Beyond The Mat

Many of you are aware that I'm a fairly big wrestling fan, and although most of the wrestling videos out there are less about the reality of the business and instead just promotional videos for WWE, there HAVE been a few documentaries to come around that offer an unbiased outside few of the industry, and 1999's Beyond The Mat is one of them [Note: I should emphasize that though'99 doesn't seem that far off, in the wrestling world is, especially style-wise, '99 was closer to '89, but whatever].

Anyway, while a fairly low-budget affair with few frills, the film does accurately show the harsh realities behind the smoke and mirrors of the "sport", much like Mickey Rourke's The Wrestler, but it unfortunately chooses to only focus on the lives of the wrestlers involved, not the reasons behind the win-loss decisions which drive the sense of sport-like unpredictability in the industry. Still, getting to see personal interviews with the likes of Mick Foley, Terry Funk, and Jake The Snake Roberts (around whom The Wrestler must have been at least partially based) with very little emphasis on their non-personal career highlights was very interesting. One caveat though: the cover of the DVD (though I Netflixed the film) seems to indicate that The Rock will be a substantial part of the film, but he really only has a minor cameo appearance, so my guess is that he was just added to the cover for promotional reasons.

In the end, even if you're not a wrestling fan, you probably would get something out of this film, though I wonder if The Wrestler isn't a more suitable replacement, despite being fictional. I certainly enjoyed Beyond The Mat myself though, so definitely check it out if you're into wrestling.

8-Bit Extravaganza @ Drunken Unicorn

Seeing how much Suzi liked Bubblegum Octopus and Yatagarasu when I took her to their show back in late March, I knew it was a safe bet to take her to an evening entirely devoted to other 8-Bit music at The Drunken Unicorn. That said, we only ended up catching three of the six acts performing at that night's 8-Bit Extravaganza, but we had a good time nevertheless. While I'm not 100% sure about this, I believe the three groups we ended up catching were miniDESTROY, Smiletron, and NEStrogen, possibly not in that order.

miniDESTROY was, like a lot of these groups, just one guy standing on stage twiddling with instruments and video game stuff to make his mix of 8-Bit and more experimental music, but the most memorable thing about his act was his frequent throwing of old NES game cartridges out to the audience, one of which may have hit me in the head (can't remember!). He even threw out his hoodie, which we caught but put back on the stage because we didn't want to take his clothes! Moving on, Smiletron's accessible 8-Bit pop was pretty solid, especially when he/they brought up some AWESOME rapper guy who did a bunch of incredible freestyling with tons of stage presence. Not to be a dick, but their follow-up, NEStrogen, though solid enough with regards to the music, was unfortunately deficient in stage presence, even at one point aping guitar playing with a real instrument that wasn't plugged in without the requisite sense of irony or parody that comes with actual air guitar playing. That said, the highlight of his set was probably a medley of 8-Bit covers where the vocal melodies were rendered as instrumental parts, though I can't recall any of the songs featured...

Overall, it was a pleasant night musically, and we were even treated to a back room with an actual NES (with a Power Pad...see above) running Duck Hunt (which I assume was for that track & field game from back in the day, not modded for Duck Hunt itself), and we were lucky enough to find the elusive Queenelope amidst the nostalgic fray. Fun night.

Kele - The Boxer

Having been a big fan of Bloc Party's most recent album Intimacy and its occasional track that blended the band's typically introspective indie style with modern dance synth lines and beats, when I found out the band's singer Kele Okereke would be releasing a solo project CD that mainly dwelled in this sound world, I was quick to sign up. Unfortunately, it seems that Kele isn't much of a songwriter without his band behind him, and though I'm sure he had help with the generally-decent synth parts, even they fail to transcend the glut of electronica out there once you've spent enough time with them.

And then there's the lyrical side of things...though I'm sure some of Kele's lyrics do reflect some of his penchant for profundity, even the best on offer here can't really touch his work with Bloc Party, as he's dumbed down the content in what seems to be equal portion with that of the music itself. Even the one track on the album that particularly sounds like an actual Bloc Party song, "Unholy Thoughts", could really only be considered to be of B-side quality, and as such, fans of the band who also don't like electronica especially won't find much here to appreciate.

Overall, it's a real shame that this solo album sucked so hard, but hopefully this means that Kele got this all out of his system and can better return to his band with a renewed sense of inspiration and creativity. Until then, skip The Boxer and just put the superb Intimacy back in full rotation.

Highlights: "Walk Tall"/"On The Lam"/"Everything You Wanted"
Rating: 1/5

Memento

Though I often reference Christopher Nolan's 2000 sleeper hit Memento when talking about recent complicated-but-artsy movies, I hadn't seen it since it was actually in the theatre, and considering I was a much less mature film-goer at the time, I knew I needed to re-watch it to better appraise its value for me now. If you don't know, the film has a minimal approach with a small cast, sparse music, and a simple process-based approach to time that ends up being confusing by the end of the experience. The protagonist, played by Guy Pearce (whom I still know nothing about, despite the film's success), has lost both his wife and his short term memory but has committed to finding his wife's murderer with the help of some clues in the form of numerous tattoos and notes plus Joe Pantoliano's cop character and his fellow The Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss's random quasi-love-interest.

Overall, the film still holds up pretty well, but if I'm honest, I've seen a few too many other movies in the ten-or-so years since I first saw Memento that have similar plots, and as such, I'm kinda over it. Still, the film is certainly among the most artful of those in the genre, and it's certainly worth seeing if you haven't yet done so. Just be prepared to have to think a little bit harder than usual in a movie...

Suzi and Video Games

Though Suzi started out like almost any other girlfriend, having a general apathy towards (or even distaste for) my video game habit, she has developed a surprising amount of sympathy for some of the games I've shown her, and I have to admit that I love it. It all started with the nearly-simultaneous occurrences of my building her first avatar (for the Xbox Dashboard) and my downloading of the basic XBLA Tetris incarnation Tetris Splash, which she loves playing head-to-head from time to time to this day. Since then, I've built her two more avatars (on Mass Effect 2 and Rock Band 3), which I actually find more satisfying than doing for myself, as I have a more accurate view of how to recreate her than myself and therefore end up getting much closer with hers. Hell, the Rock Band 3 avatar is almost shockingly close in my opinion given how far I've gotten from an accurate version of myself in other games, leading me to play as her since she's prettier to look at. =)

As far as Suzi actually playing other games is concerned, there hasn't been as much of that, as it's not really her thing. That said, she has played a tiny bit of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Chime, and some demo games. And, she enjoys helping me figure out my way through LIMBO (though we're stuck right now), and she likes seeing some of the seedier parts of Mass Effect 2, especially anything regarding the clubs in the game and/or any romantic pursuits...

Anyway, it's been really fun sharing some of my game interests with my girlfriend, though I certainly understand why it's not really something that I can reliably expect to capture her attention. Many thanks to that one Batman: Arkham City trailer she happened to catch on TV without me...somehow it was enough to pique her interest about the updated graphics and realness of games these days and to ask me some questions about the ones I play!

Captain America: The First Avenger

Finally, onto the last of the three big Marvel blockbusters this Summer, and presumably the last of the individual superhero movies needed to be made prior to the upcoming Avengers team movie. Though I knew little about the character and world of Captain America going into the film, I had actually decided it had the greatest chance of being successful amongst the three movies of the Summer, and as such, I was particularly disappointed when it ended up being the worst. See, I thought the fact that this storyline wasn't going to be about Norse gods or an alien police force (I'm referencing Green Lantern, which I didn't see) and would instead be focusing on a more-believable hero (not too unlike Iron Man or Batman), would make Captain America: The First Avenger a better fit for the now-predominant real-world-leaning superhero trend...

Wrong I was... Though the build-up of Steve Rogers from tiny wimp to the superhero he was to become was both dramatically-satisfying and technologically-astounding (considering the wimpy version of actor Chris Evans was mostly CGI effects), the post-transformation Captain America and his uninspiring abilities (in lieu of more interesting superpowers or gadgets) combined with the absurd rewrite of history surrounding Hugo Weaving's ridiculous Red Skull made for the worst possible combination of simultaneously botching the reality trend and adding in some absurd backdrop without properly suspending reality, thereby making the film feel rather dialed-in and disingenuous.

