Category: reviews

video review : The Dark Knight Rises

video review : The Dark Knight Rises

The title is a fancy way to say that Batman is back. Did the world need another Batman movie? No. But Wayne Enterprises; a multi-billion-dollar company owned by Bruce Wayne himself; is going bankrupt and popular superhero movies; this is the third in what is now a Christopher Nolan trilogy; make an insane amount of money. Two Face is dead and The Joker, a character who should’ve been mentioned if not given a cameo appearance, is in prison. Enter Bane, a strong vicious beast of a man with a gas mask stuck to his face. He wears it for a reason, but it muffles his voice sometimes to the point of being unintelligible.

Not that these characters, including Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, ever have anything poignant to say. Christopher Nolan is a lot better at directing fight scenes than composing dialogue. So the fast-cut plot, riddled with minor holes and unnecessary twists; Gotham City facing its demise in the form of a nuclear bomb is the gist; gets saved by its exciting and often violent action scenes. Most, if not all, of that action coincides with epic Hans Zimmer orchestral music, yes; and the new flying bat-toy is kind of cool; but this Dark Knight, while entertaining, is a sequel that doesn’t quite match the level of its predecessor.

my rating : 4 of 5

2012

audio review : History [ Mob Music | Function Music ] ( albums ) … E-40 + Too Short

audio review : History [ Mob Music | Function Music ] ( albums ) ... E-40 + Too Short audio review : History [ Mob Music | Function Music ] ( albums ) ... E-40 + Too Short

Mob music is the style of music E-40 rapped to on his Federal debut. The beats on that album were produced by Studio Tone and they, like most on those early albums, pound. But somewhere along the way; a decade after Federal, to be exact; E-40 lost his way. Now, another decade later, what he tries to pass as classic “mob” music is a collection of mostly watered-down starter beats. They do “pound” in the literal sense, meaning they’re produced with enough bass to give your speakers a workout, but not in the aesthetic sense the slang term implies.

Studio Tone is limited to just one track. That song, entitled Ask About Me, is perhaps the closest this set comes to classic “mob”. Most of the others, on both albums, sound like new-age post-Hyphy “function” music to me. That makes the double album concept a bit of a fraud. Long-time E-40 and Too Short fans anticipating an epic return to form shouldn’t get their hopes up, in other words, because they’ll be disappointed in a major way. In fact, the individual solo albums E-40 and Too Short released earlier this year are considerably better than this set.

Aside from the beats, the album concept is also thrown off by the fact that both rappers aren’t given equal time. This seems more like an E-40 release featuring Too Short than a true one-and-one collaboration. Too Short is featured on only the West Coast Shit chorus. E-40 is featured on several. I think E-40 has more verses too. He’s the better rapper, sure, but it’s a major flaw; one that would be hard to overcome even if most of the beats weren’t amateurish and most of the hooks weren’t lackluster. Some; Toasted, Say I and One Foot included; are just plain annoying.

my rating : 2 of 5

2012

Honey Graham Oh’s

Honey Graham Oh's

Oh yes. This cereal is delicious. It’s O-shaped corn pieces with “good things in the middle” like real oatmeal. The caramel-like taste, which I’d compare to Cap’n Crunch or old school Mr T, Gremlins and Batman cereal, is sweetened with honey, graham (cracker) flour and brown sugar.

The taste is great. It’s easily one of the best cereals in that regard, but it’s too crunchy. It won’t get soggy in milk, at least not in any reasonable amount of time, but that’s the problem because it makes for a hard chew. If it had the texture and consistency of, say, Cheerios, it’d be perfect.

my rating : 4 of 5

video review : The Grey

video review : The Grey

The Grey builds to a lone wolf metaphor at the end, but the title should be plural. The story takes place in a world dominated by real wolves who hunt to kill a group of oil drillers stranded in the cold snow after a plane crash. It’s a tale of survival, albeit a familiar one, held together not by precious dialogue or clever plotting; the men just trod along; but by a sense of impending doom.

my rating : 4 of 5

2011

video review : Get On The Bus

video review : Get On The Bus

Spike Lee invites you to Get On The Bus. Its passengers consist of about twenty men and a teenager, played De’Aundre Bonds overacting his role, headed to The Million (black) Man March; a potentially historic civil rights event held by Louis Farrakhan in Washington DC.

