Don’t know much about this group other then they’re signed to 4AD and an album is looming. Their first single was pretty good too. This fresh brand of rock electronique could propel them to the big-time.
Free Scion/Kitsune Party with RSVP February 25, 2009
Guns N’ Bombs are primed to create some noize coming out of LA, and you can download and bang their first single under Kitsune from here. Their DJ sets are crazee rambunctiousness. Heartsrevolution sound alot like Crystal Castles to me, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Get your electro-punk on and DL ‘Switchblade’ here. Beni and Classixx are sure to play some hot tunes as well, perhaps even their collaboration that made February’s chart at #9 below. Maybe I should crank my go-go-gadget gears and come out after all. RSVP here.
Oscar Best Picture Bite-Size Reviews February 23, 2009
The Super Bowl for celluloid magic, art, and fashion has arrived. I’ve finally caught all the Best Picture nominees and here are my thoughts and rankings:
1st place: Milk
This probably would have been my Best Picture of 2008, despite the fact I don’t personally enjoy watching men getting all smoochy on one another. Sean Penn is electrifying here and I’m really happy that the Oscars got it right. James Franco, Emile Hirsch, and Josh Brolin are also great in support. Danny Elfman’s score is superb, and Gus Van Sant has given us what is perhaps his best work. Rating: 9+/10
2nd Place: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I don’t get the negative backlash this film is getting about the ‘depth’ of the movie; that beyond the pretty technical achievements there isn’t much there. Well, I looked deeply into this movie past its beautiful production values and camerawork and found much to love. Yes, the film is lyrical and universal (the opposite of a verite approach like The Wrestler or those that usually win at Cannes). Yes, it is nearly three hours long, but there isn’t a second wasted. Rating: 9/10
3rd Place: The Wrestler
I know this wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, but it should have been. Mickey Rourke is a maelstrom of flesh and steroids and deserved all the acting awards prior to the Oscars. Rating: 8.5/10
4th Place: Slumdog Millionaire
I love the first hour of this movie, but don’t understand the hype and awards that are being heaped on it. It is very original and the music is fantastic, but I think it’s coasting on its popularity of being a foreign and cultural rags-to-riches story; one that uses Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? as a plot device nevertheless. And what does it say that there are no acting awards coming from this movie? Anyone else out there agree? (Echoing. The wind sweeps through the plains.) Rating: 7/10
5th Place – Frost/Nixon
While this material feels like it has been covered before, the interview as a chess/boxing match is somewhat unique. Perhaps I’m too young to truly connect to this event, and I enjoyed Oliver Stone’s W. more. Frank Langella as Nixon is reason enough to recommend this. Rating: 7/10
6th Place: The Reader
Another film that feels like we’ve ‘been-there-done-that’ and is remarkably slow and long getting there. Kate Winslet truly bares all in this movie, and you wonder if her performance in Revloutionary Road separated her from the rest of the nominees. This was a technical/acting achievement that otherwise really did nothing else for me. Rating: 6.5/10
Boombox February 20, 2009
100 days, 100 dances, 100 great songs: Ely Kim, you’ve got some moves and your 10 minutes of fame. (The tracklist will be in the comments.)
February Foxxy Fifteen (Best of the Blogs!!!) February 16, 2009
Dudes and dudettes I hope you enjoy, because this was the hardest fifteen I’ve ever had to refine. There was SO MANY good tunes this month that it was just dirty. Ambient and downtempo music scored big this month. As did electro-pop and the return of some old ‘Boys’. But here you are, all after the jump:
1. Friendly Fires – Skeleton Boy (Paul Epworth version)
This electro-pop sing-a-long just might have delivered the Fires to America. Epworth has done a lights-out job.
Ambient instrumental that couldn’t possibly be more lush or haunting. Also check out Chimeras for added melancholy.
3. The Whitest Boy Alive – Golden Cage (Fred Falke mix)
This isn’t brand-new, but I’ll be bamboozled if it doesn’t make a perfect little electro-pop dance number.
The Boys are back! Really, this might be their best tune since the 80’s.
5. Little Boots – Meddle (AC Slater & DJ Skeet remix w/ Goldie Locks)
My lady loved this and could not stop dancing. Except on the Little Boots vocal part she would always strangely stop.
6. MIA – ___ (Death to the Throne mix)
I think this is a combination of MIA accapellas mixed into one song, but DTTT throws the gauntlet down.
7. Mexican Institute of Sound – Jaja Pipi / Diego Bernal – Bring it on Home
Two Mexican downtempo jams we can thank blog Winnie Cooper for.
My personal favorite–of combining hardcore metal and electro–is truly a love or hate it affair.
9. Beni – My Love Sees You (Classixx Remix)
More 80’s inspired electro-pop dance jams.
10. The Long Blondes – Nostalgia (Glass Candy Remix)
Glass Candy finally gives this fantastic song the room it needs to breathe and develop. And in a mix this could kill-.
Psy-electro or goa-electro anyone? Surround sound lasers in a symphonic trance.
12. Peter Rehberg – Boxes and Angels
#97 on MLD’s Best of 2008. Ambient greatness that is better late than never.
13. Elke – Blue Dream Lover (Broke One remix)
Another electro-pop dance track that is so pristine, you wonder if a factory is spitting out this stuff.
14. Buraka Som Sistema – Kalemba (Wegue Wegue)– Hot Chip remix
Hot Chip can get wiggy Afrikan style. This is a slow-burner so let it build.
Atari, 8-bit melodies converge to create a backwards troll dance.
