SXSW Preview 4 : The Bots, Eminence, and Cerebral Ballzy

My head is literally spinning from all of the rsvp'ing that I have been doing lately to get into the hundreds of awesome day parties this year. I'm secretly hoping that Fader Fort decides to come up with another creative musical marriage between R. Kelly and Mumford and Sons so all of the scrubs run over there and I can catch Outkast's secret show, wherever that will be. Actually I would love to catch Sir Robert but the second he started to play Black Panties, I would impregnate someone on the spot and I'm way too broke for all of that. So on the future R. Kellys.

First up is The Bots, a duo that hails from Glendale, California; and lucky for them it appears that Fader has found two more black kids to like. They just so happen to be brothers (not like soul brothers or anything)and one plays guitar or bass while the other bangs away on the drums. Their style is punk music with a garage band feel to it and you get the sense that they fit this in somewhere in between skateboarding and listening to Bad Brains albums. For being kids they certainly seem to have a bright future. And while their music isn't  not quite mind melting yet, they do have the ability to get me rocking from time to time. I rate them as FRESH!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb5P4cqsLj0

Next up is Eminence, a band out of Brazil that I hope can bring back my love for metal. Recently I have discovered that all of my favorite metal bands are either racist or wannabe Satan worshipers and clearly I'm not down with either. But since these guys are from Brazil they can't be racist right? Most of the country is actually blacker than I am. And with the gigantic Jesus statue they have on that mountain they'd be too scared to be devil worshippers for fear of lightening bolts coming from his eyes! Well musically they bring back memories of when metal was simple; a time where it had punishing guitars, deep screaming from the lead vocalist, and drums that made you want literally bang your head against the wall in ecstasy. I'm not sure if they will blow up but I give these guys a rating of FRESH.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1EJa4bq-vs

The last act for today is Cerebral Ballzy, a hardcore punk band from the dirty side of NYC. NME mag is apparently in love with them, so that alone will get them a lot of attention. I like but not love these guys as their style doesn't really separate them from most of the decent punk bands that are out there today, but they are still solid. I think their terrible cover of Stone Roses' I Wanna Be Adored is the single thing that's holding them back. But their songs about Cutting Class and being a Junky for a Girl have the typical material that you are looking for in this kind of music. Right now I'll rate them as barely WEAK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTB1XGyTBoo

Cody Jasper

While it is slowly starting to come from under the shadow that is Stevie Ray Vaughan with it's increasing number of talented indie artists, Austin is still struggling to get rid of the label of being a town that hosts great music festivals but only produces good blues acts. And it seems as though every kid that grew up in or around this area feels the need to try and emulate Vaughan's style as well as his terrible hair. Now don't get me wrong, I realize that Amarillo isn't that close to Austin and I also get that Cody Jasper is also influenced by Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding, but it seems as though when he moved here and recorded his self titled debut album, he fell right into the trap that every other local kid does. But I didn't want to rush to judgement before I listened to his album and saw him perform live.

The second I popped his cd (yes they still make those) in and the first track stared to play, I immediately wanted to take it right back out. The album starts off with a drunken juke joint jam named Black Cadillac and comes complete with a banjo and white guys trying to sound like they've been working in the fields all day. You get the feeling that he saw 12 Years A Slave and said to himself "As hot as it got in Amarillo in the summertime, I can relate to this" Um, things were just a little harder than that Cody. But thankfully once the second track started up, you could tell that he stopped trying so hard and began to play what came naturally to him. He tightens things up a bit with Cherry Pie and begins to sound like he is actually from Texas as he is singing about whiskey and his desire to not leave a woman but also his need to stay alive. It has a driving beat and makes you want to drink a Lone Star while driving in the country. He continues this trend with Evil Woman and The Deal is Done; and by the time the lovely Holy Water starts up, you realize that you may have actually found another Texas treasure.

Now if you like what you hear so far, then I would suggest that you stop reading now and go listen to the cd for yourself to see if Jasper is worth adding to your music library. Because I can guarantee that my thoughts on his live show will make you think twice.