So somehow Thor, with its ridiculous story, over-the-top characters, and strange romantic pairing of a Norse god with a human Natalie Portman, ended up having twice the weight and likeability of a film that, on paper, seemed to promise a much stronger legacy. At this point, I really don't give a shit if Captain America is in the Avengers movie and would be perfectly happy if it were just Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk. Though Chris Evans definitely scored bigger with this film than the two rather embarrassing Fantastic Four installments, he just lacks the personality and charisma of a Robert Downey, Jr., Edward Norton (ahem, make that Mark Ruffalo for Hulk), or even a Chris Hemsworth (Thor), so I really hope they don't try too hard to make him the star of the film, being the team leader and all... We'll see next May!

World of Coca-Cola w/Suzi

In between the Seattle and Boston trips, I decided to surprise Suzi with a day trip (so to speak) to our nearby World of Coca-Cola museum, as she hadn't yet been to the renovated version and (I believe) hadn't even been to the old one since she was young. The last time I went was with Dave & Carla back around New Year's going into 2009, but though that equated to two and a half years between my visits, I mainly went this time around to simply have a fun time being there with Suzi, not for the museum itself, though it was sufficiently enjoyable everything again. Here's a short album of our time there:

World of Coca-Cola w/Suzi

Not much more to add, really. I'm glad we went and think it's a shame that I often don't consider local attractions viable places to "get-away" with Suzi. There are plenty of other places in town we could go, some of which I've never even been to at all (most-notably the MLK Center RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER FROM ME, which I feel guilty about), but I guess half the fun of doing these things in other places is actually being AWAY, not just doing some activity. Still, if a trip isn't really a reasonable option at the moment (as is often the case when Suzi gets busy with art projects), it's not such a bad idea to make a day trip out of something close by. =)

Demolition Man

Like Johnny Mnemonic after it, Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes' Utopian action film Demolition Man was a favorite of mine growing up, so I re-watched it not too long ago and have to admit that I still enjoyed it this time around, though it IS a pretty silly film. Demolition Man tells the story of a framed cop (Stallone) and a psychopathic killer (Snipes) who were both cryogenically frozen back in the 20th century for their crimes but eventually brought back in what amounts to a government conspiracy to rid the near-Utopian society of its riff-raff, led by a character played by Denis Leary.

Though the film is cartoonish in nature and certainly isn't the best in its genre, the future world created for the movie is delightful in a kitschy way (as best embodied by Sandra Bullock's lovably naive character who's obsessed with the 20th century), and the pairing of Stallone and Snipes actually works pretty well, as neither actor should be taken all that seriously. So, while I wouldn't necessarily recommend Demolition Man to anyone that doesn't have a taste for the silly action movies of the early 90's, I still find it fun and don't regret re-watching it in the slightest.

A Week of Out-of-Town Visits

This past week has seen not one, not two, but three separate visits from out-of-town friends, none of which are connected in any way, but all of which were definitely fun... The first person I hung out with was my high school friend Aman, who is also good friends with another of my frequent out-of-town visitors, Andy Sand, and for whose brother I played accordion in a wedding back in early 2010. Anyway, Aman's been living in London studying economics, so I often end up meeting up with him for dinner and drinks when he's back in the neighborhood visiting his parents. This time, I took him to the newish INC Street Food gourmet taco place etc. in Roswell, whose interior is designed to look like a food truck (though we sat outside). Most of our conversation centered around politics and economics, as Aman often has an interesting perspective on all of this, and then we played some Left 4 Dead 2 on his Xbox at his parents' house.

The second out of town visit was from my ex-roommate and great friend Evan, whose wedding I recently attended in Seattle and who was back home in Atlanta for the weekend to celebrate his 30th birthday. Though I didn't make it out to the Georgia Tech vs. North Carolina football game earlier that day, I did join Evan, Katherine, Jim & Katie, and a bunch of Evan's friends at a casual house party, complete with a small bonfire that night. It was a good time catching up and seeing everyone again, and I'm definitely looking forward taking Suzi up to Chicago to visit Evan and Katherine one of these days when it's not too cold there!

Lastly, in what amounted to a total accident due to inclement weather and the off-chance that he had booked his connecting flight in Atlanta, I ended up getting to reminisce and catch-up with my best friend Dave after he called me with news of his predicament last night! I picked him up from the airport around 9:30 pm, and we preceded to do dinner at the Little 5 Vortex and a drink at The Earl in East Atlanta, followed by a tour of my condo complex, a drink and more convo on the roof, and some late-night DJ Hero 2 action before crashing at my place and taking him to MARTA first thing in the morning! Considering we only had about five hours awake together to hang, I'd say we ended up squeezing in a good bit of quality time. What a random and cool week!

311 - Universal Pulse

There are few bands for whom I can say I own more than three of their albums, but with reggae-rock fusion band 311's newest release Universal Pulse, I can lay claim to three times that, owning nine of their ten full-length major label releases. For a long while, I used to consider 311 one of those rare bands that could consistently maintain a high level of quality from album to album (though this sameness might not be for everyone), but sadly, the past few years saw the release of the overly-chill Don't Tread On Me and the uninspired follow-up Uplifter, marking the band's lowest point to date. Thus, finally showing with age some kinks in their proverbial armor, I started to lose faith that the band would ever return to their unique (though predictable) grooves.

Enter Universal Pulse, this year's short-but-refreshing return to form, which in its mere eight tracks sees the band picking up where they left off before the downturn, stylistically referencing tracks from their later-but-solid albums Soundsystem, From Chaos, and Evolver, thereby restoring a good bit of my faith in the group's ability to stay young and funky. Hell, the album's final track "And A Ways To Go" sounds like it could've been directly lifted from the Transistor sessions, which remains the band's most atmospheric and experimental album to date, and as such, this track stands out as the band's most promising effort since those found on the ground-breaking Evolver.

All this said, Universal Pulse isn't perfect and does fall short of the albums it seems to emulate, but its generally fun vibe, nods to the past, and clear step forward for the group earns it a solid three from me. Here's to the band continuing with this momentum for the next few albums!

Highlights: "Time Bomb"/"Wild Nights"/"And A Ways To Go"
Rating: 3/5

End of Vocal Lessons...

As of this Summer, what started roughly two years ago as necessary self-improvement regarding my abilities as lead vocalist for my band, my vocal lessons with Dionne at Jan Smith Studios have now ended, concurrent with my decision to put the band on hiatus and my currently busier teaching schedule now that school has begun. Over our two years together, I gained much from my time studying with Dionne, and it was sad to say goodbye (at least for the moment), as she is an incredibly likable and talented teacher with tons of personality and a superb ability to inspire. Ultimately though, I just didn't have the energy, time, and money to continue committing to weekly lessons when I knew the band wasn't going anywhere just yet, so though I tried backing my lessons down from four a month to half that for the last few months I was taking, I eventually had to break it to Dionne that I would need to be discontinuing lessons, as hard as it was.

I really do feel like I became a much better singer over the years (and others have confirmed this), and I highly recommend both Dionne and Jan Smith Studios in general to any of you out there interested in non-classical vocal lessons. I'm proud to say I studied at the same studio where the likes of Usher, Rob Thomas, Drake, and Justin Bieber all studied, and I sincerely do hope to return to lessons with Dionne as soon as I figure out where I want to head musically. Until then, thank you so much to Dionne and Jan Smith Studios...I wish you the best and hope to see you all again soon!

Hall Pass

As the first film Suzi and I had ever Red Boxed (i.e. rented at one of those $1 rental vending machines outside a CVS), the recent Owen Wilson comedy Hall Pass was also the first in a string of dumb comedies we've watched intentionally in lieu of something more profound. And though this film was pretty sub-par, I've been enjoying our stint of watching meaningless comedies, so as long as this doesn't mean we stop watching clever movies altogether, I'm good with it...

Anyway, Hall Pass tells the story of two thirty-something married guys being given the titular "hall pass" from their wives, essentially being granted permission to do whatever they want for one week, including having sex with other women. The initial problem is that the guys have essentially become lame over the years of being married and therefore have a hard time picking up any chicks (or even really living it up), but the real hindrance to their success for the week is that they really are in love with their wives and only reveled in the mere opportunity to cheat, not actually cheating.

While this premise could have been alright if handled by a better cast and team of script-writers, it ends up suffering from being fairly bland, uninspired, and comedically-deficient, leaving me feeling like I had more-or-less wasted those nearly-two hours. While I do like Owen Wilson in general, he didn't really win me over this time around and especially wasn't enough to counteract Jason Sudeikis' now-mandatory-in-guy-comedies Ed Helms-esque character (which I hate even when Ed Helms is doing it!). Bottom line: don't waste your time with this film...there are much better dumb comedies out there.

