Corn comes together with oats, barley, wheat and rice, also a hint of sugar and syrup for sweetness, to create a Cheerios that tastes significantly better than the (boring) one in the yellow box. It looks like those original Cheerios, which are made of just whole grain oats, are included here too. The addition of their multi-grained cousins with all their shades of tan gives the bowl a look that’s pleasing to the eye as well as the mouth.
my rating : 4 of 5
Being trapped in a broken-down Pinto for several hours with a rabid dog trying to kill you every time you try to get out is bad. Having a dying kid with you is even worse. That’s the situation Fonna Trenton finds herself in one hot day.
The movie should be mostly that, but it isn’t. The car doesn’t break down, thus the suspense doesn’t begin, until pass the halfway point. Everything before comes across as a prelude involving Donna’s irrelevant marriage troubles.
my rating : 3 of 5
1983
A TV addict gets sucked into the world of television. It’s an ironic concept with a lot of potential, but putting the protagonist; a plumbing salesman named Roy; and his wife on the set of popular TV shows could cause legal trouble, so it’s all done in parody with a Hellish slant.
As black comedy, it works, at least in theory. The spoofs are consistently funny. This is a movie packed with clever satire. Some of it is downright brilliant. It’s the actual plotting, which gets the couple’s kids involved in trying to save them à la Poltergeist, that could use some revision.
my rating : 3 of 5
1992
R Kelly suddenly has a 2-track mind and sex has little to do with either. It’s about love; romantic and religious; as this double album suggests. Happy People, which comes off the heels of his club hit Step In The Name Of Love, consists of night dance music for “steppers”. U Saved Me is a collection of soulful gospel ballads.
There isn’t really much else, musically nor conceptually, so the songs on each set generally sound alike, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing because they’re so damn good; especially when the singer puts his angel wings on, does his best Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye impression and lets the music fly up to the heavens.
my rating : 4 of 5
2004
I don’t get the title. A caveman, thawed back to life by two high school seniors; Dave and Stoney; awakes in California’s Encino, but there’s no real link between him and the city. It’s just the first place he happens to discover after thousands of years in hibernation. Forget the plot. There’s not much to see there. It’s his adaption to the modern world as the weird new “exchange” student from “Estonia” that, along with hippie Stoney’s quirky persona and lin… go, makes the movie, which is always stupid, at least fun to watch.
my rating : 3 of 5
1992
![MA Doom [ Son Of Yvonne ] ( album ) ... Masta Ace](https://marcellee.com/posts/13222-1.jpg)
It’s good to hear Masta Ace; one of my favorite rappers; still rapping. When it comes to having the skills that, no matter how good you are, may not be able to pay the bills, he’s one of the most consistent in the game. I just wish he’d make a proper solo album with no concepts or gimmicks; something he hasn’t really done since his debut; Take a Look Around; which remains his best.
The thing here is that he’s making new songs out of beats from MF Doom’s Special Herbs beat set. This album is also a nostalgic dedication to his mother. But the two concepts do not mesh well. MF Doom sampled a lot of old soul songs, but it’s not like his albums were around when Masta Ace was a kid; played here by a different kid we have to hear talk on far too many skits.
Where you’ll have to focus your attention to enjoy this album is on the verses; Masta Ace rapping to an array of funky/jazzy hip-hop beats, which is almost always a good thing. Best songs include a Saturday night club starter featuring a girl named Milani The Artist. The Outtakes that follow, if they had to be included at all, should’ve been followed by a more appropriate closer song.
A pleasant surprise comes in the form of a verse by Big Daddy Kane, speaking of hip-hop veterans. If Masta Ace isn’t going to do a proper solo album, I want to see these two collab. But for some reason Kane’s verse is followed by a vocal feature from none other than MF Doom, whose sole vocal feature, in the middle of the album where it is, comes across as off-puttingly random.
my rating : 3 of 5
2012
Nikki is hot and ready. If I were her friend Richard, I’d cheat on My Wife for her. His co-worker George gets it. He’s been cheating for years, slick and discreet, and only needs Viagra to keep it up. Richard though is a buffoon, so when crosses the line, everyone seems to know. The point this romantic comedy, sloppily written/directed by Chris Rock, misses is that having sex with another woman has nothing to do with whether or not you love your wife.
my rating : 3 of 5
2007
![audio review : Beauty And The Beast [ Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ]](https://marcellee.com/posts/13251.jpg)
It can be said that every fairy tale needs a song, even children’s ones that celebrate Beastiality, so here it is; the official music soundtrack to Disney’s Beauty And The Beast. It’s a collection of highlights; more music plays in the movie; but this is the best stuff.
