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.