New Struts Ordeal (Part II)

So, after deciding to go with Pep Boys instead of the Toyota service shop, it really seemed like things were looking up, but after picking up my car that night and then trying to drive it to work the next day, I quickly found out things weren't all that perfect. That morning, I started hearing a sharp metallic clanging sound every time I hit any kind of bump, even at slow speeds, so I moved some lessons around and put my car back in the shop up in the suburbs. After waiting a few hours for Pep Boys to call me back with an update, I finally called them instead and found out that the guy that had been working on my car had left for the day and evidently didn't tell the new guy what was up. When he did figure things out, he told me that my car needed new strut plates/mounts, which cost around $250 just for the parts, but since I didn't have it done the day before when the car was already dismantled, I would need to be charged an additional $250 or so for service! Also, though they had the struts in the day before when I thought that was all I needed, they needed to order the strut mounts, so I had to leave my car there overnight, forcing me to drive Dad's unwieldy (though much-appreciated) SUV to work for a third day.

In the end, I was only charged for the parts and not the additional service fees since there was some miscommunication about the whole situation that first day, so I still ended up saving some money (at least $150) relative to what the Toyota shop wanted to charge me, but then again, that's entirely without addressing the screeching issue, which was half of why I came in in the first place! According to Pep Boys, the only way for me to entirely remove the screeching would be to have an expensive overhaul of my brake rotors/pads system, a procedure that would only amount to a superficial change, as this screeching isn't an indication of a safety issue. That said, I didn't really notice much screeching yesterday after finally picking up my car, so I suppose the strut/mount replacement might have done something to help...? Not sure, but I'm ready to be done with car stuff for awhile.

Thanks to Mom and Dad for their help keeping me on the road during my work week while this whole thing got worked out. It would have been much more expensive and inconvenient without you!

Swingers

Having thought this was supposed to be one of the coolest, most cult favoritest movies of all time, I went into 1996's Swingers with high expectations. Little did I know I would end up absolutely hating it, finding myself wanting to shut it off numerous times during my viewing. Hell, even the trailer above kinda annoyed me, and it had some of the better moments in it and didn't overstay its welcome like the film.

The basic premise of this overrated piece of garbage is that Jon Favreau (who is MUCH cooler now that he's a fat director and leaves his acting to small supporting roles) plays a struggling twenty-something L.A. transplant from New York who has this lame group of friends that think they are actually cool, being entirely caught up in the swing lifestyle that got popular for a hot minute in the mid-90's. The whole story follows Favreau's character trying to come to terms with his breakup from his ex-girlfriend, his lack of other dating potential, and his inability to get a job, all with help from the equally-helpless (but slightly cooler) Vince Vaughn, in one of his earliest roles.

Amidst this generally pointless plot come a number of highly-quotable soundbites, which helps explain part of why this film seemed to be so popular, but ultimately, the characters and their way of living seem EXTREMELY dated and lame outside of the year it was made, and the lack of quality acting, cinematography, or script-writing makes for an arduous and most-likely accidental study in loserdom.

New Struts Ordeal (Part I)

Here's a current post for you: the past three days have been particularly trying, as my previously-mentioned brake issues had morphed into a much bigger problem that took three days' worth of borrowing my dad's SUV for work to solve. At the start of the year, I started getting some serious screeching from my brakes, but after being falsely misdiagnosed by a Toyota service team as simply needing new rear brake pads (which I didn't really need), the problem persisted, but since I knew it wasn't a safety issue, I kept driving with the screeching, planning on readdressing the issue later on.

Well recently, my car started making a more serious-sounding crunching noise whenever I braked, so I decided it was finally time to take the Matrix in for a good look. This time, I made sure to use a different service guy (but still at the same Toyota shop), and though I did like him better, he wanted to charge me something like $120 for new rotors (which he attributed to the screeching problem) plus an additional $800+ dollars for new struts (!) and another $150 for new filters. [If you don't know, as I didn't, a car's struts are simply a more advanced form of shock absorbers, and as such, rarely need replacing on cars].

So, a problem that I expected to be roughly $250 or so quickly became four times more expensive, so although I let the shop do my tire rotation and oil change along with the free computer update required by Toyota's recent recall on my model, Dad encouraged me to call around for better deals, and as fate would have it, the Pep Boys right next door was quoting the same problem fixed for half the price, so thus began the next leg of the strut ordeal, which I'll continue shortly...

Transcendent Man

Somehow this one slipped under my radar when keeping tabs of my blogging to-do list: though I'm sure this doesn't happen often at all, I have absolutely no idea when exactly in my recent timeline I actually watched Transcendent Man, the 2009 documentary on futurist Ray Kurzweil and his controversial faith in technology, arising from claims of near-prophetic awareness of our technological evolution. Anyway, if you don't recognize the name, it may ring a bell or two hearing that this Ray Kurzweil is in fact the same man whose name adorns a popular (and expensive) brand of synthesizers/MIDI controllers, though this ultimately has little to do with his outspoken beliefs these days, especially considering he sold the company in 1990.

Anyway, the trailer above sums things up quite nicely, but basically Ray Kurzweil believes that by 2045 humanity will have reached the singularity, a technological event horizon past which we cannot see, as humans will be so integrated with technology (possibly due to nanotech in the brain) that it will be impossible to live the standard human experience of the time without absolute dependence on this and other technology. In addition to this, Kurzweil has predictions about being able to extend human life indefinitely (i.e. not dying); bringing back well-archived relatives from the dead (so to speak), including his father; and fixing any illnesses and other ailments with nanotech. In the meantime, he's started a Summer-only college called Singularity University whose primary goal is to train today's experts to be even more prepared for (and able to bring about) the Singularity. Also, Kurzweil takes a shocking number of supplement pills every day to keep himself alive long enough to see the era when humans no longer die, and supposedly this regimen helped cure his diabetes...

So, if nothing else, the ideas expressed in the documentary are interesting, though there are plenty of problems (as far as I see it) with Kurzweil's theories. Still, the film was well-shot, was scored using newly-commissioned and earlier music by Philip Glass, and has a great sense of pacing, so I highly recommend it to anyone finding technology (or at least kooky quasi-prophets!) interesting.

My Morning Jacket - Circuital

Much like Iron & Wine's new fusion-folk album Kiss Each Other Clean earlier this year, Louisville band My Morning Jacket's new offering Circuital came as a pleasant surprise to me, as either my own tastes are growing folkier, or the band is one among many that's been evolving towards a more progressive form of folk rock. Either way, Circuital is the kind of album that's hard not to appreciate in some way or the other: everything from the breadth of stylistic variation from track-to-track and the quality of the songwriting in general, to singer Jim James' atypical vocally delivery and even the CD's packaging and liner notes is what you would expect of one of the year's most remarkable and critically-acclaimed albums. Though there are a couple tracks that I'm less excited about, the album as a whole really delivers, and as such, it will quite possibly make it onto my Top 5 as well.

The album opens with a duo of longer tracks that really show the band at its most proggy (especially "Victory Dance"), a risky move for fans of more mainstream folk rock, but things quickly turn to a more accessible and softer touch with tracks that smack of a bygone era, though still sounding quite modern. For some inexplicable reason, My Morning Jacket tends to conjure images for me of the guys in Atlanta metal band Mastodon, but none of the album is actually heavy, which came as a surprise for me. In fact, most of the Circuital is endearingly sweet and slow, especially the ending, making this album really stand out from most of the other rock albums I end up loving, but in a much-appreciated way. Definitely check out Circuital if you like your folk rock a little artsy and unpredictable...oh, and if you're up for being surprised at how un-country pedal steel guitars can sound...

Highlights: "The Day Is Coming"/"Outta My System"/"You Wanna Freak Out"
Rating: 5/5

Return to Politics

It's been a long while since I've gotten really riled up about politics, but it seems like my fervor and interest in the subject is starting to return, concurrent with the new string of Republican debates, two of which I've recently watched in their entirety on the internet (those held in Manchester, NH and Tampa, FL). I've also started watching more clips of liberal stuff online, especially Real Time with Bill Maher, but the Republican debates are easily the most pertinent at the moment, so that's where most of my politics time has gone lately.

