Would you want to see a ’90s supernatural slasher flick with a soundtrack by Anthrax? Well, you’re in luck: it does exist and it is called Pledge Night.
Continue reading ‘VHS Visions: Pledge Night (1990)’
I’ve talked to people who can’t get into live albums. The recording is rarely clean. The crowd noise can be a distraction. It’s obvious when someone screws up. They don’t like to hear the in-between song banter.
I understand how those things could detract from one’s enjoyment of the music, but man, when a live album is done right, it’s pure dynamite. That aural snapshot of a band at a specific point in time fascinates me. It’s a time capsule. When the crowd is into it, clapping and screaming at all the right times, a live album is truly the next best thing to being there.
In chronological order, here are some live albums from older artists that stay on rotation in my personal earholes.
Continue reading ‘Waxing Nostalgic: In Front of a Live Audience’
All film fans should explore movies made during the “Ozploitation” era of Australian low budget filmmaking. Just about every film that came out during this time is fantastic. Many people have probably seen these films and are just unaware of the term Ozploitation or what movies fit this description.
Continue reading ‘Blu-Ray Review: Dead Kids‘
I’ve always thought Odd Thomas was a fun book and when I heard it was being made into a film, I was both intrigued and scared. How in the hell were they going to pull something like this off? If you know anything about the story of Odd Thomas then you know where I’m coming from. It’s a good story but a little out there and hard to fathom seeing on the screen. Also, when I heard Stephen Sommers was directing it I admit that I did frown a little because I’m not a fan of his work aside from Deep Rising.
Upon viewing it I was pleasantly surprised and very happy with the direction it took. The CGI isn’t all that bad aside from a couple of scenes that look a little wonky, but everything is else is pretty solid. Anton Yelchin and Willem Dafoe both do a superb job and give everything they have to bring some of their best work to this kickass flick.
Continue reading ‘Blu-Ray Review: Odd Thomas‘
Suzanne Vega is one of the few survivors of the Great Folk Uprising of the Eighties. Her career hit its heights with her single, “Luka,” which was later covered by The Lemonheads. The British producing team, BNA, turned her a capella tune, “Tom’s Diner,” into an international dance hit. You know. “Doo do doo DO doo do-doo DO.” That one.
As it happens with some artists, as Vega matured as a performer and songwriter, her presence on the music charts decreased. Some of her best works went practically unnoticed (why people never caught onto her album Songs in Red and Gray is one of the great mysteries of our time).
After a seven-year break, Vega is back with Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles, a fascinating mix of bitterness and release, spirituality and despair.
Continue reading ‘Music Review: Suzanne Vega, Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles‘
Dirty, gross, and brilliant are a few words that come to mind while trying to describe Contracted, a new film distributed by IFC Midnight (not on Blu. . . sigh) that’s been somewhat of a hit on the festival circuit. I’ve known about Contracted for a little while but just haven’t gotten around to watching it until tonight. Now I’m sorry I waited so long to view this masterpiece. Yes, it’s a masterpiece.
The earth is scorched and jagged, and at night the wolves come. The Christian gods have come to battle the Elder gods for supremacy, but that war has yet to be won. Every move could be your last, for the land is beset with traps. This is a land of magick and superstition. This is where the arcane is commonplace. This is a land filled with thieves and sorcerers, warriors and demons. This is the 1970s.
This is the strange world of Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles, a collection of 16 rock and roll songs, plucked from the dank dungeons of obscurity by record label Numero Group. Every song is based in a quasi-Tolkienesque fantasy world, easily recognizable to anyone familiar with Dungeons & Dragons or other such tabletop games. In fact, the double vinyl edition comes with its own RPG called “Cities of Darkscorch.”
Continue reading ‘Music Review: Various Artists, Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles‘
As the leader of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Jimbo Mathus trafficked in swing, Delta blues, klezmer, and Dixieland jazz, blending them to make something not easily defined, but easily identified. On his own, Mathus makes music that draws upon his rich musical knowledge and is deeply rooted in the South.
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can often judge a record by its cover art. Dark Night Of The Soul sports a photo of Mathus in full pagan swamp god regalia, complete with horns and feathers in his hair. The album sounds like that, and that’s really a very good thing.
Continue reading ‘Music Review: Jimbo Mathus & The Tri-State Coalition, Dark Night Of The Soul‘
Drafthouse Films kills it yet again with another fantastic release. A few years after Abel Ferrara made Driller Killer, he hit us in the face with a smaller flick called Ms. 45. This was a rape and revenge film that pushed the limits back in 1981 and received an X rating during its release.
Abel Ferrara is known for his rawness and brutality but goes a little above and beyond in Ms. 45. A young girl who is mute gets assaulted twice in one evening and then decides to go on a rampage, killing any man that gets in her way. She uses her looks and a .45 to go hunting at night, looking for males on the streets of New York.
Continue reading ‘Blu-Ray Review: Ms. 45‘
In its fourth season, Game of Thrones has become an all-conquering behemoth, awaited with baited breath by millions around the world ready to tune into HBO or cheekily pirate it shortly after it airs in order to ravenously devour the sumptuous look, dense plotting, and layered characters.
Most of these millions are, however, Caucasian, with HBO estimating over 75 percent of the show’s viewers being White. There is clearly a market to still be tapped into, despite the runaway success of the program. Hence we now have the latest in a series of pre-season hype-making mix tapes, Catch The Throne. Whilst previous season-priming mixtapes were mixed by the likes of The National or Wilco—shoegazing White indie—this time, HBO has enlisted none other than Big Boi, better known as one half of Outkast, in a blatant attempt to attract Black and Latino viewers with a combination of hip-hop, samples, and quotations from the show.
The result is sporadically brilliant, funny, clever, trivial, and idiotic in equal measure.
Continue reading ‘Music Review: Catch The Throne Mixtape’