tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2022577271006565152024-03-05T08:03:13.959-05:00Nostalgia Equals DistortionA review site for things you used to love... but do you now?Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-38140852099929366262013-05-05T15:45:00.001-04:002013-05-05T15:45:21.393-04:00MovingHey,<br />
<br />
Thanks for your interest in Nostalgia Equals Distortion. I'm moving it over to be inside of my main blog (Silber blog) & <a href="http://silbermedia.com/blog/?cat=742" target="_blank">you can view future posts in the N=D series here</a>. Thanks for your interest & support.<br />
<br />
hrt<br />
Brian John MitchellBrian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-59160075918505718202012-10-16T20:43:00.001-04:002012-10-16T20:43:12.632-04:00Sprees<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8tsBFXBsmbpMSyIN5OMoWOjwXS68ZQs2xLJWQgc23oWQDQ2kPLh7OlT7ZNhtwjLPnasduBti3Rq__m0THGN7VQq_FRfjlPN49P2-PXYWLHJy6X8CqtcKhNwhtwGSVEwcwQRXtI1f00vI/s1600/Spree.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8tsBFXBsmbpMSyIN5OMoWOjwXS68ZQs2xLJWQgc23oWQDQ2kPLh7OlT7ZNhtwjLPnasduBti3Rq__m0THGN7VQq_FRfjlPN49P2-PXYWLHJy6X8CqtcKhNwhtwGSVEwcwQRXtI1f00vI/s320/Spree.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
I think I found out about Sprees when I was about four years old. They sold them at the snack bar at the pool in their long skinny tube of black & silver & yellow. They looked like they came from outer space. Of course we weren’t handed over money to buy candy at the snack bar. Eventually I got to try a yellow one from a pack my sister got on a road trip & as life went on occasionally one of my siblings would get them & I’d eat a few, but they were never my personal choice.<br /><br />
So it’s been 20+ years since I last had some Sprees. I bought them on trip to the dollar store with my niece & nephew. I was a little let down they were in a box instead of the classic roll (ends up the still come that way in some places). Also the pieces in the box are about 2/3 of the size of the classic ones. It says that a serving is fifteen of these things, but I gave up on the fourth one because it seemed to be soap flavored. So not having had these for a long time, I can’t be certain they actually used to be good, but I am confused by people intentionally buying them today.Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-11861710870122004312012-07-22T03:55:00.001-04:002012-07-22T19:10:19.751-04:00Gattaca<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/img/original/gattaca_still_ethan_hawke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/img/original/gattaca_still_ethan_hawke.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I remember seeing <i>Gattaca</i> around when it first came out & liking it fine. I think it was the first sci-fi movie to really give me hope for the genre doing something serious (I hadn’t re-seen <i>Blade Runner</i> or <i>Alien</i> as an adult at that point & I generally think of <i>The Thing</i> as a horror movie & while I love Starship Troopers (which came out the same year) it’s more of a fun movie than a serious one). But oddly there isn’t much I could remember about it. I know it’s dystopian & I assumed it was Philip K Dick (it’s not) & I remembered it having interesting lighting. The main thing I remembered though was this girl I was going out with at the time got all hot & bothered by Jude Law & got mad when I referred to him as “the gay dude” (it ends up I guess he’s not gay, just British).<br />
<br />
Re-seeing it, wow, this is a different film than I remembered. I didn’t remember at all that Ethan Hawke is there doing his coffee shop intellectual narration like he did in <i>Before Sunrise</i>. I haven’t quite figured out how I feel about Ethan Hawke, I generally avoided anything with him back in the 1990s but the things from that era I’ve seen relatively recently (<i>Before Sunrise</i> & <i>Great Expectations</i>, even the <i>Precinct 13</i> remake) seem fine. I guess back then I saw more coffee culture intellectuals than I run into now & so I found that stuff way more annoying than I do now & that pretty much seems to be the character he always plays. I also didn’t remember the first third of the movie before Ethan Hawke is impersonating Jude Law & why he was impersonating him in the first place. I really forgot a ton of plot points that I am not sure if I should give away in case somebody might re-watch it that has also forgotten them. So I guess what I’m saying is “spoilers.” So the murder investigation… I was 100% sure that it was done by Uma Thurman because she was also an illegal impersonator & I was shocked that she wasn’t an impersonator nor the murderer. I also feel like I wasn’t paying attention because I didn’t realize the one cop was Ethan Hawke’s brother until the reveal. I did like that there wasn’t a happy ending romance wise (because I believe Ethan Hawke will die before the end of his trip in space) & I was surprised by Jude Law incinerating himself. This movie is pretty solid & I don’t know why it isn’t put up as one of the top ten sci-fi movies (or at least top twenty) in a lot of lists & instead seems to be drifting towards obscurity….<br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZppWok6SX88?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param>
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZppWok6SX88?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-41645254785278986532012-07-21T20:32:00.001-04:002012-07-21T20:32:17.828-04:00Alf<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cdn0.hark.com/images/000/002/527/2527/original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="http://cdn0.hark.com/images/000/002/527/2527/original.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I loved Alf as a kid. I got the puppet with the flexi-disc at Burger King & everything. I even used to tape it so I could re-watch the episodes with my older brother when he came over on Tuesdays when he came over for dinner. My buddy Nick Marino (<a href="http://comics.superhaters.com/" target="_blank">Super Haters</a>) has been talking about Alf lately & even did a parody of him in his comic. So when I saw it was going to be on TV I said, “What the hell? I’ll watch an episode.”<br />
<br />
What’s the theme song kicked on I knew I was in trouble. I remembered it being a little bit rocking & it was actually a pretty lame muzak thing. The episode I actually remembered bits of. It was the one where they think Alf ate the cat & he writes a not making references to the TV show the fugitive when he goes off looking for the cat. The laugh track was pretty horrible & really negated my ability to enjoy the show in any way. The only joke I liked was when Alf says something like, “I know the rules, you don’t eat members of your own family.” I’m kinda confused not by why I liked it when I was eleven as much as why the show was popular with people older than that. I know the way sitcoms of the era were designed was “normal family with a twist” & the twist being an alien is pretty ingenious (even if it had already been done twenty years earlier). As much as I think it sucked, I still kinda want to check out the cartoon version of Alf & that movie about the guy who wrote it (is it called <i>Permanent Midnight</i>?)…<br />
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yhFE4oxig04?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-90596061156557971152012-07-15T01:16:00.000-04:002012-07-15T01:16:41.175-04:00Otherworld (1985)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.otherworldonline.org/pictures/OpeningCredits/FS/OTW1-2280648.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="http://www.otherworldonline.org/pictures/OpeningCredits/FS/OTW1-2280648.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I have the vaguest memory of this show from when I was a kid. I thought it sucked because it was a family show & I wanted my sci-fi pretty freaking dark (I was 9, so I’d already seen <i>Road Warrior</i> & <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>). I don’t know if the rest of America changed the channel for the same reason, but this show was gone pretty quickly.<br />
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As an adult, I’m slightly better about mixing genres like sci-fi & comedy & family so I decided to give this show a chance. This show has some ideas going on. There’s a family that gets sucked into a vortex & then they are wandering on an alien planet where things are almost normal but not quite, so basically it’s Sliders only with a family. Every episode seems to be warning against some form of fascism &/or slavery, which is kind of interesting I guess? I do like that in the episode with androids, mining robots designed themselves into androids with human-like social structure to occupy their downtime to alleviate boredom. But in general the things that are supposed to be shocking with social commentary are just boring. Like the state church oppressing rock music (which is the two teenagers covering The Beatles & The Rolling Stones), even at the height of all the Tipper Gore stuff I don’t think it was taken seriously. But then again I remember around this time a friend of my mom banning her kids from listening to Led Zeppelin because they were satanic (meanwhile my brother blasted Black Sabbath & Judas Priest, shaking the wall between his bedroom & the kitchen in his attempt at teen rebellion that was acceptable behavior in our household), so maybe it was a thing back then. I don’t know, my mom likes Danzig & Joy Division & I remember one time driving up to Pennsylvania with her listening to Nuclear Assault’s <i>The Plague</i> on repeat for six hours. I guess kids want to rebel & squashing music is just a metaphor for squashing sex & drugs & poorly thought out ideals. Maybe it is more interesting if I really try to make it interesting. There are also a drug episode & a women enslaving men episode & a wealthy enslaving the working class episode & a beauty & the beast episode. I think the eight episodes made is just about the right number as all of the characters are pretty generic 1980s family straight out of <i>Charles in Charge</i> with no real development.<br />