Anyway, when watching these debates, I like to play a little game I like to call "These are the only people you can vote for, so who's it gonna be?" My answer isn't all that surprising, but I'll talk about a few of my other candidates as well. Considering I am a social liberal through-and-through, Ron Paul is clearly the right choice for me, as he's really more of a Libertarian trying to get elected through the Republican machine, if you will. Honestly, if Ron Paul were nominated as the Republican candidate for the 2012 election against Obama, I would actually vote for him, as I think he's got some great ideas, would change things up a good bit, and would represent (if only figuratively) the first time a candidate from a third party were elected to office, at least in the modern era. But we all know that he's too radical for the conservatives to nominate, so I guess I've got to pick someone else. By the way, if you watched the video, you'll see one reason why I won't be considering Rick Santorum AT ALL, as he's an ass-clown and the bigoted "patriot" type.

So, beyond Ron Paul, who do I "like"? I have to admit that Mitt Romney is coming off relatively strong right now, as he used to be a good bit more liberal as governor of Massachusetts and I'm starting to get the feeling that his Mormonism isn't really going to play a part in his policies, unlike most of the mainstream Christians up for the Republican nomination (I'm especially looking at you Michelle Bachmann). Similarly, the other Mormon on the list, Jon Huntsman, is looking pretty decent, as he worked for Obama and tends to have a more moderate perspective. Can't believe I'm somewhat endorsing the Mormons, but there you go. Also, though Herman Cain is probably a horrible choice for President in most regards, I find him kind of intriguing, possibly only because he seems like such an odd candidate for Republicans to be pulling for (I mean, is anyone really considering him?).

On the other side, I can't stand Rick Santorum for the reasons above, though he does seem to be okay about immigration, being the son of an Italian immigrant himself. Though I think Michele Bachmann is a religious kook who would be horrible as president, I have to admit that she actually knows a good bit about some of the things she's talking about and is WAY better at speaking than Sarah Palin, so there's that. On some level, I want to like Newt Gingrich, possibly because he's from my county growing up, and partly because he converted to Catholicism from being a Southern Baptist (strange move!), but he also seems too old-school to be endorsed.

And then there's the frontrunner, Rick Perry...honestly, I just don't see it: he's not very eloquent, he smacks of GW WAY too much (Texas governor, apparently disingenuous, slow, and too much like the common man), and he seems to have plenty of negative stuff he's done for his detractors to bring up, so I really don't understand why he's leading, but honestly, I don't feel like I've gotten enough of an impression of his policies and stances to make a fair judgment, so I'm still kinda on the fence about him.

So, there you have it: of the eight people currently running, I really like one of them, kinda like three more, am undecided about one, and generally dislike/can't stand the remaining three. Overall though, I like the group better than I would have expected (though that's not saying much), and would consider voting for more of them if they would back off their unflinching conservative social ideas and just focus on the fiscal issues. Probably not gonna happen, but one can hope, right? Perhaps I'll talk more about Obama in another post, but this one's getting too long already, so let's save it for later.

The Hunt For Red October

Though I had seen bits and pieces of The Hunt For Red October back when I was young, I don't believe I have ever seen the whole thing all the way through, so I took the time to do so and was pleasantly surprised, even given how critically-acclaimed I already knew it was. I'm not really sure how this Jack Ryan tale fits in with Tom Clancy's other work, but I have a feeling it doesn't really matter when it comes to enjoying the film.

The entire cast did a great job, most-notably Sean Connery, who plays a Russian sub commander and who even starts the film speaking exclusively in Russian (though it's not long before everyone switches to an assumed Russian translation in English, like in comic books). Also, the movie looks really good, especially for 1990's state of special effects. The best part of this film though is easily the plot, offering one of the most interesting and generally unpredictable Cold War stories I can remember hearing. Also, it's just fun to see submarines at work, and it's almost unbelievable how these commanders supposedly used to know how to turn (essentially in the dark) using only a navigator and some glorified stop watches...I'm sure these days it's mostly done with extensive computer calculations and the like.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the film and might even be interested in checking out more of the Jack Ryan stories Tom Clancy has managed to have adapted to film, though I get the feeling that submarine warfare will be more up my alley than his more-typical political-intrigue-only plotlines. Thoughts?

Post-Riot Accident

Just after Spangler had left the recording session I just blogged about, and Erich and I had packed things up go start heading out the door to grab some food, Erich spotted and drew my attention to this woman in the Riot parking lot who had apparently just hit the pay-box-thingy with her sedan, totally assuming this would be the end of her seemingly-drunken reckless driving. Turns out that a minute later, as we were walking away, she ended up backing into Erich's virtually-new Prius, making a loud crash that turned our attention to the heavy damage she just inflicted upon his bumper.

So, what was supposed to be a nice denouement to our productive drum-recording session ended up turning into us standing there for an hour and half waiting for the cops to finally respond to and address our situation after calling them in, meanwhile trying to keep an eye on the high/drunk woman, both for our sakes and that of her baby, which she kept drunkenly asserting was the cause of the whole ordeal, as he was supposedly having a seizure or something in the back seat. She didn't have much more to say than this, and she was extremely rambly, so it wasn't too surprising that the cop who did eventually show up completely took our side in the matter, seeing that this woman was in NO STATE AT ALL to be driving...

The problem: Riot's parking lot is technically private property, so they couldn't actually arrest the woman for drunk driving in the lot, but this didn't stop them from getting her information and finding out that she doesn't carry insurance. After the cop dealt with a lot of formalities, both the woman and the two of us guys were eventually told we could leave, but though we never saw it go down, we believed the cop did this to hopefully catch the woman driving drunk outside the private parking lot, pulling her over shortly after driving out and then arresting her. Unfortunately, last I heard, Erich STILL hasn't been able to get his due access to the police report (so that he could file insurance), despite being initially filed over two months ago!

Anyway, it surely was a shitty way to end the recording session, especially for Erich, but at least it will probably make for a funny memory one of these days. I just hope the woman ends up getting what she deserves and Erich ends up getting compensated for everything, despite the fact that the woman didn't have insurance and we're both worried the government doesn't typically step in on these matters... Fingers crossed though!

Skins: Season 4

Once I had fallen in love with Skins' second cast in Season 3, it was just a matter of time until I watched all of Season 4, but this time largely (if not entirely?) on streaming Netflix whenever Suzi came over. Unfortunately, unlike the second season of the first cast (which I'm almost through with), this second time around with the second cast was frustratingly inferior to Season 3, and as such, was almost difficult to take, seeing many of your beloved characters stretched in ways that just don't make sense or were too far-fetched. I suppose the writers were attempting to make this cast even more out-there than the first, but while Season 3 walked this line acceptably well, Season 4 ends up slipping overboard way too often.

Still, it wasn't all bad [Spoiler Alert]: I finally ended up liking Freddie when he came out of his shell; Thomas finally ditches Panda, though I think he ends up getting back together with her; Emily and Naomi's storylines develop further (in both good and bad ways); JJ's episode it kinda fun; there's NO PANDA EPISODE (thank god!); and Cook ends up completing his evolution into the best character on the cast, albeit only after we lose someone else. [End Spoilers] None of this manages to change my impression that the writers dropped the ball this time around, but at least it was the shortest season of them all and the first cast's two seasons have both been quite solid. More on those in due time!

Recording Spangler @ Riot

Onto our most recent and only remaining Riot session to write about, a last-minute drums session with Spangler that Erich and I were trying to squeeze in mid-July before Spangler left more-or-less permanently for basic training and then Army Band stuff. Now, while we knew full well that Spangler wouldn't be around to play with the band and furthermore were pretty sure we were taking a temporary hiatus from band stuff in general, I really wanted to record his parts, partly because we didn't have any actual drum parts recorded for either song period, but mostly because I wanted to make sure to record Spangler's ideas since I probably wouldn't be able to relay them to our next drummer sometime down the road...

During the course of my numerous rehearsals with Spangler earlier in the year, we mainly focused on four of our songs: "Still Life" (formerly "Bayan Pierrot"), "Pat Benatar", "Headlights" (formerly "Tina Turner"), and "Bloc Party" (the two named after other artists are temporary titles). But, since Jeremy had already recorded drums for "Still Life" and "Pat Benatar" and we only had so much time to get Spangler's renditions on tape (so to speak), we decided to focus on the latter two tracks, for both of which I had to prepare a temporary synth and vocal track (and click) for him to play along to.

