the genre with a load of bands who bring back a powerful punch to the music, along with an aggressive and emotional style combined with great melody.
Providing that the masses will give this come-from-nowhere, small-town group a listen, Evans Blue should be one of the bands leading the way for the next decade, assuming they continue down the right path.
TAGS: music reviews

THE DA VINCI CODE (2006)

2006-06-06T23:24:00.000-04:00

THE DA VINCI CODE

Director: Ron Howard
Actors: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Alfred Molina
Length: 149 mins.

Perhaps the years most anticipated film, but I was not interested in watching it one bit. I had read the novel long before it had come to the collective consciousness of North America and had thought it superb - not for stellar prose (that's not Brown's strong suite), but more for the fact that it was fast paced and kept me riveted for about eleven hours at the end of which I put it down with a satisfied sigh!

So, knowing that movie versions of books rarely live up to their written predecessor, I was in no rush to pay my ten dollars to watch Howards latest shot at Oscar. And to top that off, they picked Hanks to play Robert Langdon? Robert Langdon who while I was reading the book I pictured to be more Dr. Doug Ross, and less Forrest Gump. And what, I thought, was up with that hair? All that money and still no sense of hair. (Picture me shaking my head here)

I was wrong.

I still hold that the reading of the book is essential to understanding the finer elements of the movies - but I guess the assumption of the filmmaker was that most people have read it! However, the bad hair, the wrong actor, the reservations, everything, just flew out the window once the movie was into its first ten minutes.
It almost eerily captured what my minds eye had painted when reading the book - especially a scene about an airplane escape that had me feeling like I'd watched the movie before!

Hanks vanishes when Langdon appears and I was immediately gripped with how intellectually sexy the man is! Tautou does an impressive Sophie. Again, not my first choice for the character, she wore her brunette locks well and didn't once remind me of Amelie - as I was afraid she would. Teabing (McKellen) is everybody's favourite villain and managed to make me forget that I actually knew how it turns out! (That's another funny side effect of reading the book before watching the movie). McKellen is convincing as the two-faced crippled Teacher but not magnanimously so. I heard Oscar buzz around his performance and didn't think that it stood up to that bar. The only character that I was disappointed with was Bettany's Silas. It had nothing to do with Bettany's portrayal of the misguided uber-Opus Dei, slightly psychologically disturbed albino. He did a fine job. However, (and once again, this is a pit fall of reading the book) I had pictured Silas as being larger than life - standing broad and tall and overbearing - a portrayal that Bettany with his ~~great ass~~ ~~sexy abs~~ thin frame didn't quite fulfill.

Another point worth mentioning (I think) is that Howard very wisely steers clear of the accusatory finger that Brown seems to point, in the novel, toward certain institutions and people. By doing so, I think the director has made a first class movie without offending the politically correct sensibilities of the audience!

The two and half hours of the movie fly by almost as quickly as did the eleven hours I spent reading the book. Definitely glad that I allowed my rubber arm to be twisted into watching it.
;)

FRIENDS WITH MONEY (2006)

2006-06-06T22:52:00.000-04:00

FRIENDS WITH MONEY

Director: Nicole Holofcener
Actors: Jennifer Aniston, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, Catherine Keener, Greg Germann
Length: 88 mins.

Olivia (Aniston) is a woman who just can't seem to get her life in order and seems more so of a failure in comparison to her seemingly highly successful friends. A once prestigious teacher, Olivia is now barely holding onto her job as a maid and is prone to blaming her misfortune on anything and everything around her - except herself! She envies the lives of her friends because they all seem to have it so easy - the perfect relationships, the good jobs, the best houses, the loads of money and wealth.

However, all is not as the eye perceives it!

The movie took me - the viewer - to the vantage point of a fly on the wall of the homes of these four women. One (McDormand) is angry because...Well, she really has no proper reason for the rage within her. She's a successful designer and is happily married with a beautiful son. Her husband, unbeknownst only to him and her, is flamingly homosexual. Another (Cusack) is a modern day housewife with no say in the financial workings of her household because *gasp* she doesn't earn it! So although her husband (Germann) and her have no severe marital problems, when he spend ninety dollars on a pair of shoes for their four year old, she is not allowed to object! The last of this dysfunctional quad of ladies is a woman (Keener) who has blinded herself to the emotional abuse that has been inflicted upon her through years of marriage.

I think what the movie was trying to say - and if this was its purpose, it succeeded - that in life one makes choices and compromises to accommodate what one wants, what one needs, and what one is willing to settle for.
These four women each looks upon herself as the best of the group - better off than the others for not compromising on this value or that; at the same time though, each one loathes oneself for the piece of their soul that was sold.
At the onset of the movie, the viewer is prone to feeling sorry for Olivia. Coming out of the theatre however, I was struck with a deep sense of pity for all the women - not for the lives that they had carved for themselves, but rather for the condition their condition was in.

My only true complaint with the film was that at the end, it was too neatly wrapped up - in true Hollywood fashion, with the poor girl finding a rich man - albeit not sans issues - to sweep her off her feet into the sunset.

I think perhaps what the movie is trying to say is that the adult world is one of choice and consequence. And unlike children who can get their mommy to wash away the mistake, we aren't so lucky - we sometimes have to live with the dirt we've gotten on our clothes.

THE BREAK-UP (2006)

2006-06-06T11:33:00.000-04:00

THE BREAK-UP

Director: Peyton Reed
Actors: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston, Jon Favreau
Length: 105 mins.

Critics and audiences don't know what to make of The Break-Up and a lot of them are trashing it for not being easily pigeon-holed with a formulaic screenplay suitable for one genre.
What they want, according to the reviews out there, is something they've already seen, like an updated War of the Roses, or because this is Vince Vaughn's vehicle, something funny in the style of last year's smash Wedding Crashers.
It is tough to tell if The Break-Up is confused in its telling or if it's meant to be deeper than an audience would expect, but the truth is probably a little of both.
Vaughn sticks to his motor-mouth smart alec routine for most of the flick. He's funny whether he's dishing out fast and crazy lines or serving as the butt end of someone's joke or karate chop. Vaughn's Swingers' era pal, Jon Favreau shows up intermittently and it really isn't enough screen time for a pair who bounce off each other wonderfully.
Guys will get some good chuckles as Vaughn trash-talks his opponents in video games and will probably understand his rash decisions at fighting fire with more fire.
Cole Hauser shows up as Vaughn's perverted brother but his effort is wasted. Hauser's iron-clad facial features couldn't emote feeling or humor if it were covered in tar and feathers.
Aniston does her usual character (probably played like herself and the only instance of a stretched role by her was seen in Derailed and The Good Girl), thereby being cute and pretty but filled with so much stupidity that it's a wonder that Vaughn wrote her that way, considering they apparently paired up not long afterwards.
Aniston's Brooke breaks up with Gary, agrees to sell their pad and goes on dates with other men all to dig a reaction out of him. She wants him to value her and show it and she ignorantly follows through with her plan until it makes matters worse.
Brooke and Gary are vicious and nasty to each other, in the kind of way that one can only be with a former lover. You know their buttons and you know how to push them.
Throughout the lengthy spat, Vaughn plays the comic, but cracks gently break through the laughter and this comedy turns into a sad tale.
Despite his voracious appetite for revenge, Gary is heart-broken. It is only when the enemy leaves the field that his chin rests solemnly on his chest.
Brooke on the other hand, can't understand why her plan isn't working. It is a story of a small argument snowballing into an unstoppable avalanche. Essentially, it is a relationship doomed because he wanted to relax when she wanted to clean. It is a premise of absurdity and it happens all the time.
The Break-Up has more to say than Wedding Crashers did. Is it a more enjoyable experience? Definitely not, but sometimes you want a little licorice in place of popcorn when you head out to the movies.
TAGS: movie reviews

HOSTEL (2006)

2006-05-30T11:43:00.000-04:00

HOSTEL

Director: Eli Roth
Actors: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson
Length: 94 mins.

There may be some truth to the idea that society is becoming desensitized to violence thanks to films, because Hostel was a big letdown in this area.
Trailers and promotional materials for the film, plus word of mouth and the fact that torture master Quentin Tarantino's name is smacked right above the title in posters had many a person thinking that Hostel was going to push the limits of bad taste in horror and violence. I'll even go so far as to admit that I avoided the film because of a fear that it would be too gory for my very pregnant and delicate wife.
The baby came and I picked up a copy of the flick at the video store, still worried that it would be too much.
The premise is interesting. A pair of American hedonistic college kids are back-packing their way through Europe (with a newfound Icelandic pal) in pursuit of parties, drugs and most importantly, girls. They are told of a hostel in Slovakia where the women all drop their pants and open their legs when they hear an American accent. Before even seeing the film, we know it’s a trap.
And if you know anything about torture, you know it's a horrible thing because it hurts and more importantly, it takes forever, in that you will hope to die long before you ever do. Go back to Tarantino's premier directing effort in Reservoir Dogs and he turns the ear-cutting scene into a full act in and of itself that features class, horror and humour.
Eli Roth's torture scenes in Hostel don't come anywhere close. While there are some extremely violent scenes with lots of blood, the torture is not cruelly long. It is a quick scene until the point where the lead attempts to escape. The torture methods are striking, but nothing we haven't really seen put to film before.
Where Roth could have made a statement about how Europeans look at Americans and vice-versa, he turns it into a simple game of bloodsport.
The idea of revenge is played out like a roadmap and one that the viewer sees coming from a far distance, in particular when Paxton (the lead) finds himself with his betrayers right between his headlights.
Roth fails to paint much of a picture in the film outside of a general apathy of character. The one and only actor who manages to provide any depth to the film is Rick Hoffman, playing an American client, a businessman bored by meetings with stale donuts and PowerPoint presentations. He has paid money to put excitement in his life in the most vile of ways and you can tell that his perversion has been bred from being socially caged in a meaningless job.
The problem is that none of the violence matters because the people are just shells. We could have cared when an innocent woman realized she was permanently scarred from an attack but Roth never lets us in any deeper than a surface level. We see a bunch of people we don't know much about play either villain or victim.
We don't care much about many of Tarantino's characters either, but at least he makes up for it with intelligent scripts.
Roth pretty much fails on every possible level with Hostel. Were it simply a film about torture, he should have stuck to that and made our eyeballs pay with an hour of pain. If it were a statement about Americans in the world post 911, he could have done a better job with that too.
Hostel is mindless and soulless and it says a lot when a guy with a hockey mask can do a better job of scaring and entertaining an audience for an hour-and-a-half.
TAGS: movie reviews

TOOL - 10,000 DAYS (2006)

