Category: reviews with a 3 of 5 rating

audio review : On The House ( mixtape ) … Slaughterhouse

On The House ( mixtape ) ... Slaughterhouse

The concept of this set was doomed from the beginning. It doesn’t really make sense to promote an album with an album, even when that promo album is only a so-called mixtape, especially when it’s composed of new songs that aren’t included on the album its promoting, because it only distracts from what it’s supposed to focus your attention on. The idea is that, while you have to pay for the official album, this one is On The House, but the official release date of Our House comes just days after this one. If this one is better, it will overshadow it. If it’s worse, it will put a damper on any anticipation the album had going for it. It’s not good promotion either way.

That said, every member of Slaughterhouse is a skillful rapper. Even their weakest link; Joell Ortiz; can be surprisingly impressive at times. He outshines Royce Da 5-9; my pick for the best rapper of the four, though this set, which has him favoring a gay sing-songy flow over a straight one, doesn’t really reflect that; on Truth Or Truth, which comes across as a 14-minute therapy session. Joe Budden also shines there, though he’s missing in action on a few of these songs. The best ones are generally the ones with the best hooks; namely Sucka MCs, Gone and Coming Home; but even the worse ones have at least a few impressive bars scattered here and there.

my rating : 3 of 5

2012

Red Bull

Red Bull

Red Bull is advertised as an energy drink that “improves performance”, “increases endurance”, “increases concentration”, “improves reaction speed” and “stimulates the metabolism”. In short, it “vitalizes” the “body and mind”, as the front of the can so proudly declares.

Interestingly enough, with all that said, there’s no mention of the taste, which I’d say is rather unique. It’s lightly carbonated, so I’d compare it to soda, but the closest flavor I can liken it to is maybe a lemon-lime berry mix with crushed Rockets (candy) stirred in for lift.

my rating : 3 of 5

video review : Avatar

video review : Avatar

The war-driven plot may be a racy historical metaphor, but that’s about as far out on an artistic limb James Cameron is willing to go. Everything else about Avatar, his first movie since the great Titanic, is safe and sound, often to the point of being cliché; a fact its surprisingly stodgy dialogue and cartoonish characterization give away right from the beginning.

In a future world where Earth people fly to other places in search of mineral goods, a marine named Jake Sully infiltrates moon Pandora; home of a race of tall blue cat-people with long tails and braided hair. He does so with a team of scientists via the Avatar program, which allows them to live on Pandora as Navi creatures without really being there.

It’s imaginative science fiction and the world of Pandora is a visual wonder. There are strange creatures, big and small, and awe-inspiring landscapes that sort of make you want to visit a place like that in real life. The story; a mythological fairy tale based around eye-rollingly unnecessary themes of religion and romance; never lives up to the hype.

my rating : 3 of 5

2009

video review : Avatar : The Way Of Water

video review : Cujo

video review : Cujo

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

video review : Stay Tuned

video review : Stay Tuned

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

video review : Encino Man

Encino Man

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

audio review : MA Doom [ Son Of Yvonne ] ( album ) … Masta Ace

MA Doom [ Son Of Yvonne ] ( album ) ... Masta Ace

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

video review : I Think I Love My Wife

I Think I Love My Wife

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 : Disposable Arts ( album ) … Masta Ace

Disposable Arts ( album ) ... Masta Ace

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

video review : Rosewood

video review : Rosewood

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!

audio review : Is Your Love Big Enough ( album ) … Lianne La Havas

Is Your Love Big Enough ( album ) ... Lianne La Havas

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.

video review : She Hate Me

video review : She Hate Me

A lot of, perhaps most, so-called lesbians are actually bisexual. A lot of, perhaps most, women who claim to be straight are too. Fatima’s fiancé Jack; the vice president of a corporate firm; caught her in bed having sex with another woman. She claims it was her first time and that the reason she did it is because she “had to find-out” her sexual orientation, either unaware or unwilling to admit that the curiosity alone told her everything she needed to know. It’s not who you have sex with that determines your sexual orientation, in other words, it’s who you’re sexually attracted to.

When Fatima’s new girlfriend and several other “lesbian” women have sex with Jack, her now ex-fiancé, it’s strictly business. They want babies, women can’t give each other babies and sperm banks are too unreliable and it’s hard for women couples to adopt. That makes Jack the man of choice. After losing his job during a Watergate-like job scandal, he needs the money; ten-thousand dollars per woman, minus Fatima’s ten-percent finder’s fee. That’s the deal and the hook of the plot. The fact that Fatima still has heteromantic feelings for him is supposed to be beside the point.

If it all seems silly, that’s because it is. The overall tone of this Spike Lee “joint” is that of a serious drama, as the orchestral score so often suggests, but the lesbian baby bits come across as some sort of comical hyperbole. That might be fine if the movie were just about that, but it rocks back and forth between that and Jack’s unrelated job scandal, which lacks any real sense of suspense despite threatening to land him in prison for a long time. There’s even a big courtroom scene near the end. But the sex scenes, which at times cross over into softcore porn, are much more appealing.

my rating : 3 of 5

2004