All things considered, the whole process went as smoothly as could be hoped, as Spangler did his three or four full-length takes per song (plus a few shorter ones) all in reasonable time without much in the way of breaks, and the drum setup and tear-down (mainly between Spangler and Erich) seemed more streamlined than last time. A day or two later, Erich sent me some quick edits of the takes, including some compression and EQ, and both tracks' drums sounded bigger than we had thus far achieved with any of our recordings, which is definitely a great thing. I'm not really sure how closely we'll stick to the original versions of these tracks if we do decide to get things rolling properly again, but I'm very glad we were able to get everything down for posterity. Gonna miss having Spangler's enthusiasm and talent around, but I'm really glad he made time for a day's worth of recording during his last week here. Thanks, bud.

Midnight In Paris

Easily one of the most charming movies I've seen in a long time, and quite possibly my favorite by Woody Allen (granted, I've only seen four or so, and they've all been recent), is this year's critically-acclaimed Midnight In Paris, starring Owen Wilson. I went into the film not knowing much about it, having just seen the trailer, and was surprised to find that the whole premise of the film is much different than I was lead to believe, so I would hate to ruin any potential surprise here by giving you a detailed synopsis.

Instead, I'll just point out that Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard, and Adrien Brody were all fantastic, Owen wilson played a generally agreeable protagonist (especially when juxtaposed with his quite disagreeable companions at the start of his Parisian trip), and the film did a superb job of making me miss the French capital, largely due to the cinematic homage that served as the opening credits. In the end, the film is filled with that incredible sense of mystery and discovery you can have by wandering through a foreign city, and the plot twist, while not initially what I was looking forward to about the movie, only made the film that much more memorable. Definitely check it out, as it's one of my favorite movies of the year.

Taking Back Sunday - Taking Back Sunday

One of last year's surprise guilty pleasure album's was punk-emo band Taking Back Sunday's somewhat more-mature 2009 release New Again, to which I gave a 5/5 after letting it really grow on me, so it's not too surprising that I was excited for the release of their next album (self-titled) this year. Upon first or second listen, I found myself fairly disappointed, feeling like the best tracks on offer here were, at best, B-side-quality tracks from the previous release, but once I really let the tracks sink in and stopped being so hard on them, I eventually started singing along, and the rest is history. That said, I still recognize that the album isn't nearly as strong as New Again, but since this year's offerings aren't so strong, it made a solid four this time around, though it could have possibly made a high three last year.

Apart from all this, the album pretty much speaks for itself if you're familiar with the genre. It continues the band's penchant for often anti-religious lyrics (bonus points!) amidst a post-emo/punk-heyday assemblage of power chords and big choruses. That said, this album seems to have a slight Americana edge this time around, especially on the slower songs, and the heavier guitars of the last album have been noticeably toned down. Overall, I'm pleased that this eponymous album didn't tank for me and that my faith in the band has been sufficiently upheld. Decent work, guys.

Highlights: "Faith (When I Let You Down)"/"It Doesn't Feel A Thing Like Falling"/"Call Me In The Morning"
Rating: 4/5

So Long, Borders...

If you're somehow not yet aware, Borders, the popular bookstore, overpriced CD retailer, and rival/virtual doppelganger to Barnes & Noble, has officially closed down, having filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in February but only recently managing to finally clear out all of their individual stores' items (including bookshelves and CD racks!) at liquidated prices this month. While I definitely took a few visits to check out what was left to pick over, in the process picking up a few things (most notably the superb Arcade Fire album Neon Bible) at great prices ranging from 50-90% off (depending on when I went), I have to admit that I'm pretty disheartened by the whole ordeal...

I don't know about you, but I always considered Borders and Barnes & Noble to be virtually the same store, having little preference for one over the other and generally mentioning both in the same breath when talking about good bookstores, but as everyone knows, though they were both large-scale chains, neither one was single-handedly able to cover the entire sprawl of a given city (hell, even with the two combined they were barely adequate), but now that half of the available Borders & Noble stores out there are now gone, I'm sure a lot of people are gonna be forced to drive even further to get their book/CD fix (unless of course this just marks the beginning of an even bigger turn towards an Amazon-only era...).

I mean, I love the convenience, selection, and prices of Amazon, but possibly losing real book/CD stores over time just makes me kinda sad, so I'm really hoping some other bookstore will move into the empty storefronts left in the wake of Borders' collapse, even if it's just Barnes & Noble, though I haven't yet heard anything to this effect. So sorry to see you go, Borders: you were like a real Barnes & Noble to me...

Harry Brown

Now here's a film I was thinking about seeing when it was showing at one of the local art houses sometime last year, but I never managed to make it out, so I was really excited when I saw it was on offer on Netflix. Harry Brown is a British film telling the story of an old ex-Royal Marine (played by Michael Caine) who, through a series of unfortunate events, ends up turning to a life of vigilantism in his old age, single-handedly taking on the young hoodlum riff-raff around his poor urban development in South London, despite his waning health.

The film is artfully shot, sensitively acted (by even the guys playing the thugs), and has a good sense of forward momentum despite its prevailing somber mood, and as such, it really stood out from the average American equivalent in this genre. Additionally, due to the film's grittiness (including a somewhat intense drug scene), unpredictability, and the inclusion of Jack O'Connell (who plays one of the leads in the second cast of Skins), I decided to show the movie to Suzi within 48 hours or so of my initial viewing...so, I guess that goes to show how much I liked it. It might not be on-level with a Hesher or the like regarding movie-of-the-year quality, but it wasn't far off, so I definitely recommend you checking it out if it sounds interesting.

On Becoming A Movie Blog...

If you haven't noticed, I'm pretty much doing a movie post every other post these days, and to be honest, I kinda wish there weren't so many movies on here. Because I'm so far behind on my blog and have been for awhile, I keep a list of the things I want to blog about and check them off one-by-one, trying to go through the list as close to chronologically as possible. But, if I were to be rigid about this, there would be plenty of times when I had a series of movies back-to-back on the blog, and since I generally find this unattractive (having a trailer on adjacent posts) and find the lack of variety unappealing for my blog, I intentionally shift the movies around enough to allow non-movie posts in between, even if they're slightly out of chronological order.

The problem is that due to the easy access of streaming Netflix and the fact that I'm often not doing anything else worthy of blogging about these days (especially with regards to shows and my band stuff), the ratio of movie posts to the rest is unfortunately high, leaving me having to occasionally generate a new blog topic just to maintain some variety... Hell, even this post was designed entirely to give us a break between two films, as this current stretch of originally back-to-back movies is seven long!

Anyway, I guess my point is that I'm sorry I've been doing so many movie posts on my presumably more music/life-related blog, but I'm not going to start ignoring movies I've seen just to remedy the situation. Plus, I'm going to more shows now, so hopefully that will help balance things out...? But hopefully you like having the movies anyway, or if not, thanks for sticking with me!

Super Size Me

Though I had already seen 2004's hit documentary Super Size Me back when the IU student union was showing it there, I remembered it fondly enough that I wanted to re-watch it on streaming Netflix, especially considering the handful of health-related documentaries I've seen since then. This time around, I still had a good experience and definitely understand why director Morgan Spurlock's work is generally pretty popular, as he has a good sense of humor and pacing, but I wouldn't say the film had as strong as message as my much-lauded favorite Food, Inc. And, true to form with my previous viewing, the movie only had the adverse effect of making me want to go have McDonald's even more, but that only lasted for one or two visits this time around, instead of the nearly-weekly trips I was making back in Bloomington. =)

Anyway, I definitely recommend Super Size Me if you haven't checked it out, and I plan on watching some of Spurlock's other documentaries to see if they're of the same calibre, though if he's anything like Michael Moore, I might be disappointed...

Sudoku Obsession

Much like my previous (though short-lived) obsession with doing crosswords after buying a cheap crossword book at the airport for my flights with Suzi, I'm currently absolutely engrossed in working through a similar cheap book of Sudoku puzzles I bought at the grocery store prior to Suzi and my recent trip to D.C. The book is split into three difficulty sections, and though my skills have definitely improved this time around doing Sudoku (including one major breakthrough), I still mess up the occasional puzzle in all of them, mostly due to working too fast and missing a number here or there.