2006-05-25T13:03:00.000-04:00

TOOL

Title: 10,000 Days (2006)
Producer(s): Tool
Label: Volcano
Genre: Alternative
Length: 75:45

Despite the massive success Tool has enjoyed over the years, they haven't ever been an easy listen.
Starting out in the early 90s, the Tool sound spewed out angry missives about a fat society bloated with greed and selfishness. That anger occasionally morphed into repetitive tribal-like barrages of sound that could produce either trance-like or seizure-like symptoms in listeners. As the years went by, the music became more artistic and obscure in nature, and still the records sold by the barrel full.
While there exists a five year gap between 10,000 Days and the last Tool album, there remains a clear connection between all the albums the band has offered to date. The sound is still often devilishly deep and subterranean, like the group are playing in a cavern that amplifies and channels the sound into a searing sonic assault that may not always go a million miles an hour but will shake the fillings out of your mouth if you turn it up loud enough.
Aside from the first single Vicarious, which plays out very much like many of the singles found on the last two albums, there is a definite change on 10,000 Days which can take some getting used to.
Singer Maynard James Keenan has dramatically changed his approach to the vocals on some of the songs found here. Previously known for belting out minute-long notes that would tear another vocalist's throat to shreds, Keenan has toned down his approach on much of 10,000 Days. His commanding presence as a singer doesn't necessitate the requirement for Keenan to go full throttle any longer. Different approaches to the lyrics with Tool and elsewhere have allowed him to expand his repertoire of tricks and he's just as capable of grabbing the listener by the nuts whether he's singing, chanting or whispering.
He is backed by the same Tool band we've known for 15 years. Dany Carey's drums are still earth shattering, surgically precise and perfectly hold together the entire band on his broad shoulders. Adam Jones still doesn't care to impress anyone with mile-a-minute fingers and instead opts to do his usual unique blend of rousing melodies that metamorphosis into notes carved out of noise. Justin Chancellor's bass brilliantly peaks out at times and in ways not heard of since Sober, his strings vibrate so thickly at times that you would think they must be 10 pounds each and played by a monster.
Keenan's vocal approach can be understood when you consider that 10,000 days was the amount of time it took Keenan's mother to get sick and die after being partially paralyzed from a stroke. Half of the album plays out like an homage to her and deals with her death or death in general during many moments of this journey. It is for that reason that 10,000 Days rests as being probably Tool's strangest album to date. While every full length album has had a theme and flow from beginning to end, 10,000 Days takes a bit longer to digest. It is an album that will get better with each listen as layer after layer is peeled away.
There are what seem to be relatively clearly defined tracks about death - as in Vicarious, an opus about the destructive qualities of mankind and how we enjoy watching others suffer and the two Wings for Marie - and the surprising Jambi, in which Keenan confesses his sins and regrets and explains how achieving his dream came with a heavy cost.
The "filler", as per usual, should not be overlooked. Lipan Conjuring is a minute-long snippet of native chanting in what could pass as a death ritual. The idea holds more sway when you hear Keenan chime in at the very end for an emotional inclusion in the chant. In Lost Keys (Blame Hoffman), we hear a doctor and nurse attempting to communicate with a patient who barely communicates in a very strange number.
Rosetta Stoned and Intension are both very cryptic in design, something not unfamiliar to Tool fans.
Some listeners may be confused and startled by the changes in this album, even though they are minor in nature. Promotional photos for the album show that the group is aging. Youthful mohawks and shirtless bodies have been replaced by intrusive grey hairs and line-marked faces. Calmer, near silent passages at times linger throughout the music but are coupled by the band's usual ferocious moments.
If you compare 10,000 Days to Undertow, or even Opiate, you'll see a drastic change but there have been two full length albums and almost 15 years between that music. Tool have changed like anyone would in 15 years. They have evolved to look upon their worlds with the same eyes but from different perspectives.
The venom from those early small club days in Los Angeles still exists within the passages of 10,000 Days, it's just proffered in a more creative, thoughtful way that in turn requires the listener to think as well.
10,000 Days is not an album that is best enjoyed while you're doing something else. To be effective, it requires all of your attention and even then it won't be an easy listen.
TAGS: music reviews

10 YEARS - THE AUTUMN EFFECT (2005)

2006-05-19T13:13:00.000-04:00

10 YEARS

Title: The Autumn Effect (2005)
Producer(s): Josh Abraham
Label: Republic
Genre: Alternative
Length: 57:25

Some cynical music fans quickly wrote off 10 Years as being pale Tool imitators while another large group of people welcomed the upstart band as a sign of the changing times.
For a band that's still riding an upward swing of creativity, it should come as no surprise that Tool's four albums in 15 years have inspired countless new bands to pick up guitars, pound on the skins and emote like Maynard James Keenan. Chevelle, after all, have been doing it successfully for a good run now.
Cries of 10 Years's hollow mimicry are unfounded cheap shots by fans who love nothing better than taking swipes at a newly successful group. Compared to finding a great, unknown group to herald, trashing that same band a year later when they've made it big is every music lover's favourite pastime.
Half Life does sound a tad like old-styled Tool music, back when they were seething with anger and not inducing listeners into mystical trances with 8-minute prog opuses. The track has a good wallop to it, with aggressive choruses and squelchy guitars. Paralyzing Kings features some guitar work that sounds a bit like those heard on Keenan's A Perfect Circle outfit.
The direct and blatant copycat accusations should end there.
I'm not saying that 10 Years is tearing up new soil in the musical landscape. Most of the songs here are alternative hard rock in format and fall far from the territory that Tool treads. There is little meandering from that format.
The hit single, Wasteland, is a bit like being on a boat in violent waters, as it violently lobs back and forth in its delivery. The instruments are all crystal clear and punchy, the chorus catchy enough to garner lots of radio airplay. The best songs on The Autumn Effect however, are not necessarily the hits. They could have made singles out of almost any track on the album, which says a lot about the talent and production that went into making it. For a first effort on a major label, the album is solid with good songs and shows little of the newcomer uncertainty that plagues a lot of new bands.
The band alternates between the quiet/loud pacing format rather predictably on the appropriately title The Recipe.
Cast it Out is catchy and the band plays well together with each instrument morphing in and out of the sound of the others, creating a lovely unified effect.
Seasons to Cycle is a slower-paced effort with acoustic guitars and light drumming. It's a simple and beautiful track, even though the lyrics border on being juvenile at times, the energy and effort will make it forgivable.
In the end, they shouldn't be crucufied because singer Jesse Hasek sounds like Keenan. He probably grew up listening to him and there is a profusion of worse singers to emulate.
This is obviously a group who needs to break out of their tight formulaic three and four minute numbers but at the same time, there's nothing to hate here.
10 Years is a rare example of a modern hard rock band who won't bludgeon you to death with excessive volume and screaming. They focus well on tune and melody, pacing and mood.
They may be too tied down into modern song writing styles that wind up being predictable, but at least they do it well.
TAGS: music reviews

ILL NINO - ONE NATION UNDERGROUND (2005)

2006-04-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

ILL NINO

Title: One Nation Underground (2005)
Producer(s): Eddie Wohl; Dave Chavarri
Label: Roadrunner
Genre: Hard Rock
Length: 44:04

Ill Nino are a hard rock / heavy metal band that have been plugging away for six years and three full-length albums now. Their habit of dramatically changing pace during or between songs make them difficult to pigeonhole into a particular genre, as some will argue they fall in metal, and others disagree.
In particular, on One Nation Underground, the group comes out swinging extremely hard on This Is War and My Resurrection, playing with such speed, ferocity and precision that it seems almost impossible for a group of humans to play with such control at such a pace. While the band proves they can compete with the hardest of speed and thrash metal acts, it never downgrades into complete noise; the members are always in frightening control of their instruments.
Elsewhere, as on What You Deserve, Ill Nino mesh the group's two distinct styles. One is super aggressive with political and social overtones layered upon furious speed metal and the other is toned down, allowing clear vocals and a latin influence to seep through. Ill Nino is a band that manages to transcend the cultural influences that exist throughout the album. You don't have to be latin to appreciate and enjoy it.
On the more alt-rock radio friendly numbers like All I Ask For and My Pleasant Torture, the group show an ability to create a gorgeous chorus while still retaining a heavy sound. These are musicians that can display their mastery no matter what speed they play at.
De La Vida and In This Moment clearly show off the band's latin roots through great bilingual singing and occasional breaks into lighter, congo-styled drumming and flamenco guitars.
Everything Beautiful stomps along until it swoops up into a lovely chorus and Corazon of Mine displays a talent for crafting some fantastically unique sounds, thrown at the listener via a wall of sound that at times appears to have no holes.
This is a band who obviously have all the skills they require to achieve anything they want. Their paranoid-aggressive stylings paired with some positive messages about not conforming and staying true to one's self show that despite immense talent, these guys are more than content to stay underground where they can let their creativity and not their sales, guide their future.
TAGS: music reviews

FAKTION - FAKTION (2006)

2006-04-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

FAKTION

Title: Faktion (2006)
Producer(s): Justin Thomas, Brett Hestla
Label: Roadrunner
Genre: Alternative / Hard Rock
Length: 47:45

If you believe what people in the hard rock trenches are saying these days and you haven't heard of Faktion yet, you will, sooner or later.
Coming out of the Dallas, Texas area, Faktion play a very straightforward blend of hard rock with instruments tuned so low, they're almost orgasmic. Sounding like a mix of a good dozen modern acts (the energy of Linkin Park, the raw and scraping vocals of Filter and the power-punch of Sevendust to name a few) the band come out of the blender with very slight hints of familiarity and yet sound exactly like no one at all. Most surprising is that the group is able to maintain a unique sound and style despite having nearly nothing to their sound that makes them clearly stand out from the crowd.
Faktion also can't be accused of creating an album where all the songs sound the same however. While the music is often intensely heavy, the vocal and lyrical delivery don't always match up with the mood of the instruments.
Singer Ryan Gibbs has penned most of the songs as sad love tales with an aggressive sonic backing, although that's not to say that it sounds like Chris Martin has replaced James Hetfield in Metallica's line-up.
Gibbs''s vocal delivery works well with the band but the lyrical themes on such tracks as Six O'Clock and Who Am I? seem to warrant a more cohesive effort out of the group. Staind immediately comes to mind, as Aaron Lewis's group seems much more capable of altering the pace of the music to fit the mood, whereas the backing members of Gibbs's Faktion seem intent on beating the crap out of their instruments regardless as to what Dutton's singing about.
There are several quieter moments however, as in Letting You Go, a track that's instantly recognizable as a nostalgic number that could very well be 2006's high school prom song everywhere. Distance employs a repetitive military-like drum pattern in the background and crying strings that make the track sound like a funeral, and not a depressing one either.
The best efforts on the album are the ones where Gibbs gives up trying to be rock's King of sad, jilted lost-love tales and instead decides to rock hard with the rest of his band and thankfully, there are a good number of these tracks. The best examples exist in Maybe and Answers, two songs that keep up an energetic pace with amazing power, mood, soaring choruses, flashy guitar-work and bass so deep they should hand out ear plugs at the door of their live concerts.
Faktion is different, but not so much so that they've reinvented the wheel. They're a solid band with a cult following that will no doubt spread like a virus in the near future.
TAGS: music reviews