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<br />
I do find some of the actors interesting....<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHkiks5b1Kn-8t98gUVMcy2y_KuntGu4pWVNswjxJAKPQG78GZTR5FFnhMUtfia-lGge_TXDU-9vZPZpIrS7osGsdtQAcdykZpotX0QDuXPQRrsNs2ToOa8NunCNyWNQoCPWdr-3X7n74/s1600/tony-odell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHkiks5b1Kn-8t98gUVMcy2y_KuntGu4pWVNswjxJAKPQG78GZTR5FFnhMUtfia-lGge_TXDU-9vZPZpIrS7osGsdtQAcdykZpotX0QDuXPQRrsNs2ToOa8NunCNyWNQoCPWdr-3X7n74/s320/tony-odell.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The teenage boy is played by Tony O’Dell who went on a few years later
to still play a teen (at nearly 30) as the preppy kid that always wore
sweater vests in <i>Head of the Class</i>.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR5MY7ugGLxxZdD3FOo4kngNWFljoVZGtYr9dkXaUGsFySchdaP80gHmxg6JB4gcW9P56jZ4rVEGVdh0K96NR_p97ET7T7GWIWDwf7Ink2CJlsjq1q9C9ylOuhG_nWef_B3ZRfyGcRHUM/s1600/jonathan-banks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR5MY7ugGLxxZdD3FOo4kngNWFljoVZGtYr9dkXaUGsFySchdaP80gHmxg6JB4gcW9P56jZ4rVEGVdh0K96NR_p97ET7T7GWIWDwf7Ink2CJlsjq1q9C9ylOuhG_nWef_B3ZRfyGcRHUM/s320/jonathan-banks.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jonathan Banks (Mike from <i>Breaking Bad</i>) plays a fascistic
military leader & is probably the most interesting character on
here. He appears in pretty much all of the episodes as a semi-generic
number one bad guy.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2pT5uOsk0uIXPVimOR0LSuDztgHlAkQIYn70lHRotixj75LI-jYS1pRSZQozHNQRvTKuWTduOdlnNdJhRPDMzyxteQn8332dKI9bcK_wmZWIvMakPmABjIp0GFKd4Laul8K0Kv3sBpTs/s1600/carolyn-seymour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2pT5uOsk0uIXPVimOR0LSuDztgHlAkQIYn70lHRotixj75LI-jYS1pRSZQozHNQRvTKuWTduOdlnNdJhRPDMzyxteQn8332dKI9bcK_wmZWIvMakPmABjIp0GFKd4Laul8K0Kv3sBpTs/s320/carolyn-seymour.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">In one episode Carolyn Seymour from <i>Survivors</i> is on & is kind
of awesome & I wonder how she didn’t become a well known character
actress. I recently found out she went on to be a Romulan on some <i>Star
Trek</i> thing.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.otherworldonline.org/pictures/EP4/FS/OTW_10330113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://www.otherworldonline.org/pictures/EP4/FS/OTW_10330113.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">& check out these bad ass clear cymbals from the rock & roll episode. Did they really make these things?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/U8idvQeM0kA?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-55561757391902723962012-06-06T22:59:00.000-04:002012-06-07T17:24:20.390-04:00The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/27/Lovecraft1934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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I think it was the summer between middle school & high school when I read the entire H.P. Lovecraft canon. I found out about Lovecraft the same way most boys my age did, heavy metal music. Specifically the cover art from Iron Maiden’s <i>Live After Death</i> (the quote on Eddy’s tombstone “That is not which can eternal lie, yet with strange aeons even death may die”) & a few Metallica songs on <i>Ride the Lightning</i> & <i>Master of Puppets</i> & Obituary using the same art for an album cover as a paperback for a Lovecraft book. So while the girls getting into horror were reading Steven King & Peter Straub & V.C. Andrews, the guys were reading Lovecraft. It was a horror so horrible I dare not describe it for fear of your very sanity & at the time I thought it was at least a little cheesy & outdated (this story in particular was over 60 years old at the time) & I moved on to reading David Schow & Clive Barker & the like before abandoning the genre for ten years.<br />
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With the exception of a few short favorites like “Pickman’s Model” I haven’t really re-read any of the Lovecraft stuff, though I have often watched the crap movies inspired by it (notable exception of <i>Dagon</i> which is awesome & the <i>Re-Animator</i> series). But I’ve been reading the letters between Lovecraft & Robert E. Howard because I love REH for personal reasons. Anyway, because of my respect for REH, I felt I really should checkout some Lovecraft again. So “The Call of Cthulhu” seemed like a good spot to go to. It was odd to me how similar he reads to Edgar Allan Poe (though I haven’t read Poe in a while). I remembered all of his stories being about finding an old manuscript that talks about a horror that the writer dare not describe & while this did indeed have that, it wasn’t as silly as I thought it would be. It’s all about setting mood & a feeling of dread & I did find it interesting how there are essentially no characters with any development & that characterization isn’t really needed in his work. Though some of the characters have names & brief descriptions of them, even that much is unnecessary. It’s interesting because as much as I know people these days look back wanting to do an homage to Lovecraft, it feels like he was already reaching back trying to be an homage to the previous generation’s ghost stories. I’ve always had a leaning towards the belief that all good writers think they’re derivative hacks, so I say that with an air of admiration rather than condescension. I can’t say this is an awesome flawless work, but I don’t think it was meant to be more than a fun read in a toss away pulp magazine & given that was it’s aspiration it is phenomenal. If you haven’t ever read any Lovecraft & only seen the crap movies based on his work, you can read this story (or get an audiobook of it) that takes less time than a movie would & you get to experience the truth of it & then if you’re lucky you can listen to a heavy metal song about it afterward….<br />
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<center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/t1RTgznup5c?rel=0" width="560"></iframe></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-85005032182232040892012-05-11T17:17:00.000-04:002012-06-07T16:58:13.332-04:00Trancers<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/65/Trancersposter.jpg/220px-Trancersposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/65/Trancersposter.jpg/220px-Trancersposter.jpg" width="217" /></a> </div>
I don’t know when I first saw this movie. I would guess I saw it in 1986 or 1987
on the local indie station before Fox took over it’s programming. I do know I liked it & as low budget
local stations seem to like to do, they gave me the opportunity to see it five
times in a month. I eventually saw
<i>Trancers II</i> & <i>Trancers III</i>, but somehow never saw the original again even though I recommended it on a regular basis.<br />
<br />
This movie is straight forward enough. A criminal from the future comes to the
present to kill the ancestors of political enemies so they’ll never be born, so
they send a cop back in time after him. In this movie time travel works by sending your mind back in time into
an ancestors body & possessing it (I guess like <i>Quantum Leap</i>, though this
does pre-date that). Oh, & the
criminal can turn people into zombies. Oh, & it takes place at Christmas & the love interest in it is
Helen Hunt about ten years before <i>Mad About You</i>. Anyway, this movie is just about perfect. It doesn’t try to be anything more than it
is. It’s a low budget time traveling
cop 1980s action flick & if that doesn’t sound awesome, I’m not sure what
does.<br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eg7OPwASvE8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0">
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eg7OPwASvE8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-7494234762441199642012-04-10T10:42:00.000-04:002012-04-10T10:42:58.536-04:00Cyborg<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e4/Cyborgposter.jpg/200px-Cyborgposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e4/Cyborgposter.jpg/200px-Cyborgposter.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I first saw this movie in the dollar theater with my son’s mother. It was over a year after my son was born (we’d given him up for adoption because we were kids) & almost a year since her family had moved to another city. She was in town for a couple days visiting her grandmother & it happened to be near the theater & I walked the three miles to meet her for the movie. I was 14 & the post-apocalyptic nihilistic savior vibe of the movie was great. It was the last time I’d ever see the girl. She lived an hour away & writing letters for over a year just wasn’t a sustainable relationship for two high school kids not old enough to drive. I like to think it was her that stopped writing first, but to be honest I can’t remember.<br />
<br />
So this movie came back on my radar because I was hanging out with my son before he was moving across the country to go to graduate school & the house we were hanging out at had a collection of B movies including <i>Cyborg</i> & I pointed it out to him & told him his mom liked the movie. Then almost a year passed & he came back to town for spring break & we played a house show together at that same house & there was the movie still sitting on the shelf. So I felt compelled to re-watch it.<br />
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There’s a couple of odd things about this movie. It’s called <i>Cyborg</i>, but the cyborg in it really doesn’t have to be a cyborg for any reason – though I guess if you titled the movie <i>Genetic Scientist Trying to Get to Atlanta</i> it doesn’t sound as cool – & isn’t even really a main character. According to Wikipedia this movie was made in an attempt to recoup costs from two cancelled movies, so I’d guess the cyborg prop that appears in one scene was probably something they had lying around. Most of the characters in here are named after musical instrument companies for some reason (Gibson Rickenbacker, Nady Simmons).<br />