The problem with Sudoku though is that, while I am able to listen to music (especially for my HiFi reviews) while working on puzzles, it's engrossing and addictive enough that I often have a hard time not doing "just one more", leading to a bunch of most-likely wasted time. That said, I still haven't gotten to the stage where I'm having either dreams about Sudoku or where I can see numbers when I close my eyes, so I guess that's a good sign I'm not too bad off...? ;) Also fortunately, unlike crosswords, for whatever reason Sudoku doesn't give me a headache after doing it for a long stretch, but unlike my ongoing and less addictive Rubik's Cube obsession (which I AM able to stop doing after a certain amount of time), I think I'll end up getting tired of Sudoku sooner or later, thereby regaining some of that prized free time. Until then, I'm gonna keep plowing through my book, enjoying every pointless minute wrapping my mind around single digit numbers!

X-Men: First Class

Now onto the second of the three big Marvel movies for the Summer, X-Men: First Class, the fifth installment in the X-Men film franchise, yet the earliest in terms of chronology (apart from a couple of the films' flashbacks). This time around, we're being offered one timeline for how Professor X and Magneto end up becoming friends (and then enemies) while beginning to form their eventual mutant teams. As such, there are a number of other notable X-Men (both bad and good) that appear in the film, but none of them are nearly as fleshed out as the two lead characters, and honestly, they were realized poorly enough here that I probably could've done without them altogether. Still, the relationship and development of Professor X and Magneto (both portrayed quite well by their respective actors) was worth the price of admission, though most of the rest of the film left me disappointed.

A few random thoughts... Kevin Bacon was a great (though peculiar) pick for the rarely-talked-about character Sebastian Shaw, but he looked silly in what was to become Magneto's telepath-proof helmet. The tie-ins to the actual history of the time (most-notably the Cuban Missile Crisis) were all pulled off quite well and definitely added some depth to the franchise. Though Beast ended up looking silly once he turned beastly, the actor (Nicholas Hoult) is the star of the first two seasons of the British show Skins, which I'm only now getting around to watching and am therefore quite interested in going back to X-Men: First Class largely just to see him in action as a nerd with an American accent (which is quite different from his role in the TV show).

In the end, while I was kinda letdown by this installment in the X-Men film franchise, I also recognize that it was much much better than the Wolverine feature, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again, though I certainly don't plan on ever owning it. I would only recommend checking it out if you're a fan of comics in general, but that's probably true of most of these superhero films, right?

Owen Pallett - Heartland

I first became aware of Canadian violinist and singer/songwriter Owen Pallett via my weekly survey of iTunes releases, and as such, I picked up his EP A Swedish Love Story roughly this time last year and ended up liking it enough to commit to buying his most recent full-length album, Heartland, for my Q3 listening regimen. Unfortunately, the album doesn't represent what I would consider to be Pallett's finest work, though it certainly shows off his incredible musicianship, especially regarding orchestration.

The odd thing is that Pallett is often better at writing interesting synth, drum, and non-string parts for his songs than he is at writing those for his native instrument (again, violin), and his vocals and lyrical style aren't really all that much to my liking either. In fact, perhaps the best thing I've heard from him thus far is his remake of fellow Canadian band Stars' song "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead," and considering that Suzi independently knew of Pallett for his covers of some relatively-obscure indie singles, I guess this conclusion isn't all that surprising.

Ultimately, Heartland is a bit too over-orchestrated and slightly-annoying, and although there are some decent moments to be found here, I couldn't help always wishing for the album to be over and never looked forward to listening to it. I know this is harsh, but I just couldn't get into this album, yet I still do really respect Pallett's musicianship. Someone who really likes Andrew Bird should check his stuff out and let me know what they think... To end on a positive note then, here's a stirring YouTube clip of one of his live performances of "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" at a festival in the rain.

Highlights: "Keep The Dog Quiet"/"The Great Elsewhere"/"Lewis Takes Off His Shirt"
Rating: 1/5

Café du Ryan

For those of you that know me pretty well, it will come as no surprise when I admit that I don't cook much and therefore often have what some would consider to be a shamefully-barren kitchen. Although I can cook a FEW things (though I didn't learn how to make even these until I was 25), I pretty much just stick to healthy cereal and snacks and my duo of staple dishes...

See, here at Café du Ryan, we pride ourselves on our nearly-exclusively-organic menu of "meals" that can all be prepared within 15 minutes or so (if not much, much faster). Please take a look at what we have to offer:

Breakfast/Late Night Snack (10am-1pm):
A healthy selection of organic cereals with either Whole Foods brand or Horizon organic skim milk and either organic orange juice or the daily GREENSuperFood powdered supplement (mixed in organic apple juice).

Lunch/Early Night Snack (1pm-6pm):
Any combination of organic grape jelly PBJs (usually on wheat bread), Kosher pickles, organic yogurt or apple sauce, or the occasional scrambled eggs (no, we don't usually do these for breakfast, as we're pretty-much cereal-only breakfasters). Honestly though, we usually recommend eating out for lunch, as we're usually on the road then (when there's also the fallback option of Clif Kid ZBars...)

Dinner Entrés (8pm-12am):
We have TWO choices: spaghetti w/organic spinach noodles and canned pasta sauce mixed with freshly-cooked ground bison, or Cheesy Beefins (aka The Ryan Special): ground bison, organic grape tomatoes, and organic mixed shredded cheese. Or you could always just have cereal again... ;)

L.I.E.

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Four Years Back Home

It occurred to me the other night that this past Monday was the four year anniversary of me returning home to the States from The Netherlands, something that I feel like I've kinda forgotten to recognize for at least a year or two. At first, this date was mainly important to me due to my nostalgia for my time in Europe, but seeing as this sentiment has faded over the years and that this was the last big move I'll probably make for the foreseeable future, my reasons for recognizing the event have changed.

If you had asked me back then if I'd ever end up settling in Atlanta permanently AND end up loving it, I would've said you were crazy. At the time, the last place I ever wanted to end up was here (short of some small town or any equally seemingly-unremarkable big city), and yes, when I did settle in at first, I was skeptical that I'd end up staying long. In fact, within that first year, I had entertained ideas of moving to Bloomington, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and even Vancouver, but ultimately, none of these seemed all that reasonable compared to building my teaching career here, and once I started working on band stuff with Jeremy, my desire to leave what I finally realized was a pretty cool indie rock/hipster scene disappeared entirely...it just took some time to finally find it all in the city in which I had grown up...

It was this new sense of appreciation for Atlanta that I finally decided to buy a condo here, so by this point, I had already kicked the idea of leaving, but if all this wasn't enough, now I've got Suzi, the love of my life, here with me, and I really couldn't be happier. Sure, band stuff isn't really working out, but I've had enough opportunities already to see how wonderful my city is, and though I hope band stuff does get rolling again, I'd stay even if it didn't. In fact, the most likely scenario in which I'd move away would probably be if Suzi decided that she was tired of being stuck in the city she grew up in (since she's not much for long distance driving or flying on her own) and wanted to move somewhere bigger like San Fran or NYC, to which I quite-likely might say yes...

But that's a long way off, and I'm totally happy here in the ATL for this stage of my life. I've got a great set of friends, a good career, a great condo, and the most loving relationship I've ever had, so if I had to stay forever, I'd probably be totally good with that. Glad I decided to stay after all... =)

Time Bandits

Continuing my trend of watching movies on Netflix based entirely off somewhat-hazy childhood memories, I took the time to re-watch the Monty Python guys' 1981 kids film Time Bandits, which I'm pretty sure I saw a large chunk of back when I was a kid, though probably not the whole thing. So, I'm going to say that this viewing was technically my first of the entire film in one sitting, but though that would qualify it for consideration for this year's Top 5, there's no need to worry there, as it really wasn't that fantastic, especially not compared to my childhood memories...

Time Bandits follows a young boy from the modern day through his time traveling adventures with a band of midget thieves, and as such, the film takes the viewer to many different time periods and settings, leading up to a big confrontation with the film's analog to Satan. As a kid, this left a very strong impression, and I've been dying to check out the film again as an adult for quite awhile, but though the settings were all pretty well done, especially for the time, the Monty Python-esque British humor, which was lost on me as a kid, more-or-less ruined the experience for me as an adult. Perhaps I just don't get British humor, but the dryness and somewhat-choppy editing added up to an experience that, though most-likely expensive at the time from a film production standpoint, simply seemed a bit thrown together. The film boasts a healthy lineup of celebrity cameos (including Sean Connery, Ian Holm, and Shelley Duvall amidst many more British actors I'm not sure I know), but all of these feel a tad bit dialed in (figuratively-speaking) and don't carry the professionalism I would expect from a non-kids Monty Python feature.