NIGHTMARES ON WAX - IN A SPACE OUTTA SOUND (2006)

2006-04-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

NIGHTMARES ON WAX

Titles: In A Space Outta Sound (2006)
Producer(s): Evelyn George
Label: Warp
Genre: Electronic
Length: 63:03

On In A Space Outta Sound, George Evelyn tries to get his Nightmares on Wax outfit back to happier times after a couple missteps in his recent ambient dub excursions.
This fifth album gets back to the basics with groovy mid-tempo beats and influences and stylistic references that switch regularly but do so with a unique artistic vision.
While many of the beats Evelyn employs sound like they were plucked out of George Clinton's 30-year-old sound library there is enough variety and risk-taking that one can forgive him for smacking us with an overabundance of so much 70s funk and electric organs.
Both Passion and Sweetest sound like chilled out disco efforts with sultry singers and a sexy vibe. Many of the tracks here are very suitable for a lounge environment or background music for a laidback party. There are few songs that will grab you by the ears and make you pay attention, even though Evelyn displays a clear knack for smart song structure and melody, he does so delicately. Tracks like You Wish and African Pirates are so blunted in dub that they become overly repetitive without much aim or direction, like music stuck in quicksand.
Some cultural influences show up in Flip Ya Lid, a track with a great reggae/dub vibe overlapped with handclaps and great singing. Damn features a smooth snake-charming melody fused with interweaving beats and interesting vocals.
Evelyn even tries his hand at chopped-up Acid Jazz mixed with a heavy organic-sounding stand-up bass, horns and broken beats on Pudpots and the full-blown Look At Me, that sounds like he made use of a 30-man ensemble that pack the track full of soul, with lulls and explosions in all the right places.
In A Space Outta Sound isn't a true return to form for Nightmares on Wax. Evelyn is too smart to fully regurgitate music that he's already made. At the same time, this isn't a record that hordes of people will be rushing to buy like they did on 1999's Carboot Soul.
It's a tad too inconsistent and the shift in styles is slightly jarring, preventing a smooth track-to-track transition. The tracks that are good, aren't phenomenal but, at least it shows us that there's still a reason to have faith that the next Nightmares album will be great.
TAGS: music reviews

SCARY MOVIE 4 (2006)

2006-04-18T09:43:00.000-04:00

SCARY MOVIE 4

Title: Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Director: David Zucker
Cast: Craig Bierko, Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Anthony Anderson
Length: 83 mins.

Anyone who's seen one of the previous three instalments in this franchise already knows what to expect. It's a ridiculously silly send up on all of the recent horror films to make their way to theatres.
What audiences may not have known was that the first two films were done by the Wayans brothers, and the third and fourth were taken over by David Zucker and his Naked Gun crew. To be fair, the differences between the films were subtle but while the Wayans could do their stupid humor in a hip fashion that better resonates with what today's younger set would laugh at, Zucker and company do theirs in a manner that's utterly stupid and nothing but, and only rise above their predecessors by getting a few notable guest appearances.
The movie's intro, centered on Dr. Phil and basketball's Shaq is a great way to start the film off, as references are made to both Dr. Phil's high profile job and Shaq's inability to shoot free throws in a Saw setting.
Other films ripped into parody include Spielberg's War of the Worlds and the special effects are surprisingly spot on with Tr-Ipods that look as good as the real thing. The Village turns up with a terribly dull Bill Pullman, although Carmen Electra's appearance has the audience shrieking in delight and squirming in horror in a foul scene that runs on for such a length that it really tests the limits of bad humor. Anna Faris's role centers around a loose copy of The Grudge, although it interweaves amongst the other storylines and makes its way into Saw and Million Dollar Baby too. References to Brokeback Mountain are groan-worthy, if only because the joke has long since faded from being fashionable.
Newcomer to the series, Craig Bierko does a good job mimicking Tom Cruise, especially in the couch-jumping Oprah segment to close out the film.
Leslie Nielsen makes an appearance as the President in a spoof that brilliantly mocks Bush's reaction to 911 but otherwise plays out like an homage to Nielsen's fading star.
Most of the gags are either people getting smacked around, gross-out gags or sexual in nature, although slightly tamer than the stuff the Wayans threw at us. In short, it's not much different than any other Naked Gun or Airplane! movie we've ever seen.
Still, audiences love it, showing that there's an obvious need for lightweight, lowbrow comedies like this, no matter how uninspired they may be.
If you need a laugh, you'll get quite a few here, but nothing that will leave you rolling in the aisles.
TAGS: movie reviews

ALTER BRIDGE - ONE DAY REMAINS (2005)

2006-04-18T08:33:00.000-04:00

ALTER BRIDGE

Title: One Day Remains (2005)
Producer(s): Ben Grosse
Label: Wind-Up
Genre: Alternative
Length: 55:23

It is an inevitable reality that Alter Bridge will be compared to Creed since the group's three former members got a new singer and formed a new group after Scott Stapp decided to pursue a solo career. In truth, there are many similarities between the bands as the power chords and sky-reaching choruses all will sound familiar to Creed fans. Even new singer Myles Kennedy isn't far off the mark from Stapp's own stylings. He's a deep and husky throated singer with perhaps more upward range than Stapp ever displayed.
Most of the songs here are very heavy and very cleanly polished and produced. Positive themes are found throughout each track but fortunately we're spared from much of the overtly religious messages thrust to the forefront of Creed's music.
Some tracks like Metalingus are more artistically delivered than the formulaic radio hits that Creed constantly cranked out, with great guitars, pummelling drums, thunderous bass and a chorus that really works for your attention.
Tracks like Watch Your Words and One Day Remains are fast-paced, frenzied tracks with rumbling drums and bass.
Other songs, like Open Your Eyes and Down to My Last are crafted like the band is playing on a mountaintop, their majestic transmission being carried by the wind across a vast stretch of land.
The album seems to have been so meticulously produced that it is flawless in its execution. There is no misstep, no note out of tune, and no pop or hiss between the solid, perfect sounds. It is a very sterile studio recording and almost too perfect for a world that fell in love with the flawed perfection of bands like Nirvana.
It does work as an impressive piece of art however. These are all master musicians and as the epic Burn It Down shows, the band should be playing to massive stadium crowds who will delight in the mammoth instrumentation on display in each song.
So while Stapp is out trying to plug a horribly bland solo album and in turn, trying to keep his partying antics out of the tabloids, Alter Bridge has been turning heads with a very solid album that tells us all that the talent behind Creed was hardly Stapp at all.
TAGS: music reviews

LACUNA COIL - KARMACODE (2006)

2006-04-11T15:33:00.000-04:00

LACUNA COIL

Title: Karmacode (2006)
Producer(s): Waldemar Sorychta
Label: Century Media
Genre: Metal / Alternative
Length: 47:28

Heavy Metal critics and fans have been trying to get people to listen to Lacuna Coil over the last few years, dubbing them as metal's next big thing. Rolling Stone called them the "band to watch".
The hype comes in part because the band hails from Italy and word has travelled slowly about the skill of the band, mostly because of geographical reasons. Part gothic-sounding, part old-school European metal, it hasn't hurt the group to have a gorgeous lead singer in Cristina Scabbia who can also carry an impressive tune. Revolver Magazine's March issue had Scabbia featured on the cover for a report on the "Hottest Chicks in Metal", something Scabbia would rather not talk about. Instead, she believes the band's success has been because of the music first and foremost.
Cristina is also quick to point out that the band's recent North American tours have greatly influenced the new album. She claims that the group has blended the American metal sounds with their more traditional European flavour of theatrical metal including strings, atmospherics compared to the relatively straight up hard rock stylings of today's American metal superstars.
Fragile leads things off with a massive thumping bassline and Scabbia's trance-like rhythmic crooning. The dual-pronged sonic assault is still in evidence as Scabbia shares the vocal duties on some tracks with Andrea Ferro and it sounds a bit better than it ever did before. Ferro's singing on previous albums often sounded like too much of a throwback to styles of music no longer popular in North America, but here on Fragile, he's wise to take on a lessened role and let Scabbia's soaring vocals work their magic. The track is definitely more straightforward in its assault and it's a move that should please North American audiences and still keep the long-time European Lacuna Coil fans happy as well.
To the Edge lacks the more pop-like melody found in Evanescence's music and aside from the power of the two singer's voices, it clearly shows the difference between the groups. Lacuna Coil takes a heavier approach to their music than Evanescence normally does although it does slightly obscure their message.
Our Truth has a great atmospheric introduction with Scabbia's impressive vocal acrobatics layered overtop. Her choruses really soar and the band does a good job of backing her up with some very sound playing.
Within Me is very stripped down, and lovingly so. It's not acoustic apart from some of the guitar-work but it's played so delicately that it's surprising that the loud drumming doesn't overwhelm the listener.
Devoted is another example of the band blending thick, hard riffs with some eerie theatrical moods and layered vocals. The group has thus far followed a general theme of deciphering how spirituality fits into today's world, but the message gets somewhat convoluted by the onslaught of pounding instruments and enveloping darkness but Scabbia sings like the Queen of Darkness surrounded by hideous creatures of the night.
What I See employs a thick, vibrating bass that rivals the kind of intestine-shaking sounds normally only heard from Korn. The group seem to sacrifice a lot of melody for their mood and it's one of the only weaknesses in Lacuna Coil's music. While they've become louder, faster and more aggressive - mostly likely thanks to the influence of their American counterparts - they still haven't managed to elevate their music above the technical prowess and mood-setting stature we've seen in ample quantity since they first started. Writing lyrics that will stick in your head and make you think is a task seemingly lost on this band.
They've proven themselves capable of standing up to America's hardest acts beat for beat. Every musician in the band plays with a ferocity that will make the group an easy favorite at this years Ozzfest. They won't however, achieve much radio or video success melody. The only kinds of songs that make it to be big singles are the ones that you whistle to long after they've stopped playing. The tracks on Karmacode will keep you entertained while it's playing, but will leave you once it stops rotating.
Critics say the album-closing Depeche Mode cover of Enjoy the Silence is an unnecessary gimmick. They may be right, as the group could have chosen a more obscure song from an extensive catalogue and tweaked it around. For the most part, Enjoy the Silence is a faithful remake, only pumped up and played louder and harder.
Lacuna Coil isn't a band to watch. They've been producing the same likeable music since the start, and while it's all quality stuff, the group seems incapable of building upon an already solid base.
TAGS: music reviews