Included is Belle’s grand theme and the epic Be Our Guest dinner anthem. The best song though is the title song; not the contemporary (out-of-place) Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson duet, but the orchestral version by Angela Lansbury as the lovely Mrs Pott.
my rating : 4 of 5
1991
His record label was right. There isn’t Enuff singing in the hooks. But that’s only because Masta Ace, as good as he as a rapper; even in comparison to Eminem, who’s single-handedly raised the bar since Ace released his last album six years ago; isn’t as good when it comes to making whole songs. Even when he’s being exceptionally creative; listen for the clever wordplay in Alphabet Soup; it’s lyrically self-defeating because he’s forcing himself to rhyme within a narrow boundary as opposed to saying whatever he wants.
The intro skit, entitled Release, comes across as irrelevant and unnecessary if Masta Ace didn’t really just get out of prison, and I don’t think he did. He should’ve scrapped all the silly skits and interludes. There are seven in all. But those are my only major complaints about this otherwise decent return set. Stand-out songs include Every Other Day and Talk A Walk. I like I Like Dat too, but only during the verses. The breaks; one of those hooks where the beat changes for the worse until the rapping starts again; sort of ruin it.
my rating : 3 of 5
2001
The problem with Rosewood, based on a massacre that happened in 1923 after a “nigger” allegedly beat and raped a white woman, is that it goes on for too long. It’s a few days condensed to about 140 minutes, but the plot could’ve rolled more productively in two-thirds the time.
There’s lots of unnecessary filler, including subtle hints of a very unnecessary romance, but the action scenes; if black people being lynched, shot and hung qualifies as such; are generally worth the wait. If it’s not entertainment, it’s at least something interesting to watch.
I’ll just add that the south back then wasn’t only filled with racists; the whites were racist toward the blacks and the blacks were racist right back; but also sexists and ageists as the lives of men were considered expendable in comparison to the lives of women and children.
my rating : 3 of 5
1997
Nubian Queen :
racist right back? You’re kidding right-no your not. Lord have mercy, and I ain’t even a christian!
It’s dialogue between a guy in a phone booth and his potential murderer that holds this movie together. The guy; a publicist who deceives people for a living; has a wife and a secret girlfriend whose lives are also on the line. At least that’s what the guy on the line tells him. He also says that if he leaves the booth, he’ll shoot him from one of the windows in one of the buildings hovering above. To show he’s really there, he takes a shot at a toy robot just outside the booth.
It’s a clever and captivating concept. The plot, which seems to run in real time, sticks with it to the end. Almost every scene takes place at the phone booth with a frequent array of shaky zoom shots and split screening for visual stimulation, but the gunman’s motive is weak. He claims to be motivated by morality and doesn’t really demand anything in exchange for his victim’s life, so the mind game he plays starts to get a little redundant after a while.
my rating : 4 of 5
2002
My love probably isn’t big enough for Lianne La Havas. I don’t really partake in traditional romance, the kind of “love” she’s referring to here, so most of my affection would be restricted to her pretty doll-like physical appearance. I think I could get swept-up in her music though, to the point where, even if I’m not actually in love with it, my mind would be too hazy, my “heart” too fluttery, to tell the difference.
Some of these songs come close to demonstrating that fact, particularly the two in which she’s stripped down to just bluesy vocal melodies and an acoustic guitar. Age and Tease Me are both dedicated to “you”, the guy she’s questioning in the title, like every other song. The one that interrupts the flow is the one you can hear a guy’s voice replying back on, No Room For Doubt, which is also one of the album’s best.
Coming from a new pop artist, the set is something like a breath of fresh air. It’s not so hard to create this kind of cozy coffeehouse soundscape. All it really takes are skilled musicians playing live instruments softly as opposed to programming thumpy electronic ones. What makes it standout is the arrangement of the vocals on top, something this “love”-smitten Lianne girl has an apparent knack for.
my rating : 3 of 5
2012
ZYX :
The song “you can hear a guy’s voice replying back on”??? It’s a called a duet.
Deb Hawkins :
This album mostly chronicles her break-up with her boyfriend, so you kinda missed the mark.