MUSIC-SPLOSION

Somebody out there requested more music reviews, right?

Okay.

Them Crooked Vultures--Them Crooked Vultures

This is a "supergroup" comprised of Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, and John Paul Jones. Homme is, of course, the mastermind behind Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl is Dave Grohl, and if you don't know who John Paul Jones is, I don't know why you're still reading this paragraph.

This is the first album from these guys. Who knows if there will ever be a second one? If the presence of Jones on bass gets you excited for some heavy Zeppellin-style rockage, tune your expectations down. This is a good set, but it's essentially a new Queens of the Stone Age album. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you expect some new, exciting animal here, prepare for disappointment. There are good songs, and there are passable ones, but the feeling that persists through the entire disc is a lack of a convincing argument for this group's existence.

It's good, but your music collection won't especially feel the loss if you don't pick it up (unless you're a Josh Homme or Dave Grohl completist).


Primary Colours--The Horrors

The Horrors' debut album, Strange House, was one of my favorite discs of 2007. It was a dark and weird little masterpiece, equal parts goth and punk, with a weird little surf-rock thread in there to hold the whole thing together.

Their eagerly-awaited follow up seems almost intentionally off-putting and weird, as if they're ashamed of the relentless catchiness of the first disc. Even the most conventionally pop-structured songs on here seem to have some weird little shriek laid into the mix to keep the listener confused. I've only listened to it a couple times since picking it up, and it just hasn't grabbed me as immediately as Strange House. It's a strange little animal that I'm really not certain about my feelings toward.

I might need some more time to think about this one. It's not an automatic recommend, even for fans of the sublime first album.

Prior to the Fire--Priestess

My apologies for the less-than-enthusiastic vibe of the first two reviews. Luckily, Priestess has arrived to save the day. Their first album, Hello Master, was one of the hard-rock surprises of 2006, stuffed with riff-heavy rock that practically reeked of the 70's, but not in that hippie way that Wolfmother trades in. Still, as good as Hello Master was, there was a trace of untapped potential in there, as if they were capable of rocking so much harder than they were showing us.

Thus, we have Prior to the Fire, an aggressive "fuck you" to the sophomore curse. From the first track to the last, this band cares about only one thing: rocking your face off. I'm listening to this album right now, immediately after already listening to it, and that might be the best recommendation I can give.

If you want something to boom out the windows of your vintage Camaro while trolling for high-school pussy, this is the album for you, McConaughey wannabes.

Review: Wolfmother--COSMIC EGG

Well, Wolfmother, the Australian retro-rockers, finally put out a new album, although this is really a new band, since two of the original trio are no longer with the band. So, this is really Wolfmother 2.0, I guess, with the sole remaining founding member being the vocalist.

As a result of this line-up change, it naturally feels a little different from the first album. There is still plenty of 70's era rockadelica on here, with the accompanying soaring Robert Plant-esque vocals, but it's all just a little off.

Luckily, it's all still pretty good.

I have the 16-track "deluxe edition" of the album (by the way, music labels: FUCK YOU for this idiotic shit), and it's all decent enough rock, perhaps a bit more mainstream than the first album, but it's got all the chugging riffs and retarded lyrics you could ever require from this stuff.

If I sound less than super-enthusiastic about the album, it's only because it sounds "good enough", but never really transcends the gimmicky trappings of its retro-rock genre to deliver instant classic tunes like "Woman" off the first album. Regardless, it'll probably grow on me with repeated listenings, as the similarly-troubled second album from The Darkness certainly did.

As usual, you probably know if you're going to like this thing already, so go acquire it if some Guitar Hero-ready pseudo-70's rock riffage is the tonic you require.

The Penis Mightier: Five Writing Implements Used as Weapons

1. The Joker's "Pencil Trick"--The Dark Knight
Implement: Pencil (eraser end first).

The Victim: A nameless thug.

The Scene: The Joker (Heath Ledger) is spelling out his plan to the Gotham City gangsters-that-be. He convinces them to listen by showing off his "pencil trick", in which he makes one disappear by slamming a man's eye socket into it. This occurs in a PG-13 rated movie, which makes it even more awesome.

Pain: Little. The kill is lightning-fast.

Creativity: Maximum. The Joker knows how to work a room.

2. Pesci Literally Signs a Man's Death Warrant--Casino
Implement: Pen.

The Victim: Some douchebag who mouthed off to the wrong guy.

