Scandal At The Parkade

Today was double movie madness as I saw two movies. Firstly, I saw The Incredible Hulk for a second time down at the cheap show. I don’t think I pulled too much out of seeing it a second time, but it was still enjoyable. I do like Edward Norton substantially. Tim Roth too. With Few super-hero movies on the horizon, it was nice to make me feel like I got to see another one. On top of that it was only $3.50. I was going to go with Robert and Iris, but due to them being hugely in the wrong direction, and me being strapped for time, and also it being professionally inappropriate, I couldn’t pick them up.
[hulk picture never, stop asking Robert]
The fights and story weren’t as enthralling the second time around, but the visual imagery like where he’s in the shadows, the quality of Norton’s and Roth’s performances. I also love the opportunity to practice my portuguese. If it isn’t enough of a quality review from that, I did see it twice.

Round 2 of movie night was seeing Pineapple Express with Joe. On the way we had a rousing listen of some old 311 and Foo Fighters. We’ve both been on a little nostalgia kick lately it seems, by chance. Pineapple Express isn’t my usual brand of movie, but I had a good time because I loosened up a little and was looking for it to be good. Not too loose though, because the police were checking people out as they were entering the theatre, no joke.

Epic fight scenes, car chases, gun fights, this movie definitely tries to have some spectacle to it, and while it’s completely over the top, it has fun with it, and they know it’s goofy, like a Sam Raimi affair. It also features an all-star cast of a whole bunch of guys I recognize from different movies but can’t remember the names of. It’s a lot of slapstick and violence and people hitting each other with unconventional objects, but I enjoyed it, so I’m not going to complain about it. There a lot of nice bits that the characters run though, easily the high point of the film. They did overdo the overly verbose comments during the fights, along the lines of somebody being pummeled with a pipe and saying “Please stop or at least tell me why you are hitting me that pipe!” Plot-wise and in terms of character depth and all that usual good stuff, I wouldn’t even attempt to oversell it, but as I said before, it’s something you can have fun with it. Ooh, that and there’s a nice scene later on in the film where they sit around and recap the major scenes of the movie in a very stoner-esque fashion. Not really sure if that’s worthy of being a spoiler, but better safe than sorry.

Apparently I’ve missed a whole bunch of other shows coming up, so I’ll just add another post on it.
Mr. David Lee of Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers I just found out will be playing a show, so I’m excited to catch that. I saw Th’ Shack Shakers maybe six years ago and it was an amazing show. I have no idea what he’s going to be playing though, his myspace page is lacking in any music.

I’ve been debating the Mates Of State show. I’ve missed them the last few times they’ve come around and this time is on the pricier side. The opening act, Judgement Day might be interesting, but it’s nothing I’m that impressed with. Considering the amount of other things I need to be working on, this one is on the fence. Though, the new songs I’m hearing are pretty enjoyable. We’ll see.

There’s rumors going around that the Rx Bandits are playing, but there’s no official word on the matter. Portugal, The Man and Maps & Atlases would be opening the show. I’m almost certain it’s not going to happen. The Bandits’s straying from ska has caused me to lose some interest in the band. Not so much in their own sound which I still enjoy, but in the fact that they don’t seem to be a part of the ska community anymore. They’re playing with some experimental/indie whatever you want to call them, and last time they came around, they were touring with two hip-hop acts that at best just didn’t fit with them at all. It looks to me like they did some shift and the show isn’t happening. I don’t really mind, especially having seen them probably five or six times now.

Zolof is coming nearby too, it seems. I’m not that thrilled about it, but I might go because Robert will probably want to.

Psyopus is also having a show in a couple weeks where they’ll be filming video for a music video or dvd or something. Jason explained the whole thing to me, but I don’t really remember at this point. It’s free. August 20th. Be there.

There’s not a whole lot on the calendar right now, but it’s a decent time for an update I guess. First off, Buckethead is playing with That 1 Guy, and I just bought my ticket for that. It’s hard to write too much about Buckethead because he’s the kind of guy who locks himself in a room with only his guitar and stuffed animals to write 27 albums. I’m hoping though there’s a good Bucketheadland blend of things during the show; I could see his material blending together some, especially with a longer set. I guess Tiffy is going to see him, but not the same show I’m going to. Alicia won’t be going though Robert said he might go with me to the show, but it’s on the pricy side, I paid $18.50 with charges. As long as I get all eight fingers, some funky bootsy beats, nun chuka kata shredding, and some colma guitar, it’ll be worth it. Also, he should do the robot, and break out his nunchaku.

