Under the wing of crime boss Frank Costello, Colin Sullivan manages to infiltrate the Massachusetts police force as an informant for the Irish Mob. At the same time, the police manage to plant an undercover rookie in with Costello’s crew to bust him from the inside. It’s when the two rats start tailing each other that the plot starts to captivate.
my rating : 4 of 5
2006
This album begins on an awkward note. The first song is a Love song that has little do with the concept of the album, but MC Lyte is nearly forgiven as she goes on to cover an impressive assortment of social themes over funky hip-hop beats. Her raps aren’t as impressive as she seems to think, but her Georgie story, about a friend who kills himself in a drunk-driving accident, is touching.
my rating : 3 of 5
1991
The narrative of Toni Braxton as an anonymous wife and Babyface as an anonymous husband flows well until song number seven. He’s supposed to have left her for another woman by then, a woman she hopes gives him an STD, so it’s unlikely either would be so eager to Take It Back so soon. By the next song, they’re officially Reunited, back in “love”, only to split-up again. “I’d Rather Be Broke than be with you,” she says, as if a pussy-whipped fool like Babyface would’ve been smart enough to a demand a prenup. But this time she means it. In fact, she gets pleasure out of introducing her new “friend” to him. This love story ends in divorce.
The two get near-equal croon time, but Braxton has two solo songs compare to Babyface’s one. They also share compositional credit, but the music for every song is produced by Babyface. That last fact, along with the fact that his music sounds about the same as it did when they first started making music together a little over twenty years ago, gives the album a consistent sound. This is contemporary soul music, the smooth syrupy kind real-life romantics sop with their morning pancakes. The vocals rarely match the music on an aesthetic level, but, considering the American divorce rate, it’s an album a lot of people can relate to.
my rating : 3 of 5
2014
The premise is engaging. Two kids go missing during a Thanksgiving dinner. The fear is a kidnapping with the probability of the girls being raped and killed. Such an outcome could make for a poignant movie, but director Denis Villeneuve would rather cater to the morals of its audience thus realism is overshadowed by silly unlikelihoods. The actions of Keller Dover; the father of one of the girls; are particularly outrageous.
my rating : 3 of 5
2013
It’s Tom Hanks versus a gang of gun-toting Somalians in Captain Phillips, a movie based on the Maersk Alabama hijacking of 2009. The pirates are ugly and annoying, but director Paul Greengrass does a notable job of keeping his audience on its toes.
Suspense arises eighteen minutes in and doesn’t let up from there, though the plot takes a turn near the halfway point. Richard Phillips, portrayed here as a hero, wrote a book about the incident but the true story probably isn’t nearly as epic as this.
my rating : 4 of 5
2013
You wouldn’t know it’s about Venus unless you knew about the movie the vocal samples come from. “No observation from orbit can let us know the answer to the most important question we’ve come to ask,” says Faith Domergue as Marsha Evans. It’s Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet, a science fiction flick old enough to imagine man landing on Venus by the year 2020, and it’s somehow landed onto a Bass 305 song.
How, or why, that happened probably has a lot to do with its obscurity. Having no idea where the samples come from, let alone what movie, gives the song a curious mystique. It’s the music though, led by a Heavenly chorus section featuring what sounds like a male angel singing, that is profound. The breakdowns preceding it are sort of annoying, so the song isn’t perfect, but it’s the best Bass 305 song so far.
my rating : 5 of 5
1994
![audio review : a DM Records compilation : Bass Explosion [ Volume Three ]](https://marcellee.com/posts/132362.jpg "audio review : a DM Records compilation : Bass Explosion [ Volume Three ]")
Ice Cube is cool as detective James Payton, but it’s pseudo partner Ben Barber, played by Kevin Hart, who steals the show. He’s funnier here than he is as an on-stage comedian, so, in a movie with such a hackneyed plot, the jokes are the driving force. This is essentially a loose parody of Training Day, a fact the script is clever enough to acknowledge.
my rating : 3 of 5
2014
There’s a poignant whipping scene involving soap, but the best part of this Slave story comes at the end. It’s a beautiful Hans Zimmer song based on the main character. That it sounds like Time from Inception is a blunder, but listening to it is better than watching the movie.
That’s not a moral criticism. Watching a dramatization of an essentially innocent man, or woman, endure the hardships of slavery generally doesn’t bother me. It’s just that, plotwise, Solomon’s story, based on his 1853 memoir, doesn’t necessarily make for an interesting movie.
my rating : 3 of 5
2013
Michelle Pfeiffer is looking old, but her daughter makes up for it. Belle is alluring. In a Robert De Niro movie about Goodfellas-style mob crime, the most captivating moment is a sex scene in which she’s getting fucked by her teacher. That’s because, while the concept; a Family trying to adjust to a new life via The Witness Protection Program; has potential, the plot is full of bullet holes.
my rating : 3 of 5
2013
Jordan Belfort lived the good life. His supply of money, drugs and pussy seemed endless until he got busted for stock fraud. His rise and fall is depicted here via Leonardo DiCaprio. The movie is zippy; an abundance of soft porn scenes help; but it never builds into a cohesive story.
Tighter editing might’ve done the job; the Lemmon car and Monaco boat rides are particularly excessive; but I’m doubtful. The Wolf Of Wall Street, while stimulating in its debauchery, plays with the incoherence and fleeting suspense of a movie that’s based on a true story.
my rating : 3 of 5
2013
It starts with a standard four-kick-bar house beat, but I would’ve started with the bassline. What a slinky bassline it is. It’s the organ loop though, along with a cool layer of spacey synth notes, which are foolishly abandoned for pianos near the halfway point, that really highlight the track. This is music you can both relax and dance to, a dreamy feel-good groove flawed only by its anticlimactic structure.
my rating : 4 of 5
2013
The drums and bass sound suspiciously, almost criminally, similar to Madonna’s Holiday. While it’s arguable which song is better, Lady Gaga easily outshines during the verses. “Walk into the light,” she commands, “Display your diamonds and pearls in light.” She should’ve said something about the jewelry being “bright” instead of using “light” twice, but the way she channels Lena Horne on Broadway makes it one of the two best parts of the song.
The second best part is that same section of the second verse, which she totally slays. “There’s a life on Mars where the couture is beyond beyond.” Fabulous, in my gayest voice. The verses are early peaks though. The chorus, on which she makes the mistake of trying to carry the same melody as opposed to coming-up with something different, is comparatively anticlimactic. When she does decide to make a change, during the ending coda, it’s a mess.
my rating : 3 of 5
2013
