Category: reviews with a 3 of 5 rating

video review : Kill Bill [ Volume 2 ]

video review : Kill Bill [ Volume 2 ]

This second half of Bill Kill focuses less on action and more on plot, which, unlike sword-slicing the story in two, wasn’t a bad idea on the part of Quentin Tarantino. His knack for dialogue has a chance to bare its face as there’s more talking here than violent combat shots.

The character conversations and monologues, sometimes spoken directly to the audience, help fill in the many plot holes and gives the story, which has to do with revenge, some purpose. Still it never comes close to becoming the masterpiece it was apparently meant to be.

my rating : 3 of 5

2004

video review : Kill Bill [ Volume 1 ]

video review : Kill Bill [ Volume 1 ]

Style over substance is the rule in this first half of Kill Bill. It’s a tale of revenge inspired by old kung fu and samurai war flicks in which characters engaged in carefully choreographed fist/sword fights.

The movie is a thrill during those gory action scenes, which are enhanced with over-the-top effects. Swords “whoosh” to caricatural levels as the lost of body parts sends blood splattering everywhere.

The plot, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired, which can’t be too surprising when a story reaches its halfway point and stops. Bill doesn’t even get a chance to show his face, let alone get killed.

my rating : 3 of 5

2003

video review : Kill Bill [ Volume 2 ]

audio review : Live At The Olympia ( album ) … REM

audio review : Live At The Olympia ( album ) ... REM

It’s REM, one of the most popular rock bands in the world, at The Olympia in Dublin, but they insist it’s “not a show”. What they mean is that it’s not an official concert. It is a show. That’s evident by the way Michael Stipe addresses the crowd; a selection of people with “impeccable” tastes. It’s a rehearsal show; a 2007 practice performance of songs from Accelerate and the tour that would presumably follow.

Fans of Around The Sun and Reveal might be disappointed with this album. The setlist, a special selection of the songs they performed, spends most of its time on the old stuff. There are six songs from Reckoning, for example, and five from Fables Of The Reconstruction, but none from Up, probably my favorite REM album. How cool it would have been to hear Sad Professor raw, unpolished and Jacknifed.

That’s a relatively minor complaint though. My major one is the talking the band does during some of the breaks, specifically the one that ruins the album’s conceptual flow; Stipe mentioning to his very appreciative audience that it’s the band’s “fifth” of five nights before magically going back in time to perform songs from the previous nights. With just that, this comes across as a random compilation rather than a proper set.

My favorite song here is Until The Day Is Done, which, like other Accelerators, had yet to been released. It sounds a lot like the album version though, unlike Disguised, which is a demo version of Supernatural Superserious. Other highlights include On The Fly; its absence from the Accelerate album baffles me; and Pretty Persuasion. I like the way Michael Stipe says the word “confusion” on that one.

my rating : 3 of 5

2009

audio review : Hell [ The Sequel ] ( album ) … Bad Meets Evil

Hell [ The Sequel ] ( album ) ... Bad Meets Evil

Eminem and Royce Da 5-9, collectively known as Bad Meets Evil based on their duet from The Slim Shady LP, should’ve made an album in 1999. Back then they were not only the best two rappers ever to emerge from the underground but nearly word-perfect to the point of lyrical flawlessness. Listen to the Bad Meets Evil song or Scary Movie and tell me what rappers were better than those two.

There’s a song on this CD, the title of which follows in the footsteps of that aforementioned Shady LP duet, Eminem haphazardly refers to as the “sequel” to Scary Movie, but that’s lyrical blasphemy. No verse on this album even comes close. As far as skills go, both rappers are mere shadows of their former selves, especially Eminem. He went from being then considerably better than Royce to now about equal.

They are still two of the best rappers in the game though and there are a few truly impressive bars sprinkled about here and there. Eminem’s David Carradine Die Hard rhyme scheme sounds almost like vintage Eminem and Royce’s “ass/bathroom” line is pretty funny. In fact, that first song, entitled Welcome 2 Hell, is one of the best, along with the ones with the best hooks; namely Lighters and A Kiss.

Eminem’s singing on A Kiss, which comes with a minor yet surprising technical flaw; it sounds a little muffled, perhaps because it was mixed with a little too much bass; is what makes the song good. The sample of a girl’s voice saying she wants a kiss adds to the concept. Lighters, as soon as it begins with Bruno Mars singing the chorus, sounds like it belongs on a different album, but it’s a nice song.

The Reunion is also notable. Not for its chorus, which is middling on the quality scale, but for the fact that Eminem makes a decent attempt to restrain the Recovery vocal delivery I hoped he’d stop using by now. The rappers also give the tiring speed-rapping a break. The concept of the song is sloppy; romantic heartbreak doesn’t really go well with their reunion story; but it’s okay enough.