Honorable Mentions:)
Jesse Rose – Touch my Horn (Mad Kids Remix)
Jason Comes to Texas!! (Friday the 13th reviewed) February 13, 2009
This is literal as:
a.) Jason actor Derek Mears was in Austin along with producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form to give us an advance screening of Friday the 13th.
b.) They shot this movie in locales around central Texas.
c.) This movie is going to make bucketloads of cash this weekend and will be officially announcing a sequel in the next week that will also probably be shot in Texas.
Before my review here is some other tidbits of info: Their were 3 Q +A’s, one in the middle of the movie due to a projector ‘melt-down’. This enabled Derek Mears to physically reenact a kill scene for us that we sorta missed out on. Brad Fuller and Andrew Form discussed their remake of Nightmare on Elm Street with director Samuel Bayer and hinted at having some very mainstream actors wanting to take a crack at Freddy. As long as this movie does well this weekend, the sequel (the 13th in the series) could possibly be back in 3-D, which allowed an audience member to suggest “Friday the 3-D teenth”.
Now to attempt an unbiased review:
If you’ve seen Marcus Nispel’s remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then you know he has an eye for superb camerawork and a supporting team with very high production values, which all bleeds into this effort. Producer Michael Bay will allow nothing less than 2009 fireworks set firmly into the new generation’s horror expectations. And for the most part this film delivers as a nu-slasher.
The movie tries to straddle the line between dumb-downed fun and ultra-realism, but dumb-downed fun ultimately triumphs. The kills are innovative yet harken back to some earlier kills in the series. The Texas locales add a lovely new ambience for the proceedings. The cast, with its fair share of seeming underwear models that show enough acting range, was chosen with great care. Derek Mears’s experience in working with Greek masks apparently pays off, and his eyes do some scary work. The script is wise to regenerate themes from the underrated Friday the 13th 2, and it deftly avoids trying to reinvent the wheel (Jason Goes to Hell anyone?). So if you want to see a 3-D sequel with a great production team, go have a blast this weekend supporting this-. Just don’t expect high-art, OK?
Rating: 7.5/10
Chairlift – Evident Utensil February 12, 2009
I just finally got ‘Bruises‘ out of my head, and here comes another hummer. Is glitch-art a term yet?
Chocolate Review February 11, 2009
Thai Grrl-power!! Really it will be a cliche before long that this movie will be called the ‘female Ong-Bak’. The twenty minute fight sequence at the end is just ridiculous and essential. The movie does take some time getting there because of the non-fight scenes and the bad actors in them. And I still had to suspend some disbelief that this wiry teen-age girl could whoop up on dozens of fighters. But she sells it, and the choreography is no-wires-lights-out. And any movie that deals with a creative way of helping kids with special needs I’m all for!
Check out the preview here.
Rating: 7/10
Quick Grammy Winner Thoughts February 10, 2009
Surprisingly I will not be doing any ranting as I am pleased with most of the winners of the categories that I cared about. View the whole list of winners here.
-OK, so Daft Punk got the their two Grammys finally, and while they haven’t released a true album in four years, they deserve some dance Grammy love more than anyone. (You can read my initial critical thoughts about the Best Dance Album category here.)
-Justice got a timely Grammy for best remix of Mgmt’s ‘Electric Feel’. I’ve heard better this year, but it’s a relevant and worthy choice.
-I’m happy James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer won for Best Score for The Dark Knight, which I sorta called here.
- Those in my Best of 2008 took home some Grammys. Mars Volta beat out Motley Crue, Judas Priest, and Rob Zombie for Best Hard Rock Performance, and yes I’m talking about 2009. Kings of Leon was a winner. Metallica won Best Metal Performance. And Rick Rubin won Best Producer for Metallica’s comeback amongst other things.
-John Corigliano won Best Classical Contemporary Composition for Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan, and I’m dying to hear it. I recommend anyone into instrumental music to dive deep into this man’s oeuvre. Movie composer Eliot Goldenthal was a student of Corigliano.
-Best Polka album went to Jimmy Sturr??? Oh man, I can’t buhleeve it.
Wow! Panic Bomber’s devastating and free debut EP!! February 7, 2009
Really, this might be the most exciting and assured debut EP to come out in a year and it’s free on Panic Bomber’s website! The music is kinda like a cross between NIN, Daft Punk, and Solvent with some really interesting vocals and lyrics, but even that doesn’t really describe it fully. You’ll just have to listen to it yourself: here.
Taken review February 5, 2009
This action thriller just took advantage of a non-blockbuster, box-office weekend in America to grab $24 million dollars to add to its already impressive European numbers. And it certainly deserves the limelight. Director Pierre
Morel is no stranger to action flicks. His first outing was the fantastic martial arts exercise B13. This time he has chosen a simple and universal story of a father out to rescue his girl, and damned be those who stand in his way. Liam Neeson does his best European- John Wayne impression, and he’s so natural for this you wonder why he hasn’t done more action movies. Now, the exposition of the movie is edited lightning quick, and the acting comes across very hammy and over-the-top. You get the feeling Morel or the studio decided to get to the action as QUICK as possible. But this really doesn’t get too much in the way, because you quickly become emotionally invested in the situation, while rooting for a real ’good guy’ to exacts his wrath on some real ’bad guys’. Scoop the preview here. Rating: 8/10
Christian Bale F-Bomb Remix! February 4, 2009
OK, so you know right now this Rated R for explicit language, but otherwise imagine how Anger Management 2: Batman vs Joker (starring Bale and Nicholson of course) would play out.