When he first walked on stage, I thought that he was attempting his best Jim Morrison impersonation with his super low cut v neck shirt and gaudy chain. And of course the Stevie Ray hair was flowing in full effect as well. But seriously, who wears straight legged stone washed denim jeans anymore? I guess its been too long since I haven't seen a musician wear skinny jeans. Now as far as his actual performance goes, he brought a lot of energy but the rest of his band mates looked like they were hired zombies, or they were simply too scared to be on a stage. His bassist was the lone exception but even he looked like the slim fast version of John Popper, so that was a bit distracting.

Jasper does have the ability to draw in a lot of cute girls to his show and it was nice of him to have his dad, who looked like Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace, record everything for him. But as I was taking inventory of the whole scene, it reminded me of the scene in Ghost World where Steve Buscemi takes his date to see an actual blues legend open up for this local scrub with flowing locks, and sadly everyone was there to see the scrub.

It wasn't until his third song in, where he starts wailing True Love is Gone, that you were able to hear his vocal range and see his guitar skills on display. The only thing is, it looks like he's having the worst orgasm ever during his guitar solos. But again, he had the local frat guys fist pumping during this song, so it gave them a temporary break from dispensing the date rape drug that night. I kid, I kid...not really. Rosemary is one of my favorite songs of his as it's a song about redemption. It pulls at your heartstrings and you cant help but find yourself grooving in boozy agreement as he takes you through this failed relationship. This was easily the highlight of the show. But just when you are settling in and getting into it, he then decides to slow things down a bit with some acoustic numbers, and naturally it took you right out of the flow and energy he had just built up. I hate when bands do this. The only way to make things worse is to follow up this slow down period with the awful Black Cadillac I mentioned earlier. And wouldn't you know it, he did just that.

From a live show perspective, this is perfect for tourists who are in town and want to have an "Austin live music experience". But as far as the locals are concerned, they know better as they venture elsewhere for good music. I think Jasper can potentially grow into a good live act but his A&R people have some serious work to do. Otherwise he will have a long career as a music teacher. For now he gets a rating of pretty WEAK.

 

Pompeii

I was having dinner with my buddy and I was trying to convince him of how awesome of a director Paul W.S. Anderson is. Not only because he's my brother from another mother that has the balls to put TWO initials in his name but also because he consistently produces entertaining action flicks with hot chicks in them. With the exception of Resident Evil Afterlife, none of them are truly great but you typically leave the theater with at least two action sequences that either had you laughing at how over the top they were or had you in awe of how many fist pumping, adrenaline producing moments they brought about. For a while I thought he was also responsible for the ridiculously amusing Stealth, you know, the movie about the A.I. plane that talked trash to people as it killed them while listening to Incubus; but sadly that masterpiece belongs to Rob L. Cohen (the guy with only one initial in his name). This eventually led to us coming up with the ultimate action directing teams of the Coen brothers and the Wachowski's; we would make one of each work with the other. It would be best written action movie ever that would somehow also bring about transgender love!

Well unfortunately for us, Anderson looks like he is attempting to go legit with his latest movie Pompeii. For the first hour of the film he bores us nearly to death with his attempts at character development and a narrative that resembles almost every period piece that has been set in ancient Rome for the past 20 years. And I realize that this is mainly on the writers but his job is to make this plodding story entertaining. He tries his best to do so but you can't help but roll your eyes when you see how many movies are being ripped as the story unfolds.

They start you off by showing you how a young Milo (Kit Harrington) has to witness his parents being mercilessly killed by the hands of the evil Roman general Corvus (Sutherland) and his head henchman Proculus; in a scene that clearly reminds you of the opening of Braveheart. They then proceed to show you how he is enslaved and forced to become an expert gladiator while befriending a big black warrior who is number 2 only to him; sounding rather similar to Gladiator. He even has a fat owner that only lays around and eats grapes while shouting out orders like Dom Deluise in History of the World Part 1. I could go on but I think you get the point by now. I also thinks its worthy to note that my friend thought that Harringon was actually Orlando Bloom until I reminded him that it was in fact Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. Perhaps that's a rather glaring indictment of Harrington's inability to come off as a true action hero but to me he did just fine. He's more cut and attractive than I'll ever be but I'm not sure what that says.

