Movie Review from Avalanche @T-bird

I Am Legend (2007)
Directed by Frances Lawrence
Staring: Will Smith
Genres: Action/Suspense/Horror/Sci-Fi/Drama
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS!

How this movie only got a 3.5 instead of a 5:

First off, the movie gets a solid 3 because of it's interpretation of the novel. It is a strong movie that incorporated flashbacks very well, along with the cinematography and story overall. I loved the twist on how the "night seekers" came to be, that was beautiful. Will Smith's performance alone pulls up a whole star on it's own to make this movie a 4. His emotions and facial expressions were dead on, and made his character come alive like none other. However, the movie strikes half a star from the interpretations of the night seekers. There was little to no explanation as to their physical attributes, such as agility, strength, dexterity, instincts, intelligence, etc. The movie side-steps the obvious: that the night seekers are intelligent, can communicate with each other, plan strategies, form a hierarchy, and so forth.

The movie tries to tell you that these creatures are dumb, instinct-driven animals with no sense of love, moral code, or any kind of human emotions (Smith's character, Robert Neville, says in a journal that these creatures have become so de-evolved that they ignore their survival instincts, and that all human emotions are completely absent.) However, they clearly had a leader, who was smart enough to plan a trap for Neville (whether it was his own or the night seekers built it is regardless) and then unleashed his hell-hounds on him. The night seekers also seemed to be super-human in the physical sense, able to run fast, climb buildings like Spider-Man, take beatings, leap 12 feet into the air, not loose their breath... For crying out loud, two of them hurled their own bodies into a fully-loaded SUV full of equipment and knocked it on its side.

Aside from that, the character CG was terrible and out of place. They looked like they would in a video game. I'm not saying all of the CG in the movie was bad, the abandoned cityscape looked gorgeous, but the night seekers all looked the same, aside from the "boss"; and were they half breed snakes too? They sure had long, dislocated jaws like snakes when they screamed.

This movie was good to watch, and coming out of it from the theater I did not think I would want to watch it ever again because of the above atrocities, however, Will Smith's performance and the back story is so good it makes this movie viewable over and over, give or take a few months...

Avalanche @ T-Bird Zia

10 Greatest Protest Songs by Zak

10 Greatest Protest Songs
Based on a radio interview I heard I thought it might be time for another “Greatest List”. This time its greatest Protest songs. Please comment back. Tell me who I left out. Why you think Dead Prez sucks (you’re a racist) . Why there is no country. These are some of my personal favorites. What are yours?

1. Ohio – Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
2. Get Up Stand Up – Bob Marley
3. Fight The Power – P. E. (if you don’t know you better ask)
4. Whats Going On – Marvin Gaye
5. Psalm 69 – Ministry
6. Hell Yeah (Pimp The System) – Dead Prez (real punk rock)
7. Fuck Tha Police – NWA
8. California Uber Alles – Dead Kennedys
9. Meat Is Murder – The Smiths
10. London Calling – The Clash

Worst album covers of the 2008--- Jason @ Chandler

I don't know who exactly Eric Moralles is, but 14 or so of his magazines show up in my mail every month. I'm not complaining. While Fisherman Monthly and Cutlery Today usually end up in the recycle bin, my roommate Kirt's golf-swing has seen significant improvement thanks to Golf Magazine, my buddy Mike has increased his net worth by a thousand percent due in part to Forbes mysteriously showing up monthly, and because I now read Esquire I know more about January Jones than I ever knew I needed to. Spin shows up, too, and I usually passively flip through it to see if anything catches my eye. The latest issue (With Sony Records wunderkinds MGMT on the cover) features a pretty brutal interview with Lou Reed, where Lou baits and attacks the hapless journalist, who neglected my biggest concern about this new live album (which is really great): that horrendous album cover. And that got me thinking about other eye sores from this year. The whole thing has snowballed, and here we are, the ten worst album covers of the year. Thank you, Mr. Moralles.


Lou Reed-Berlin: Live at St. Anne's Warehouse

Oh Lou, poet launderette of the back alley, the junkie tale, and the pan-sexual nightmare manifesto. What’s this I hear? You’ve signed to Matador, home of such well respected indie acts as Cat Power, Sonic Youth, and Yo La Tengo? And ‘yer new album is a live staging of your classic, brilliantly chauvinistic, morally corrupt masterwork, “Berlin?” That’s awesome Lou! It’ll totally make up for that Killers duet! Let me see it, Lou! Please? Oh, wow. Um. Sleeveless? Really? Who are you, Broooooooooce Springsteen? Well, I suppose if we’re honest, you’ve looked stupider.


Offspring-Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

I’ll be honest; my hatred for this one is personal. It’s just that I drew this art on the back of my 5th grade social studies binder during class, intending to use it as the cover for my comic book in progress, “Cosmic Angel Death Dealers (In the 3rd Dimension).” The Offspring stole my art however, and used it for their new album and I have yet to be compensated financially or credited for my work. And C.A.D.D. (I. T. 3. D.) issue 1, still in progress, is now without cover art.


Ryan Adams- Cardinology

Press packets would indicate that it’s sobriety that’s pushing Ryan Adams deeper and deeper into boring Dad-rock territory with each subsequent album, but this bafflingly ugly cover image indicates to me that his rebellion against singer songwriter trends has taken on a purely visual bent: No longer will he record goofball metal as Werewolph, schizo-rap as DJ Reggie, or scuzz punk with Jesse Mallin as the Finger, now, Ryan will simply assault his listeners with neon tinted- what the hell is this anyway? A peace sign with a cardinal head? Adams earns some points for allowing graphic novelist Leah Hayes to create the artwork for the vinyl version of album, which is significantly cooler.