NITIN SAWHNEY - PHILTRE (2005)

2006-04-05T15:33:00.000-04:00

NITIN SAWHNEY

Title: Philtre (2005)
Producer(s): Nitin Sawhney
Label: V2
Genre: Electronica/ Fusion
Length: 57:18

Sawhney is one of the luminous examples of the divide in music that exists on either side of the Atlantic ocean.
North Americans welcome the larger European artists (Coldplay, U2, Bjork, Radiohead, Depeche Mode) as if they were our own but the depth of knowledge in the West when it comes to European music acts often doesn't delve much deeper than the big names. North American record labels push North American artists in this part of the world, and their European counterparts work much the same way in their land.
Sawhney's personal background had him facing an amount of racial bias that wound up working its way through his music. He's had the opportunity to work on various television and film soundtracks on top of his solo efforts and much of it is drenched with political overtones, concentrating on cultural issues through the fusing of various styles of Asian and European music as well as spreading light on such themes as self-empowerment, poverty and spirituality.
Available mostly as an import outside of Europe, Philtre is Sawhney's sixth full-length solo release in the previous 11 years and it stands up as one of his strongest in a very impressive discography.
The album starts out with Everything, a slow-burning track with a vibe suitable for a sexy lounge. Slightly disjointed beats groove along underneath a very smooth vocal.
Spark sounds like a softly sung love song swept over the ocean by a gentle breeze, along with whispered voices, a mellow drum beat and light as air, acoustic guitar strumming. Sawhney manages to make an awe-inspiring track without raising the sound level over a whisper.
Dead Man somehow manages to fuse a line-dancing country theme with harmonica, strange lyrics and traditional Asian elements all together. In other words, he's done the unthinkable, and he pulls it off without a hitch.
Mausam incorporates many Indian musical elements but the mellow energy Sawhney blends into the track greatly lifts the track above and beyond any usual Bollywood fare that an outsider would associate with most Indian music. Guest vocalists Bhardwaj with Murtaza Khan do a fantastic job of further morphing the song into a very divine trip-hop meets India effort.
Journey brings things back to a dark and seductive bar atmosphere, with lush pianos, very earthy bass plucking and vocals that somehow manage to eschew throaty and effortless tonal ranges at the same time. Sawhney here shows his masterful ability to infuse a track with mood through unhurried pacing. He allows extended moments in the track to play out like one would in breathing in the air and then lifts the whole effort back up into a more energetic level towards the end.
Both parts of Noches En Vela are greatly Spanish in nature. The first is very minimal, with little present apart from the vocals. In the second half, various instruments including a Spanish guitar and funky beats are introduced one by one. It's a fascinating listen to hear what sounds like a traditional Spanish sound interspersed with a bassline so deep that at times sounds like it could tear apart the ground.
Throw is another example of Sawhney tackling a very formulaic genre source - here it's R 'n B - and coming out of it with a true artist's perspective. While all the elements are there, a groove worthy of a fantastic lay and very smooth vocals, it's somehow off. And that's why it works, because It’s different. The vocals clearly run the listener through a linear tale of a man who drowns himself in booze. It's a sad tale done with a happy vibe and like just about every single song Sawhney has ever composed, it's got so many different levels to it that repeated listens will give the listener something new each and every time.
The rest of the album runs back through themes already heard elsewhere on the album albeit done in ever-present new lights.
The dramatic changes in styles of each song throughout the album is the only possible detriment to the quality of music here. Being known as a composer with a great variety of musical influences and tremendous skill in each means that it's expected of Sawhney to surprise his listeners. He does this well, but he also does so with the harmony and flow of the album at risk.
Every single track on the album is a wonderful work of art by a man who could probably make a masterpiece with nails on chalkboard and it’s an absolute shame that more people west of the Atlantic aren't aware of it.
TAGS: music reviews

ELIZABETHTOWN (2005)

2006-04-02T23:06:00.000-04:00

ELIZABETHTOWN

Title: ELIZABETHTOWN (2005)
Cast: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Jessica Biel
Length: 123 mins.

Admittedly rented as a chick-flick fix for another Saturday night spent alone, this quirky little movie surprised me. I am a fan of neither Bloom nor Dunst, and so wasn't expecting anything more than mind numbing prettily ribboned romance with a twist two-thirds of the way through and a happily-ever-after ending!

It was those things, but it was a little bit more as well.
The opening sequence introduces the viewer to Drew Baylor - not a failure at what he does, but a FIASCO. And as he very eloquently explains, there is a difference between the two! He's not a lovable character. I felt no connection to him - feeling almost removed from his life and his existence. There was something though that kept me watching. Like watching a child kick a ball against a wall - I knew that there shouldn't be anything there to hold my interest, and yet there was some quality of something surreal to it.

We walk with Baylor as he flies cross-country to finalize funeral arrangements for his recently deceased father - in the process, coming to terms with his family, his fathers roots, and who that, by extension, makes him.

On a flight to Kentucky he meets a quirky stewardess - Dunst - who albeit annoying as all hell, treats him with mile-high southern hospitality! Claire Colburn (Dunst) befriends our insipid hero and together they garnered my empathy at being "the substitute people" - never anybodies number one choice. I think this is the point in the movie that made me stop pointing and laughing, and actually made me pay attention. Who amongst us hasn't, at one point or another, felt like a substitute? The last one picked for a team, the runt of the pack, the second choice, the last resort? The director (Crowe) forced me to identify with these two flavourless human beings with that one line alone.

OH! I can't forget to mention the fan-freaking-tastic soundtrack! The one thing that did keep me awake during the first half of this feature film was the superb music that was laced through. In fact, I believe a CD purchase is in the offing for yours truly! Marrying work by personal favourites such as Ryan Adams, Wheat and Eastmountainsouth, with timeless artists such as Tom Petty and Elton John, the soundtrack is perfect for a solitary road trip!

The remainder of the movie is quirky. Clippy almost - as if, the entire length of it was much longer than a hundred and twenty three minutes, and was then clipped to fit the two-hour pre-destined slot. It's jumpy and many of the scenarios are improbable. Although, in hindsight, it is this quirky juxtaposing of improbable comedy against the background of attending to the almost-morbid finalities of a loved ones death, that made this movie worth any of my time.

Actually, there was something else that piqued my interest - the random cameos by big names who delivered some fairly ridiculous one-liners! For instance, a rather aged looking Alec Baldwin saying, "Nine hundred and seventy two million. You could just round that out to a billion." Or the timeless Bruce McGill saying with a stoically straight face, "Is there such a thing as partial cremation?"

Anyway, bottom line, Elizabethtown...pick or pass? If there really is nothing else to do in your town, and the local Blockbuster is out of almost every other movie, then you should watch it! I kid. Slightly. It's got a surprising message, a quirky cast, a great soundtrack and almost a hundred minutes of wondering why you didn't rent Just Like Heaven! ;-)

BT - EMOTIONAL TECHNOLOGY (2003)

2006-03-28T12:53:00.000-05:00

BT

Title: Emotional Technology (2003)
Producer(s): BT
Label: Nettwerk
Genre: Electronica / Alternative
Length: 78:24

Brian Transeau's claim to fame in the late 90s was in electronic music production and DJing. It was a scene that made little mainstream headway in North America, but Transeau managed to make regular appearances in the biggest European clubs and music magazines due to his ethereal brand of trance stompers that combined hysteria-inducing breakdowns and beautifully-voiced collaborative singers.
Dig a little deeper and you'll discover a near-genius composer who has played piano since the age of three. He's also composed a number of full film scores including last year's Stealth the score for Charlize Theron's Oscar award-winning role in 2003's Monster. His work in the latter received great critical acclaim for its understated melodies but failed to capture much success in sales.
Under the BT moniker, Emotional Technology was Transeau's fourth full-length album effort and further pushes his abilities and dislike for being pigeon-holed, into the spotlight.
Transeau has definitively stated in the past that he doesn't consider himself a DJ and his work has continued to show that he equally dislikes being seen as a trance-only artist.
Emotional Technology relies less on guest singers as Transeau tries out his own growing singing style on listeners on more and more of the tracks. He incorporates his guitar-playing into some songs and even steps out into hip-hop and sparse atmospheric and near acoustic numbers in spots.
Knowledge of Self starts out with BT's trademark crisp and punching breakbeats, maxed-out synthlines and overall grooviness rivalling The Crystal Method at their best. Other knob-noodling is clearly in evidence throughout the track and repetitive rapping is laid overtop with attitude, but without the overly aggressive stylings of today's North American rap tracks.
Transeau gets back into his more traditional dance outfit on Superfabulous, but the track is loaded with more electro goodness than usual and lacks some of the organic swashes he's used in the past. The slight hint of a fuzzed-out guitar through the chorus makes for an interesting element in a track that already has more than enough to keep listeners entertained. The lyrics may be a bit shallow but BT makes up for that slight blemish with enough energy to go around.
Somnambulist is the monster-killer on this album. It has a laid-back intro with a fantastic amount of electronics that in another example would distract and annoy listeners but here, it's clearly a case of a man who's a master at manipulating any sort of audible option available to him. Transeau has created a very pleasing electronic love song that one could easily dance to (in mind or body) in a variety of venues.
Force of Gravity has a very minimal, spacey introduction. It kicks in with a rather generic drumbeat and easily evokes memories of Transeau's early trance work with gentle verses and rising crescendos that cause dancefloors to go crazy. It wouldn't be out of place on his first album, Ima, but that's also why it feels a tad stale too.
Dark Heart Dawning has Transeau moving into a more traditional rock format with softly sung vocals, guitars and quiet atmospherics playing like the background of a space station saloon. It's a track that won't make many of BT's long-time fans ecstatic but it's a pleasant move for a musician who's expected to shake dancefloors. BT aims for the soul first on this number and he doesn't fall far from the mark, especially when things get significantly emotional towards the second half of the track and a backing choir rarely stops making a song seem more important than it is.
Transeau's penchant for angel-like guest singers hasn't disappeared completely though, as shown in The Great Escape. BT also isn't above tweaking things up a notch too, in allowing extended moments where it seems his instruments have gone mad, or by chopping up his singer's voice for effect. By anyone else, it would be near musical blasphemy, but Transeau rarely makes a misstep in his music. A single listen tells you how much detail and time goes into each song, regardless as to whether they work or not.
If Paris is named for the famed French city, it's done through feeling and not words. The beats here are all near unbelievably deep and thick, making one wonder if such sounds are even possible. JC Chasez's background ramblings are slightly off-putting and sound a little too much like what we heard on a previous BT effort, Madskillz. BT's foray into singing also hits a bit of a snag here too. While his voice is smooth and clear, the track reeks of a little too much self-indulgence and for once, his trademark habit of breaking apart songs with elongated breaks in pacing really affects the overall for this track. It's an old trick for elevating choruses that he relies on a little too much at this point.
Circles, thankfully rises above the kind of slight-of-hand movements we're used to by BT. He goes straight for the jugular here in a subdued but beautiful straight-forward track that literally swirls in an adorable manner, much like the cycles in life. It's a track that's very easy to enjoy.
The album closer, The Only Constant is Change, is a great example of how BT doesn't need to overload his audience with studio trickery to really wow them. It's a plain track with organic-sounding guitar and bass parts that moves along at a pace that will relax and soothe the listener.
Emotional Technology has some lulls in parts. Transeau unfortunately, no matter how much he tries to fight it, likely feels the pressure to cater to fans who have stuck by him over the last 10 years. It's because of this that we still get a handful of formulaic-sounding trance cuts. On the other hand, while he's clearly aiming to break ground with a new audience, he does still deliver a somewhat challenging album that require the kind of open thinking that the MTV generation just won't get.
But so long as he doesn't start collaborating with the likes of Brittany Spears, there is still plenty of evidence to support the belief that he'll be providing lots of brilliant material with gorgeous sounds and composition for a long time to come.
We should all count our blessings that a record label like Nettwerk still supports these kinds of artists.
TAGS: music reviews