Once you get past the setup however, this is where you see Anderson begin to shine. He saves most of the blood that a pg-13 movie will allow for the final gladiator battle which has Harrington and his black buddy fighting for their lives as the cunning Sutherland has blackmailed his way into a forced marriage with Harrington's love interest Cassia. But in the middle of the battle, Mt Vesuvius (you remember it don't you) decides to erupt, sending everyone into a frenzy. So Harrington is a rush to not only save Cassia from Sutherland but hopefully also from the impending death the eruption is sure to cause. During his attempt you see some rather impressive set pieces that involve large tidal waves, ships crashing into the city, and giant sections of the Earth crumbling while taking monuments and people with it. This is worth the price of admission alone and finally woke me up from my slumber.

While I did ultimately enjoy the film, I can't quite give it a rating of fresh. For now I will give it a rating of WEAK but I reserve the right to change my mind once I see it on HBO 6 months from now.

 

SXSW Preview 3 : The Wytches, Residuels, and Pagiins

As you can tell from the band names that are listed in the title of this post, you are more likely to go to hell from listening to them than you are to finding the soundtrack for your life. But if you are like me and you are obsessed with soundtracks, you have probably fallen in love with some bands that you have later regretted listening to as time passed by due to this need for them in your life. I miss the days when big budget films would put just as much effort into the movie's soundtrack as they did the movie itself. So instead of utilizing a good score they'd simply force some big artist's song over an action scene like they did with Nine Inch Nails in The Crow or Massive Attack in Blade II. The only thing is that in those instances it actually worked and enhanced the movie but there are plenty of examples out there where you just ended up laughing at the result of their efforts; such as the weird mix of Helmet and House of Pain blaring in the background as Emilio Estevez fought off Dennis Leary or  Charlie Sheen listening to some dirty hip hop in his convertible in Money Talks. Now the reason I bring up these terrible examples is because I actually liked that stupid Judgement Night soundtrack for a quick second but I never had the balls to admit that to anyone. So I get that we can get caught up in the moment of something exciting and make poor decisions as a result of it. But the good news is, I don't think that's the case with these bands I'm previewing today with SXSW right around the corner.

First up is the band The Wyches, and I have to say that I am thankful for the fact that it seems like someone out there finally heard my cry for the return of the Strange House version of The Horrors. I've always said that their first album sounded like the soundtrack to a Vincent Price movie. And while the music of The Wytches isn't quite that, it does serve as a nice score to a random USA Up All Night with Rhonda movie fest with its odd mix of surfer rock, psychedelia, and dark and fuzzy guitar riffs. Wire Frame Mattress and Gravedweller are two personal favorites of mine from this British trio and as of now I have to give these guys a rating of FRESH.
http://soundcloud.com/thewytches/wire-frame-mattress

Next up is Residuels. Just imagine if Bruce Springsteen formed a punk/garage band and didn't  let his stupid wife sing; the result would be these guys. When you're limited to two instruments it's hard to make your sound distinctive, so either your personality or your voice as the lead has to stick out; and thankfully for them Justin Pittney does just enough to do that. The problem I see for them long term is that with today's technology it's easy for 8 million bands with a similar sound to get their music out there and because of that I think it will be hard for these guys to blow up. But I do suggest that you pop in for a good time as this is as close to bluesy punk as you can get. He really sounds like a Cajun who happens to be stuck in Philly. I rate them as FRESH.
http://soundcloud.com/residuels/too-much

The last artist for the day would be the Pagiins, a garage band from Arkansas. I don't think they have a consistent enough style to really blow up simply because one second they sound like the young energetic punks you'd expect to hear and then the next they sound like teens who just started playing music yesterday. It's as if they heard their first ever Ramones album and tried to copy it. I do think they are fun and worth a listen but for now they get a rating of WEAK.
http://soundcloud.com/pagiins/maria

 

Robocop

Thank you Hollywood for continuing to provide terrible action movie options for us lonely losers on Valentine's Day. This ridiculous farce of a holiday started off with such promise for me as I was taking girls on the ultimate dream date of Whataburger followed by Rushmore for the double whammy but now all of a sudden I find myself having man dates to see The Wolfman or Die Hard 8: Love on the Brain. Obviously this isn't ideal but it sure beats attending the latest trend of meet and greets, these childish puppy happy hours where you see dudes shamelessly taking their neighbor's dog to the bar in hopes of getting some young twenty something to give them a hand job in their car afterwards. Sorry, as you can tell I continued the tradition of Rushmore this year, so hand jobs are on my mind.