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Now I know this movie isn’t good in the same way as <i>Alien</i> or <i>Blade Runner</i>, but it is good in the same way as <i>Return of the Living Dead Part 3</i> or <i>Soldier</i>. It stars Jean-Claude Van Damme & it’s directed by the guy who did the <i>Masters of the Universe</i> movie. Well, here’s a confession, I like the <i>Masters of the Universe</i> movie. I also like this movie. It doesn’t have incredible style or great production values or anything. But the character Van Damme plays is a little more sophisticated than being a simple bad ass, somewhat reminiscent of Mad Max in the original <i>Mad Max</i>. Also like <i>Mad Max</i> or <i>Soldier</i> it’s more of a post-apocalyptic western than a sci-fi action flick. Somewhere between <i>Shane</i> & <i>The Terminator</i> I guess. I spent a good portion of my life the twenty years between my viewings of this movie trying to like arty movies & re-watching this lets me know me liking something has nothing to do with technical merit & what I want is something that is just competent & satisfied with what it is. Probably because that’s what I’m seeking for myself, to be competent & satisfied with my lot in life.<br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RF9CruRyIzU?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RF9CruRyIzU?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-15391557957691329472012-04-04T03:02:00.000-04:002012-04-04T03:02:59.217-04:00The Lathe of Heaven (movie)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/da/LatheOfHeaven.v.1980DVD.jpg/220px-LatheOfHeaven.v.1980DVD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="362" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/da/LatheOfHeaven.v.1980DVD.jpg/220px-LatheOfHeaven.v.1980DVD.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br />
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I first saw this movie when I was five or six years old. The main things I remembered from it were dreams altering reality & aliens that looked kinda like turtles hiding on the moon. & I was sure it was black & white (but I think I watched on a black & white television). The movie freaked me out & it’s one of the many things I watched as a kid that I don’t really understand why I watched it & that went on to kind of effect my interests for the rest of my life.<br />
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So it was hard to figure out what this movie was to re-see it. First off everyone says, “Oh, <i>Dreamscape</i>” when you say a movie about an early 1980s movie about a guy having crazy dreams that effect reality. Second off, it wasn’t actually in black & white. Anyway, I actually managed to find it by Googling “alien turtle moon movie” which is pretty crazy as a description. I guess Google is getting to know me better. Re-seeing this movie is interesting to me. It has that vibe from before sci-fi movies became a genre of action movies, definitely a Philip K Dick vibe even though it’s actually by Ursula K Le Guin. One of the things I find really interesting about this movie for me is it may well be the root of my complete dis-trust for psychiatrists as the psychiatrist in this is pretty corrupt & manipulates his patient. The basic premise is there’s a guy who has dreams that can alter reality & it opens with him undoing a nuclear war after which he starts taking drugs to suppress his ability to dream. After a near fatality from the drugs he is forced by the state to go to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist figures out he can manipulate the dreams & tries to use them to make the world a better place, but usually it ends up making things worse – the solution to over-population for example is a plague.<br />
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This movie really works for me. Which is odd. The production value & acting quality isn’t too far removed from <i>Logan’s Run</i> or an episode of <i>Twilight Zone</i>. Maybe that’s what I like about it. It isn’t driven by fancy special effects or action or good acting or good cinematography – it’s just an interesting story told in an interesting way. It’s simple & dull & soothing. It’s not for everyone & that’s fine because I do think it’s for me.<br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ofwNTrlyY5I?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ofwNTrlyY5I?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-41150572886469904042012-03-04T13:32:00.000-05:002012-03-04T13:32:25.231-05:00War of the Worlds (1988 Television Series)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/598/wotw15ww.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/598/wotw15ww.gif" /></a></div>I have vague memories of this show from when I was a kid. In my area it was on up against dinnertime on Saturday nights, so I very rarely got to see an episode. But I remembered it being pretty cool even though the acting & special effects weren’t too terrific. A couple weeks ago I re-watched the 1953 movie so I thought I’d try to check this out & as luck would have it the whole series is more or less bootlegged onto YouTube.<br />
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Well, here’s the thing about this show, season one is pretty much a clunker. I didn’t even watch all the episodes. Season one relies pretty heavily on the idea that the 1953 movie was a documentary & the government (along with the aliens somehow?) have made people think it never really happened. It’s probably worth checking out the series premiere & a random episode or two just for some character backgrounds. The only cool thing to me on season one really is these bizarre suits the alien leaders wear.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/topicimages/w/wa/war_of_the_worlds_%28tv_series%29.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="122" width="160" src="http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/topicimages/w/wa/war_of_the_worlds_%28tv_series%29.gif" /></a></div><br />
Enter season two. Holy crap. Step one, take the worst actors on the show & kill them off. Step two, change the setting from wandering around modern North America looking for aliens to living in a bunker in some dirty dystopian city that is maybe apocalyptic (not post-apocalyptic, but there are routine shortages of things like water, food, medicine, & electricity). Step three, make new alien technology based on weird organic looking stuff instead of basing it on the designs of 1953. Step four, instead of having the aliens be exclusively an invasionary force, have them be final survivors from a planet that have no place else to go & have to do crazy shit to the Earth & its inhabitants to survive (so some moral ambiguity instead of just “humans versus aliens”). So yeah, season two is good to me in the same way the Max Headroom series is good to me, but I can see why it would totally piss off fans of season one & why people who had seen season one wouldn’t bother to check it out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is a sci-fi show from the late 1980s & I’m not saying this is as good of a discovery as a ton of other things, but I dig it. They even have an industrial music episode (though I couldn’t figure out who the band actually was, but I guess it was around the time that the cyberpunk & industrial sub-culture raised its head into the mainstream for a few seconds & scared parents in the way punk, metal, & rap (because hey, it wasn’t hip hop when parents were scared of it!) did (which reminds me how funny it is that the last musical thing I remember parents getting scared of was Britney Spears – will there ever be something with angst approaching the mainstream again?)). Oh, it’s probably worth noting that the one guy on this show went on to star in the <i>Highlander</i> television show & the little girl went on to be one of the hosts of <i>Are You Afraid of the Dark?</i> & the star of the <i>Clueless</i> TV series. Here’s a clip from season two & if you dig it, maybe check out some more...<br />
<center><object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P1MIhzL1exs?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P1MIhzL1exs?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-39728502573896306562012-02-22T09:54:00.001-05:002012-02-22T09:54:00.981-05:00War of the Worlds (1953)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Film_poster_The_War_of_the_Worlds_1953.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Film_poster_The_War_of_the_Worlds_1953.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">So I first saw this movie when I was seven. The city where I lived had just gotten its first indie television station & they played all the Godzilla & other disposable sci-fi movies every Sunday afternoon. This one wasn’t holding my attention as it was lacking in action. It was probably about half way through when my brother (five years older than me) walked in & said, “Oh, this is the one where the common cold kills the aliens.” So the ending being given away I went to play with my Star Wars action figures.<br />
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I’m not really sure why I never re-visited this movie before. One of my favorite comics as a kid was the Killraven series that was a sequel to War of the Worlds (about the Martians coming back & there being a group of four or five revolutionaries trying to survive & be a thorn in the Martians’ side). I was pretty intrigued by the 1988 television show based on it. I read the Orson Welles radio play for school. I saw the Steven Spielberg version of the movie from 2005 & I kind of dug that as well. Around 2007 I finally read the original book. So yeah, this movie, presumably my first taste of the horror survival genre (note the genre the book was originally classified as is </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">“invasion literature”</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">), you’d think it would have been something I would have gone back to; but I remembered it being so slow & boring that I never went back.<br />