The album, which, at nine full-length songs, is no more of an EP than Michael Jackson’s Thriller, though it’s being officially promoted as one, ends with a Slaughterhouse song. Though Royce Da 5-9 should’ve come on directly after Eminem instead of after Crooked I; the album has a few sequencing flaws; I guess that’s appropriate assuming the next Shady Records release is a Slaughterhouse album.

my rating : 3 of 5

2011

video review : Fair Game

video review : Fair Game

This movie, based on a memoir by former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, seems to have its political views in the right place. It’s not afraid to portray the US government as the corrupt organization it often is. The main focus goes back to the weeks, months and years after “9-11” and the questionable war that started as a result.

The plot, about Valerie’s sudden termination from the CIA; the result of her ambassador husband publicly denying that Saddam Hussein is using “yellowcake” to make weapons; doesn’t really untangle itself until about the half-way point. From there, this Fair Game is two people versus the government in what is ultimately anything but.

my rating : 3 of 5

2010

video review : Retreat

video review : Retreat

The two protagonists in this movie; the couple we’re supposed to care about; are so faggy and make such stupid decisions that it’s hard to have any positive feelings toward them. That’s especially true with the guy, named Martin. Most of the dumb decisions him and his girlfriend make have to do with guns, but what he does at about the halfway point is so idiotic that I started to hope for his death. Is that to say that brainless cowards deserve to die? Not necessarily. I just didn’t want to look at his stupid face anymore.

The girl, played by Thandiwe Newton, is kind of cute. A few deliberate body shots even give her a sexual allure; I was hoping for a rape scene; but her looks aren’t attractive enough to make-up for such a silly story. The underlying premise, which has to do with a deadly airborne disease and a bad guy; her potential rapist and Martin’s potential killer; could’ve worked, but screen-shouting suspense can only go so far in a movie in which the characters are such retards when it comes to what to do and what not to do with a gun.

my rating : 3 of 5

2011

audio review : Revenue Retrievin [ Overtime Shift | Graveyard Shift ] ( albums ) … E-40

audio review : Revenue Retrievin [ Overtime Shift | Graveyard Shift ] ( albums ) ... E-40 audio review : Revenue Retrievin [ Overtime Shift | Graveyard Shift ] ( albums ) ... E-40

Apparently E-40 likes Revenue Retrievin a lot more than I do; enough to release another set just one year after the first. That’s another two albums; twenty songs each or forty new songs. Get it? “40” new songs? It’s a concept you can appreciate only if, rather than being a fan since the beginning, you didn’t really start fucking with E-40 until his Ghetto Report Card gave him a sudden burst of mainstream popularity. By then, the overall quality of his music, once consistently good, had fallen off tremendously. That’s thanks mainly to an array of underproduced beats influenced by California’s Bay Area “hyphy” movement.

This album is still new-school E-40, but there’s a song included in which he declares at the beginning of the track that he “had to bring back that old-school mob sound”. The beat he proceeds to rap to, with its melodic bassline, sounds just like the kind of beat he used to rap to, which suggests he hasn’t completely lost touch of what helped make him the rapper he is today. Why he doesn’t make an entire album that sounds like that, instead of letting his son (Droop-E) tarnish his catalog with amateur run-of-the-mill production, is the question. That song though, entitled My Money Straight, is one of the album’s best.

There are a few wack songs, but most are just mediocre with dull hooks. The very first track, for example; a 2011 remake of the Mister Flamboyant anthem from two decades ago; relies on repeated snippets of movie or TV-show dialogue, which just sounds stupid. What’s smart, on the other hand, is E-40’s decision to start rapping fast again, rather the fact that it seems he’s starting to rap faster more often like he used to. That, along with the fact that what he says in his verses is almost always interesting and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, makes the hundred-or-so verses he spits the best thing this album has to offer.

my rating : 3 of 5

2011

video review : Horrible Bosses

video review : Horrible Bosses

This is a movie a lot of working people can relate to. The main characters, men with white-collar jobs, hate their bosses for good reason. Even Dale, a dental assistant who’s sexually harassed by his hot chick boss, is justified because he wants to remain monogamous to his fiancée. Those constant advances are supposed to be funny, sometimes they are, but the sexist double standard they take advantage of isn’t lost on me.

As far as malice goes, the dentist is by far the least horrible of the three bosses. She is at least attracted to Dale in a positive way. His two best friends, Nick and Kurt, have to put-up with bosses who seem to hate them right back. Sitting in a bar one day, the three goofballs come-up with the idea to kill their bosses. Once that plot point is set, you’re hooked in, waiting to see how everything is going to turn-out in the end.