So there I was this weekend, convincing a buddy of mine to see yet another unnecessary remake of a Paul Verhoeven classic in Robocop. A few years back we were provided with an uninspired remake of his Total Recall. I liked it mainly because it was really different from the original and had the best of both worlds as far as men are concerned with Jessica Biel (American brunette) and Kate Beckinsdale (British brunette), but in the end it turned out to be a rather forgettable movie. But hey, you wont ever hear me complain about hot women shooting at one another in cool action scenes. And typically you wont hear me complain about robot men shooting up random scrubs in the streets either but it looks like that day is today.

I wont waste your time comparing the remake to the original but I will say that the only thing the two really share in common is the name. Yes they both ultimately have a man brought back to life in the form of a robot but one is R with satirical violence and corruption while the other is PG-13 with long and boring conversations. I give them credit for trying to turn the remake into a serious sci-fi movie but what they failed to accomplish in doing so was to make it entertaining. The first hour is literally one pseudo scientific conversation followed by another about how human consciousness always gets in the way of robotic technology. And as time begins to run out on them to find a sell able solution to the government, Michael Keaton starts to bend his ethical beliefs and eventually turns into the evil corporate monster who will literally do anything to make a buck. Sadly he doesn't say anything fresh like "Delicious" ala the corporate monster in Tomorrow Never Dies.

They do sprinkle in some light comedy from time to time with Samuel L. Jackson randomly popping on screen as the corporate whore to yell at you about robots and how you're not truly American if you don't believe in the country's need for them. Clearly this is a shot at Fox News as they even give him a ridiculous looking wig to try and make him look as close to the black Bill O'Reilly as possible. In order to make the joke complete he really should've been yelling at white rappers about doing fried chicken commercials (see O'Reilly vs Ludacris).

Anyway, the point is, by the time they finally got around to some attempts at action scenes you were so bored that you simply didn't care. I like the director Jose Padhila's previous movies but it seems like he was strapped by the PG-13 rating and was reduced to attempting lame tricks to make the action enjoyable. Robocop for some reason used stun guns on criminals and most of the shootouts were filmed at weird angles or in the dark so it made the violence almost cartoonish. Now I will admit that the gun fight that took place in the dark was cool because of the night vision and because of Robocop's robovision but it ultimately didn't make any sense within the context of the movie. I mean let's be real, the only people checking out action movies on Valentine's Day are old scrubs, so why not just make it a R rated film and have exploding heads and random criminals walking around in agonizing pain after being exposed to toxic waste?

Well I don't want to complain too much because again, at least someone out there is looking out for me. I will however have to give this movie a rating of really WEAK and I suggest that you avoid it.

Blind Pets and Leopold and His Fiction SXSW Preview 2

Some days I get lucky and I literally fall into awesomeness; like this one random night I walked into a French restaurant right after happy hour. I just so happened to be a little more than buzzed that evening and I proceeded to fall off of my bar stool while I was hitting on the unbelievably cute bartender. I guess what I did was so impressive that she decided it would be a great idea to set me up with her equally cute best friend. Now the fact that she thought the two of us would make a great pair after seeing this display either means that this chick will end up slashing my tires or we'll be married within two weeks; either way I will not be doing anything stupid like purchasing a white Ford Bronco right  before our first date.

The point of that ridiculous story is that in this town you can have an unexpected life changing event by simply going to the taco trailer up the street! Now I know this isn't specific to Austin but I am also aware of the fact that there are far more places like the awful Victoria, Texas that make you want to kill yourself than there are Londons or San Fransiscos in this world. Thankfully I escaped that dump and I live in a city where I can walk into a random venue and hear a decent to pretty damn good band on any given night. And because the music scene has gotten so much better here lately, I think it has ruined me a bit when it comes to checking out new bands for festivals. Most of the "rock" bands I have encountered lately while researching new artists literally sound like the guys that live next door to me. I get it, you're a 3 piece garage band who has a lead singer that likes to scream; I was actually alive when Nirvana was around, what else you got?