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So tonight it was on television & I put it on while I did some work laying out some comics. As a person who has become a fan of old movies, this isn’t that slow; but I cannot imagine it being of interest to a child. Is it dated as an almost 70 year old movie that relied heavily on what were the best possible special effects of the time? Yes, in the same way most big budget sci-fi movies are when they’re as little as ten years old. One thing that was strange is there’s a lot of weird religious elements thrown in here about God designing the world to have bacteria to fight aliens if they ever invade & people’s prayers for a miracle being answered. I can’t remember if that’s in the ending of the book (or the Spielberg movie) or not. To be honest, I can’t remember the endings of any of them because it is such a cop out ending to make this huge big bad & then just have it die suddenly. (Though what are the alternate endings? Total decimation of the human race (try getting that published in 1898!) or the humans magically have superior technology to aliens? I guess the cop out is as good an ending as any.) It’s interesting that this movie doesn’t really work on the quasi-political fear angle at all (the original book was about the fear of a foreign nation (presumably Germany at the time) developing superior war technology & destroying England). In fact this movie doesn’t really seem to have any kind of message behind it, it just feels like a summer blockbuster. That said, this movie really has nothing wrong with it, but unless you want to look at it for some nostalgia or historical purposes I really can’t give it a recommendation.</span><br />
<object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P9T9f3UbGuo?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><center><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P9T9f3UbGuo?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-18467146957602561892012-02-10T22:35:00.000-05:002012-02-10T22:35:21.880-05:00Grosse Pointe Blank<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://content7.flixster.com/movie/26/73/267397_det.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="258" width="180" src="http://content7.flixster.com/movie/26/73/267397_det.jpg" /></a></div>I first saw this movie in the early 2000s. It seemed like every time I came home from a show it was half way done & I’d have it on while eating some ice cream or something like that. I loved John Cusack from High Fidelity (I was slow to get on the John Cusack train) & the black comedy hitman aspect was of course super awesome as well. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's the story of a hitman going to his ten year high school reunion & trying to get back his high school sweetheart.<br />
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I’m not sure exactly how I ended up owning a DVD of this movie & I never actually watched it even though it has been sitting in my room for years. Watching it was odd because while I’m 90% sure I’ve seen the entire movie before, I’m also 100% sure I’d never seen the whole thing in one sitting much less without the commercials. I’ll be honest. I think I preferred this when my drunken mind had put the bits together into a cohesive whole. There were major plot points that were missing in my mind. I’d forgotten about the psychiatrist & that John Cusack had assassins after him because of killing a dog (I thought it was just for not joining Aykroyd’s assassin guild). It wasn’t quite as good as I remembered, but the 1980s semi-shoegazery soundtrack (The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Pixies, etc.) was a lot more fun than I remembered. I kinda wish this was still on the television regularly when I got home from shows.<br />
<center><object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lRrZ7CRpcw4?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lRrZ7CRpcw4?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-28061980945206343502012-01-11T01:35:00.000-05:002012-01-11T01:35:37.034-05:00New Order: Power, Corruption, & Lies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8093/albumpowercorruptionlie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8093/albumpowercorruptionlie.jpg" /></a></div>In my teens I got into Joy Division. I thought of New Order as the crappy pop band they turned into after Ian Curtis killed himself. But when I went to college the dude who worked at the record store I went to gave me a cassette of an early New Order live show & I had to admit it wasn’t too far away from my beloved Joy Division. I found a cassette copy of Power Corruption, & Lies & became a staunch supporter of the “Those first couple of New Order albums are where Joy Division was headed” school of thought.<br />
The last time I tried to listen to Power, Corruption, & Lies was on tour with my biological son a couple years ago. I thought it was a good record & he’d be into it. His reaction was something like, “Are these guys gay? This sounds gay!” So re-listening to it without thinking about Joy Division I get what he means. It’s an early 1980s dance record. One of the first successful attempts to take the dance floors back from disco. I still think it’s mostly awesome. “Age of Consent,” “Blue Monday,” “Leave Me Alone,” “5 8 6,” & “Ultraviolence” would all be on a New Order’s Greatest Hits for me. The only song I think of as a clunker is “We All Stand” & that’s probably just compared to the rest of the album. Just check out this record & if listening to it makes you gay, you were probably gay in the first place.<br />
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<center><object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FSYmuIdwiEk?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FSYmuIdwiEk?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-18111556531540714012012-01-03T01:32:00.000-05:002012-01-03T01:32:33.409-05:00Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ukrmedia.biz/images/products/Brian%20Eno_Taking%20Tiger%20Mountain_imp_2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="http://ukrmedia.biz/images/products/Brian%20Eno_Taking%20Tiger%20Mountain_imp_2009.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I got this album back in 1995. I knew the song “Third Uncle” from Bauhaus covering it & then the Eno version appeared on a history of industrial music compilation & of course I was familiar with Eno’s ambient work & acting as a producer on a ton of albums I liked. So I was pretty stoked by the idea of an album that sounded like “Third Uncle.” & that’s not at all what this album is. I listened to this once & filed it away as more or less sucking.<br />
In 2002 I stumbled across an interview with Eno & became a big fan of him as someone talking about music & read a few of his books & Jessica Bailiff gave me a copy of <i>Another Green World</i> & I really love that album (which is the album after Taking Tiger Mountain), but still didn’t bother to give this album another chance. So I finally re-listened to this & I still think this is pretty awful. It’s basically quirky & witty 1960s pop in the style of Herman’s Hermits, The Beatles, & Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd which for me is not a great thing. It also reminds me of some of the hometaper pop music of the 1990s (the thing that makes that genre work for me is the fact that I’ll probably only listen to the tape once). I don’t know why I don’t like most of the songs on here while I really like <i>Another Green World</i> as they really are stylistically similar, but I know that I don’t. For me, make sure you’ve heard “Third Uncle” & after that move on from this album.<br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QBYjYPWRajQ?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QBYjYPWRajQ?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-90228794507897295302012-01-02T23:37:00.000-05:002012-01-02T23:37:44.682-05:00The Sisters of Mercy: Floodland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517CpqjhroL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517CpqjhroL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a></div>This was the first Sisters of Mercy album I ever got. It was 1991 & I’d just started getting into goth music & they had this for $9.99 at Phar-Mor. I’d mainly been into the more shoegaze & almost metal end of goth & The Sisters were my first experience in the dance & fashion aspect that really would define the genre. As I went on tours over the next decade I saw & heard a hundred bands inspired by this album & heard the singles at the clubs all the time & the idea of actually listening to this album on my own just didn’t occur to me anymore.<br />