Too bad the story doesn’t go for real suspense. It’s built upon a simple yet potentially brilliant concept that could’ve worked wonders in a serious movie. As a comedy, one that’s consistently almost funny but never really funny, everything from how horrible the bosses are to how the workers go about planning to kill them is caricatured to unrealistic proportions. The ending you wait an hour and a half for is especially ridiculous.

my rating : 3 of 5

2011

video review : Horrible Bosses 2

audio review : Loved By Few Hated By Many ( album ) … Willie D

audio review : Loved By Few Hated By Many ( album ) ... Willie D

Willie D doesn’t holler that much anymore. Hollering was his trademark. He’d tell Bald Head Hoes to suck his dick at the top of his lungs and I’d laugh. The only time he really raises his voice here is at the end of If I Was White. “We are black, they are white,” the racist anthem goes, “Our blood is red, but we can never unite.”

He’s still rapping about Geto life from the perspective of an inner-city street thug, which I guess is appropriate because these days his vocal delivery sounds more like 2Pac than the Willie D from back in the day. There’s also a song entitled Lil Killaz that has him sounding oddly similar to his homeboy Scarface.

Still I prefer even this Willie D over Scarface and 2Pac. This album is a disappointment, but there are standouts. The best is Freaky Deaky featuring Pimp C. The two trade sex verses over a sultry beat, but the best verse comes from Willie D’s cousin Nay-Nay, who steals the spotlight with her country flow.

my rating : 3 of 5

2000

audio review : Black Summers Night ( album ) … Maxwell

audio review : Black Summers Night ( album ) ... Maxwell

It’s actually Maxwell’s band that makes the music sound so damn good. The songs themselves, in terms of melodic arrangements and such, generally hold-up decently, but it’s the accommodating instrumentation that makes them drip with soulful sexiness.

This is a muddy mix of bassy funk music; the kind jazzmen jammed to in the summers of the 1970s. There’s what sounds like a live trumpet section in the mix; a nice backdrop for Maxwell’s voice, which can go from whiny to falsetto at a moment’s notice.

He’s singing mostly to a girl, pleading and protesting his love for her to the point of worship, which would be acceptable if it were just about sex. When it comes to pretty girls, Maxwell is a sucker for romance and that the crooner has no qualms about.

What’s redeeming is a dance groove called Phoenix Rise. It’s the one song that isn’t held back by sappy lyrics. That makes one wonder how much better this lukewarm album could be vocal-free as just a straight music soundtrack for black summer nights.

my rating : 3 of 5

2009

audio review : Daddy’s Home ( album ) … Big Daddy Kane

audio review : Daddy's Home ( album ) ... Big Daddy Kane

Big Daddy Kane is getting older in age and, judging by these album pictures, plumper in size. His vocals are also starting to sound more labored. When he goes into hardcore battle mode; the Raw vocal delivery he’s been known for since “88”; there’s an audible gasp between almost every phrase. The Sex song suggests he’s still a multi-ladies man in the bedroom, but his voice is starting to sound more like a veteran church preacher.

As far as rap skills go, he’s still sonning the competition with a stockpile of funny lyrics. Lyrical Gymnastics, featuring a clever Whitney Houston nod, ranks among his best. He’s generally fallen off a little though since the last album. Impressive similes and metaphors have become harder to find among all the corny or awkwardly constructed fillers. “You think that I be shaving my rhymes,” he says on the title track, “Cause they be so smooth.”

my rating : 3 of 5

1994

video review : The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

video review : The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

Peyton Flanders, the widow of an obstetrician who kills himself after a media scandal in which he’s accused and criminal charged with molesting his patients, is supposed to be despicable, but I like her. She’s an attractive woman physically, but that also makes her manipulating and malicious personality attractive in a psychological, almost masochistic, sense. It’s as if she can do no wrong because her sexual and romantic allure makes it right.

If I were the husband of the woman she blames for the death of hers; the woman whose marriage she infiltrates and plans to takeover as wife and mother; I might be easy prey. After murdering his wife’s best friend and emptying her asthma inhalers, Peyton tries to seduce him into sex. She dries his rain-soaked body with a towel and gazes into his eyes. He rejects her, which I guess, as far as morality and self-control goes, makes him a better man than me.

These are cut-out characters limited to strict moral roles, however, so the straight-forward plot wouldn’t let him even consider doing such a thing for more than a few suspense-building seconds. That’s only a minor part of what makes what happens in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle so far-fetched and unrealistic. Most of it has to do with the amount of unlikely coincidences that allow Peyton to succeed with her plan as far as she does in the first place.

my rating : 3 of 5

1992