So in honor of the improving Austin music scene, I will do something that I by rule never do; and that's recommend a local artist for you to check out during SXSW. Blind Pets are an Austin hard rock band whose guitar riffs are so frenetic that they make you want to punch your steering wheel while you're driving 80 mph ala Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Hopefully you haven't just done blow while banging a groupie in the restroom of a restaurant which causes you to miss lunch with your daughter the next day. Or hopefully you have, it all depends on your life goals I guess. The point is, the energy of their music reminds you of the 80's when the lead singer of each band would smash his guitar at the end of every song. Thankfully though these don't actually look like a hair band, they just remind you of a time when rock was real! I rate these guys as FRESH and suggest that you check them out. They will be playing Headhunter's Patio Wednesday at midnight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRGBv1ZADes

Up next is Leopold and His Fiction. It appears that the only consistent member in the band is the lead Daniel James, who is alarmingly pale and has a stupid army haircut that makes him look like Borat. I do however have to give him props for always rockin a suit, so he at least have that going for himself. He mixes in his bluesy vocals and lyrics with stripped down guitars in a way that reminds you of something from the late 60's. He sounds similar to Hanni El Khatib but with less distortion. I can easily see Leopold blowing up like Awolnation did because it is a sound that scenesters will snatch up and claim as quickly as they can, just so they can sound cool to their friends when talking about music. I of course am never guilty of doing this. While I see these guys getting a lot of attention in the near future, I don't see much staying power, so I will give them a rating of kind of WEAK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akTTfAGSJwI

Oscar Nominated Live Action Short Films

Every year I struggle with the fact that I love the Oscars just a bit too much. I'm so weird about it that I can't even watch them with anyone else for fear that they will talk during key moments of the ceremony. I mean seriously, what key moments? Would it really kill me to not hear George Clooney ramble about his role as Danny Ocean and how that helped inspire kids in the Sudan to put down their guns? These guys get all liquored up, throw on their five thousand dollar garments, and try and convince us that the scene with Leo doing blow in the elevator in The Wolf of Wall Street is as important to human history as the discovery of penicillin was. And yet, that Sunday evening I'll be glued to the screen partaking of this huge feast I concocted for myself while guzzlling down a liter of wine!

With that said, even I get bored during certain parts of the awards show. Typically it's within the first 2 minutes of whatever awful monologue the Gestapo police that is the Academy, allows the host to perform. But what's the absolute worst is when I'm two helpings of food and a half a bottle of wine in and they start handing out awards for Best Documentary or Best Short Film. Who really watches these things? Why not just copy the shameless Grammy's and announce these winners before the broadcast? Well this year I decided to take action and I ventured out to see the 5 live action shorts they have nominated for an Oscar and  I have to say that I will certainly being doing this every year from here on out.

Imagine just taking all of the good parts of a movie and cramming it into twenty to thirty minutes; no extended narrative, no character development, and no outside influences of money men to skew the director's vision. What you're left with is a single story told in the most straight forward manner possible. When you see all 5 in a single setting, it's actually quite exhausting as you are taken from one intense short story to the next with barely any time to digest what you have just seen.

You start off with the touching yet depressing Helium; a story about a young boy who is dying of a terminal illness and is spending his last days in a hospital. He seems to be simply going through the motions and is not all that excited about the prospects of an afterlife until he meets the new janitor who helps him discover a fantasy world; a world he creates to help give the boy some hope for the future. It helps that the kid is the cutest boy in the world but they do an awesome job of showing the bond that is formed between the two and the story actually ends in a manner that will keep you away from harmfully using sharp objects on yourself. I rate this one as FRESH.

Next up was the thirteen minute long The Voorman Problem, starring everyone's favorite hobbit in Martin Freeman. He is called into a local prison to analyze an inmate who is causing a moderate revolution among his fellow inmates due to his convincing argument to everyone that his is a god. Freeman goes in skeptical like most would, especially when he sees that the god looks like Booger from Revenge of the Nerds; but the second the inmate starts to display his "power" Freeman's world is turned upside down.  While it was entertaining, I will have to rate this one as WEAK as it seems like an idea I could've come up with in a day.