The re-listen was odd. It kicks in with “Dominion/Mother Russia” which seems like a pretty great song, but it is really melodramatic & long. When the sax kicks in, the image of that walrus playing a saxophone comes to mind.<br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EDcjPvWwKM0?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EDcjPvWwKM0?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://everyonebutsix.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/saxophone-walrus-300x225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://everyonebutsix.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/saxophone-walrus-300x225.jpg" /></a></div>To me the songs that are successful are the dance singles. “Lucretia My Reflection” has a bassline that I end up playing half the time I pick up the bass & “This Corrosion” which clocks in at almost eleven minutes somehow almost works even at that length (though the idea of a pop song being extended to that length is a little off to me) with it’s highly dated & bizarre choir backing vocals. Strangely the song “Colours” which I probably hated as a kid (“why does this just have four lines over & over for seven minutes?”) is a new favorite for me & the one song on here that I could really see myself doing a version of (though I probably wouldn’t have the guts to make it more than two minutes long). In the end as a whole this album mainly works for me as nostalgia & the dance music works as dance music, but I don’t understand why this was the album for a whole genre to be built around & I think if I listened to their whole catalog I would see The Sisters as a singles band instead of an album band. Though I guess I don’t understand the idea of derivative music as a goal.<br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IuezNswtRfo?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IuezNswtRfo?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center><br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pgifFdi8eio?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pgifFdi8eio?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center><br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V2OHJBQhUE4?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V2OHJBQhUE4?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-33432797558360383862011-12-23T19:19:00.001-05:002011-12-23T21:46:36.243-05:00burMONTER - self titled demo '92<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://a2.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/116/c7db3cca346244afb30d93e55eeaf550/l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="http://a2.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/116/c7db3cca346244afb30d93e55eeaf550/l.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(note picture is from early 2000's when we got together for 2 songs during a Plumerai set @ King's Barcade in Raleigh, NC)</div><br />
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burMONTER was my first real band ever. I had just returned to the States and was intent on starting a band that was representative of the type of music I actually listened to at the time. Whilst in Deutschland I was playing guitar in what surmounted to a HC/Punk/Metal cover band. We did a lot of Misfits covers and broke it up with songs by Spermbirds, Slayer, & DRI. But what I was listening to at the time was the Cure, Lush, Violent Femmes, The Cramps, and bands of that ilk. So immediately after arriving in the US I began searching for bandmembers and would eventually recruit a drummer that lived a neighborhood over and a vocalist that I met by chance. We went to the same HS but didn't have classes together...just happened to see each other in the halls on occassion. Like my current band, my brother took over the rhythm guitar and eventually moved to bass when the bassist we found bailed but for the sake of this recording we captured it as a five piece. That in a nutshell was how burMONTER began. Since we were in a podunk North Carolina town, there weren't that many options in regards to playing live shows, so we wound up spending more time writing and making home recordings. <br />
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My last Christmas in Germany, my parents had bought me a Tascam Porta-Studio 4-Track. So it was this device that we recorded our first demo tape, the self-titled burMONTER. It was the first go at writing songs and recording them as a band I had experienced up to this point. The year was 1991 or 92.<br />
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As mentioned the influences on these songs were mostly The Cure, Mission UK, Violent Femmes, Lush, the Sundays, the Smiths (for vocals) and an assortment of others that the rhythm section brought in and I would probably be unable to recognize without it being pointed out to me.<br />
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"Last Breath" was the opener and was proceeded by a brief vocal swell ala "Hero Takes A Fall" by the Bangles before the muted guitar influenced heavily by <i>17 Seconds</i> era guitar intro kicks in. Just a heavy kick and the muted guitar. It then pops with a straight forward rock beat and rhythm with arpegiated guitars for the verses and the choruses burst in with a typcial C-D-G with a Robert Smithy strum pattern. This was the first original song I had ever written and aside from using such a common chord progression during the chorus I don't think it was such a bad effort. When we toured Germany a few years later, this song made it's way back into the set and held up just as well if not better than some of the newer material. What I notice most about these recordings are the bass lines. Totally not typical of my post-punk/Simon Gallup influences. Charli Ramos was older and more influenced by music from the 70's and the bass represents that. Also, this was back when I did a lot of lyric writing which probably made it more difficult for our vocalist to come up with vocal melodies....or did it? The song doesn't really go anywhere to me, just some parts that sound good together, smushed together. The final vocal line today sounds weird to me "i have breathed my last breath"...is that even proper english? <br />
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"The First Rays of the Waking Hour" was probably more solid songwriting. It had a long instrumental intro definitely influenced by The Cure's "Push" with single notes played high with a bunch of open strings to fill out the sound. The drums do that double time beat that's popular in Pop music that I enjoy and once the verses start you can hear a bit more of my Bangles/Cure influence in the guitar. The song is light and very 90s. I sort of wish we had keyboards back then.<br />
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The other highlight of this demo is the song "Dalia." More Cure influence with the tribal drums and the guitar solo in the end and also the darker lyrics and use of some Robert Smithisms in both the guitar and the lyrics. This was a song that never left our set once we started playing live. Of note are Charli's backup vocals during the chorus. The really boominess of the drums I think are great and our drummer at the time went on to become a phenomenal player far surpassing the skill level of anybody else involved in this project. <br />
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The other songs I don't even want to mention, full of youthful idiocy and lameness. But what I do notice is that the sound quality on this demo is much fuller and although very flawed, much better than the demo's that came after it, Hybrid I & II. I'm not sure what we did right here and wrong on the other recordings. We basically recorded the drums with three random mic's that we happened to possess and then bounced it down to one track. Then added the overdubs and did the same until we were done. Recording all onto cassette tape mind you. While not something I would say I'm proud of, this recording for the time and method and the place that we were at the time, I think came out okay. I'm pretty sure the bass went direct and the guitar was a horrible little crate practice amp with built-in chorus and a Charvel Model 4 guitar, so to begin with, we had so much working against us. As I learned later, what saved this record probably was getting a fairly decent drum sound (for what we were working with).<br />
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To hear for yourself: <a href="http://plumerai.bandcamp.com/album/the-ugliness-about-me">http://plumerai.bandcamp.com/album/the-ugliness-about-me</a> where you can hear the various era demos burMONTER did.<br />
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for more info you can also visit <a href="http://www.myspace.com/burmonter">http://www.myspace.com/burmonter</a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-1993202297828418962011-12-23T14:07:00.000-05:002011-12-23T14:07:06.106-05:00Hefner – Breaking God’s Heart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/h/hefner-breaking_gods_heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/h/hefner-breaking_gods_heart.jpg" /></a></div>I first got this record back in 1998 because I was doing QRD & got promos from Beggar’s Banquet. In one envelope were my two favorite records of that year, Hefner’s <i>Breaking God’s Heart</i> & Six By Seven’s <i>The Closer You Get</i>. From the outside there was no reason I would like the Hefner disc as they had none of the elements I was really into at the time. No shoegazing guitar. No tribal drums. No ambient drones. No baritone vocals. More or less straight indie rock with a little bit of a Buddy Holly edge. But somehow I gave it a chance & it was an instant favorite.<br />
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I’m not sure how long it’s been since I heard this record or how it ever got out of my rotation. It is pretty incredible & I’ve always had a fondness for it. It’s funny because even now I don’t find any of the many bands that “sound” like Hefner (Built to Spill, Weezer, etc.) interesting at all & there’s something special about Hefner. I’m not sure that what I really like about Hefner actually has anything to do with the music as much as Darren Hayman’s ability as a storyteller with his lyrics. All of the songs on here are narcissistic passive-aggressive tales of semi-unrequited love & I don’t know if I’d like them as much if they weren’t so easy for me to relate to them, but luckily enough I can. I think this might be one of the twenty records I will always want to own & I’d be willing to put it up against Neil Young’s <i>Harvest</i> or Bruce Springsteen’s <i>Nebraska</i> & I’m not sure I can think of any band with a stronger debut album. It may be better to me now than it was all those years ago.<br />
<center><object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HfAVSfK5IbE?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HfAVSfK5IbE?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-83922430172595177822011-12-22T22:47:00.000-05:002011-12-22T22:47:01.450-05:00The Cure - Faith<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Here I go with another review of something from the past updated in the present. This time it's The Cure's album Faith.<div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/The_Cure_-_Faith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/The_Cure_-_Faith.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br />
