Star Wars : The Clone Wars

The first thing that strikes me about this is the awful rendition of humans. The aliens and clone troopers look alright. When it comes to human faces, it looks like a PSOne redux. The story, however, is a lot more interesting than the actual prequel movies, about saving Jabba's son. The action sequences also have more punch. Which is why I think if Lucas got other people to direct the prequels, it would have turned out better. Looking forward to the Cartoon Network series and I hope they collect them all on DVD, as I don't subscribe to that channel on satellite.

National Lampoon's Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell

Interesting take on post-apocalyptic America. Somewhat a homage to Camelot as well, as the lead hero is a Kennedy. The jokes are mostly original, usually based on violence, even if they follow the same lines as the Black Knight sequence in Monty Python's Holy Grail. Throw in a beautiful cannibal and Satanic Spring Break cult and you have the makings of a somewhat classic alt comedy showcase. The low budget is complemented by animated sequences when the money don't allow for special effects. Kennedy's 2 robot Secret Service agents are funny. Fail to see the charisma of Benny Remington - the new King of America, though. Can't wait for part 2.

GP506

Somewhat disappointed that this is not straight horror. An opaque opera of the military, the interplay between the soldiers is the frontispiece, and the disfiguring virus making them violent takes a backseat. As a military drama, the tension is unbelievable. The twist in the middle is well-executed. A Korean movie BTW and one of the better ones. Nihilistic, though.

Superman - All-Star Superman 1 (Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely)

Generally the weakest of the batch I got. Nice art notwithstanding, there's just too much pre-Crisis era nonsense - Superman Squads from the future, subterranean dinosaur-men, Biblical and Greek myth heroes. It starts off well, with Superman dying from irradiated cells from too much sun. Not really that bothered about him finding a cure.

Superman For All Seasons (Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale)

The creator of the Buffy series has always astounded me. And this one is also pretty good. The art is oft-kilter, looking like a 40s Action Comics-style work interbred with Norman Rockwell, but works well enough for the story. Told from four seasons and four persepctives (Pa Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor and Lana Lang), this one is a up-close dynamic profile of the Man of Tomorrow. So close that it shows Supes lounging around on his bed thinking. That's not something you see everyday. I liked this bar the gaudy and crap LexCorp robots.

Batman - Haunted Knight (Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale)

A collection of three tales pre-Long Halloween from the "Legends of the Dark Knight" series, this one is also quite good. My only gripe is that the paper quality is crap and not like the ones Dark Victory or The Long Halloween was printed upon. Again, Halloween is the theme here and the last story is "A Christmas Carol" set to fit the trick or treat mode. It doesn't have the psychological profiling of its successors and lacks such verbose factual details of the mafioso but it'll do nicely. Best of the bunch.

One more thing - I fing the DC graphic novels to be much cheaper than the Marvel ones. Which is good since I'm more of a DC reader. Civil War is going for RM85.52 (about USD 22.50) and X-Men : Age of Apocalypse is going for RM102.17 (about USD 27) and I can forgo these two really. Are they really that much more popular?

Superman - Red Son (graphic novel)

Somebody here recommended this and so did my college fren.

It does put me in a strange mood - Superman reincarnated as a Stalin-esque stooge. Some of it would ring true, especially one with totalitarian instincts and god-like powers would no doubt enslave the world in the manner he did here.

Nice reimagining of Lex Luthor as an eminent scientist.

The Brainiac bits fall flat and his subversion of the Communist world is played out badly.

I liked the version of Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) here and the fact that he was captured in Malaysia, no less.

The best bit is Batman as a freedom fighter.

Not bad, I'm getting "President Lex" next.

The Midnight Meat Train

To continue my Clive Barker obsession and also that this one got rave reviews, I got this DVD. Heard it was released limitedly in the US and went straight to video in Canada. I really wonder y.... This is quite a good adaptation of one of the stories in Barker's Books of Blood series, and it's much much better than stuff like Candyman and The Last and Secret Show.

For one thing, it plays to two audiences. Gorehounds will be satisfied and the killings are very stylish, enough to draw some from the art crowd. The victim's POV is also quite interesting, I'm sure it has been done before, but never this elaborate.

