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April 27, 2005
Music: Infected Mushroom
It's been years and YEARS and years since I've done any sort of music review so I'm really out of place and I'm covering a genre I'm not all too familiar with but I like to jump in the deep end and swim with sharks. They've got pretty teeth and can eat stuff like toasters, and goats and stuff.
That said.
You'll like these guys cos I tell you to.
Or you can suck it.
Israli Psycadelic Trance.
That's the best way to describe these guys.
From what I gather they're big in the Electronic scene. My boyfriend makes some of his own stuff and explained some of the techniques these guys use to produce their albums and it was WAYYYY over my head. I'm talking WHOAH! WTF is happening here where'd that come from huh?
Their Discography so far goes as thus:
* The Gathering (1999)
* Classical Mushroom (2000)
* BP Empire (2001)
* Converting Vegetarians (2003)
* IM The Supervisor (2004)
I've got their Converting Vegetarians release and have heard a bunch of their other stuff and lemme tell you this aint no teenybopper hip hop techno bullshit. this stuff's pretty danged awesome. It's artistic and techno and trance and freakin' cool.
I only wish our big ole hobbit-sized speakers *BOTH* worked cos their surround sound capabilities is worth blasting and annoying neighbours and getting the cops called on your house and the fine you'll get for noise complaints should get put up on the refrigerator.
I think they can get hired out for events like Goa parties and their live shows will tear you apart.
I only wish I had been more involved in the electronic music scene more in my past because this as well as some of my following reviews won't do anyone justice.
If anything... take a chance and dowload their Converting Vegetarian's song. And maybe check out their official website if you're intrigued.
I'll make you work for that one.
x
Posted by prism at 04:00 AM
April 26, 2005
The Girl Next Door
Elisha Cuthbert - Danielle
Emile Hirsch - Matthew
Directed by Luke Greenfield
You'd think this was a teen movie a la American Pie et al...but if that's what you're expecting, think again.
I really thought this was going to be a teen party, silly teenager gag type of movie...you know...the barf in the burger, the urine in someone's beer, the semen used as mousse...
But I was pleasantly surprised.
The Girl Next Door is actually very sweet film which, unlike those other cheap laugh teenage movies, actually has plot and requires thinking. Of course, it has its moments when you think something stupid/silly is going to happen, but lo, you've then fallen into the trap.
Matthew is going to graduate high school and go to Georgetown. We're told early on that he wants to be President someday. Oh, the trouble he can get into...
He seems a pretty straightlaced kid, but at the same time he's the same as any other teenage boy...namely in the hormone department. But don't be fooled, he's actually a sweet hormonal teenage boy, not the window-licking, leg-humping, slobbering teenagers we're used to seeing.
So he does drool a little, but the boy has a conscience about it, which is how he meets the girl next door, Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert).
She teaches him how not to be a dork, and allows him to experience high school like as he's always dreamt of (poor lad sits in his car, wanting to cut class and go to the beach with the 'popular' crowd, but his daydream of getting caught by the school guard and ending up killing someone in a fiery accident forces him to get out of his car and go back to school).
He's got his dorky friends, and now he's got his girl. Little by little we get to witness how his confidence begins to elevate. Until....
...he finds out his girl next door is really the porn star next door.
What happens next, you'll just have to see for yourself, as I highly recommend you rent this a.s.a.p.
No notably memorable lines, but still intelligent comedy/romance with an awesome soundtrack.
Posted by calima at 01:30 PM
April 22, 2005
The Assassination Of Richard Nixon
A gripping story of an abandoned man driven mad.
Sean Penn plays Sam Bicke, "a grain of sand", in a true story of a thwarted assassination attempt on Richard Nixon. Sam is separated from his wife, struggling in his job and nobody listens to him as he grows increasingly desperate and paranoid. We don't find out why his wife has left him, which I think is a major flaw in the film, but we know she doesn't want to take him back. He works as a furniture salesman but doesn't want to lie to people. His frustration is misguided towards the "system" and he tries to join the Black Panthers in an attempt to "do something". He tries to get a loan to set up a tyre business (copying his brother) with his friend but this is denied because his friend is black. He loses his job and decides to kill the president to show "that the least grain if sand has in him the power to destroy". The film is punctuated with snippets from tapes that he makes to send to Leonard Bernstein to explain his actions. It's a good story but you can't help feeling the outcome would have been different if someone had taken the time to really listen to him and realise he wasn't quite sane. A good perfomance and a compelling story.
Posted by hurtling17 at 08:27 PM
April 21, 2005
The Driver's Seat
The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
Lise is going on a trip. She's going on a holiday. You don't know where, you don't know why, and you don't know who she's going to meet.