ABANDONED POOLS - ARMED TO THE TEETH (2005)

2006-03-27T12:43:00.000-05:00

ABANDONED POOLS

Title: Armed to the Teeth (2005)
Producer(s): Gareth Jones
Label: Warner Bros
Genre: Alternative
Length: 53: 37

Tommy Walters has an impressive resume, starting with music early and continuing with it by teaching a classical composition class in university. From there, he formed Eels but soon left despite a promising future for the band. Creating Abandoned Pools, the group's initial pressings were largely ignored.
Employing original-sounding vocals and light, poppish instrumentals and a slight alternative edge, Armed to the Teeth aims for the less sombre and angry crowd in the alternative rock field.
In Lethal Killers, Walter's serious message about life and religion is paired with a live now mentality that results in a happy, foot-tapping tune.
In Rabble, Walter sings about a failed relationship and how he wish it could have gone. It has a good tempo with a light-hearted vibe and although it hardly pushes many musical boundaries, it's sonically sound with some interesting guitar sequences.
While the lyrical fare doesn't change much in The Catalyst, Walters definitely has a good handle on penning a story in his music and this track has a catchy chorus and a very pleasing mood to it along with some soaring instrumentation. While it feels repetitive and a tad too long towards the end, it's a highlight on the album.
Tighter Noose is a track about taking chances and believing in one's ability to succeed in difficult situations, although the message is delivered through various social metaphors and the song overall comes across as a somewhat sombre one, a hint of sadness delivered throughout.
Waiting to Panic is filled with frustration, the feeling a person experiences when faced with unending pressures. It's surprising that anyone can create such beautiful odes to such depressing themes but Walters pulls it off here with a good deal of class.
Armed to the Teeth has a great deal of lovely melodic structure to it, both in Walters singing and the instruments backing him up. He may not be the greatest singer on the planet but he has a decent range, despite staying in one tonal space for a great deal of time. It's the chorus that raises this song above the crop.
Renegade is one of the more experimental tracks on the album, with multiple tempo changes, crazy drum rolls, guitar squelches and an energetic chorus that's quite catchy. It's a track with the guts to change things up and it's a refreshing moment on the album.
Armed to the Teeth has the unfortunate happenstance of sounding almost Emo-ish in quality. Walters sings like an adolescent boy and some of the music is bubbly and immature sounding, but underneath, lies a musician with a considerable amount of skill and talent. It's shown clearly in spots but not entirely throughout, so listeners will be waiting for the next step in the evolution of this band.
TAGS: music reviews

Crash (2004)

2006-03-26T00:05:00.000-05:00

Directed by: Paul Haggis
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer
Esposito, Terrence Howard , Ludacris, Thandie Newton,
Ryan Phillippe
Running Time: 113 minutes

Two days in Los Angeles that see the lives of the characters cross and intertwine in surprising and often explosive ways. The theme here is prejudice and how our expectations of others can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Crash" won the Academy Award for 2005's Best Picture, and I think it was well deserved. The characters in this film are not caricatures of the people they represent, they are individuals, flesh and blood and complexity and contradiction. At times you find yourself liking the bad guy and hating the "victim."

But the truth here is that they are all victims. Victims of their birth, victims of society, victims of their own beliefs. The stereotypes here abound: rich white bitch, black hoodlum, racist cop, industrious Pakistani. But they are tempered with characters that veer from what we're used to: a cop with a junkie mother, a young, gentle Mexican father trying to give his little girl a better life. But all the characters are more than cardboard cutouts; they are whole, nuanced human beings, three-dimensional people who have more beneath the surface than you can see with a passing glance.

And that, in essence, is what this story is all about. The tagline reads, "You think you know who you are. You have no idea." And this movie does a excellent job of carrying that theme to a conclusion that is appropriately surprising, yet highly satisfying.

See this movie. You won't regret it.

ULTRAVIOLET (2006)

2006-03-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

ULTRAVIOLET

Title: ULTRAVIOLET (2006)
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, William Fichtner
Length: 88 mins.

Milla Jovovich seems to have found her niche. Cold, robotic-like characters in a supernatural setting like in The Fifth Element or the two Resident Evil movies have either made a regular match for her or her directors.
I’ll admit I’m not a fan of actors getting typecast by choice or accident. Even Schwarzenegger had the common sense to know when too much was really too much.
It may be that Jovovich simply doesn’t have the acting chops to go outside of these kinds of films however, seeing as her previous, and still occasional, career consisted of putting on outfits and making serious faces, her role in Ultraviolet - and the aforementioned flicks - isn’t a large stretch from what she’s used to doing to make sure that she’s got a regular supply of funds to keep up her necessity of toilet paper or Jaguars, whatever the case may be.
Sony Pictures apparently didn’t learn much from the release of Æon Flux, starring the much more capable Charlize Theron. Both films have failed to do much damage in a fledgling box office take and it’s probably not much of a stretch to suggest that part of that lies in the fact that both films, while visually appealing, loud and fast with cutting edge special effects, were based on characters and stories largely outside the general periphery of the mass public and featured convoluted storylines that wound up depressing an audience that probably paid their money to be entertained, not swamped with plots that are trying to be smarter than they need be.
Young and older kids-at-heart don’t need overly complicated storylines to enjoy a film. The makers of the Conan films knew that, as did the people who made The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. The Wachowski brothers got too big for their britches when it came to The Matrix. We were pleased by the simple twist in a visually innovative first film and subsequently let down by each sequel because too many "I’m smarter than you" tricks were dumped onto our laps to finish the trilogy off.
Movie audiences, like those with novels or any other art form, are a fickle bunch. We like being tricked, we like mysteries and we love being surprised. What we don’t like is being shown something that implies that we’re not as smart as we are. No one likes being talked down to. Give us some respect, and you’ll have ours in return.
I’ll start off with the positives in Ultraviolet, and then I’ll get to the plentitudes of problems with this film.
First off, Ultraviolet is visually stunning. The first 30-minutes or so of the film are jarring, with non-stop action sequences clearly defined for a big screen with big sound. Jovovich takes on 10, 20 or 30 men at a time and defeats them all through very clever feats of hand and foot, twirling and whirling and taking down opponents with kicks and punches, swords and guns. The body count in this film likely rivals anything Schwarzenegger has done.
The filmography is all shot in a pleasing, artistic manner in which colors are highlighted in a very simplistic but graceful manner. Jovovich often wears a black and white outfit that automatically changes colors seemingly at will, her jacket, sunglass or hair shade changing hue due to what seems like her mood fluctuations.
Ultra-fast techno music is played overtop, enhancing the action.
Unlike what was shown in her other films of late, Jovovich is actually given the opportunity to employ some emotion. She’s a stone-cold killer, no doubt, but we’re also provided an answer as to why that is and we see the human side of her character, even though she’s not human.
The film falls apart because of the plot. It’s a tale about futuristic vampires, in an age-old story about the war between humans and vampires but there’s nothing traditional about this vampire story. We see the odd glimpse of razor-like teeth, but there’s no blood-sucking and there’s nothing gothic in this tale like we saw used in the satisfactory updates in Blade and Underworld. There’s nothing in fact, which necessitates the use of the vampire mythology in this movie whatsoever.
The producers behind the film also make the mistake of keeping the viewers in the dark for far longer than they need to, and by the time we’re finally given some answers, we’re groaning with the absurdity of it all. It’s not clever, and it doesn’t elicit the goodwill of the audience.
To top it off, we’re supplied with an absolutely terrible delivery of one-liners that are neither cool nor funny. When the lead baddie exclaims, "It’s on," and jumps into the fight, audiences have no doubt already struggled with getting their eyes out of rolling into the back of their heads.
Ultraviolet is clearly a film whose strengths lie in its simplicity. It has good action, good visuals and a lack of a decent plot. That in itself is often enough to make a certain audience relatively happy, but the problem is when a film tries to be more than what it is with complicated plot twists that enrage the viewers due to clumsy execution, it brings down the entire production.
Ultraviolet didn’t need to be smart, but we didn’t want it to be stupid either.
TAGS: movie reviews

JAMES FREY - A MILLION LITTLE PIECES (2003)

2006-03-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

James Frey

Title: A Million Little Pieces
Author: James Frey
Publisher: Random House
Genre: Fictionalized Memoir
Year: 2003

Wow.

Just wow.

I just finished this morning and I can't stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop being in awe of the human mind. The human body. The resilience of the human soul.

So I have to admit that I picked up this book because of all the Oprah-created hype! If you haven't heard (I understand that living under a rock is very chic these days), Oprah picked this book for her book club back in September 2005 - it was published as a memoir detailing Frey's time in a drug rehab centre. Through some fancy Smoking Gun investigation, Oprah learned that there were embellishments in the book - this made her feel "embarrassed and disappointed," so she brought Frey back on the show and made sure he repented for his taking-the-truth-for-granted ways! (God forbid anyone should embarrass or disappoint Oprah - if only she had kids!)