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</div><div>As many of you may have already known, recently the Cure had played a series of shows called Reflection. The basic premise was that they were playing back to back and in sequence, their first three albums. Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds & Faith. Unlike their Trilogy concerts where there was a general mood being set by the choice of albums, the Reflection shows were basically a musical journey documenting their transformation from post-punk to goth (or whatever you consider the darker majestic side of this band). It's the final album in the set that I want to concentrate on, because it's the first time the Cure emerges with the sound that they've become known for. It's the album where the combination of big keyboards, tribal drum patterns, the melodic yet driving bass lines and the melodies being played on the bassVI all come into play to create a particular mood that the Cure would employ again and again (and again and again and again).</div><div><br />
</div><div>Like I said, it was seeing them play the album in it's entirety live at New York City's Bowery Ballroom on the final night of the tour and presumably the last time they do these Reflection shows, that it all came to me. Possibly as a result of hearing the three different albums in sequence, I was able to see the metamorphisis of the group. It wasn't as apparent to me before I think because of the production of Faith being what it is. While I always felt Faith/Pornography/Disintegration seem more of a Trilogy than Pornography/Disintegration/Bloodflowers, hearing the Faith album live and loud and surrounded by both the atmosphere and the moodiness of songs such as The Holy Hour, All Cats Are Grey and the highlights of both the recorded album and the live show The Drowning Man & Faith really made apparent that this was to be the album that set the tone and informed all the albums to follow until Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.</div><div><br />
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</div><div>A big deal was made of these shows because Lol Tolhurst would join the band for the first time since his acrimonious departure around 88-89. Although, his inclusion seemed like a gimmick. He was relegated to playing extra keys and percussion on just the Faith portion of the show and since they were doing a reflection on their past, it would've been great to have him behind the drum kit again since that was what he played on those albums. I'm sure he would've struggled but it would've been great to see. Especially since their latest drummer Jason Cooper plays the songs more generically and with a lack of style that both Lol & Boris possessed. He didn't murder the songs like he does with 'Push' from Head on the Door but if they were going to make a big deal about Lol being on stage, it would've been great to have him up there for more than the Faith set and doing more than adding percussion that was never in the original songs or playing minimal keyboards.</div><div><br />
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</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-82140543355391955472011-12-20T13:22:00.000-05:002011-12-20T13:22:44.123-05:00Confessor - Condemned<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.confessorband.com/images/condemed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.confessorband.com/images/condemed.jpg" /></a></div>When I was in high school I was into metal. There was a local metal band who were awesome & kings of the scene that got signed to Earache. They were Confessor. The only local heavy band that outshined them was Corrosion of Conformity. My memory is that they had an album come out & then broke up after a European tour, but I don’t know if that story was ever true or not.<br />
My metal roots started to fade towards the end of high school, so I hadn’t listened to this album in almost twenty years. Oddly this band is still popular enough locally that you sometimes hear some of their songs between bands at local shows. Last night I had a dream where I went to see them play a reunion show, so I decided to pop the disc in. I can’t believe I used to listen to this on a regular basis. This is a really dark record lyrically, but not in a way where I can relate to it (as say The Cure or Joy Division) & not quite in a Dungeons & Dragons cartoony way that a lot of metal does that can be fun. I could hardly make it through the album. Also there is some kind of weird phaser stereo expander put on the whole mix (you hear it on a few early 90s albums) that makes me feel semi-nauseated & uneasy & that probably adds to the feeling of dread this record holds. Oh, & here’s the weirdest thing about this band for me, I went to their current website & they sell soap as merch.<br />
<center><object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/42FNSeh28g8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/42FNSeh28g8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-40136619223429569862011-12-19T13:37:00.001-05:002011-12-19T13:39:04.883-05:00Heavy Metal - The Motion Picture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Heavy_Metal_%281981%29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Heavy_Metal_%281981%29.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So I first saw this when I was seven years old. It was on HBO during the annual family reunion & beach vacation at Myrtle Beach. All of the cousins & my brothers were trying to figure out a way to get to watch it & something happened where one aunt & uncle were at another aunt & uncle’s hotel room & everyone gathered there to watch, but I was five years younger than the youngest of that group of cousins so I ended up for some reason watching it while my parents were in the next room drinking their liquor drinks. Anyway, the animation totally blew me away (the best looking cartoon I had probably seen up to that point was probably <i>Starblazers</i> as we didn’t have cable at home & the animation explosion of 1983 hadn’t yet happened) & as a <i>Star Wars </i>fan the sci-fi had an immediate appeal. The nudity & language & violence didn’t strike me as odd or unusual or exciting, just factual. The next time I saw it I was 16 & amongst the guys in my age range the movie had reached this cult status as a weird childhood memory (it seemed like every one had managed to see it as a kid that summer of 1982) & it was on one night at 3am & my buddy Jason recorded it & I got to see it again. I was pretty shocked by the volume of nudity that time out & even more shocked by the volume of John Candy doing the voices. So that takes me up until pretty recently with the movie.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">So yesterday I saw <a href="http://finallychecking.blogspot.com/2011/12/heavy-metal-2000.html"><i>Heavy Metal 2000</i></a> & thought it was pretty bad. So I decided to watch the original. The animation quality I think is still pretty awesome, I’d be willing to put it up against <i>Akira</i> or <i>Avatar</i> or whatever - while not the most computer clean cutting edge it has a style of its own that really works. The nudity in it for me is weird because the boobs in it look like water balloons about to explode more than actual breasts. But the short stories of it work really well. 15 minute chunks of self-contained loosely connected stories with little characterization is pretty ideal for sci-fi to me. All of the segments are great with sections that are film noir, sword & sorcery, <i>Twilight Zone</i>-y, post apocalyptic, & just plain fun. Of course one of the movies claims to fame is its soundtrack & I think the way the music is put in here is pretty awesome. So many times I see movies where the music volume is blaring & it all just sits right in this & cuts in & out well. I mean, clearly this movie is mainly made for pubescent boys into sci-fi, but I stand by it as a good movie & am shocked by how well it stands for being 30 years old & part of my childhood.</div><br />
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<center><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/B_MzWF8YLhY?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/B_MzWF8YLhY?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Brian John Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05087664108117652089noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-46752000561305789722011-06-09T23:23:00.000-04:002011-06-09T23:23:05.422-04:00Effects Pedals (guitar)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div>Living in a city where you don’t really have the opportunity to be super loud and not a complete asshole at the same time doesn’t leave you many choices in regards to experimenting with guitar amps and effects. You wind up playing guitar unplugged or an acoustic or you pay your scarcely earned dollars for a rehearsal space and even that has it’s issues. You’ll find yourself nestled between The Bro-Metal bands and the Teen Angst Punk Rock played by 38 year olds and their bass and kick will boom and echo through your half assedly sound proofed room.</div><div><br />