What you do know is that in less than 24 hours, she'll be dead.
The Driver's Seat reads like a reverse 'whodunnit'. The trick is that you already know what happens, you just need to find out how (and why).
The book begins at what you'd think is the beginning...but no. The beginning of the story is Lise's death...the book begins by going back in time to the 2 days before she dies.
Intrigued? You should be.
You can expect this book to be blunt, and precise.
But don't expect this book to be a Dan Brown-chock-full-of-description-thriller.
Spark writes very sparingly, using details at intervals that she believes fit into the story. Any additional description is left out.
The result is that you're at the end still wondering about this or that.
The other side of it is that you'll finish this book in about an hour. It's quite thin.
Read it. Then read it again. The pieces of the puzzle that you think you had figured out will meld together in a different way the second time through.
Posted by calima at 04:50 PM
April 20, 2005
The Amityville Horror
Ryan Reynolds .... George Lutz
Melissa George .... Kathy Lutz
Jesse James .... Billy Lutz
Jimmy Bennett .... Michael Lutz
Chloe Moretz .... Chelsea Lutz (as Chloë Grace Moretz)
Rachel Nichols .... Lisa
Philip Baker Hall .... Father Callaway
Isabel Conner .... Jodie Defeo
Brendan Donaldson .... Ronald Defeo
Okay. So, like, if I ever decide to buy a house in the way out in the suburbs/country that's over 300 years old where a grisly murder took place, remind me to bring in every single kind of spiritual guru (priest, rabbi, whatever the muslim and islam spiritual leaders are called, shaman, voodoo priestess, etc.) to rid my house of whatever evil lives there.
Because I don't want to have to deal with the shit this family dealt with.
(Okay, so they admitted to it being not true, but still. FREAKY!)
What's the one rule we've learned from scary movies? NEVER go into the basement alone. Bad things always happen in basements. BAD. THINGS.
Folks, I'm not going to lie to you. This isn't the best acted film out there. The plot line has holes and inconsistencies. In fact, parts of the movie are downright boring and you're sitting there thinking, "Hurry up and move it along people!"
But then one scary part happens and you forget all about that. And Holy Mary Mother of God are the scary parts FUCKING scary!
How scary? Scary enough for me to scream out loud in the theatre. And no pansy ass muffled cry. Oh no. I screamed loudly. Not blood curtling, but close enough. And then I had to watch most of the rest of the movie through my fingers.
And now I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight.
And for revenge, I'm going to call my friend Natey at 3:15am and say "Katch 'em and kill 'em!" (you'll get that if you see the movie).
Posted by xinh at 03:13 AM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
Eyes
Timothy Daly .... Harlan Judd
Rick Worthy .... Chris Didion
Garcelle Beauvais .... Nora Gage
A.J. Langer .... Meg Bardo
Eric Mabius .... Jeff McCann
Natalie Zea .... Trish Agermeyer
Laura Leighton .... Leslie Town
Fast paced, stylized, and witty, this show is great!
Tim Daly is excellent as Harlan Judd, the smart ass owner of a high tech security/detective ageny. He's smart and funny, yet sometimes you just wanna pop him one for being arrogant.
The principal characters on the show are very fleshed out and not just one dimensional cookie cutter characters.
The acting by all the actors, even supporting players, is excellent. It's amazing what people can do when given well written material!
The plots are all well thought out and executed brilliantly.
The only 2 problems I have are that some of the supporting characters are one dimensional (hopefully, that will be cleared up in subsequent episodes) and that there's always a twist or two in the plot somewhere so I've found myself paying less attention to the storyline and more attention trying to figure out what the twist is going to be.
The show comes on Wednesday nights at 10pm eastern/9pm central, following Lost and Alias. Check it out.
Oh, and even though it's already 3 episodes in, don't worry. They use subtitles to tell you who people are, even the main characters, so you don't have to worry about figuring out who's who. And while there are some carry over plot points that you've missed (mainly background, so email me if you want the short version), the episodes are stand alone stories for the most part so you really haven't missed much except excellent acting and stories which you can get if you start watching now.
Posted by xinh at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)
Constantine
The demons are out...and there's one man that can force them back to hell...yes, that's right, I'm talking about Keanu!
The opening scenes of this movie are absolutely fantastic...I thought at first I was watching a remake of the Exorcist (by and large the best horror film ever), but lo...it was Constantine.
The visuals in this movie are exciting, the plot was exciting and I think (am pretty sure) that at no point in the movie was I bored.