The Scene: Years ago, back home, Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert DeNiro) and Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) are having a pleasant drink at the bar of a swanky club. DeNiro notices that the unnamed douchebag/future ersatz pen holder has left his pen out where it could get damaged or stolen, so he tries to hand it back to the guy, who proceeds to tell him to stick the pen up his ass. Before anybody can react, Pesci grabs the pen and stabs the guy in the neck with it multiple times. To add insult to injury, when the man is on the ground whimpering in pain and shock (and bleeding to death), Pesci mocks him for being a "little girl".

Pain: High. This looks nearly as painful as it must have felt. Who wouldn't be turned into a little girl by this assault?

Creativity: Low. Santoro has balls, but it doesn't take a creative genius to viciously pen a guy in the neck.

3. John Cusack Ruins His High-School Reunion--Grosse Pointe Blank
Implement: Promotional pen.

The Victim: Felix La PuBelle, assassin, afficionado of pornography, and asshole.

The Scene: While attending his high-school reunion, professional hitman Martin Blank (John Cusack) takes a break to go visit his old locker, where he finds an old joint and an assassin waiting for him. After a brief kickboxing battle, Blank breaks a grapple by taking the pen a sleazy lawyer had given him earlier, flicking the cap off and jamming it into La PuBelle's neck, killing him bloodily. Shortly after, his date comes looking for him and is quite put out.

Pain: Medium to High. It lacks the viciousness of Pesci's pen-shanking, but I can't imagine that it feels particularly great.

Creativity: Medium. Pen-stabbing is not the most stylish way to kill a man, but it was a clever and timely improvisation.

4. Tom Savini's Wood Is Lethal--From Dusk Till Dawn
Implement: Pencil.

The Victim: A nameless vampire.

The Scene: After slaughtering dozens of vampires at a sleazy Mexican biker bar (after the vamps slaughtered dozens of customers), one of them is still not dead, and comes at Frost (Fred Williamson). The Vietnam War vet pulls a kung-fu move and rips the creature's black, pulsating heart out. Unfortunately, it keeps beating. Sex Machine (Tom Savini), thinking fast, takes a pencil from a waitress's serving platter and stabs the wood into the organ, killing the vamp for good.

Pain: Do vampires even feel pain as we understand it? Unknown. Still, the death is quick.

Creativity: High. Everybody else was freaking out, but Savini had the presence of mind to take care of business. Bravo.

5. If There Is Something Phallic at Hand, Bond Will Kill You with It--Never Say Never Again
Implement: Q-Branch standard issue explosive projectile pen.

The Victim: Fatima Blush, sadistic, laughing femme fatale.

The Scene: James Bond (Sean Connery) is in a tight spot. His psychotic villainess lover has got him dead to rights, and if that isn't bad enough, she wants him to sign a statement to the fact that her pussy is the greatest he'd ever spelunked or she'll blow his balls off. Wow, what a ridiculously appropriate time to use that explosive pen that Q gave him. Bond shoots Fatima, whose response is simply to laugh at him, until the projectile starts flaring like a firework and blows her to smithereens, including, unfortunately, that premium vagina.

Pain: Low, apparently. She finds the whole thing hilarious before exploding.

Creativity: Low. Fatima gave Bond this one on a silver platter, practically drawing a connect-the-dots picture for him.

I Can't Believe I'm This Excited for an A-Team Movie

That is the goddamn A-Team right there, gentlemen! I'm most impressed by Liam Neeson, who has transformed into George Peppard through sheer force of awesome. I never thought I would say this, but I can't wait for the A-Team movie.

(Click the photo for the big version.)

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE Review

It finally happened! After weeks of seeing interesting movies come and go in theaters without having the time or the funds to go see them, I finally managed to get away to the movies. Because there was no way in hell I was going to miss this one.

We saw it on a real IMAX screen at a mammoth yuppie megaplex that was surrounded by Joe's Crab Shacks and Dave and Buster's-type places, right in the middle of upper-middle-class mallville, but none of that matters, because from the moment the title card hit, I knew I was going to love this movie. And love it I did. Unabashedly and with tears in my eyes. It is one of the most beautiful movies about childhood I've ever seen, and while it's rated PG, it never once dumbs down the emotional story for children, and never once takes the easy way of crass humor and fart jokes. It's a big, rough-and-tumble love letter to childhood pain and imagination.