Henry Rollins is coming as well, and I’ve seen him a whole slew of times, but I guess he’s doing a wrap up of the presidency of Bush, and I’m always curious to hear what he has to say. My oratory also greatly increases in quality after I see him, so I can look forward to that as well. If anybody happens to want to replace my copy, I owned Letters To Rollins, and I don’t anymore and I’d really like it back.

Around that same time, Mindless Self Indulgence will be coming around. The new album is enjoyable enough, but Never Wanted To Dance is the clear highlight. Hopefully they’ll play some of the other hits, or rather, songs that I learned to particularly like for whatever reason. They may’ve pioneered the whole Hot Topic thing, but there’s not a whole lot of stuff similar to MSI I feel, so it’s nice to get some different things in there.

Last and certainly not least, SNFU is coming pretty close, so I think I’m going to try and make the trek to see, well, at this point, one of the guys who invented the music I grew up listening to. Even if the membership is quite different, and arguably it’s not the same band at all, I’d still rather see a questionable SNFU than no SNFU at all.

I love Gillian Anderson. If anybody wants to get me an early Christmas present…

I wish I had some money for this.

Ooh, I can’t wait for the movie. I think I need to remind Alicia, Joe, and Robert that they all must accompany me or incur some wrath.

Adultswim Fix seems to not have any Metalocalypse, so I moved on right to the main course. The Venture Bros. Awesome.

The Monarch is back, I was very happy to see; they haven’t been doing too much in the vein of main arch building. I don’t like the lack of the intro though. 3/8th of the way through the episode, I’m quite happy with it. A lot of the jokes aren’t obscure references, they’re just clever, some of them are classic bits. I like references, but I like variety. Helper’s electronic beat is enjoyable as well, especially since it’s bettering what, to this point, seems to be the less interesting part of the episode, Hank and Dean of course. The music is also enjoyable as they enter the monarchmobile.

Shirt theory number 1:

A Monarch shirt. I really want one. I have a great idea for a design, and a variation. If it were actually just a Monarch style butterfly, I think this might take the slot, but I don’t foresee this happening.

Shirt theory number 2:

I really don’t expect this to be the shirt, but I don’t see too many random shirt logos in the show, like say, Triana’s. Perhaps a Lip Glossary or Goat Blood Sacrifice shirt? Again, not super likely, but who knows.

Shirt theory number 3:

They did take the time to name the episode after him. It could be anything. Dean!

Shirt theory number 4:

I think this would be a pretty nice shirt. I’m going to make this my pick, but I’m tired.

While I’m sure Alicia will have several to choose from, I foresee a decent selection now for me and Robert as well.

Edit: Now that I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep, I’m leaning towards the Monarch logo. This was almost exactly parallel to how the shirt of The Triad played out. Also, the newspaper one isn’t that great of a logo after all. It being something a little left-field is the next most likely I’d say.

My friend Sarah told me that she wanted to see, uh, Wanted. I had seen the comic, and my curiosity was piqued, even if I wasn’t impressed by the coarseness I got just by flipping through the pages. Eventually, I saw the trailer for the film, and was very disappointed until reviews started popping up saying that it was a guilty pleasure, and not just a pile of trash.
Based on this, I decided to whet my appetite by reading the comic book. I enjoyed it overall, as there were some cute ideas, but there were some over-the-top elements including a talking penis and a monster made of shit. It’s definitely a power fantasy of the highest order, giving greatly into everyone’s hidden desire to murder, maim, and steal everything you can. You see, it’s all about supervillains, not superheroes.

