The Man Who Wasn't There

So, I'm at home today. I finally have a chance to stay home and rest, so I took it and slept in today. I was planning on going to the doctor today, but I'm actually starting to feel a little better.

I've been trying to psych myself up for my 8 week training session in Biloxi. I'm working on a list of things I'm looking forward to so that it's not all bad:

1. Visiting New Orleans
2. Taking tons of pictures
3. Eating fresh and damn good seafood
4. Kick-starting my diet again
5. Saving money with the possibility of making money

That's all I got so far. But, it's a start. The new Mars Volta album is out today. Whew! It's killer! Here's a taste:



They're unlike anything you'll ever hear. Love it. Especially like how mercurial the song is. Every time you get it pegged, it flips and changes into something else. And the technical proficiency of the band is absolutely mind-blowing.

I'm finally going to watch Blade Runner! Tally and Tyler sent the Blu Ray version to me for my birthday and I got it today. So, I think I might watch it this afternoon! Also, The Nines is out today! Excited for that one.

So the reason the US Xbox 360 owners are getting screwed on the lack of Turok demo on Xbox Live is because it is apparently an exclusive demo for the Official Xbox Magazine. The announcement was probably either a slip-up or was released too soon. The review for it came up at 7.0; they basically said it's an "old school FPS" game, with the annoyingly use check point system and a very hard difficulty level, especially with bosses where you have to learn their pattern (usually dying a few times in the process). They said those who enjoy the old school shooters will probably get more enjoyment out of the game than they did.

The Xbox Mag also has three exclusive songs for Rock Band that you can't find elsewhere. Xbox.com, additionally, accidently let slip what's probably coming to Rock Band's downloadable content roster the next two weeks. Expect an Oasis pack (with Wonderall and their other big hit) next week with a "progressive rock" pack the following week. The progressive rock pack has a Coheed and Cambria song (!), a Rush song and......a Smashing Pumpkins song? Since when is Smashing Pumpkins "progressive rock?"

Before you get too excited, though, it looks like both the Coheed and the Rush song are covers...which isn't surprising with Rush...but Coheed? That makes me a sad panda. At least it's a good song ("10 Speed (God's Blood and Burial)").

I'm glad to see Cloverfield is sitting at a nice 77% with 65 reviews so far. Means it should be a pretty good movie. I'm really excited to see it tonight. I'm dragging people to it because of my birthday. We're going to eat at Nebraska Brewing Company then it's monster-destroys-New-York-time.

I'm so glad it's a three day weekend. I just wish I could kick this cold. I haven't had a good, full night of sleep this entire week. I even took a cough suppressant last night that's supposed to work for 12 hours and I woke at 2:00, coughing and hacking up a lung. You know how you cough and cough and your chest and throat start to hurt? That's my morning.

Finally...alright Quentin. We already know you're in love with trash films, exploitative films and grindhouse pictures. We get it. But, seriously, move on. Please. I really don't think the world needs a remake of the exploitative Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Let's just leave the homage responsibility to the song which, surprisingly, is kind of catchy.

So...the video is typical janet...i.e. weird. but I love the song.

Things I'm looking forward to in Jan/Feb:

Stephen King's new novel

The Bedlam in Goliath by The Mars Volta

Finally seeing The Nines and Sunshine.

Trying to ignore the hype (not to mention supposed shots of the monster) and then actually seeing Cloverfield.

My brother's next fight in which he's headlining.

Lost Odyssey and Devil May Cry 4.

THE Concert of the Year which also happens to be the same day as ...another guilty musical pleasure.

Humor me. Portion of her new song "Not As We" that premiered on House.



Lyrics.

Laugh if you will (and I'm sure some of you will) but one of my anticipated albums for the coming year is Alanis' first album in four years, Flavors of Entanglement. I've been a big fan of Alanis since her debut album, so anything new from her is a boon in my book. This particular album is being produced by Guy Sigsworth, who has worked with a variety of artists (and was a member of Frou Frou with Imogen Heap) and looks to bring a different kind of tone to Alanis' work, I'd assume.

There's an early review for the CD up at Arjan Writes and, while you have to take it worth a grain of salt, it does make it eagerly anticipated.

As an aside, Alanis is looking pretty nice...if really make-upped. o_o

...there's so much I want to talk about, but absolutely no time to do so.

callmesteam mentioned a post and it was one that I was going to post about as well, but accidently X'd out before I was done. Well, yay for LJ because it kept my post saved for me. Anyway, here it is:

I've talked a lot in the past month about Saul Williams' new album that was produced by Trent Reznor of NIN. It's a terrific album and worth more than the $5 they're asking for. Much like Radiohead's latest, they also offered it for free. Today, Trent posted some insight into the stats, etc. in releasing Saul's new album. Some of it is heartening. A good portion...not.

( Trent's post )

The interesting and sad part is the fact that only 18% of those who downloaded it thought the album was worth paying $5 for. Especially given that Trent's right that those who bought it were probably either NIN or Saul fans, 18% is kind of a disheartening number.