Disturbed –Indestructible

If only this lame-ass cover was the most cartoonish thing about this album. Proof positive that Arizona based artist Todd McFarlane won't license images of Spawn to just anyone.


Lil’ Wayne- Tha Carter III

Now that I think about it, this might not be a bad cover. It may be the best album cover of the year, actually. It's so ripe for psycho-analysis, so Freudian. Is this how Wayne views himself? A baby in man's clothing? Or is it even deeper, a metaphor for the entire rap game, one where machismo and thug posturing has left this set of men in a state of permanent Peter Pan-hood? A reference to that fact that gangsta men will have gangsta babies? Most importantly, was the baby given a bottle of codeine & promethazine-containing cough syrup cut with Sprite during the photo shoot?


Hinder-Take It To the Limit

Ladies and gentlemen, in face of the biggest economic crisis in American history since the Great Depression, Hinder is proud to present the cover to their new album, "Take It to the Limit," replete with champagne, expensive cars, hoes galore and a freaking mansion. In a year when AC/DC releases their new album as a Walmart exclusive, it takes a band with serious panache to prove themselves biggest hard rock douches of the year. Ladies and gentlemen, Hinder are those douches.


AC/DC-Black Ice

Speaking of which! I guess when you're a band with a logo as iconic as AC/DC, you don't really need to bother with creative cover art. I guess when you're a band with a sound as iconic as AC/DC, you don't really need to bother with writing an album that doesn't sound like a blurry copy of a photocopy of everything you've ever done. I guess when you're a band with sales as solid as AC/DC, you don't really need to bother with distributing your highly anticipated new album to the independent record stores that have sold and played your albums the entirety of your career. No, you can slap a cheesy black cover and your name on a record, send it off to Walmart, and let the public gobble that regurgitated shit up.


Conor Oberst- Conor Oberst

It's a shame Oberst has wrapped his best album in years in this sleeve. Nothing says "Hey everyone, get excited about my new album of existential road tripping!" like falling asleep on your own album cover.


Kottonmouth Kings-The Green Album

"Green Album! Get it?" -Stoner chuckles- "Ya know, like the Beatles "White Album," but ya know, green?" -More dazed laughter- "Green! Like, uh, weed! Get it? We smoke weed and we named ourselves Kottonmouth Kings and our album is GREEN! COS WE SMOKE WEED AND IT'S GREEN!" Can we just legalize the stuff already so assholes like these guys can find something worthwhile to devote album covers and songs to?


My Morning Jacket-Evil Urges

Because nothing says artful disappointment like having a guy block the view of your album cover. Look! There's the band, cheekily photo-shopped into some ornate balcony. I wonder if they are blocking the view of the shadow figure's album cover like he's blocking theirs.

---Jason P. Woodbury

My Top 20 Albums of All Time--- by Michael

(Read ‘em and weep. I invite you to submit your own list. Just make sure you are brutally honest with yourself as I was. I like a wide variety of music across many genres, but I asked myself what the 20 albums I always seemed to be listening to again and again were. Call them guilty pleasures if you must, but I just find them pleasurable. When you just need to rock you always reach for the albums that never let you down. Is it a bad thing that so many of the titles on this list are mega-platinum sellers? I think not. It shows that these are solid albums that many folks turn to when they just need to crank it up and rock.

That more than anything would describe why most of these made my list. When I need a boost because it’s been a bad day, when I’m just angling the car onto the open highway for a road trip, when I’m feeling good and want to celebrate, these are the albums that put me in the right mood EVERY time. God or the fates bless all these artists for the comfort they’ve brought me and many others in a sometimes cold and dull world.)

Queen – a night at the opera
Jeff Buckley – Grace
Throwing Muses – the Real Ramona
The Beatles – Abbey Road
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin
Stevie Nicks – Belladonna
AC/DC – Back in Black
R.E.M - Reckoning
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
U2 – The Joshua Tree
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden
Motley Crue – Too Fast for Love
Deep Purple – Perfect Strangers
Ozzy Osbourne – Speak of the Devil
ZZ top – Fandango
Siouxsie & the Banshees – Tinderbox
Drugstore – Drugstore
Van Halen – Van Halen
Def Leppard – On through the Night
Mazzy Star – She hangs Brightly

Sleeper DVD of the Week-Sorcerer (1977) -by Travis @tempe

Sorcerer (1977)

Remember William Friedkin? He directed uber-70’s classics The Exorcist and The French Connection. Six years after he had Gene Hackman chasing trains, Friedkin made the latter’s costar—the late, great Roy Scheider—race up mountain roads on a truck packed with nitroglycerin.

The film is called Sorcerer, a remake of the French classic The Wages of Fear. Like its predecessor, Friedkin’s picture tells the story of a fire at an oil drill site in a remote location, deep in the South American jungle. No, they can’t put it out by helicopter or plane—the only way is to transport nitroglycerin by truck, up the deadly mountain roads. And who would be up for the job but a bunch of expatriate losers, outcasts, and runaways with nothing left to lose.

Enter Roy Scheider and his three companions, who between two trucks, must make the suicidal journey to the fire. Oh, and by the way (if you didn’t know) any sudden stops or jolts will blow the nitroglycerin to kingdom come and everyone with it. Nothing stands in their way but steep ledges, broken bridges, giant boulders, and most of all—each other. Not exactly a group of gentlemen, these guys bond and battle every step of the way as the film never leaves us with more than a few seconds of relief. Slap on a bittersweet ending right out of a Hemingway novel and Sorcerer is one hell of a forgotten picture.

Want to escape into Friedkin’s grainy, rainy jungle for a couple hours? You should, you won’t forget it. (Did I mention Tangerine Dream does the soundtrack?)

If you like this one, check these out:

The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
All That Jazz (1979)
The Mission (1986)