You don’t have to support the cause to enjoy the ride. There’s enough dynamic characterization to hold your attention for the most part. It’s when we start leaving the bus for conflict and drama during the movie’s second half that things go from good to not-so-good.

It soon becomes an emotional wreck. Imagine fist fights and father-son therapy sessions over contemporary soul music. Spike Lee deserves praise for including a new Michael Jackson song as the theme, but They Don’t Care About Us would’ve been a better fit.

my rating : 3 of 5

1996

audio review : Channel Orange ( album ) … Frank Ocean

Channel Orange ( album ) ... Frank Ocean

The TV theme, which offers ghostly interludes of what sounds like a person flicking thru channels, is unnecessary. It’s subtle enough, but it serves as a minor distraction from what is otherwise an album of outstanding soul songs. They’re designed around soft and often drum-dampened grooves, mostly slow and sensual in nature; rhythmic pulsations that drip, ooze and float around in space like daydreams of amour caught in a lava lamp. The only reason it’s Pink Matter, as opposed to Orange, is because that particular ode, featuring guest rapper Andre 3000, happens to be dedicated to a girl.

Forrest Gump is dedicated to a guy, which makes Frank Ocean either as bisexual as Janet Jackson was when she sang about loosening the back of a girl’s “pretty” French gown and tying her up with Velvet Rope or as artistically daring. In either case, wherever his true romantic orientation lies, there’s undeniable beauty in these songs. Frank Ocean is like Stevie Wonder in the 1970s, which is nothing less than fantastic, but it’s a style that wouldn’t mean much if that’s all he had to offer. Beyond all the gloss; even the song about Crack Rock sounds enticing enough to make love to; are hearty vocal melodies.

my rating : 4 of 5

2012

video review : Home Alone 2 [ Lost In New York ]

video review : Home Alone 2 [ Lost In New York ]

Home Alone 2 may as well be a remake. That’s how close it follows in the footsteps of the original. It’s a formula starting with the McCallister family going on Christmas vacation and ending with them celebrating elsewhere after reuniting with Kevin. This time he gets left at the airport, which sends the family to Miami and Kevin to New York City. He’s Alone again, if one can ever be alone in New York City, but he’s not at Home, so the title no longer makes sense.

Once you realize you’re basically watching Home Alone again; different details with the same basic plotline; you start to anticipate the one entertaining part; the part where The Wet Bandits, now known as The Sticky Bandits, fall victim to Kevin and his booby traps. Even though you know how everything’s going to end-up, that climax does not disappoint. It’s still fun to watch those two idiots become real-life Looney Tunes characters before your eyes.

my rating : 3 of 5

1992

video review : Home Alone

video review : Home Alone

The climax of this movie, in which an eight-year-old boy booby-traps his house to prevent two burglars from robbing it while his family is away on Christmas vacation, is quite entertaining. He uses ice, tar, fire and whatever else he can find in the house to make even something as simple as walking up the stairs or turning a doorknob a dangerous experience for would-be-robbers.

In a more serious movie; one that doesn’t sugarcoat its violence in slapstick comedy; the two burglars, named The Wet Bandits because one of them likes to clog the sink and leave the water running when they rob a house, would probably be dead. Here they just hurt and humiliate themselves in amusing ways. There’s a scene involving a spider that’s actually hilarious.

What’s annoying is the boy. I guess he’s supposed to be cute and he might look cute, but the way he acts; the character and the actor who plays him; is the worst thing about the movie. When a Wet Bandit falls victim to one of his pranks, he celebrates with a “Yes!” When he glides across a sheet of ice to escape a policeman, he lets out an exaggerated “Wooah!” It’s just annoying.