Anyway...I knew that the book was an embellishment of real events before I began reading it, so I walked into it not expecting much - just a story. Can I say though, that if the child in that book went through even one-tenth of what he says he went through, then he's got my sympathy. I say "child" because the James Frey in the book is hurting - not just physically from years and years of substance abuse and addiction, but more so mentally and emotionally. I may not be a "drug addict, and an alcoholic, and a criminal" but I can empathize with his Fury - his unreasonable anger at his parents, his refusal to follow the program set out by AA - because I believe him when he says that substance abuse is a choice - even in addiction, one chooses to abuse...And I know that were I to be addicted to something, no Higher Power or 12 Step Program would redeem me - it would have to be all me.
And I can respect that in him.

What struck me in the first few pages of this book is the usage of quotation marks; more accurately, the lack of quotation marks! It is more than slightly confusing to read, and know who's saying what and when, when there is not marker of the opening and closing of speech stream. But I got used to is and actually appreciated it after a while.
Another quirk that jumps out at me, is Frey's transformation of random nouns into proper nouns! There is no rhyme, reason, or patter to the Capitalization...It aggravated me for the better part of the book...But by the end I gave up - chalking down the quirk to poetic license.

Frey repeats a whole lot too. Little phrases, over and over and over!He is fond of conjunctions and often strings a whole list of things together with and!
It can get irritating. However, for the most part, I find it adds poignancy to the book - stressing what he's feeling.
From my comprehension of this novel, it isn't supposed to be a narrative of events - because if it were meant to be that, it is a long and drawn out one. I understand this book as a jotting down of the thoughts that ran through Frey's fucked up mind. As someone who is fascinated with the human mind, I found it thrilling to be allowed into the corners of his dark mind - being afforded a gander into a place that I can never normally access.

It's a quick read; and although its content is fairly heavy, it flows and ebbs with an ease that doesn't make reading it a chore.
Do I think the events are true? Are they real?
Frankly, I don't really give a damn.
Do I recommend the book?
Without a doubt.

V FOR VENDETTA (2006)

2006-03-20T12:13:00.000-05:00

V FOR VENDETTA

Director: James McTeigue
Cast: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt
Length: 132 mins.

As a post 9-11 film, V for Vendetta has lofty ambitions when it comes to getting audiences to think about political and personal opinions that cause divisions between people and nations.
There are a number of reasons why the film fails to live up to expectations.
First it's an adaptation of a graphic novel by the legendary Alan Moore, who in a collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez, successfully helped bring his Sin City work to life on the big screen. Moore however, was disappointed with the conversion of Vendetta to film, so much so that he vowed to stop it from getting made.
So while Moore's name won't bring much fanfare to the picture due to his disassociation with it, the production company is making sure the press know that the Wachowski brothers are associated with their film, and it's their first work since the conclusion of The Matrix trilogy. The problem with this move is that fans familiar with the groundbreaking special effects in the Matrix films will likely expect much of the same in Vendetta even though the brothers only wrote the script and did not direct. Previews suggest the same as we see a mysterious masked vigilante with knives and bombs seemingly wrecking havoc on an entire city in the name of his own personal justice.
So let's make one thing clear. Aside from one scene in which the anti-hero takes down eight or so opponents in a slow motion action sequence that's supposed to take only a few seconds to complete, there are very few fight scenes, little action and certainly nothing of the kind that people will call a momentous event for action sequences, as happened in the first Matrix film.
The brothers did bring in The Matrix's Agent Smith for the film, enlisting Hugo Weaving for the role of the masked vigilante "V" and truthfully, through much of the film, it appears that he enjoys talking more than fighting. Never without the mask throughout the film, Weaving does a very great job of portraying humor and emotion through the mask and his voice is majestic in its quality of enunciation.
It takes a little bit of time to get used to Natalie Portman as the British-tongued Evey and at first it's a tough sale. The brilliance in Portman's accent however, is that unlike other Americans who have done it (Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow), her's is soft and delicately employed, unlike some of her peers who speak as though they're trying out for a Monty Python skit. Portman goes through her role deftly, showing fear, curiosity and crying all perfectly on cue and although she has a large role in the film, it feels as though she has little to work with.
Portman's character is initially saved by V and his purpose and drive are slowly revealed to both Evey and the audience through a series of events and memories. This is a film which attempts to employ various different scenes that otherwise would create shock and strong emotions from the viewers. People experience pain and loss but it's difficult for audience to resonate with it because the script fails to bring us in on an emotional level. V for Vendetta, like much of The Matrix, is cold and sterile and much of it is unintentionally comedic, like a group of senior citizens getting roused to action because of a Benny Hill-like skit on television mocking their dictatorial leader.
The strength in the film however is in it's message. While it's set in the near future where Britain is controlled by fascist leaders, some of its heavy-handed messages are clearly aimed at the politics of today. It brilliantly turns our own modern labels on its head with a protagonist who is referred to as a terrorist. This is a terrorist who kills and exacts revenge on those who have erred and the story is clearly designed so that the audience cheers for him.
There are moments in the film that mean to reflect the world's current grappling of homosexual issues, there are corrupt governments who endanger their citizens for increased wealth and power and there is imagery which clearly depicts the torture and cruelty we have already seen in the wars of our past and present.
There is perhaps too much heaved onto the laps of the audience, in that it feels like a mid-school morality lesson.
The biggest issue with the film is that because it definitely has a strong message to deliver, it does so in very ambiguous means. Although the hero kills without much mercy, he is clearly written and directed as our hero. The government are the baddies and although there are some in that government who express remorse and regret, it is a very black and white, cut and dried chess board with each side clearly defined.
The real world is usually not so easy to categorize although governments would often have us believe it is. There are good and bad governments and various shades in-between but there are not good and bad nations of people. In a film that asks us to question ourselves, our governments and the people we fight against and why, the story shouldn't be about good versus evil. V is not Batman, he has no moral dilemmas and perhaps we shouldn't sympathize with him as much as the film makes us.
V for Vendetta is not a film that will leave your mouth agape due to its special effects wizardry and neither will it change the world because of the moral messages it contains.
On the other hand, it doesn't deserve the backhanded swipes that Moore has levelled upon it and it will, at its most base level, make its audience think a little about the evil we do in the guise of good intentions.
TAGS: movie reviews

BRIAN ENO - ANOTHER DAY ON EARTH (2005)

2006-03-15T14:03:00.000-05:00

Brian Eno

Title: Another Day on Earth (2005)
Producer(s): Brian Eno
Label: Hannibal
Genre: Ambient
Length: 47:16

Over 30 years ago Brian Eno pioneered the mainstream introduction of ambient music with a staggering number of albums released in short order that focussed less on conventional song writing formulas and more on the place and function of sounds and their effects on the listener.
Somewhere along the way, Eno transformed into an odd kind of rock star, although he still did things in his own strange maverick way and oddly enough by the early 90s, when electronic music finally became commercially successful on a large scale, Eno started producing massive albums by the likes of U2 while putting out collaborative albums with other artists that the world hardly knew existed.
Another Day on Earth actually sounds like Eno has consciously decided to return to his routes, when he was working with tape loops and revolutionizing music itself. It's more of a sonic return than a revolutionary one. Another Green Day sounds partly dated in its sparse and spacey effort but Eno fans will close their eyes and smile with joy at what the CD holds for them.
The track This, contains Eno's familiar vocals, repetitively using intonation and sound more than lyrics while drums and distorted tambourine-like instruments swirl around him like a child's imaginative world brought to life.
And Then So Clear is as quiet as a night in a remote rural field but there is a gradual build to it that requires one's attention. It's a very minimal song that really merits paying close attention to, subtle sounds are all beautifully created to perfection and the softly sung vocals flow nicely atop gentle keyboards and wind-like swashes of sounds.
A Long Way Down goes even more minimal, like Pink Floyd at their calmest, with a soothing clock ticking and waves of nothingness washing over all.
Going Unconscious sounds like a magical overnight experience in an oriental land and it's perhaps a little play on words because the music here seems to better imply that one is settling down into a comfortable sleep than anything else.
On Caught Between, Eno sounds like he's literally travelled back in time and started using his tape loops again. The loops seem to be cut somewhat awkwardly but the rhythmic patterns in the music sound very much like a lullaby, as is often the case in a music genre that Eno himself legitimized through repeated efforts.
Passing over chugs along like a slow locomotive engine on tracks that run through the mountainside. Echoed sounds, distant piano keys and electronics that seem to have a life of their own sway back and forth with a slightly menacing and ominous digital voice saying what appears to be dire warnings for the listener.
How Many Worlds sounds like Sgt. Pepper era Beatles nonsense until Eno kicks in the most gorgeous strings ever heard and the entire track plays out like a love song written to the Earth itself.
Just Another Day has an amazingly deep interweaving synth line combined with Eno's emotionless singing . And while Eno does often sound robotic in his verses, he adds the missing emotion through sounds that creep up slowly on the listener and eventually swarm over one's body, enveloping it in life through sound.
Like much of Eno's solo work, Another Day on Earth will be a hard sell for many people. It has such a relaxed and calm tempo to it that some listeners will have to fight against falling into a coma when listening to it. Others who have a penchant for seeking out experimental music that takes conventional song structures and tears them to pieces, will enjoy the lack of rules found in this album. It also has much in terms of offering the listener brilliant little nuggets of strange new sounds that will please the ear and soothe the soul.
Brian Eno's solo strengths have never been writing lyrics or creating consumer-ready sensations, U2 efforts aside.
30 years on, he's not exactly pushing the boundaries of music and sound any longer so much as he's mastering the genre that he created.
TAGS: music reviews

TELEPOPMUSIK - ANGEL MILK (2005)

2006-03-02T12:42:00.000-05:00

TELEPOPMUSIK

Title: Angel Milk (2005)
Producer(s): Fabrice Dumount, Stephan Haeri, Christophe Hetier
Label: Capitol
Genre: Electronic
Length: 68:03