So, I didn't really enjoy Time Bandits all that much, though I do respect the scope of the film and its impressive-for-the-time destinations and sets. Well, at least I've gotten the urge to re-watch it out of my system and can move onto the next kids film that should probably stay in my childhood... ;)

Rotten Rotten Tomatoes

As you may have noticed, I occasionally reference a particular film's Rotten Tomatoes metascore to point out the overall critical opinion for the film, often in contrast with my own. Now, although I was aware of the rival site Metacritic.com, I always just relied on Rotten Tomatoes, mainly because, well...their site is cooler. As such, I've more-or-less committed the rough scores that a number of movies I've seen have received on Rotten Tomatoes to memory, but I've recently become aware of some information that's shaking my faith in the way Rotten Tomatoes tallies their scores...

First off, it's important to note that there are two types of reviews out there to tabulate: those that give some sort of grade to each film, and those that don't. Well, in Rotten Tomatoes' effort to keep things consistent and balanced, they generally ignore any actual grades all-together and instead simply assess whether the review seems to be more positive or negative. If it's more positive, it essentially receives a 100% from that reviewer, and if negative, a 0%. So, what you end up getting with their final metascore is an average representing the overall positivity/negativity, not an average of actual review scores.

So, why is this a problem for me? Well, technically, all a film has to do to earn a 100% metascore on Rotten Tomatoes is to have every single critic out there give it essentially a 51% score, which in real math would equate to, you guessed it, a 51%, a whole 49 percentage points lower than the score Rotten Tomatoes assigns. Granted, things won't usually be this biased, and with the kind of large sampling of reviewers that they tend to use, there will be at least a few dissenters, either positive or negative, but still... I've occasionally noticed how far off the average review scores are from my own, or how sometimes unreasonably graded even the typically-great Pixar films tend to be (often in the high 90's), and now it's all starting to make sense.

By contrast, Metacritic uses graded review scores AND subjective grade assignments based off the tone of non-graded reviews to generate their metascores, and as such, though less consistently-graded, their scores tend to be much more balanced. In fact, in looking at the top ten grossing films in the box office right now on both sites, I found that Rotten Tomatoes tends to inflate positive scores (or deflate negative ones) on Metacritic by an average of 11.5 points, which is quite sizable if you ask me.

So, it's looking like I might be permanently switching to Metacritic from this point on, despite finding it significantly less sexy, which means I'll have to start re-memorizing a number of my standard benchmark films' scores and trying not to get them confused with the old Rotten Tomatoes ones. Ugh. Oh well...better to find this out late than never, I guess?

Bowling For Columbine

As a big fan of Michael Moore's 2007 documentary Sicko, it was just a matter of time before I finally got around to watching his first blockbuster documentary, 2002's Bowling For Columbine, which I caught on streaming Netflix, much like the disappointingly-biased Capitalism: A Love Story, which I watched months before.

Now, while I didn't quite like Bowling For Columbine as much as Sicko, it was clear why it was so well-received, and I really don't have any complaints with it. No, it didn't change my life, but then again, gun control isn't one of my most important issues with America, so it didn't really hit as close to home as the healthcare system or (potentially) capitalism in general. Overall, Moore makes generally well-backed-up claims to support his feelings on the subject matter and, as always, weaves his case in an entertaining manner.

Easily the highlight of the film is the three-minute cartoon in the style of South Park (though not by the South Park guys) entitled "A Brief History Of The United States Of America", which paints an oversimplified-but-hard-to-deny account of white fear leading to violence, slavery, gun laws, more violence, and eventually white flight. The other high point of the film is when Moore actually goes to Charlton Heston's house to discuss the actor and NRA president's controversial views on gun control, especially in light of the 1999 Columbine HS massacre.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed Bowling For Columbine and recommend it to anyone who's into issue-based documentaries, but I would say Sicko and Food, Inc. (not by Moore) are more effective and ultimately more relevant to the issues of the day.

Skull Tape - The Invisible Hand And The Descent Of Man

Thus far, this year hasn't seen me taking too many risks with albums by new artists, the kind I've never heard of though they might not actually be new. I'm not sure if it's due to having many of my new albums suggested to me by HiFi (all of which are by generally well-known bands), or if the change in iTunes clip length from 30 to 90 seconds has discouraged me a bit from finding new acts that way, so the presumably (I couldn't find out much about them online) LA-based Skull Tape might be one of my first truly new discoveries this year with their album The Invisible Hand And The Descent Of Man. Unfortunately, not all new discoveries turn out to be amazing, and I ended up being a bit letdown by the album once I really got to know it.

Skull Tape lured me in with their charming blend of a raw punkier side with frequent-though-minimal synth lines and Tom DeLonge-esque (of Blink-182) vocals, but the material proved to work better as shorter iTunes clips than as the full versions found on the album. In fact, there were at least three songs on the album that I probably would have considered stronger contenders for the top three tracks off the disc had it not been for the band's inability to end the song where it needs to, insisting on having a repetitive ending for each that didn't add much to the experience. These are simple, high energy, punky songs, and having them last for five and a half minutes doesn't make sense. Also, though I liked the lead singer's Tom DeLonge-ish vocals on the first few listens, they eventually started to get to me, as they only helped create a sense that the band could use a little more variety, including instrumentally.

Still, there are some fun moments on the album, especially "Fable Of The Bees" and "Universal Acid", but the band really needed to either limit this material to an EP's-length of tracks or ditch some of the filler and add more variety. Still, I don't hate the album and think it could be more down someone else's alley, and I am eager to see what their next record has to offer.

Highlights: "Fable Of The Bees"/"Universal Acid"/"Anon Anon"
Rating: 2/5

Evan's Wedding in Seattle

Now onto the wedding part of the Seattle trip, which I'm gonna say starts when Suzi arrived and we began our part of the trip together. We spent three nights staying in the Seattle suburbs near all the wedding activities so that we'd be nearby whenever wedding stuff was on the schedule, but Jim and his wife Katie split a rental car with us so we could make the most of our Seattle visit by driving into downtown Seattle in the first half of our three mornings in town. Here are some of the highlights, though I didn't take many pics at most of the proper wedding festivities:

Seattle Wedding Trip w/Suzi (Part I)
Seattle Wedding Trip w/Suzi (Part II)

The albums above cover our city-touring parts of the trip pretty well, so short of saying that Suzi and I enjoyed our much-too-brief visits to Seattle's charming downtown, I'm just going to talk about the wedding activities. Being a Sunday wedding, the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner took place on Saturday, so after Jim and I hit up the rehearsal and a brief stop at the Red Hook brewery nearby with some of the wedding party, we returned to the hotel to pick up the ladies and return to Red Hook for a bit before we all headed over to the rehearsal dinner at Evan's aunt and uncle's gorgeous suburban house. The highlight of the rehearsal for me was the groomsmen's impromptu presentation of a set of mostly-custom-made Chuck Norris-inspired jokes about Evan designed to rival the bridesmaids' parody medley (which they had been planning for some time, unbeknownst to us).

The next day's activities pretty much amounted to the pre-wedding photos, the wedding itself, and the reception, as would be expected. The wedding took place at the stunning Willows Lodge and went off without a hitch. The highlight for me was definitely getting to read from Philip Glass' Einstein On The Beach (Knee Play 5), during which I got a bit choked up, partly due to the subject matter and weight of getting to read something so important to me publicly, but mostly due to simply being happy to see one of my best friends so in love and with such an incredible family (on both sides) in full support. It really was a beautiful wedding weekend, and that moment just sealed the whole thing in for me. Definitely set the bar pretty high for weddings, that's for damn sure. Thanks to Evan and Katherine, their families, and their friends for having Suzi and me join them for such an important moment in their lives.

Just Go With It

On the plane ride over to Seattle with my buddy Jim for Evan's bachelor party, we ended up watching the only movie that was showing on the plane, the recent Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy Just Go With It, where Adam's character has his coworker (Jennifer's character) pretend to be his ex-wife whom he's supposedly divorcing so his current girlfriend will know the fake wedding band he wears to attract women actually doesn't mean anything. Yeah, it's kinda complicated, and as such, this is one of those movies where lies continue to build up until everything falls apart.