Judging by my girlfriend's son's response to the movie ("Eh...it was all right."), it speaks more to folks who can take an honest look back at their youth, rather than to kids actually experiencing that youth, so in that respect, it's not really a kids' film. There's plenty here for a smart, aware young person to enjoy, but the sadness that pervades the film is of the sort that's really going to sock 30-somethings in the gut while possibly confusing or boring their kids.

While that's too bad, this isn't one of those reviews that's going to fault a movie for not bending over backwards to keep Ritalin-addled squirmers entertained (as almost every negative review has). The movie isn't for them. If they like it, fine. But make no mistake: this is a movie for grown-ups. It's rated PG because it doesn't have anything offensive in it, not because it was tailor-made for your little snot-noses, and if you approach it from that perspective, there is a wealth of wonder and beauty to be found in here.

Max Records is a true find as the wild-child Max, and the vocal performers deliver across-the-board wonderful performances that will make you want to phone the Academy and demand once and for all a Goddamn vocal performance Oscar. It's ridiculous that this rare skill isn't recognized.

This is a movie that bears the evidence of its loving hand-made-ness about it from beginning to end, and if Spike Jonze never made another movie, it would stand as his masterpiece.

If you don't see it on the big screen while you can, you're robbing yourself of one of 2009's great cinema experiences.

THE EXPENDABLES Trailer will Kick Your Ass For Real

Here's a long trailer for what Sylvester Stallone's been working on: BOOM.

For anybody harboring any nostalgia for the dumb action heyday of the 80's, this looks like the real deal. Explosions, kung-fu, machine guns, and guys delivering one-liners while killing baddies in Latin America. Sign me the hell up, Sly. It seems this man can do no wrong in his sixth decade.

UPDATE: The thing was pulled literally two minutes after I saw it. I guess we'll all just wait for an official on-line release. Sorry, guys. (It was awesome.)

UPDATE II: Here's a new place to see this kick-ass preview.

The Funnies Faultfinder

I don't talk about newspaper comics much (or at all, actually) on here, because we already have the fine Comics Curmudgeon to take care of that, and I wouldn't want to step on his toes. However, when I have occasion to read the comics, there is one that, time and time again, perplexes me by its mere presence, and that is the comic known as Brevity.

I know that there has been a single-panel hole in the comics page since Gary Larson retired, and many comics have come along to fill that space (such as Close to Home, which is ugly and rarely funny, but a subject for another time), but that doesn't mean that just anybody who can fit a "joke" into a rectangular panel is the heir to Far Side legacy.

Witness today's comic, which I am reproducing below for the purpose of review and discussion, so please nobody sue me:


This is the comic which is running in papers which carry Brevity today. This is the comic that middle America read this morning with their cups of coffee and their doughnuts.

I ask you:

What the fuck is happening in this comic?

I get that there's a snake, and there's a ladder, and I assume that there is a "Snakes and Ladders" reference going on here, but I honestly don't know how. The snake crawls up the ladder, than slides down it, somehow, going, "Weeeeee!!" Really? That's your joke for today, Brevity? I appreciate absurd humor just as much as the next guy, but there still needs to be a joke there. You can't just draw a snake sliding down a ladder and say to yourself, "Yep, Snakes n' Ladders, that there's a keeper!" then just whisk it off the the syndicate with a feeling of job accomplished. A reference with no joke attached is just a comics version of Epic Movie.

Here's another one, which somebody thought was so hilarious that it should be the cover of the new Brevity book:


Haha, get it? It's an escape key, and it escaped! And the return key is returning! Oh, man, this opens up a whole barrel of questions! Does the control key control something? Does the alt key alter things? Wow, the humor possibilities are endless! Once again, I submit to you that there is no joke in this panel. There rarely is with this comic. I could give you example after example, but the truth is: the comics page sucks enough nowadays. We don't need this sinkhole of humor making things even worse.

I don't think people realize how great we had it a couple decades ago, when Bloom County, The Far Side, and Calvin & Hobbes were all publishing. It was a glorious time for newspaper comics. We're in a sad state now, people, when Brevity publishes four books, and with the sorry state of newspapers in general, I don't know how it'll get any better. Those guys aren't coming out of retirement, and I don't think we can force Darby Conley to draw 'em all.