There was an interesting backlash against Telepopmusik following the release of their first album, Genetic World. While the album met with moderate success for an electronic act immediately following the release, it wasn't until a few years later that interest in the group really took, thanks almost entirely to a funky car commercial using their track, Breathe.
Hordes of people promptly went out to find out the producer of said track and purchased the album, only to find that it was the only song of its type on the printing. The rest of the album was filled out with sparse electro-noodling that probably sounded a lot like a decade old pinball machine whirring away in some dark, grungy arcade in Paris.
Three years later, the French trio decided to try and silence the amateur critics with Angel Milk, and although a large number of music fans aren't likely to give the band another chance after tricking them out of their money last time, it is the fans that will miss out on something good here.
Don’t Look Back will immediately please those looking for another Breathe. Echoed beats overlapped with a lovely female vocalist makes for a dreamy electronic landscape. It rarely picks up more than a gentle breeze but it also doesn't need to. It is a simple and beautiful track that sets one's heart a flutter with ease.
Stop Running Away follows a similar template, sounding like it was recorded on a green patch of land with multi-colored flowers on the side of a mountain. Like fellow Frenchmen Air do so well, Telepopmusik clearly have indescribably found a way to make synthetic music sound lush and organic, a dubious task.
Into Everything is a stunningly gorgeous song with minimal touches of pomp and flash.
Last Train to Forever employs some softly spoken male trip hop lyrics and a swirling synth line that occasionally breaks down in a fantastic intermediate bass and piano part that will send shivers up your spine. By the time the crazy fuzzed out, tricked out, and lengthened bass kicks in for the last two minutes of the track, the listener is pulled in to a wondrous thing, and as close to perfection as you can get in electronic music.
Unlike Air and other big French bands in the electronic scene, it is harder to tell through the music alone that Telepopmusik is indeed French. Jazz influences are clearly in place but so too is an orchestral element that adds a big dose of emotion to the music. On Nothing's Burning, the track sounds like it was made in a smoky, futuristic jazz club where scientists have managed to recreate Billie Holiday through strands of her DNA.
Ambushed is pure space filler and the trio are playing around with splices of instrumentation and snippets of voices.
The album is far from perfect but it does work well as a complete group of stories with a logical progression from one song to the next. The programming on most tracks is quite sparse and rather than overwhelm the listener with effects and tricks - which the group no doubt could do quite easily - a subtler approach is easier to swallow, easier to enjoy but challenge you all the same.
It may not have a Breathe, but if you like one track on the album, chances are you'll like most of the rest too.

METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY (2006)

2006-02-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY

Director: Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen, Jessica Joy Wise
Cast: Alice Cooper, Bruce Dickinson, Tony Iommi, Lemmy, Rob Zombie
Length: 96 mins.

When asked why the metal documentary needed to be made, co-producers, co-writers and co-directors, Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen noted that the genre had been ignored or at best, satirized as a joke in such films as Wayne's World and Spinal Tap. There was no faithful or faith-filled feature on the scene that wasn't at least half-assed or half a joke.
They're right of course, but as the film explains, Metal is a form of music that has always been largely underground. Parents and churches everywhere fear it and the people listening to it don't want the rest of the world discovering their secret.
If you read much of the reviews of Metal: A Headbanger's Journey beforehand, you'll see a wide swath of critics saying something to the effect of, "I'm not a fan of the music but this is a good movie and fans of metal will get a little more out of it than I did."
It's rather comical hearing a non-metal fan telling metal fans that they'll find this piece enlightening because truthfully, aside from some brilliant quotes by a number of those interviewed for the doc and the brief piece about Norwegian black metal, there isn't a whole lot here that most metal fans aren't already familiar with.
Dunn and company do an enlightening form of breaking the music down into flow charts, categorizing each era and style of the music in a fascinating manner but the director's have neither the time, nor apparently the inclination to go through them all.
The film largely traces the roots of metal back to its early days and even beyond with a great reference to classical and blues music, but fails to really tie those genres into the current fold very solidly. Aside from a guitar and bleak lyrics, most viewers will be scrunching up their eyebrows at the thought of Robert Johnson and Slayer having much in common. The truth is that they really do, but this doc doesn't flesh out that connection very well.
Dunn's cheery and enthusiastic narrative does a good job of bringing the basics of this music to the masses but it's unfortunate that he chooses to go little further than its commercial heyday of the 80s when the biggest rockers all looked like girls.
Apart from an interesting bit where Dunn interviews several Norwegian bands who openly support the burning of churches and the rise of satanic cults, Dunn pays little to no attention to any modernism in the music, which almost suggests that his own love of the music goes little further than the 80s itself when his favorite band, Iron Maiden was the ruler of all things metal.
To the director's credit though, they have managed to snag a great list of people to interview, including the surprisingly funny Ronnie James Dio, once Black Sabbath's frontman after Ozzy left the fold. Dio provides multiple hilarious segments in which he cracks jokes at the expense of Kiss's Gene Simmons.
Alice Cooper and Lemmy are obviously having a good time hamming it up for the cameras and a more subdued Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath actually tries to legitimize the genre with thoughtful and thought-provoking snippets.
Not surprisingly, Rob Zombie provides some of the films most intelligent moments, detailing how the entire metal underground is built and supported by a group of societal outsiders who have come together to create what is often the opposite as what it appears, a supportive community that gives a group of misfits a place that welcomes them.
The film also follows in the modern day trend for documentaries in having a very slanted point-of-view. Super Size Me's Morgan Spurlok and Michael Moore have shown that while they're taking on a role quite similar to journalists everywhere, they do have an agenda and make no bones about it.
Dunn's Metal documentary may not be as politically supercharged but there are certainly moments where the piece comes across like a kid indulging in his own passions, as is evident at a German metal festival, where Dunn proclaims that he's in heaven.
The film has some moments that are well-produced with good doses of humor and it does a good job of humanizing a form of music that is often thought to be evil and destructive.
It may be more of an introduction to the fold than a visual encyclopaedia on the music itself however. 35 years of history can't possibly be broken down into an hour and a half and because of that, Dunn and company omit some very important passages in the history of the music.
It is a decent film and while it may open some people's eyes, it won't satisfy the hardest of metal fans.
Consider it Metal 101. If you want to learn anything else, you're on your own.
TAGS: movie reviews

P.O.D. - TESTIFY (2006)

2006-02-22T14:03:00.000-05:00

P.O.D.

Title: Testify (2006)
Producer(s): Glen Ballard
Label: Atlantic
Genre: Alternative
Length: 50:44

The rap/rock hybrid in nu-metal acts has thankfully faded from the limelight for the most part. Musical acts aplenty jumped onto the bandwagon when it appeared to be the next great fad.
P.O.D. are one of the few acts to still do it, fusing not only power rock with rap aesthetics but throwing a healthy dose of reggae inspired touches in there as well.
The reason P.O.D. get away with it is that they're one of the few acts out there who mesh the genres in an honest and pure manner, having done so since rap was still back in its infancy.
Like a great many successful nu-metal acts over the years, P.O.D. have changed directions ever so slightly, by toning down on the noise and rage and adding more melody and easy-to-digest hooks to their music, so as to bring them a less underground and more mass-market fan base.
The group is quite proud about the diversity in their music and Testify certainly provides evidence of this belief. Starting out with the funky Roots in Stereo, the guys do somewhat sound like a group trying to bring reggae to a white, mainstream audience and although it does at times feel like an awkward delivery, there is some sense of
proficiency in the production and it should have a market.
Lights out has an expected hard hook and half-spoken rap-like lyrics with repeated guitar and bass lines and really doesn't offer much of a message other than the lame swagger we used to hear Limp Bizkit proffer for teenagers cruising in daddy's SUV.
If You Could See Me Now moves things into the radio-friendly format with a heavy edge, pleasant vocals and an uplifting chorus. When at the top of their game, P.O.D. is quite proficient in raising the bar to levels that knock your socks off and want to jump in the air as if an angel would catch you.
Goodbye For Now is strongly, but softly played and shows that while the band haven't broadened their game plan at all, they have benefited from playing better as a group and have honed their skills for playing succinctly.
This Time is a highlight for the album as the band pulls back on their bravado and pare back to their basics with a lovely overall feel on the song, great vocals and melody that show that it doesn't always have to be about attitude to make a point.
There are less instantly identifiable hits on this album than on previous efforts but there isn't an unequivocally terrible song on the track listing either. The rapping rock gimmick does feel tired and old and aside from the few tracks that bring a reggae influence, nothing new is brought to the table here.
While the album doesn't feel cohesive overall - it switches from one style to another without any warning or overlay between the tracks - the group is obviously intent on using that genre-hopping habit for effect.
Sadly, it feels like a bad marketing attempt. Short on quality, but they make up for it with quantity and trickery.
Sorry fellas, can't testify to that this time.
TAGS: music reviews

ANATHEMA - A NATURAL DISASTER (2004)

2006-02-17T11:33:00.000-05:00

ANATHEMA

Title: A Natural Disaster (2004)
Producer(s): Travis Smith
Label: Koch
Genre: Progressive Rock
Length: 55:41

Do a web search on Anathema and you'll find a plethora of metal sites singing the praises of this British band. Over the years however, Anathema have moved further and further away from that initial metal definition and more towards a hybrid art, progressive rock sound at times sounding like Radiohead or a modern day Pink Floyd.
Each album the band has put out there has continually changed up the sound and style and while certain elements in the music show that it is indeed the same band despite a multitude of line-up changes, it is a band that nevertheless is in a constant and fascinating evolution in sound dating back to 1990.
The album starts off with Harmonium, a low-key number that gradually builds with atmosphere and mood and an enveloping aura of gloom that still retains a strong semblance of majestic beauty. The strong, slow kick of instruments show up midway through the track and accentuate Vincent Cavanagh's strong and simply stated vocals.
Balance has Cavanagh showing more emotion in his lyrics and singing and further show how Anathema have mastered the ability to raise a song from a light whisper of melody into a delirious whirlwind of sound and emotion. Think of Radiohead, only playing tighter, with more structure and less frenzy but still keeping an edge of experimentation. Balance is a single delicate rose in the midst of a windstorm, its beauty threatening to tear apart at any moment.
Closer moves further away from the expected by employing a vocoder in the manner of a subdued Daft Punk. It is a track that will be somewhat hard to swallow for long-time Anathema fans but it's still an interesting mix of electronic wizardry, guitars, drums and mood.
A heavenly introduction is used on Are You There? and the song plays through to the end quite softly and slowly and although Cavanagh's vocals get a bit clunky and messy in parts, he shows a very delicate and emotive aspect to his voice that isn't evident in many other Anathema tracks.
The guys get into full-blown Pink Floyd mood in Pulled Under at 2000 Metres a Second. While it's perhaps a tad more aggressively played than anything the masters of prog rock ever created, it plays very much like a track plucked right out of The Wall and Meddle all in one massive track and chugs along at a loud, energetic pace save for some down-times where a rolling bassline will make acid-heads pee their pants with glee.
The title track for A Natural Disaster employs a guest female vocalist (Leon Douglas) in a very sullen but beautifully produced trip-hop-like track that doesn't try to go overboard. It is cleanly, and simply produced and played to great effect with absolutely gorgeous echoed chimes coming in towards the end of the song. The only head-scratcher is the positioning of some of the tracks, as this song comes in a shocking place, being behind the very different previously played track.
Electricity features a softly played piano and equally quiet vocals that amount to a beautiful number that will be difficult for anyone to really dislike.
Violence is a track that rapidly switches gears through its instruments and moods, energy and pacing. It nicely rounds out a near epic disc for the group that only fails to achieve legendary status because of the awkward positioning of certain tracks and the relatively short feel of the album. A few more tracks and this album easily would have moved from being a very good album to an instant classic.
There are claims by some that Anathema has been riding out their career for longer than necessary, mostly by those who miss the early days when the band was loud and overly aggressive. A Natural Disaster clearly shows this isn't the case anymore than it is for the likes of Radiohead, Tool and other experimental bands that have been plying their wares for over a decade.
The difference in those comparisons is that Anathema is still relatively unknown outside of Europe, and really, that's a shame for a world that welcomed the likes of Pink Floyd and other British bands that weaved a wondrous tapestry of risk-taking, melancholic poetry and simple melody with wide, thankful arms.
TAGS: music reviews

NANNY McPHEE (2006)

2006-02-14T11:03:00.000-05:00

NANNY McPHEE

Director: Kirk Jones
Actors: Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury
Length: 99 mins.

