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Review: Ten Remixed
I have previously shared my love for Pearl Jam on the pages of Der Kulturblog. At this point, I’d like to invite PJ haters to isch poff, lest they offend my family, my honour, and my ripped jeans. Yes, yes, we all know Mudhoney are more genuinely grunge; and yes, PJ derivatives such as Nickelback suck with much suckitude.
Still, no reason to hate the mighty PJ. You want Sub Pop credentials? I give you Gossard/Ament’s origins with Green River. And the fact that the Eddie Vedder baritone has been mimicked by a generation of Bo Bice’s is as relevant as the Mexico Beatle is to the beauty of the VW Bug. (On a side note, how good is Vedder’s Into the Wild album?) Read the rest of this entry
Star Wars Clone Wars: actually pretty good!
George Lucas’s cruel ravaging* of poor Indy was only the latest in a long line of crimes committed by the bearded one. Thankfully the new Lucasfilm series Star Wars: The Clone Wars features George only in an executive role. That’s probably why it’s good. Read the rest of this entry
Review: Red Bull Cola
Not really Red Bull Cola, but rather cola made by Red Bull. Given the phenomenal success of their overpriced taurine elixir, it makes sense for Austria-based Red Bull to further attack the soft drinks market. Alas for Herr Mateschitz, I suspect their cola is doomed to fail. Our years of guzzling phosphoric corn-syrup (or worse, artificial sweetener) means that any new cola is unlikely to taste quite right. And that’s the problem with Red Bull Cola. They want it to taste vaguely exotic.* Instead it just tastes…off, like a cheap Walmart copy. And that’s a problem. Still, it’s worth a try, although you may have to live in Nevada to do so. According to the Red Bull website, Red Bull Cola is only available in a select number of European countries and… Las Vegas.
*Red Bull GmbH would have you believe that their cola contains coca leaf, kola nut, lemon/lime, clove, cinnamon, cardamom, pine, corn mint, galangal, vanilla, ginger, mace, cocoa, liquorice, orange, mustard seeds, and caffeine from coffee beans. Oh, and nothing “artificial.”
Death Cab for Kiddies
If you were to hang around with my boys (8 and 4) for long enough, chances are you’d hear them sing the following refrain:
You gotta spend some time, love, you gotta spend some time with me.
And I know that you’ll find love, I will possess your heart.
Indy IV – an actual review
The first scene of Indy IV is so shockingly awful that you wonder whether it was intended to be so. I suspect they filmed it right at the end knowing that the pile of crap they had in front of them might as well stink from the first frame onwards. That way you at least know what you’re going to expect. Hopes immediately crushed, you can then concentrate on snogging your date or enjoying silent popcorn burps. I suppose we should be grateful.
I’m not going to describe the particular abomination in question because some things should be experienced in their full, unanticipated splendour. Let’s just say that Lucas and Spielberg have opened their bladder over the Indiana Jones of yore and should both be arrested for a display of public immorality that even Binks rose above. Yes, you heard it right: Phantom Menace was better. Indy IV is a leaden, dull, dimwitted, tiring piece of cinematic Scheiss. If you are on the fence about seeing it, please don’t go. Do not reward their sorry arses.
Concert tickets: a rant
News of the Death Cab album got me to looking at tickets for their Birmingham, UK gig in July.
Tickets are £15. Except they’re not. They’re £17.60 (with booking fee). Except they’re not. They’re £22.40 (with transaction fee). Now, if I can dig deep for £15, I can dig deep for an extra seven quid ($14), but something about the whole system bugs the hell out of me. So much so that I can’t bring myself to cup the balls of these ticket pimps. Alas for Pearl Jam’s failed crusade.
Music that makes you want to smash things
Watching old Rage Against the Machine videos on Youtube got me all nostalgic for my moshing days. Mosh-pit anarchy was a heady but dangerous intoxicant in my late teens — couple the adrenalin of the crowd-surf with a kick in the head by a stray Doc Marten. The surge of the pit could be terrifying at times — witness the tragedy at Roskilde — but there was simply no way I could go to a concert and not join the animals at the front, no matter how bad they stank. Read the rest of this entry
The Orphanage
How to scare the crap out of people, but still maintain your integrity (take note, oh ye torture-pornographers):
Take a kid wearing a holy-frak-that’s-horrible hood. Add nasty old lady. Have a little boy talk to imaginary friends. Show very little, imply a lot. Set movie in Spain in an creepy house which makes all manner of gawd-awful noises. Stir.
The Orphanage is like The Others but without the cloying annoyingness of Nicole Kidman. Rookie Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona has cooked up a real chiller while simultaneously avoiding the gore and banality of recent Hollywood horror. The genius of the film is that it’s only a ghost story to a certain point. I don’t want to give anything away, but when it’s over you’ll be wondering what was supernatural and what wasn’t. Watch it before the American remake.
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