Now, it’s probably pretty hard to create a new cast of characters these days without them resembling characters somewhere in the multiverse of comics (note The Vulture and Sunfire in the pic); so it looks like Millar decided really to not create completely original characters, especially for minor characters, and some of the more important B characters seem to be pastiches of common enemies and themes. I did notice before reading the section on Wikipedia about it, that the gangs of villains largely resembled the rogues galleries of Batman and Superman, some of which are particularly obvious. Especially considering some of the themes of a changed world, it seemed possible to enjoy them almost as analogues to those villains, similar to reading Marvel’s Ultimates, or What If? story-lines.
It’s a good idea for 6 issues, but I lost some interest in issue 5, and issue 6 is pretty much an aftermath. I hear that the movie differs significantly, and whether or not that’s for better or worse, I don’t know, but I’m willing to give it a shot. If Sarah changes her mind, maybe I’ll go with Joe or Robert.

X-Files is this week! Waugh!

Ever a fan of the comic book movie, I headed out to see the new Batman movie. Well, first I listened to Bat Macumba by Os Mutantes to get in the mood. After a quick resolution of ticket issues, me and Alicia and Joe all went down to the movie. Bob was supposed to join us, but fandan-went his tickets, and he and Sarah had to see it in some other theatre. Robert was awl in nyc, and didn’t make it either. In fact, a whole slew of steers, compeers, and queers were in rank at the cinema. It could’ve been a spectacle in either direction, but it wound up being pleasantly isolate.
Joe and I hoped to purchase some bucket masks and Joker them up some, but there aren’t too many party stores open past 11 pm.

Heath Ledger is amazing in the movie, his intermittent presence, his dialogue, his posture and mannerisms, were dead on. Err. Since I wrote that accidentally, I’ll keep it. Really though, he’s the high point of the movie.
A surprise appearance by The Scarecrow had me quite excited, since he’s one of my favorite rogue’s gallery figures.
For a summer blockbuster action movie, it kept me pretty guessing; a few specific tricks in the movie are quite enjoyable in retrospect, because they allowed a great evocation of emotion that would otherwise be impossible, and tied you better into the film. There’s a lot of great psychological elements that I wish were fleshed out just a bit more though, which probably could’ve happened since the movie is over two and a half hours long. Luckily, there really wasn’t any point though were I felt like it was dragging on, at least as a whole.
The “Batman voice” was something that I wasn’t amazed with, but it rarely infringed on enjoyment. The only big negative is that for a movie so oriented on this hard-boiled dark underbelly of crime and super-villainy, there were a lot of bad puns regarding Two-Face, mostly prior to him becoming the villain. On the humor point, like with most movies, I think each time I laughed, nobody else was laughing.
Also noteworthy, I’m not huge into spectacle, but the fights and explosions mixed with the complexity of parts like Joker’s escape balanced out splendidly.

There was a trailer for Watchmen during the previews as well. Unless your computer has the same ailment as mine, you can watch it here. I believe every scene in there, at least that I remember, directly corresponds to the comic. This might be a good thing.

X-Files is in less than a week!

Alicia got me the Chemtrails 7″ which is available only at select indie record stores and with a purchase of Modern Guilt. The b-side to Chemtrails is a song called Vampire Voltage No. 6, which has a Modern Guilt feel to it, and then completely rocks out at the end. It’s well above par for a b/w track. The sleeve to Chemtrails isn’t the most thrilling, but it could’ve been in a blank sleeve easily.

Incidentally, since I can’t really post a picture of a mix I made, I decided I would just mash this other post right into this one:

In anticipation for Beck’s new album, I pulled out all of the best recent Beck tracks and made myself a mix called “Beck: Revisited.” It’s all studio tracks, all released recently, and doesn’t feature any album tracks from The Information or Mellow Gold Deluxe. I did start with Timebomb, which predates The Information, but is an odd little fellow by itself. The remainder of the tracks are covers of Daniel Johnston, Lee Hazelwood, and Nick Drake. It’s a little odd with Timebomb at the beginning being so different from the rest of the album, but I did pull off the instrumental version and the unused remix of Nausea that XXXChange did for Information Delux and it seemed to work.
Personally, and to the amazement of Robert, I love Beck’s quieter folksy side more than his electro-funk hip-hop; some of his best tracks in my mind are Puttin’ It Down, One Foot In The Grave, and Atmospheric Conditions. Sadly, I’ve never seen Beck, and I’m not sure when and if I’ll get the chance. He’s not coming around my neck of the woods according the tour dates he has up right now at least.
Track list:

• Timebomb
• True Love Will Find You In The End
• Forget Marie
• Which Will
• Parasite
• Pink Moon

The last three tracks were ordered based on the track number that was on the file I got, which flowed nicely enough. True Love… was from a Daniel Johnston tribute album back in 2004. Forget Marie appeared on his site in summer 2007 pretty soon after Hazlewood passed away, which I believe he had recorded, along with some other covers, not too long before. The three Nick Drake covers popped up on Beck’s discobox sometime half-way between Guero and The Information, late 2005, leading me not to know what to expect from The Information.
Yes, most of these tracks came out before The Information was released, but I hadn’t heard anything that I liked as much as these since then, and this mix proved to set the right mood for Modern Guilt.

Within seconds of the episode starting, there is great creepy airy music, and then penis jokes. The Venture Bros. is definitely an upscale affair. There’s been a promotion they’ve been running where they are selling shirts each week with special logos that are based on the episodes.
Excluding last episode I’ve guessed all of the logos accurately, and last episode was probably one of the weaker episodes of the season, particularly with no great back story, no Monarch, no Phantom Limb, etc.
I probably won’t be able to make any guesses in time to impress anybody, but I think I can get it before the shirt is revealed.

Guess number 1:

This is a Rusty Venture shirt. It actually appears as a shirt (and loincloth) in the episode. It’s probably the most likely, but sometimes they try and throw a curve ball.

Guess number 2:

This one is pretty logo-esque. I was thinking maybe a combo with the devil face. It has the potential to be a pretty amazing looking shirt, and could have that old style computer font spelling M.U.T.H.E.R.

Guess number 3:

The least likely of the logos I’d say, the Triad logo only makes a quick appearance in the episode, and isn’t particularly relevant. It’d be a great logo for a shirt though, but they’ve done it before where they don’t use this type of logo.

Incidentally, the episode wasn’t my favorite, but it wasn’t the worst. It did also enough bits for guessing the shirts too, which is always fun. And while I am just guessing for fun of course, me, Alicia, and Robert, are all investing in the 14 shirts deal. Why not? Oh, by the way, I’m going with No. 1

After the fact update: It was number 3, and I wanted it to be 3, but they’ve been tricky before. Overall I’m just really glad that this is something I can have a little fun with during the wait, and that it’s interesting and, well challenging might be an overstatement, but it’s a stumper at the very least.

Burn Notice started back up, and they definitely tired to start with a bang, but it was a bit of a House-type maneuver as things went almost immediately back to the usual storyboard. The ongoing story of “looking for who burned me” can only go so much longer, so I’m hoping for maybe a 3 episode wrap-up to that, maybe an interlude of an episode or two, and then some new arc material. I’m not one to speculate as to what they should be doing. I do like that his helping people has delved into a pretty solid grey area, where he’s now helping someone save their family, but ultimately working for the bad guys.

It’s a nice program, especially as lighter fare. It’s reminiscent of Dexter (Season 3: September 28th! Mark your calendars!) with the voice over monologues and ingenuity employed to keep their efforts covert. They are both in Miami, and have latin music well employed. I think I probably like the music in Dexter a bit more, especially the theme, but I think the music in Burn Notice is a nice change from the usual wares. I don’t get how he wears those suits all of the time, but I suppose it’s supposed to add to his air of cool.

Burn Notice does have Bruce Campbell, a personal favorite, who brings the best humor and sort of balances out the fact that the rest of the supporting cast tends to function best by annoying me as much as they annoy Michael. Speaking of whom, he’s not the most amazing character because he would have been an unstoppable juggernaut pre-burning. Now he’s pretty much an unstoppable juggernaut who has to work within a budget, which doesn’t seem to hold him back too much either.

Speaking of bang, they did pull out some heavy hitters for the show, lots of explosions and guns. The preview, though, has me a little worried that there’s going to be some further “I’m sorry but your princess is in another castle” business going on, like in Stargate, where after every top-level bad guy, somebody higher up is revealed. They did manage to stretch it out to 10 seasons though. If we hit the roof relatively soon, I wouldn’t complain, there’s bureaucracy and all in this world I bet.
Incidentally, I am glad that Robert caught on months after I told him that Burn Notice was worth watching, and this was also back when there was nothing to watch on tv.

12 Days, still