You know, the big difference between the music industry and the movie industry in the way we recognize our tops is that in the movie industry they don't usually pay attention to the amount of money made. The music industry, on the other hand, focuses on who sells the most and simply awards them the top honors, completely ignoring some of the best artists and music out there because they didn't sell. If movie awards were awarded like the Grammy's are, then the Rush Hour 3s of the world would get all the acclaim, while movies like Pan's Labyrinth would be ignored.

I watched a pretty good movie last night by the name of Fido. It's a zombie comedy set in a world that's survived a Zombie War and has settled back into the normal day to day. Well...normal for the time. This is a world that looks like a retro 50s painting come to life.

It's a world in which children go to recess/outdoor learning to learn about making headshots with rifles. It's a world where the elderly aren't trusted after a certain age because they're one foot in the ground already and are sent to old people homes...that are retrofitted prisons. It's a world where huge fences are put around individual towns to keep the outside world from intruding. It's a world where some zombies have been domesticated by wearing collars. It's a world where a family's wealth is gauged by how many zombie servants they have. It's a world ruled by ZomCon.

It stars Ms. Trinity herself, Carrie-Anne Moss, and the sometimes-William-H-Macy-lookalike Dylan Baker. They are unhappily married, with Baker's character utterly focused on death and bases their wealth on how many funerals they can afford (you see, in this world, funerals cost more to have a head casket so there's no chance of turning) and looks upon the prospect of having another kid with that same sense of detachment. Their kid, Timmy, befriends their new zombie servant and ends up trying to protect him...even when the zombie's collar breaks down briefly and he eats the next door neighbor.

It was a pretty good movie and was humorous. There's enough social satire to be found, stretching across a few different ideas and the actors are great in their roles. I'm a sucker for zombie films and I like the juxtaposition of zombies with 50s naiveté. For some reason, it reminded me a little bit of Far From Heaven...except funny. I don't think it was as clever as it thought it was, but it was charming and fun from beginning to end. Zombie fans should definitely check it out.

One of the highest rated movies of the year was Once. It sits at 98%, which is pretty damn high. We watched Once tonight and I'm glad we did, although I didn't care for the movie. Once is an indie Irish musical starring Glen Hansard, the lead singer of the Irish band The Frames. It also stars Markéta Irglová, a singer/songwriter.

The music is absolutely brilliant. Beautiful, haunting, perfect melodies that get stuck in your head, the soundtrack is the kind you just want to close your eyes to and become enwrapped in its choruses. Stunning. I honestly cannot find words to describe it. Here, it succeeds. The movie is pretty much nothing but music; dialogue interrupts the music, but like most musicals everything comes to fruition via the songs, not the dialogue.

As a movie, though...I didn't care for it (and I must be the only one...). It's very listless, has no real point and while there is a story to be found here about these two individuals who don't even have names and their pasts, there's no real progression. The movie becomes more about the music than telling a story. The ending is poignant, but the journey to it wasn't really good if you take out the music. And with the music, it feels more like a bad documentary with exceptional music.

You need to listen to the main song from it though:

( One of the awesome songs )

Contrast this film with Sweeney Todd, a movie in which I felt succeeded in spite of the music. I'm not a fan of Sondheim's style and lyrical expressions. His music feels more like talking in rhythm to music than it does an actual song. With the exception of one or two songs, I really disliked the music. And yet, I loved the film. It was brooding in the way only Tim Burton can do and he pulled exceptional performances from both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

In fact, Helena stole the show for me and outshined Depp who seemed to be channeling a bit of Captain Sparrow's accent, Edward's eccentricities and Ichabod's whimsical darkness. It played out like a traditional Greek tragedy and I especially loved the events leading up to the climax. I felt the beginning was a bit long in spots, but once it got going it really took off. I really liked it; loved it, in fact.

But it definitely contrasted perfectly with Once where I disliked the movie but loved the music. I'd recommend seeing Sweeney Todd. I'd doubly recommend beyond a shadow of a doubt to listen to the music in Once. It's terrific.

I can't actually get to youtube from here, so I'm not 100% positive this is a good link, but the new Mars Volta song is hot. Like, I want to have its sonic-babies hot. Which...doesn't make much sense, I know. But it's the damn truth.

Listen to it. Almost three minutes of pulsing music at its finest.

Right now, I've been in a Nine Inch Nails/Saul Williams type of mood. Whenever I discover new artists, like Saul, I tend to go a little overboard and learn all I can about them. Saul is a pretty cool guy, it seems. I totally didn't realize he was in K-PAX and I want to see Slam now, where he's the lead actor. I think it's cool that he has a B.A. in philosophy and acting. He's a good lyricist and Trent definitely provided him with some awesome beats for his new album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust. I never would have thought a mix of hip-hop and industrial would work, but it does. I still maintain it's the best $5 I've spent.

So, I've been alternating between listening to Saul's spoken word poetry and Trent circa With Teeth and Still. I never got the chance to get Still before; it was the only non-remix album of his I didn't have. Since it's now available via itunes and Amazon.com MP3 downloads, I got it. I love it. It's Trent at his most organic and the version of "Something I Can Never Have" is amazing. That sad song is probably one of my favorites and hearing it without all the glitz, stripped down to its essential, is brilliant.