Only problem is that 3/4s in, it gets kinda slow and draggy. The butchers' Mexican stand-off is interesting though and more engaging and better choreographed than the latest Bond vehicle. One more thing I liked is the slow psychological deterioration of the main guy instead of the book's landing him smack right into the inevitable ending.

Scrolls of the Prophet - The Best of Peter Tosh

Is it just me? Or am I the only one who ever find his last name funny? A mixture of the Brit slang "toss" and the local "Toceng" (toch), am I the only one thinking of self-abuse when I see his name?

That aside, this comp will do for the time I'm waiting for my future gf to pass me the downloaded "Legalize It". At first listen, the complexity of the harmonic interplay of the bass and guitars is way beyond anything that Marley can muster. The similarities between the both of them are there, though, as it's a high probability that Marley wrote on the guitar and as stated in the liner notes, Tosh taught him how to play. Anyway for all its complexity, the melodies are instantly accessible even if the lyrics have a harder edge that may not suit the commerciality of the tunes. I would say that if the melodies were given Burning Spear's mantra-esque repetitiveness, they would fit the mood of the lyrics more.

This one has a glaring omission in "Stop That Train" but otherwise, all the good ones are here, even if I preferred the Wailers' "Downpressor Man" (on "Soul Rebels") rather than the more mechanical version here. There's some synthy poppy rocksteady on "(You Gotta Walk and) Don't Look Back" with Jagger guest starring. "Fools Die" is a pleasant migration away from reggae, and the live acoustic "Get Up Stand Up" just shows how venomous he can be towards his forced Christian upbringing.

I dunno, this is my first Tosh excursion but believe you me, I'll be checking out more of his stuff.

Saw these DVDs:-

Fury

Not to be confused with the Brian De Palma movie about ESP, this one is a Thai martial arts movie from the people who gave us "Ong Bak" and "Tom Yum Goong", and launched Tony Jaa Panom's career as an action superstar. Is it more of the same? Yes and no. The intensity is the same but the action star now is a petite 16-ish girl with SOME moves, mang. Yanin "Jija" Visnitamanda is the rising star here, as an autistic savant of sorts who learns Muay Thai from movies and neighbours practising.

Wafer-thin plot aside, it is remarkably cool to see a teenaged cutie pie roundhouse kicking booty with the ferocity shown here. I enjoyed this immensely and the acting is somehow impeccable. Only qualm I have is the slow build-up with the usual Thai-style sex scenes - lotsa male butts no female, taped nipples, no genitalia. Usual gripe about the subtitling - this time it's a literal translation from Mandarin with phrases like "huanqian" (Return the money) and "xiaopang" (little fatty) cropping up. No "da pang" (big fatty) as Big Bri' (victim of fat jokes on the message board I go to) is not in the movie. Heh!

Tropic Thunder

Just got this as I'm somewhat a fan of Jack Black, Ben Stiller and toilet jokes. The first movie to show Stiller as an auteur, it's not too bad. I guess the laughter should have been LOL all the time instead of coming in spurts. Tom Cruise completely steals the show as an overbearing producer with some slinky dance chops. Robert Downey Jr. also gives a good performance as the actor who immerses totally in a role, here playing a black man, and has some insightful gems - "You never go full retard in order to win an Oscar" and "We're all gay once in a while, this is Hollywood".

Ben Stiller is still stuck in his Mr. Furious pose. Black is completely forgettable and his snipes at drug-taking mostly dredges up fat comedians who OD'ed - John Belushi, John Candy and Chris Farley. This one mostly takes pot-shots at Apocalypse Now - the tiger scene and the encounter with Brando at the end - both parodied unconvincingly and generally not very funny. For some jokes to make sense - the miscued explosion at the start, for instance, you really need to see Hearts of Darkness, the doc on the making of AN. All in all, a bit of a pointless comedy as the subject is old news and when I first saw this, I thought they were gonna parody Rambo movies, like the Brit indie Rambow Now.

Quantum of Solace (James Bond 22)

Managed to catch this over the weekend. Man! Was I bored or what? Very formulaic action movie. No Bond-ish charm or quirkiness. Violent as hell also - Bond grabs whatever he can get his hand on and whacks the other person into submission, villain coming after Bond with lead piping and an axe and the Bond girl jabbing another villain with glass shards.