Overall, it was really cute and actually had some legitimately funny laugh-out-loud moments despite not being the kind of film I would usually see. Part of this is due to the presence of Nick Swardson, whom I've loved since Grandma's Boy, here playing Adam's cousin who ends up pretending to be Jennifer's new lover, an Austrian sheep salesman also named Dolph Lundgren. Yes, I chuckled a bit just writing that, and yes, I feel guilty for it. Also, Dave Matthews (yes, the rock star) has a supporting role in this film and is surprisingly really good at acting! Anyway, the weird thing to me about the film is that Jennifer Aniston is easily more attractive than the girl Adam Sandler is going after (played by Brooklyn Decker, whoever that is), so I never believed it for a moment when they tried to make Brooklyn out as the clear winner in the looks department.

Overall, the movie was fun yet stupid, but I would take it over The Hangover Part II any day. Check it out if you're looking for a decent romantic comedy to watch with the significant other.

Evan's Bachelor Party

Finally onto the big Seattle wedding posts! Seems like this happened so long ago, but maybe that's just because a lot's happened since then, as it was only two months ago. As I may have mentioned before, my roommate from my time at Berkeley Run and longtime good friend Evan met his now-wife back when we were living together, but a bunch of long distance trips to see one another and a move to Chicago later and Evan proposed, leading up to one of the best weddings I've ever been to.

But first had to come the bachelor party. That said, many of the people Evan had in mind for the occasion, myself included, were pretty laid back guys, and therefore, a huge strippers-and-beer night out didn't really seem to fit. So instead, Evan, his brother, and his cousins planned a big camping trip out in Seattle, scheduled back-to-back with the actual wedding. First, here's the Facebook album:

Evan's Bachelor Party

So, as you can see, the trip was pretty special. Not only was the scenery easily some of the best I've ever laid eyes on (in America or elsewhere), the guys all got along really well, the food they prepared was incredible (especially for camping!), the drive to/from went by quickly, and even the camping itself was pretty cushy for a city guy like myself. Sure, having the bachelor party right before the wedding, and therefore having to have Suzi fly out alone, created some stress leading up to it, but once things were rolling, it was a blast, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Thanks to Evan and the rest of the guys for all the hard work putting it together (especially since I didn't know squat about camping) and for picking a fantastic group of guys who all meshed together so well. This definitely set a high standard for bachelor parties, that's for sure, even though it wasn't really debaucherous at all. Wedding stuff soon to follow...

Pollock

After falling in love with Basquiat in all its radiance, I suddenly found myself really drawn to the similar biopic on Jackson Pollock...well THAT, and the fact that Pollock was about to be taken off streaming Netflix... Regardless of the reasons, I managed to squeeze in my viewing of the painterly biopic just before heading out for Seattle for Evan's camping bachelor party, and I have to say that I generally enjoyed it a good bit. No, it wasn't as charming as Basquiat, and the characters were infinitely less lovable, but Ed Harris did an incredible job as both the leading role AND the director, reminding me how talented he is and how much I typically enjoy his work, despite not having seen him in something for quite awhile.

Perhaps the most memorable part of the film has very little to do with the film at all, and more Suzi's recollection of it (she saw it years ago and didn't re-watch it with me this time around). I'm not going to go into detail, but basically, Suzi does an incredible impression of Marcia Gay Harden's portrayal of Lee Krasner (Pollock's wife) and made a fairly inappropriate (though quiet) remark in that voice to me out in public, one that left me laughing quite hard, though most-likely inexplicably to everyone else. Anyway, now I'll always think of that moment when I think of the film, immortalizing the two together forever. Alright, I'll stop being vague about inside jokes now and just get on with recommending that you check out the film if you're into artists, biopic dramas, Ed Harris, and/or painting with dorks.

SONICpalooza 2011

Towards the end of June, GaTech's noteworthy new music ensemble Sonic Generator hosted an ambitious day-long festival featuring numerous classic minimalist pieces, and plenty of others by other notable composers. Pieces of note on the program included some Steve Reich (Clapping Music, Nagoya Marimbas, Music For Pieces Of Wood, and the entire Music For 18 Musicians), Philip Glass (Mad Rush, String Quartet No.5, and Arabesque In Memoriam), David Lang (Press Release and Child), George Crumb's Unto The Hills: American Songbook III, and Frederic Rzewski's Coming Together. Granted, most of this was spread out over the course of the day, and considering I didn't have the time/energy to see the whole thing, I ended up decided to just show up for the grand finale of Coming Together and Music For 18 Musicians plus the two pieces preceding it: John Luther Adams' The Farthest Place and Tristan Perich's Observations.

I believe Suzi and I walked in on the JL Adams piece midway in, so we technically didn't get to catch all of it, but I remember liking it, though I found it a bit odd to have programmed something so similar to the Reich so close to it. The Perich was also very Reich-ish in that it was minimal and scored for two sets of crotales along with a simple electronic accompaniment (at least, according to his site...live, it might have been an instrument?). Now, while I was excited to see the Reich that night, I might have been even more excited for the Rzewski, as I had absolutely loved the Eight Blackbird performance I caught at CCM back in 2005, but the instrumental performance wasn't that hot this time around, and though my bass teacher from high school happened to be the narrator, the lack of proper amplification and the fact that the Atlanta Symphony's lobby area (where the concert was held) had poor acoustics made his part quite hard to hear, and therefore unfortunately ineffective.

That said, the Reich ended things on a nice note, though Suzi started drifting in the last twenty minutes or so. The only other large-scale Reich piece I believe I've ever caught live up to this point was Music For 18 Musicians' simpler predecessor Drumming, and though that memory has faded quite a bit, I think I would say the quality of performance this time around was roughly at the same high level, while the net effect might have been a bit stronger, as I was able to sit this time around and the piece is arguably a stronger work all-around. The other big highlight of the evening was running into and catching up with one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Childs, who was my private composition instructor and mentor during my time at UGA and with whom I've tried to maintain contact over the years since I graduated.

Overall, it was a fun night, though I do think Sonic Generator should consider not putting on quite so many similar minimalist pieces back to back. Look, I love the style, but variety is key for properly appreciating works of such depth and magnitude. Still, I'm impressed they were able to organize and perform so much difficult music and sincerely hope they bring the festival back next year. Who knows, maybe if I try I could try to get involved...?

Stigmata

Now here's a movie I grew up (well, in my late high school years) absolutely loving and was really excited to see again on Netflix, despite its shockingly low 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 1999's Stigmata tells the story of a young, modern (think chic rave culture at the time...) atheist hairdresser, played by Patricia Arquette, who ends up receiving the stigmata (Jesus' wounds) and being the focal point of a Vatican investigation into the lost gospel of Jesus himself, which manages to threaten the existence of the Catholic church at large. So, the film combines elements of exorcism/possession films and Da Vinci Code-style church politics (though Stigmata preceded even the book by a handful of years), all in a stylized modern world, set to a score by none other than Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins) himself.

But the original reason I loved this film so much was its subject matter, being the kind of extremely grace-based take on Biblical legalism that I really needed to hear back when I was a very zealous Christian, and thus, I held tightly to the film as inspiration to help me get out of my suffocating religious fervor. So, while times have changed for me in this regard, the film has managed to only diminish a little, as I still enjoyed the experience this time around quite much. Sure, it's a dumb film on some level, and the late 90's rave-inspired style is kinda stupid, but the unique story and intermittent horror elements make for a fun ride. Check it out if this sounds like it might interest you, though I'm sure you don't need it to pull you out of some theological morass... =)

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Here's one of those albums that I've known about for a long time but never could muster up the excitement required to finally commit to making it my CD of the week, that is, until I started learning a few of the songs in lessons with one of my students and Suzi offered to let me use her copy of the album. To my surprise, I ended up liking the album a whole lot, and while it's got a couple songs that really start to sound a bit too much like each other, the unique combination of African and (slight) punk rock elements with a New England (via New York) yacht-culture perspective makes for one of the most unique sounds in current indie rock.

That said, if you know a bit about African rock and/or somewhat-pretentious yachting culture, the album will follow as expected, and as such, there isn't too much for me to further elaborate on. Vampire Weekend's sound is very similar to that of their regional neighbors Ra Ra Riot, whose two albums I also gave fours to last year, but Vampire Weekend definitely has a more upbeat and lighthearted edge, perfectly gelling with the African elements. That said, I'm not sure I'll be as inclined to pick up their second album, Contra, as initial listenings seem to suggest that the experiences are quite similar, and seeing as I haven't learned any of the songs from the sophomore album, I might just skip it entirely, at least for the foreseeable future. Still, check out Vampire Weekend if it sounds interesting to you...its charm will probably win you over quite quickly.

Highlights: "Mansard Roof"/"I Stand Corrected"/"Walcott"
Rating: 4/5