There's a cool interview with Trent up at Wired. Very long. Large blocks of text. But very interesting, discussing his ARG for Year Zero.

The Hellgate: London forums have some information about their upcoming Stone Henge chronicles patch. Nothing about the actual content, but a lot about fixes, class balances, etc. Evokers and Guardians are getting a lot of love and changes. I'm really curious to see the Evoker changes in action. I'm also glad that respec coins are being given out to those affected and to subscribers.

I played very briefly last night and ended up quitting early. The game was moving super smoothly as usual and then all of a sudden, the game turned into a slideshow and crashed. I don't know what was up with that, but it was a cue to stop.

Back around Thanksgiving, I had a few resolutions I wanted to accomplish over break. I failed. But, better late than never, right? I now have reviews up at CADMedia for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Super Mario Galaxy. Finally. Over break, my goal is to finish Mass Effect.

Ugh. So, there's been this bickering back and forth between Harmonix and Activision concerning a simple patch for Rock Band that would fix the compatibility issue PS3 Rock Band players have been having. All it does is allow the PS3 Guitar Hero 3 guitar to play with Rock Band. It went like this:

Harmonix said they had the patch ready to go on December 4th. It was approved by Sony. Activision threw a temper tantrum and blocked its release.

Activision came back a day later and blamed it on Harmonix. But they said something that I thought was very interesting: "Unfortunately for Rock Band users, in this case Harmonix and MTV Games/Viacom are unwilling to discuss an agreement with Activision."

An agreement? For a patch? I thought that was a bit strange. There's no reason why Activision should be involved with a patch. Unless there's money involved. And that underlined portion certainly sounded like Activision wanted to see dollar signs.

Turns out that's right on the money. This interview at the Boston Globe says it point blank:

"We believe we should be compensated for the use of our technology," said Activision spokeswoman Maryanne Lataif.

*sigh*

What's not being said is that Activision paid $100 million for RedOctane and they want to protect their investment. Whatever the costs to gamers. And this is the only way they can try to hamper Harmonix legally.

A few youtube videos. Check them out. :) They're trippy but the songs rock.

( Read more... )

So, it's not necessarily a great interview or very informative...but it truly made my musical geek day today when I saw this interview at MSNBC.com with The Mars Volta. I love this band a lot and their last album, Amputechture sucker-punched me with its awesomeness. It's on my list of my favorite albums.

But, the thing is, they are a niche band. I think more people know about Coheed and Cambria than they do The Mars Volta. With the exception of one song that some hip radios probably played called The Widow and possibly a very truncated version of the 12 minute L'Via L'Viaquez (which featured John Frusciante), they don't get much radio time. One small thing I like about them is that you really feel like you're getting the most out of your money. Whereas some bands toss maybe 30 minutes of material on a CD that can hold 80, The Mars Volta CDs are jammed with good material and run around 76 minutes, usually. And the music is almost always sonically interesting. They do weird things and cool things, backed with melodies that get stuck in your head.

I was surprised to learn they have a new album coming out in January, thanks to this interview, called The Bedlam in Goliath and I'm super stoked now. I hope it's more in the same vein as Amputechture and not Francis The Mute.

I'd definitely recommend checking them out. Try The Widow, Viscera Eyes, Vermicide or L'Via L'Viaquez as possible downloads. I know Youtube has at least three of those songs. So, give them a listen and let me know what you think. :) I'd post actual links, but work prohibits me.

I got some Uwe on my sleeve. *grin* I love bad jokes, my bad. Personally, I don't think I'd ever go up against a person who has been boxing for a large portion of his/her life...regardless of how I feel about his/her movies. However, just because Uwe can beat the crap out of them does not a good director make. In fact, it makes him a bully.

I started watching Elfen Lied last night and what a fucked up anime. Utterly fascinating. But utterly bizarre, strange, and...well, fucked up. And yet...I can't look away. Explain that one to me. Has anyone seen it? I have one more episode on the first disc and another 12 episodes after that.

Also spent some time last night farming money in Guild Wars. One of my guildmates gave me a pretty nice Warrior/Monk build that allows you to solo some mobs and get all the money/items that drop. Made about 13,000 gold last night with only a about 1.5 hours at the most of farming. Woot.

I also listened to Janet Jackson's new cd twice which has been streaming on www.bet.com for the last week or so. I absolutely love it. I think it's probably my favorite album of hers, on par with The Velvet Rope (which apparently is one of her least liked...though I love it so much...go figure). It's nice to have Janet going back to her roots. The goal was apparently to invoke her breakthrough album, Control, except for today's time. And I think it worked. It's a terrific album and it's awesome that it marks her 20th year in the music business. Go her. I can't wait to buy the CD today. I love hard rock music, I think everyone here knows that. But, I love Janet and unlike some of my other pop music taste fiascos that shall remain nameless, I'm not embarassed to say it ^_^