</div><div>However, once in a blue moon you wind up at the rehearsal spot alone because the rest of the band bailed on practice and this gives you an opportunity to crank the amp and play whatever the hell you want to. For me that was an opportunity to once again pull the effects out without having to worry if anybody but myself can keep time with it or hear the nuances I do. I used to play with effects a lot and then I think as a result of writing more songs at home, the effects started dropping off one by one. Instead of a whole board turned on at once, I now just use one or less at a time. I don’t know if it’s old age or that all the bands that knew how to use the effects effectively are all 10years defunct and so I’m uninspired by those types of sounds. Regardless, things just weren’t the same. The excitement of discovering a new combination of sound or rhythm was lost on me and the one piece that I did like with the tremolo/delay/wah combo I tend to use often, actually sounded better with just a little overdrive and reverb. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Did I grow out of It or has my writing just developed into something different that no longer benefits from heavy usage of boss pedals. I’m more into thinking about what will accentuate the dry guitar part as opposed to what will send it to the freaking moon. It makes sense since most songwriters tend to become more Country or Bluesy as time goes on, maybe I'm due for this transition.</div><div> </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-66035140989448670402011-06-06T22:10:00.000-04:002011-06-06T22:10:38.758-04:00RED DAWN<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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</div><div>So I caught Red Dawn over the weekend. I’m not particularly sure how I felt about this movie when I saw it many years ago but i recall enjoying it even if it wasn't amongst my favourites or even particularly interesting. Watching it today however, I was able to catch on to the more propaganda elements (which I’ll attach below from an article by some dude that wrote a book on pentagon involvement in Hollywood) or realistic parts of the flick; Stuff like rounding up the citizens known to have firearms, which makes perfect sense now but at the time i orginally saw this, didn't even register. While watching, I wondered how many people watch this movie now and are able to separate the US invasions and subsequent insurgencies or if they still just think it’s a bunch of anti-westerners looking to lop off an infidel’s head. I guess we’ll find out when the remake hits theaters. <br />
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Plot-wise it’s classic evil Russian of the 80’s and their south of the border allies, invade America fantasy. Red Dawn concentrates on this small Colorado town and the high school insurgent group “Wolverines” that take them on. The movie makes use of a lot of stereotypes, re-education camps, slaughter of civilians as retaliation, the sovietfication of the po-dunk town, the KGB prescence. What I missed when I saw this in the 80’s was the larger scope of this war. I always felt it was silly that the Russians would invade some high school in the middle of nowhere but I guess watching it alone in my living room allowed me to actually pay attention when the downed Fighter pilot gave them the run down on the nuclear attacks and the wider scope of the invasion that made it seem more plausible. My main issue with the movie today is how they sort of cut it like a teen movie. Down to the montage of their successes as they go from kids in the mountain with rifles, to an actual fighting forces with heavy weaponry and fighting strategies….each success ending with a shot of their name “Wolverines” spray painted on a wall or damaged tank. Pretty much every major detail besides the skirmishes exist in a vacuum. They just sort of come up when it’s convenient as opposed to being alluded to, much less shown in the flick. They could have done much more, especially in regards to the traitor amongst them. Another thing I noticed was the 80’s style score, it’s a bit creepier than the more orchestral scores of today and not overbearing like action flicks of today, i do admit they made a lot of obnoxious sound choices though.</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/zVTBlXEwjhc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div><br />
</div><div> </div><div>Ok now on to the special report: "How the 80's Programmed Us for War" by David Siorta <div class="byline clearfix" style="display: inline !important;"></div></div><div><a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/15/sirota_excerpt_back_to_our_future"> Salon</a></div><div> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">White House strategists and Pentagon propagandists use information and imagery as strategic weapons, and they are well aware that the most valuable of those weapons is cheery childhood nostalgia. They also know that in a country where almost half the population was born after 1979, some of the most compelling of those youthful memories come from the schlock that was originally stockpiled in the 1980s basement.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">And a lot of it plays into the ideological agenda of the Pentagon. "Young men of recruiting age cited movies and television as their primary source of their impressions about the military, so [movies and television] are very important [to the Pentagon]," an army spokeswoman told PBS, citing the Defense Department's extensive surveys of youth attitudes. "It's an opportunity for [kids] to see what the possibilities are and to see what being a soldier would be like."</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"Red Dawn" is a classic invasion flick, but with a deliberate twist for recruitment-age teens. It tells the story of youngsters from the fictional town of Calumet, Colorado, who call themselves the Wolverines and who go rogue by mounting a preposterous guerrilla resistance against a massive Soviet assault on the American homeland. To further sex up the adolescent appeal, "Red Dawn" cast '80s teen heartthrobs such as Thompson, Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell and, yes, Charlie Sheen, in the lead roles.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The film starts out with the bedrock provisos of militarist paranoia, including key pillars of eighties Vietnam-related revision:</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">-- Anti-gun-control extremism: One of the film's first scenes shows a Soviet thug pulling a gun from an American corpse as the camera pans across a pickup truck bearing an NRA bumper sticker that reads, "They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers." Later, the Soviets are able to hunt down American resisters through the secret master list of gun owners that the U.S. government allegedly keeps (one of the longtime conspiracy theories among gun enthusiasts).</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">-- Retaliation/revenge on countries that defeat the United States: One of the kids' fathers is shown in a concentration-camp cage, yelling to his son to "Avenge me!" by killing as many enemies as possible. His scream could be the name of every back-to-Vietnam flick from the 1980s.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">-- Backstabbing politicians: The film shows Calumet's mayor as a cowardly and conniving Soviet collaborator who does nothing while his constituents are rounded up and murdered. Additionally, the mayor's son (also student body president at Calumet High School) presses the Wolverines to surrender and later betrays them. Taken together, "Red Dawn" argues that politicians are all weak-kneed, corrupt, and traitorous.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">-- United States as embattled underdog: In the same way adult politics, media, and entertainment in the eighties tried to recast the U.S. military as a yellow-ribbon-worthy under- dog helping supposed "freedom fighters" in Latin America, rescuing POWs from Vietcong, and liberating Kuwait from the supposed Iraq behemoth, "Red Dawn's" Wolverines are positioned as outgunned insurgents scratching their way to victory against the Russian colossus. "The message of 'Red Dawn,'" its director, Milius, said, "is to liberate the oppressed" -- the "oppressed" somehow being America, the most militarily dominant nation in human history.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Soon after fleeing to the woods for some good old-fashioned Unabomber-like survivalism (including drinking deer blood as a male-bonding exercise), the Wolverines come upon a fallen U.S. pilot who articulates a few more paranoias of eighties militarism:</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">-- Stealth terrorists are already among us: "The first wave of the (Soviet) attack came in disguise as commercial charter flights," says the pilot in an eerily prescient vision of a 9/11- like onslaught.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">-- The need for a militarized southern border: "Infiltrators came up illegal from Mexico, Cubans mostly," he continues.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">-- Weak-kneed western allies justify the United States spending more on the military than all other nations combined: When the kids ask if Europe is going to help stop the Soviet invasion, the pilot says that Europe is "sittin' this one out -- all except England, and they won't last very long."</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Recall that four years before this film was released, Ronald Reagan had given voice to many of these theories, saying "the Soviets and their friends are advancing" and chastising the Carter administration for "failing to see any threatening pattern." It was propaganda in its most literal form.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-top: 5pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">In 1997, after reports that "Red Dawn" was one of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's favorite films, MGM/United Artists vice president Peter Bart revealed to Variety that when his company first considered the movie's script, the studio's CEO "declared in no uncertain terms that he wanted to make the ultimate jingoistic movie." The studio subsequently recruited Reagan's recently departed secretary of state, retired general Alexander Haig, to serve on MGM's corporate board, "consult with ['Red Dawn's'] director and inculcate the appropriate ideological tint." Though the screenplay's first draft strived to lament the tragedies of war, Bart recounted how the studio "demanded to know why [it] should try to remake 'Lord of the Flies' when it could instead try for 'Rambo.'"