Prior to release, most audiences already surmised that Nanny McPhee was a new spin on the classic Mary Poppins tale, only in place of the singing, dancing and jovial Julie Andrews, Emma Thompson takes charge of a group of rowdy children with a frightening wart-filled face, a uni-brow and one extremely long tooth, most likely quite useful for opening cans of soup.
Fans of Emma Thompson - who penned the tale - had high expectations. She had after all, previously proven to be a skilled actor and writer for the big screen but it is perhaps a tad unfortunate that the wrong crowd got hyped over the film.
The audience is led to believe that the children are far beyond the usual disaster of kids put in the place of nannies. The only problem is, we're told this instead of seeing it. We hear that the kids have dispensed of more than a dozen previous nannies to great degree and no one else in the town is willing to take up the job. Problem is, we only see them at work with one ill-equipped nanny and the first thing we see is her charging out the front door in surrender.
The film moves at a fast pace, and quickly changes its heading. The children do a surprisingly quick turnaround for the new nanny and the tale instead focuses on the family's plight of living under the financial noose of an overbearing Aunt, played quite well by the rarely seen Angela Lansbury.
While women in the audience may all be quite happy to see Colin Firth pick up his usual Darcy persona for the film and of having to see him try to prepare a quick marriage when no woman is in sight, this is ultimately a story that children will enjoy more so than adults.
While the film appears to be set more than a hundred years ago, the colors are all bright and bold and clashing with bright pinks and neon green suits and dresses and home furnishings, like Tim Burton's Willy Wonka movie set in Victorian England.
Kids will howl at the sight of a dancing donkey in women's clothing and the use of such words as poo and bum by the children.
Others will quickly understand that this isn't a tale for adults, it simply isn't up to an adult level of wit or intelligence although it doesn't seem to be entirely aware of it.
Thompson does bring a slight element of magic to her role as the nanny, as she seems to appear and vanish in an instant and her cane makes some wondrous things happen.
Slightly more confusing is why she gets considerably less ugly over the course of the film. Warts vanish, the teeth change and she loses about a hundred pounds and by the end of the film, she's had a complete transformation.
It's undoubtedly just a part of the magic inherent in the screenplay but kids won't mind. It is the childish mayhem that will appeal to children and its simplicity that will frustrate adults.
TAGS: movie reviews

Underworld: Evolution (Soundtrack) (2006)

2006-02-08T15:43:00.000-05:00

Underworld: Evolution (Soundtrack)

Title: Evolution (Soundtrack) (2005)
Producer(s): Danny Lohner
Label: Lakeshore
Genre: Alternative
Length: 62:51

Once upon a time, soundtracks become more than just background music for a film. They aided in telling the story, set the mood, upped the pace or slowed it down.
In recent memory, The Crow and Spawn soundtracks were two examples of that could be so much more.
Even more recently, with the success of such rock soundtracks as Spider-Man and Queen of the Damned seemed like more of a gimmicky attempt to throw together some hit tracks with an association to a young, cool movie. In some cases, many of the songs heard on a soundtrack are nowhere to be found in the actual movie.
The first Underworld movie featured a soundtrack with some pretty impressive names, including members of A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, Skinny Puppy, Finch and Trust Company. Considering that each track on the album was either created or tweaked specifically for the film, it was a must-have for any fan of the above people and groups.
While that trend continues for the soundtrack for Underworld: Evolution, the listing of tracks here seems less a collection of cohesive songs themed for and around the movie, than a collection decent songs that are popular at the moment.
The opening track, The Undertaker (Renholder Mix) is offered up by Puscifer, the newest side project for A Perfect Circle and Tool's frontman, Maynard James Keenan. Keenan works with Nine Inch Nail's sometimes collaborator Danny Lohner doing programming. It's an interesting track, and Keenan morphs his voice into an unfamiliar mutation and while it may be more restrained than we've heard elsewhere, it's still his great voice. Lohner does a nice job with a slow, hard industrial beat that pounds the track along in a pleasant but dark manner.
Linkin Park's Chester Bennington goes solo on the next track. Missing from Bennington's track is the usual rock/rap hybrid that one associates with Linkin Park. In its place is a catchy, straightforward rock track with moments of techno flourishes. It's far from the kind of thing that will sell millions of records but it's a nice change and shows that Bennington should have a future should Linkin Park ever disband.
Hawthorne Heights gets a Legion of Doom makeover on Where Do I Stab Myself in the Ears. The track's an emo/punk fusion with a good dose of energy on the chorus and should make the younger crowd happy. The manic programmed drumming that the remixers have inserted into the track are a little too obviously synthetic, and quite frankly, impossible for just about any human drummer to reproduce. The combination has been done successfully before but it does sound a little too mechanical for a song working with so much emotion. Gladly, it doesn't take too much away from a decent track.
My Chemical Romance's To the End is at times catchy and foot-tapping fun, but it's also completely out of pace with the theme of the album and the overall gloomy gothic vibe on the album. This happy-go-lucky emo track is an unfortunate inclusion on the album.
Slipknot's Bloodstone Mix of their Vermillion pt.2 track is a quieter, acoustic-sounding version of the original, but in truth, it's hardly much different. While a great laidback track from an incredibly hard band, it's subtle differences barely merit a reworking.
Alkaline Trio's Burn (Alleged Remix) is a nice, industrial/pop merger of sound that's a bit to upbeat for the overall theme here but it's a good song with some hard-edged aspects that makes for an interesting listen.
Aiden's The Last Sunrise (Dusk Mix) is a young band doing their best Linkin Park impersonation and they pull it off quite well too. Equal parts industrial twitches and alternative angst, the track's chock full of energy and a dark, brooding swagger that fits perfectly with the feel of the movie.
Senses Fail's Bite to Break the Skin (The Legion of Doom Mix) is an energetic track that mixes some melodic singing and unintelligible screaming along with some heavy instrumentation and mechanical clanks that makes for good filler.
The sound of the next few tracks on the album follow a trail left by Atreyu, in bringing some hard-hitting thrash metal with guttural howls in Her Portrait in Black. It'll please hardcore metal fans and disappoint everyone else.
The up-and-coming Lacuna Coil show up with Our Truth, hardly one of their best tracks, but good enough to bring the underrated and underpublicized European band some more attention, which they greatly deserve for meshing a gothic vibe and dark alternative leanings with a gorgeously voiced lead singer.
The lack of cohesion in the album's selected tracks makes for an uneven collection. It feels like the producers tried to plunk together a group of songs that would appeal to a wide assortment of alternative music fans, but the truth is that may people will like half the album, one way or another.
The other head-scratcher is that after watching the movie, unless you're waiting for it, you'll likely fail to notice any of these songs among the action. It's a soundtrack that has little connection to the film and while ultimately, it's a grouping of a bunch of decent songs with a handful of standouts, it doesn't make for a legendary soundtrack that people will point out in 5 or 10 years time.
TAGS: music reviews

BETH ORTON - COMFORT OF STRANGERS (2006)

2006-02-07T12:23:00.000-05:00

BETH ORTON

Title: Comfort of Strangers (2006)
Producer(s): Jim O'Rourke
Label: Astralwerks
Genre: Pop / Folk
Length: 44:12

Comfort of Strangers, Orton’s third proper album, is going to disappoint a lot of people.
It is such a drastic turn of events for the crooner, that those who didn’t get the memo are going to plunk money down for the disc and run out to put it in their stereo, only to wonder what happened to the symphonic accompaniments.
It is only unfortunate that Orton decided to strip her music down to its essentials because it happened so quickly and without much warning. Many people first became associated with Orton back when she was doing guest spots on The Chemical Brothers albums, making a cold, electronic group at once more human and warm with her lovely voice. She kept some of those electronic elements for her own solo adventures and they surprisingly blended well with her inner folk sensibilities.
Now, all that is gone. All of the songs contained on Comfort of Strangers are sparse musical creations and most feature no more than Orton singing with one or two instruments to accompany her.
Worms has Orton sounding a bit like Fiona Apple, singing funky lyrics over a repeating piano line. Her usual sense of flair is still evident in parts of her singing although the track is rather short in length.
Conceived is another quick folk track that sounds like she's written the song while travelling along the countryside on a open-car train with a guitar player at her side.
Safe in your Arms is a highlight, as the gentle drumming wonderfully compliments Orton's soothing singing style.
Shopping Trolley shows Orton's penchant for crafting lyrics around everyday events and objects like supermarkets, streams and people. She doesn't just tell a story repeated on and on but infuses it with incredible detail like the wind blowing leaves, emotions and intricate settings.
A Place Aside is an upbeat track with a humorous bent about the sad things that happen in life that shows that Orton has a good head on her shoulders is doesn't take everything that comes her way too seriously.
Absinthe is an absolute stunner of a beauty. It's subtlety still manages to grab you by the neck and forces you to pay attention. It is a thing of aural beauty that should not be ignored.
The album's dramatic change in pace compared to her previous offerings is a bit of a shock to the system and it takes some getting used to. Fans of Orton will already understand that it's her singing that has always been the strongest part of her music. That strength remains intact, with perhaps even more attention to detail.
When you get right down to it, Orton isn’t Dido and she shouldn’t be making music along those lines. She doesn’t need big swooshes of orchestrated beats and electronics to get you to feel her songs, Comfort of Strangers is exactly the kind of thing Orton should have been doing all along, but it remains to be seen whether fans can digest the dramatic change in direction or not.
TAGS: music reviews