So bad I went out for a nicotine fix. Scarce on what actually transpired to Vesper Lynd - something about "Quantum" and double agents.

It's also really bad when the funniest bits show how vile the new Bond is.......

Come back, Roger Moore, all is forgiven!

Cabaret Voltaire - The Original Sound of Sheffield, Best of 83-87

Mostly got this cos I'm in love with "Sensoria". Mostly 12" mixes, which aren't that bad, as they retain the essence of the original singles. However, the indie-sounding early 80s singles aren't that good. Most of them are typical synth-pop given a leftfield harmony. The songs from "Micro Phonies" onwards are mainly okay, although none mesmerise as well as "Sensoria". The "Code" singles are mainly heavily remixed, which I don't mind, as I have the original album.

Gang of Four - Solid Gold/Another Day, Another Dollar

I mostly disliked this upon first listen. I mean, if you're gonna make the guitars so angular and jarring, you might as well have some dissonant enharmonic vocals. But most of the vocals sound like Gary Numan rejects, bar "Paralysed". At a lower volume, just before I slept, it makes more sense, with the atonal guitars upfront. The ending shards of guitar on "Cheeseburger" (studio version) are almost scary. Best song here - the live version of "What We All Want" - starts on a Bo Diddley riff, before erupting into Talking Heads meets Wire frenzy. I think without the Gang of Four, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party would lack a career, though.

The Replacements - Don't Tell a Soul

The 'Mats shift gears and go slower on this. As such, the melodies are more fragile and more beautiful. I like this a lot. Almost on par with "Let It Be", it's probably their second best album, IMHO. Lotsa pretty midtempo rockers.

The Replacements - All Shook Down

Essentially Paul Westerberg's 1st solo album, this one is a distant cousin to his "14 songs". However, I find the songs here better-crafted and a bit better than "14 songs". Helped by the fact also that the bonus tracks are so raw and unpolished it makes my teeth rattle. The songs from "Don't Buy or Sell It - It's Crap" are also nicely-done. Two Thumbs Up!

Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power (1997 Iggy Remix)

Yet again, another CD I threw away in my mad fits. Objectionable cover again. Being used to the tinny Bowie mix for ages, this remix is a revelation. Blistering and overamped, this is one classy glam-punk record. Noteworthy stuff - the celeste on "Penetration" is so friggin' clear. Iggy's vocals are also totally in your face, sucka. It's the repetitive two or three chord songs that benefits most from the 11-on-the-amp mix - "Shake Appeal", "Raw Power". Makes you never want to go back to the original mix.

The Replacements - Hootenanny

After the awesome train wreck hardcore of the first two albums, this one just sounds unfocussed and all over the place. Perhaps their only experimental album, some shit hits the fan, some not. The ones on my comp are still the best recipes -"Colour me Impressed" and "Within Your Reach". Still has one or two hardcore songs. I only like "Treatment Bound" and "Lovelines' but not that much. Bonus tracks are also a bit hit and miss.

The Replacements - Tim

Their first Sire release is, however, solid alternative rock. Some snide remarks abour air stewardesses, some in-jokes about druggie roadies and voila! a blueprint for pre-Nirvana off-the-beaten path rock. Obviously nothing here touches the majesty of "Androgynous" on "Let it Be" but why bother anyway? This is your basic meat and potatoes. Could do without so many versions of "Can't Hardly Wait", though.

The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

I'm basically buying their entire back catalogue. Again, solid 4/4 alternative rock but nothing anthemic as of yet. The "hit" songs are not as good as the ones on "Tim" but it's all good.

lambchop - Aw C'Mon/No You C'Mon

Looking for some blue-eyed Americana and what do I get? Some weird hybrid of Philly Soul, disco strings and country. The Barry White-meets-Levon Helm vocals takes some getting used to, but the instrumentals are whopping great. 2 discs for the price of one.

Prefab Sprout - Two Wheels Good (Steve McQueen)

Mainly got this on Herman's rec. As it is, it's miles ahead of the debut, Swoon, which has a dearth of catchy melodies or interesting backdrops. Still a bit unpolished at parts. "Faron Young" is a prety nice piece of work and rattles along nicely. Psyched me enuff to wanna get its companion, "Protest Songs".