Accompanied by the ever gorgeous, Rachel Weisz, Keanu uses his 'vision' to guide him throughout the movie, taking on the baddies and boppin' them on the head.
Main theme of the movie was Constantine's fate in the afterlife, which seemed a bit sad...like giving away the end of a good book. But if I know Keanu (and I like to think I do), I knew he wouldn't end up where he said he would end up.
Stunningly graceful as the angel Gabriel is Tilda Swinton, who manages to pull off the psuedo-man/pseudo-woman look of Gabriel. I was astonished by the look of Gabriel at first, but then came to the realisation that there wasn't any good reason I could think of that Gabriel shouldn't be played by a woman.
Plus, she's just lovely and does an excellent job.
And she's got the coolest line ever: 'Your going to die young becuase you've smoked 30 cigarettes a day since you were 15. You're going to hell becuase of the life you took.'
Ok, so that was two lines, but who's counting?
Rachel Weisz, whom I've adored since she appeared in The Mummy, manages to knock around like the anti-supermodel, looking tough in that, 'I'm not a delicate daisy' sort of way, but still managing to be stunning. Of course, I couldn't quite believe her to be a cop, as she seemed to fumble with her gun a bit, but I suppose if I were as tiny as she is, the weight of a gun would make me a bit off kilter, too.
The movie itself is packed full of information, so go to the toilet before the movie, kiddies, and make sure you have all the snacks you need becuase you won't want to miss a single second of this.
Oh...and if you smoke, leave your pack of fags at home.
Posted by calima at 11:41 AM
April 03, 2005
SAW
102 minutes
Directed by
James Wan
____________________________________________________________
First off can I just say Carey Elwes is STILL a foxy foxy man?
Second off I'm going to do my non-whinging review up top...and my whinging SPOILERS bit on the bottom. I do love bottoms and whinging so off we go!
[[NON SPOILER PART]]
Two dudes wake up chained to a wall and soon learn that they are apart of some whack-o's idea of a good time at the park--someone's gotta die--there's a dead person between them already and a whole lot of clues to help them get out of their situation.
We soon learn that mr. 'Whacko' already has been given the name of 'jigsaw' killer and that he doesn't actually 'kill' his victims... they do that on their own trying to escape the predicaments he puts them in and that Carey Elwes character was accused of BEING the jigsaw killer when police found one of his pen lights at the scene of a crime (he's a doctor). Of course Carey's character isn't the killer.
Anyway Enter Danny Glover's cop character who's obsessed with trying to solve the case... wife and kid being held hostage yadda yadda yadda.... how the crap are the dudes chained to the wall going to get free? What are the saws for again?
I got reccomended this movie with the warning that it scared the bejeezus out of somone and it has successfully creeped me out. Creeped me out in that comfortable creepy/scary that I don't have to hide my television or carry a glass of water around with me kinda way. I got sucked in and genuinely enjoyed it for the most part.
But let's get to the whinging because this part's really bothering me.
!!!!!WARNING!!!!!!
[[[[SPOILERS BELOW]]]]]]
I couldn't get over the fact that A) no one thought to listen to the dude lying on the floor's tape if he even had one (I can't remember) B) If dude lying on the floor DIDN'T have a tape... and he was lying on the floor WITH the tapeplayer... WHY DIDN'T ANYONE QUESTION IT?
The whole entire movie I was like... 'WHY THE HELL DON'T THEY LISTEN TO THE DEAD DUDE'S TAPE?' and when the point came accross that maybe he didn't have a tape 'WHY THE HELL ISN'T ANYONE QUESTIONING WHY HE DOESN'T HAVE A TAPE?'. did I miss something here? I only recall hearing TWO tapes being played.... Cary Elwes' and the photographer's. I mean, if everything the killer dude did he did with a purpose... a well thought out puzzle-like purpose... wouldn't you think maybe just maybe the random dead dude lying in the middle of the floor NOT chained up might have had a purpose? He wouldn't have just chose to kill himself. Sure... 'slow acting poison' blah blah blah but WHY THE HELL IS HE THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM if he didn't have anything linked to them?
Which brings me around to the tapeplayer. wtf? if his soul purpose was to give the other guys the tapeplayer and the gun.... wouldn't you question the whole part about the tape he was supposed to have listened to?
I really think I missed something.
Also... DUH. I KNEW that thing that floated down the drain at the beginning was uber important. Can you imagine the turn of events if photographer dude had that?
A real thinker this movie is.
Even if the tape recorder thing and the dude in the middle of the floor pissed me off the whole time.
Definetely worth seeing...but if you're reading this...it's probably something you already Saw.
har har
Posted by prism at 06:25 AM