Film Century 1.5

Of a kind with my note about horror movie writers and their laziness in writing stupid victims, I’m getting weary of action/adventure movie writers who create these invincible badasses for antagonists and then have to remove the bad guy’s heretofore-infallible brain so that the right guy wins in the end.

Aug. 13 Julie and Julia – There’s a reason the Spider-Man films don’t cut back and forth between Peter Parker and a kid reading comics and jumping around on the roof with strings tied to his wrists. 85/150
Aug. 18 Angels and Demons – Come on now, if Catholicism were really this awesomely ludicrous, it would be Scientology. 86/150
Aug. 21 District 9 – I get that it’s an allegory and all, but it makes me wonder what’s happened to us when a movie manages to make bug-eyed CGI aliens more sympathetic than actual human beings. 87/150
Aug. 22 Inglourious Basterds – If you are an occupier, no matter how well-intentioned you may be, there are no conversations between you and the people you have occupied, only various sorts of interrogations. 88/150

-ssr

Bonus: Tac Chat

Sonic Rob: Best
Sonic Rob: loss
Sonic Rob: ever
Sonic Rob: 0-78, went down fighting
Sonic Rob: two orc waaghs + SM (us) vs 2 eldar and SM
Sonic Rob: I’ve never killed so many walkers in my whole life
FyreHaar: did you save it?
Sonic Rob: I did
Sonic Rob: or I thought I did
Sonic Rob: where’d you go, you effer
Sonic Rob: ah, there we go
Sonic Rob: files are saved with the level and the date, not the name you save them under
Sonic Rob: tricky Relic grotz
FyreHaar: yeah
FyreHaar: sneakery
Sonic Rob: so, a couple lessons from this one about tankbustas Continue reading Bonus: Tac Chat

Chat Box

SonicRob: If I could just get a couple of wins, I’d hit level 6
FyreHaar: awww, you’re a big ork now!!!
SonicRob: ha
SonicRob: how’s level 30 treating you, humie?
FyreHaar: getting there
FyreHaar: still on 28
SonicRob: zog
SonicRob: how often do you not play?

Chat Box

Sonic Rob: best horror movie cast ever: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt in the Wolfman
Sonic Rob: The idea of Benicio Del Toro, New Yawk accent and all, as Hopkins’ son in a Victorian period piece is perfect
Sonic Rob: they’re not taking this too seriously

FyreHaar: awesome!!!
FyreHaar: hopkins reportedly ate 14 set pieces during pick ups!

Sonic Rob: set pieces are full of fiber
Sonic Rob: Hugo Weaving’s doctor put him on a strict diet of scenery for LOTR

FyreHaar: more dramatic and a cleaner colon!!

Sonic Rob Likes Funny Shirts, Not Crappy Ones

While browsing urbandictionary.com (for reasons that aren’t important right now), I saw a banner ad for this t-shirt design:

bacon-thumb

Ok, that’s pretty funny; I like a good public-signage stick figure joke as much as the next guy, if not more. Being a good netizen, I went ahead and clicked the link to noisebot.com, where the following shirts are also available:

milkshake-thumbjesus-thumbbrains-thumbsparta

Good times. But mixed in among these gems are some serious clunkers: Continue reading Sonic Rob Likes Funny Shirts, Not Crappy Ones

Fyre fires back – The Dead Weather

So Sonic was disappointed by the debut album by The Dead Weather, Horehound. So I decided to check it out. I am a big White Stripes fan, unlike my sonic colleague I like The Raconteurs (more on that later) and I’m always up to like something that Sonic Rob doesn’t like so I checked The Dead Weather out via their YouTube channel.

I, too, am disappointed!! When I really thought about what the music was missing, I came to the conclusion that it lacks balls. Big brass balls, Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross balls, I’m Bjork and I’m a fucking Icelandic Viking Nutcase balls. Alison Mosshart is the vortex of that lacking. In another venue she could be awesome (this is my first exposure to her) but here Jack White just overwhelms her. The music behind her singing is complex and mighty and her voice just doesn’t stand up to it. It lacks depth of tone and just falls flat. She is not nearly insane enough to carry off the cross between Siouxsie and Ozzy that she is going for.

My overall impression is that this is some weird sort of not-quite-a-cover-band. They are making music like music that they really like.  They are copying styles and genres without really injecting anything meaningful in the process.They might as well be singing “la la la la la” for all the import of the their lyrics.

“Hang you from the Heavens” comes across as an attempt to sound like Aenima era Tool being fronted by the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls.

“Treat me Like Your Mother” is one of the Songs that Jack White wrote for his collaboration with Kid Rock.

All in all, this is a bunch of meaningless, ball-less pap from a group of artists who have already shown they can do better, tied up as an homage to beloved but ultimately dated musical styles of the past.

Sonic Rob Has Bad Taste In Music: Horehound

The Dead Weather - Horehound

I’ve been trying desperately for the last month to like Horehound, the album by the Dead Weather. On paper, it sounds like a great lineup. I’ve been a huge fan of Alison Mosshart’s first band Discount since I was in college, and I was eventually brought around to her second band The Kills by a girlfriend who thought they were good sex music. I could take or leave Jack White’s Raconteurs, but the White Stripes are one of my go-to plays when musical satisfaction is required. Putting Mosshart and White together with a couple of guys from bands I don’t care about still should have resulted in a stripped-down sensual rock machine, something sinuous, decadent, and yet spare.

So how the hell did they wind up creating an acid rock/whitey funk band? Continue reading Sonic Rob Has Bad Taste In Music: Horehound