Here is when you start to get exhausted as the next two pick up the intensity. Up first was the French offering of Just Before Losing Everything. Things start off calm as it appears that a young boy is simply walking to school, that is until a car zips up and frantically picks him up along with another slightly older girl. You soon learn that this woman is trying to escape out of town with her children from her overbearing and physically abusive husband. Along the way however, obstacles keep getting in the way and at least in my eyes, you still aren't sure if she gets away clean at the end. The pacing of the film has you on the edge of your seat from the very moment you figure out what is going on and you find that you are having to restrain yourself from yelling at the screen in an attempt to help the woman. I rate this short as TIGHT and I didn't think it could be beaten until the next film started.

That Wasn't Me starts off by showing an African guide driving this Spanish couple through the jungle of Africa when they get to a barricade that is guarded by two kids armed with automatic rifles. As the guide is trying to convince the guard to allow them safely through, a car with an angry general and his young army pulls up and immediately accuses them of trying to steal his army of children. From that moment on you are shown in a rather convincing fashion just how these kids are trained to become the monsters you read about. I found myself gasping and halfway covering my eyes the second the couple and their guide are lined up to be executed. If by small chance you actually see this film, I won't ruin the ending for you but just know that this short must have had a fairly decent budget as it included a tank and a realistic gun battle in the middle of it. I rate this movie as TIGHT and it clearly should be the winner.

The last film was the shortest and easily the worst of the five. I believe it was chosen because someone's nephew needed a favor and it helped you recover from the previous four films. Do I Have to Take Care of Everything is about a woman whose husband and two kids are absolutely no help in her attempts to get them to a wedding on time. I'm already bored writing about it so I'll just let you know that it was WEAK.

So there you go, hopefully this will help you and possibly me stay awake during this portion of the 10 hour ceremony. I will take my reward in the form of a mimosa the next morning to help with my hangover.

The Monuments Men

I have this annoying neighbor that lives beneath me and from the very first day that I moved in she has been texting me and filing formal complaints with the leasing office about my creaky bed. Apparently she is under the assumption that I am quite the ladies man and that I have sex every morning at exactly 7 am. Now I would have absolutely no problem with this if in fact my bed was creaky and I was having sex every morning at 7 but sadly this is not the case. I mean, I'm a guy, why would I ever lie about NOT having sex with someone unless it was to my girlfriend? Anyway, being that I'm a 12 year old at heart, after receiving yet another complaint from this person, I proceeded to get hammered at a record store party on cheap keg beer and ended up puting up a post on Facebook pleading for someone to come have sex with me just so I can annoy them. Well word must have gotten out because at 3 am that morning some hammered clown was literally trying to kick down my next door neighbor's door trying to get in. All I could hear outside of the thunderous booms was my poor neighbor trying to tell this idiot that they had the wrong apartment number.  Now whether or not this person was responding to my post, I can't be sure but they had three things going against them :  I didn't know who they were, it turned out to be a guy (not my thing), and it's like Ice Cube said in We Be Clubbin "after the club it's either breakfast or f-ing"; well I had already chosen breakfast, so they were clear out of luck!

Why do I bring up this pointless yet slightly entertaining story? Because I'm not much younger than George Clooney is and I still like being single and having fun much like he does. The only difference is he's much better looking than I am, has a boatload more money than I do, and has access to supermodels; so he should be telling far more interesting stories than tales of old men who are traveling to Europe during WWII to save art. Clooney should have a movie about him doing rails off of Lisa Snowden's chest while Sandra Bullock cleans his Italian villa while wearing a furry costume!

But once again we are stuck with someone in Hollywood who thinks they can make better career decisions for themselves than I can. Clooney, somehow conned a few studio execs into giving him money for a story that really should have been a 15 minute piece on 60 Minutes or at best an hour long documentary narrated by Gilbert Godfrey. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that, the movie Payback was really just about an angry Mel Gibson trying to get his $70k back and they managed to entertain me for 90 minutes; so with the right screenplay writer anything is possible. Well hopefully Clooney and Men Who Stare at Goats Heslov decide to put down their pens forever because they surely cooked up a snoozer.