</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-34316167923796116792011-03-09T00:20:00.000-05:002011-03-09T00:20:21.222-05:00OMD<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cZq9-pwJL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cZq9-pwJL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">OMD. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark for those of you not in the know. This review is a bit different in that it’s re-visiting sounds from back in the day through a current live concert featuring that band and those songs from back in the 80’s. OMD played melodic whimsical synth pop back then and they still do, having not played in the US for over 13 years or more, they opted to pull out the hits from the 80’s. I remember having the "best of" recorded on a cassette and I’m fairly certain after opening with a new song which sounded just like the old songs, they played the entire album. The high energy songs worked really well, the slower stuff which is basically the high energy stuff played slower opened the gates for boredom to set in. These are the sounds of early 80’s Prom and movies starring Molly Ringwald which generally take place at the Prom or some other school dance. I mean these are pleasant songs and the opening act Oh Land reminded me of how much worse synthpop could be and seeing a member of Freezepop in the audience then made me realize how much worse it could go from there and made me think at least I was grateful for seeing synthpop done well. But even synthpop done well has its drawbacks. Keyboard players like laptop musicians are just boring to watch, it’s sort of like a soundtrack to somebody doing their taxes or writing a paper or checking their email. Because all of these sounds going direct and how that doesn’t lend itself for variance, it sometimes comes across like you’re just listening to the CD played through a PA system. The boredom starts to set in as a result and they don’t help matter by moving into their slow jams around this point. Back in the day I would fast forward the cassette over these songs but I was stuck. The audience and even the band made me feel like I was at a board meeting or a corporate function, the skinny ties the band were wearing didn’t help matters. So my conclusion: synthpop is pleasant yet still boring after all these years. Here’s to the future! </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">THEN<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/DC-nmyVEmRw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> NOW<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/uDn-JiOtoBM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-11835128950329273602011-02-02T09:54:00.003-05:002011-02-13T11:05:26.163-05:00The Bangles - "All Over The Place"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_O7UBgPFvRGM/TUjpzfUvO2I/AAAAAAAABPE/QOTHx111sTU/s1600/The_Bangles-All_Over_The_Place-Frontal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_O7UBgPFvRGM/TUjpzfUvO2I/AAAAAAAABPE/QOTHx111sTU/s320/The_Bangles-All_Over_The_Place-Frontal.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Today, I present to you the Bangles. Like all good bands should do, they called it a day on their third record (although they’ve gotten back together in the double 0’s but I’m going to pretend that didn’t happen) and while most people are aware of the second (A Different Light) and third (Everything) records, the ones with their top ten hits written by professional songwriters, they mostly aren’t aware that before that they released an album called “All Over the Place” filled with songs they mostly wrote themselves, mostly by guitarist Vickie Petterson. The sound wasn’t as polished and was more straight up garage rock with a sixties influence. Of course it’s the early eighties so the songs are a bit cleaner and not as sloppily played as a lot of more recent indie bands but what they’ve recorded seems to be what a lot of indie-pop bands have attempted to achieve throughout the 90’s and 00’s. And they do it with a better sense of melody and harmony than a majority if not all of them. I just listened back to Lush & especially on their last record LoveLife, the sound they were heading toward can easily be related to the songs from “All Over the Place”. <br />
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Like the Mission UK, this was another album I purchased from the cheapies in the local PX (military base equivalent of wal-mart) and at the time, I was just getting into music that wasn’t metal…I blame this on Faith No More and to an extent the Cure but really that FNM “Introduce Yourself” album was the gateway and I had heard a few of the non-hit tracks from A Different Light and thought I’d check out the Bangles more thoroughly. If you know what I mean. For some reason the opening track reminds me of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles too, maybe I had just discovered them at the same time. Four girls in a band, four mutant turtles in the sewer. It makes sense.<br />
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EDIT: My judgement on this record has changed since i initially posted this. My judgement was that although it was fantastic indie pop, indie pop just wasn't my thing. However since then i've listened to this album quite a bit and think despite the corny lyrics it's a fantastic record. I also updated the video to more accurately fit what they were sounding like back then.<br />
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Another thing about the 80’s. Holy Crap are they embarrassing…..so instead of posting the actual videos, here's a live bootleg from a concert in 82 playing "Tell Me" also worth checking out is the live version of "Dover Beach" from the same era. It's kind of sad actually to see what they came from and what happened to them after being filtered through 80's Major Label fuckery (the corny studio musicians the producer brought in for the next two records really take a toll on the more raw rock n rolling they were capable of and also resulted in them being dismissed as a pop band in the ranks with Bobby Brown, Madonna etc. . .)<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202257727100656515.post-27188852181926916542011-01-19T22:02:00.001-05:002011-01-19T22:10:37.129-05:00Lush Split<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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</div><div></div><div>So in the early 90’s there were three important bands for me. The Cure, Cranes & Lush. All three of those bands had albums I could listen to on repeat and whom I would seek out bootleg recordings and attend their concerts at every opportunity, sometimes driving a few hours in order to do so. And I remember seeing them at Lollapalooza and the MC of the day coming on stage and proclaiming that this band was going to be around for a really long time like the Rolling Stones, which is funny since out of those three bands and even out of most of the bands on the bill that day, they’ve had the shortest life-span. Not to mention the thought of Lush as the golden girls kicking about onstage. My first time seeing them was in a small venue in Raleigh, NC with a horrible Flaming Lips (another band that has outlived and skyrocketed past them in popularity) as opener. It was the tour for Spooky, which loads of people seem to think is their best album and which incorrectly got them labeled as shoegaze over the years thanks to Robin Guthrie’s production. But overlooked at least in the US lodged between Spooky and Lovelife (the album that saw them transform into a straight up indie pop group) was this remarkable album Split. They started to shed the effects that Robin Guthrie painted them with and the songs took on more structure as opposed to just the wall of jangly guitars with high female voices cooing over them, It even had a few moments where they attempted to get back to their more punky side like ‘Blackout’. It was actually more in line with the Cure than with Cocteau Twins, Ride or Slowdive, the last three having never really made an impression on me although apparently whom every nu-gaze band worships along side of MBV. Much like those nu-gaze bands, to me what set Lush apart was that they weren’t just guitar sounds set to pop music, they actually had decent songs to go along with it. Seems they were always too ethereal for the rock fans and too rock for the ethereal fans but were just right for somebody like me.</div><div></div><div>So anyways, I haven’t really listened to Lush in a long while. Occassionally I’ll hear the song “For Love” someplace and think “oh”. But I saw something about them on the internets and decided to give it another spin. My conclusion is conflicted: The songs and the band are great, the production I can’t really get with. It’s not bad but it’s dated and sounds a bit lifeless. If it was blaring I could get into it but listening at a normal volume left a little to be desired. Little things like the guitars lack power, the drums are too far in the background, the bass could use a bit more low end or punch or something. It’s like I’m listening to a rough mix of an album as opposed to the real deal. To me I like every song on this album except for maybe Desire Lines & Never-Never and I don’t particularly dislike them, they actually remind me of rainy car rides in a white mitsubuishi mirage that has since left us. Maybe they tried to polish this one a bit too much, the production should have been closer to Lovelife and I think they thought it was too big of a jump to go from the Guthrie produced Spooky to a straight up alterna-rock album. Unfortunate. This is one of those album that I hope down the line will get snatched up in the wave of remastering and repackaging with b-sides old albums since nobody will buy the new ones craze. Having a decent version of Rupert the Bear would be cool as well since I think the only copy I’ve got of that is a Flexi-disc.</div><div><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0