With that, I think Home Alone would be better if Kevin’s character were presented in a more realistic way. I’d also like to see some background to how he’s able to come-up with such an ingenious Battle Plan. There are no scenes of him making booby traps before his family mistakenly leaves him Home Alone, which is an inclusion that would work wonders for the plot’s believability factor.

my rating : 3 of 5

1990

video review : Home Alone 2 [ Lost In New York ]
 

Ryan :

You’re joking, right? You wanted them to develop how he came up with his “battle plan?” Out of everything in this phenomenal, CLASSIC movie, that was what you found to be the most unrealistic aspect?

audio review : I’m Goin Out Lika Soldier ( album ) … Willie D

I'm Goin Out Lika Soldier ( album ) ... Willie D

Willie D is funny when he’s mad and yelling, and he’s usually mad and yelling. That’s why he’s my favorite member of the Geto Boys; a group he’s no longer a part of and might be at war with. If he’s Goin Out Lika Soldier, as the ridiculous album title insists, he’s a one-man army, but it’s best that way. When comrades arrive to Pass Da Piote, it makes for the album’s worst song.

The best or at least most entertaining; the set is scattered with clever comedy bits; are the ones on which he’s Goin off on (bald-head) hoes. There’s a diss about a Little Hooker named Choice and My Dick knocks pussy off the pedestal sexist society tries to put it on. Both songs are hilarious, but he goes the opposite way on Clean-Up Man; the anthem of a typical romantic.

When he’s not aiming at women, he’s taking shots at men; from Rodney King; there’s a whole song about how much he hates the motorist for being a racial “sellout”; to phony Gankstas to “weak-ass” rappers he wants to Die. By the end of the album, over a funky Average White Band sample, he’s put himself in a situation in which has to come-up with an Alibi for murder.

my rating : 3 of 5

1992

audio review : Cruel Summer

audio review : Cruel Summer

The hooks on the first two songs are annoying. R Kelly, for one, sounds silly stretching the word “world” out to so many syllables. Neither is as bad as on a song called Higher though, which is practically unbearable. There is “GOOD” music here, but most of it is confined to the actual music. The instrumental beats, even without Kanye West at the helm, thump with artistic flair.

The raps are neither here nor there; there aren’t really any stand-out MCs in Kanye’s clique; though feature verses from Ghostface Killah and Jadakiss serve as pleasant surprises. Song highlights include Don’t Like, an updated version of the Chief Keef song, which isn’t at all appropriate as the ending to an album that represents a record label he’s not signed to, Sin City and The One.

my rating : 3 of 5

2012

A Stolen Life [ A Memoir ] ( book ) … Jaycee Dugard

A Stolen Life [ A Memoir ] ( book ) ... Jaycee Dugard

Jaycee Dugard was abducted at 11 years old. She lived with her abductors, a pedophile and his wife, for 18 years, but she wasn’t held captive all that time. That’s the problem with her story. She was a victim in June of 1991 when Phillip Garrido zapped her with his stun gun, put her in his car, imprisoned her in his home and started using her as his personal sex slave, but by the time Jaycee, now living under the secret identity of Allissa; a 29-year-old mother of two; was discovered by the police and reunited with her real family, she’d become willing participant. That she attributes to being “conditioned” as she tries to play the victim role to the end, but she’s full of shit. She had countless chances to flee; at one point, she strolls thru a crowded shopping mall without Phillip; but chose not to.

Her story is nonetheless an intriguing one. Her style of writing is sometimes childish and redundant, especially at the beginning, but the personal journals she was thoughtful enough to write over the years, which she apparently saved, help her do a fine job of revisiting the past. That is assuming all the details she includes; the rape scenes, which are the most interesting parts, are surprisingly graphic; are true. This is just one side of a long story. My only major complaints are the Reflection bits, which take the reader from a factual account of the past to a present-day psychological analysis in a jolt, and the fact that it should’ve ended at the Discovery And Reunion chapter; the ending of which is genuinely poignant. The rest could’ve and should’ve been summed down to a short epilogue.

my rating : 3 of 5

2011

audio review : Both Sides ( album ) … Phil Collins

Both Sides ( album ) ... Phil Collins

Phil Collins is a one-man band. He still Can’t Dance; there are only three uptempo songs on this set; but he sings and plays, or programs, the instruments without missing a beat. If you didn’t know any better, you might think you were listening to another Genesis release.

Both Sides isn’t as epic as their last album; few albums are; but it’s a worthy follow-up. The voice of Phil Collins remains a blanket of melody, which helps give a warm and comfy atmosphere to these songs. Most are good. Some, including the idyllic title track, near greatness.

my rating : 4 of 5

1993