I've already told you the plot; Sir George goes out Ocean's Eleven style and rounds up a random collection of old art snobs that he hopes can help him in preserving some of the culture that is either being destroyed in the war or stolen by Hitler and his cronies for their private collection. Hitler not only wants to destroy an entire race of people but wants to erase any proof of their existence. Now don't get me wrong, I think what these guys did was both noble and brave, and I personally appreciate it due to the fact that I love art and have been lucky enough to see some of these pieces in person. But was a feature film really necessary? And why feel the need to fill it with awful jokes that were clearly meant for a spade and neutered older generation? Every joke, with the exception of Matt Damon's awful attempts at French, fell completely flat and there weren't even any good action scenes in the movie to make up for these repeated failed attempts at humor. The one scene where you think they are up against a sniper ends up disappointing you in a major way as opposed to actually giving you something to talk about once you left the theater.

Matt Damon simply wanders around Paris for an hour of the film and doesn't even get to bang Cate Blanchett for his efforts at the end. Also, my friend had pointed out to me that Clooney in his old age has passed on using action to punk his foes in movies, he instead just talks them to death; see The Good German and Michael Clayton. Well he attempts the same here and by the time he finished his long winded speech, my buddy and I simply looked at each other and gave it a limp thumbs down.

They tried way too hard to make this movie dramatic and as a result you end up checking your watch every 15 minutes as it continues to drag and drag. I rate this movie as WEAK and suggest you go see the stupid Lego movie like the rest of the idiots that were standing in line before me. And as for my downstairs neighbor, I am going to procure a French porno, play it loudly on my blue ray on repeat, and go away for the weekend.

Sohn and Drenge : SXSW Preview 1

Yes yes yes! It’s that time of year again; the time where I run to my doctor for some allergy relief and instead of my actual health, we spend the entire time talking about SXSW. This is good in the sense that I have a cool doctor but bad in the sense that I could be growing a third ear and he wouldn’t even notice because he was too busy listening to my story about Weenie Hut. Weenie Hut is this super nerdy kid that I discovered at an underground Austin hip hop show. He looked like the 16 year old version of Napoleon Dynamite and said weird things like “Um…I’m gonna do rap stuff while you stand there and listen”. Riiiiiight,I thought that there was no way this kid would make it through a single song let alone be any good but as it turned out he kind of killed it! He didn’t even let this weird girl who was heckling him and dancing off beat take him off his game! He in that one moment pretty much summed up everything I love about SX and that’s the fact that you can walk into a show with little to no expectations and walk out with a new favorite artist. Now I’m not saying Weenie Hut is  a new favorite of mine but after combing through the initial 1700 bands that the festival has released, I have found some serious potential.

First up is Sohn, a soulful white brother from Vienna who was born in London just like James Blake. Why do I bring up Blake? Because they are similar in so many ways; however when I first heard the comparisons between the two, I was instantly ready to write Sohn off due to the fact that I didn't think anyone could match Blake's unique ability to make dark soulful indie music cool. But just like with so many other things in life that aren't related to the Cosby Show, I was completely wrong. While his beats aren't as dark and quirky as Blake's, they are synth heavy and have spastic drums that make you think that he listens to a lot of Timbaland in his down time. He makes depressing songs about crazy exes that he keeps going back to like the Offspring's Self Esteem (when's the last time you heard a reference to that song) and songs about chasing girls that don't love him. Now this is stuff that scrubs like me can relate to. Check out his highlights in Lessons and Bloodflows as I rate Sohn and his music as FRESH!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e17iXDf0NGE

Next up is Drenge, two kids who are from Northern England that seem to have a desire to keep the grunge movement alive and kicking. Just try and imagine what Silverchair's sound would be like after they went through puberty and didn't become anorexic. The only thing is, I actually listened to some post puberty Silverchair and Drenge doesn't suck like they did. I would listen to Face Like a Skull and Backwaters to get a sense of what they bring to the table. I rate them as FRESH!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AdfZ2rhZmc