Owen Pallett , Periphery, and the Deftones

Austin is different from the rest of the U.S. in the sense that when a band comes through everyone gives the opening act their complete attention; for at least the first three songs anyway. If they suck after that, then you finally start to see some people wandering around to go smoke or go on the prowl for a possible hook up for the night. Well the same applied to Periphery, the awful wannabe Deftones band that just so happened to be opening for the Deftones.  Their main problem, outside of the fact that they aren’t as talented as the band they were touring with, is they seemed way too happy to be on stage. It’s like watching the reunion tour of a has been band that was never really that popular to begin with and seeing the bassist grinning from ear to ear because he finally has money for heroin again. Everyone in the band had the “oh snap! They’re actually paying attention to us” look on their face. So what did they do? They rewarded us with a metal cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers By The Way. It was so awful that it actually became kind of fresh. These guys are WEAK and should definitely be avoided.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUltTV3t4OM

The Deftones destroyed as usual and played a 2 hour set. This was probably the best show of theirs that I have seen because they played around 5 songs off of each album. So if you’re only down with their old stuff you would have left feeling like it was money well spent. At no point during the show did Chino look tired and he was running around like his normal self. Gone are the fat Chino days apparently. They played in the ACL Moody Theater which is Austin’s newest and best music venue. The sound in there is perfect and you have easy access to multiple bars. And speaking of the bars, they didn’t quite know how to handle the crowd. This was Moody’s first metal show, so they went overboard a bit by having metal detectors at the door and you could tell that they aren’t used to true Mexicans showing up and partying! They were already running out of beer before the Deftones even took the stage. They literally had to do a beer run and were bringing in tubs of Bud Light and Budweiser and were tossing them around like we were at a frat party! I have been to this venue quite a few times and I have never seen anything like this. But once they played Be Quite and Drive, you knew this was going was to be a special night. I rate this show as TIGHT and suggest that you pop in if they have not hit your town yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5ASD-vLKAA

Tonight I am off to see Grizzly Bear and this will be my first time experiencing their new album live. It’s a bit of a departure from Veckatimist as it’s a bit more rocking than that album, so I am a little excited. But  I am previewing Owen Pallet who will be opening for them. He is a Canadian that plays the violin and tinkers with keyboards as well. His music is best described as experimental pop, which is something that  I would normally run away screaming from; especially when a violin is in play. But he’s not awful.  He displays how unique his sound is in The Great Elsewhere and Red Sun No. 5 which are my favorites of his. But then he gets way too fruity and puts me to sleep with songs like E is for Estranged.  Overall I know that he’s talented but he has too many fluffy songs for my taste so I will rate him as WEAK. I will pop in for his set however and hopefully he can change my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=iCMtGQxUlZA&feature=endscreen 

 

Evil Dead

“The scariest movie you will ever see!” “Bloody as hell!” “So scary it will turn black people white!” Ok so I made that last one up, but we have gotten so out of hand with the hyperbole lately that it’s hard not to let the hype of a movie skew your judgement . What I really hate is when in the previews they show people’s reaction to a pre-screening or even the preview of the movie and they are screaming or jumping out of their seat in fear. I get it, when I see a scary movie I am going to be scared. Isn’t that the point? But I think that they should do away with showing Japanese people’s reactions because that’s not really helping their cause. Haven’t you ever seen those Youtube videos of young Japanese girls losing their shit and basically stomping each other to death because a guy clearly wearing a bed sheet is walking around booing? Seriously??? Why was it so hard to defeat their army in WW II? When we took the beach of Iwo Jima, why didn’t we just sprinkle pixie dust in the air and have a loud speaker blaring Vincent Price’s voice? “Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand…”. I know that’s from Thriller but you get the point. But I only kid the Japanese. I don’t want to offend any of them because I have seen Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift and I don’t want to have to settle things “With a race!!!” (in full on country twang) 

What’s the point of all this rambling? Well there isn’t one really, except for the fact that I was pretty excited to see the remake of Evil Dead! I think all movies should stand on their own whether it’s a remake or a re-imagination of the original, so I won't waste waste your time comparing this version to Sam Raimi's cult hit. I don’t ever want to see a shot for shot remake of something because what’s the point?

If you have never seen the original but you were unfortunate enough to see Cabin in the Woods, this movie starts out in similar fashion. 5 friends go their family’s old cabin in the woods to help young Mia kick her drug habit. But she has been known to try anything she can to get out of it in the past, so they are prepared to go to great lengths to make her stay. Well wouldn’t you know it, they somehow discover a bloody door to the basement and in this basement lies a book that unlocks the gateway to hell for an evil demon. The demon then possesses one of them as he plans to kill everyone in the cabin and literally have it rain blood.I'll stop there as it's a pretty basic plot but it has all the key elements needed to create a classic horror film.

Fede Alvarez, who caught Rami’s attention with his short Panic Attack, does an excellent job of creating his own vision of Evil Dead without completely abandoning what made the original so fun. This movie has a ton of blood and gore but it also balances it with the right amount of humor. Thankfully though, Alvarez doesn't try to include another Ash in this film as that would have been a total disaster. For the first 40 minutes of the movie, you think to yourself that you’ve seen this kind of gore on AMC and The Walking Dead. But right when you say that, he takes it up a notch with some creative use of household tools. Well, assuming your house has a nail gun and chainsaw. And yes, the chainsaw scene in particular is worth the price of admission as you are basically clapping and laughing in horror at the amount of blood this scene produces. Actually the grotesqueness of that scene is still in my head and it somewhat bothers me. But this movie would not be complete without it.

Another scene that seems to stick with people is the infamous tree rape scene. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal as it was over with fairly quickly and to be honest; after seeing the movie Irreversible and it’s rape scene, everything else just pales in comparison. You will never see anything more brutal than that in your life. But it definitely adds to the quirkiness of this film. 

All in all, this movie has everything you are looking for in a horror film minus the boobs. It makes you jump in your seat, it makes you laugh, and it makes you cringe with it’s gore and the copious amounts of blood. I rate this movie as very FRESH and suggest that you see it with a group of friends. If you are a fan of the original, do yourself a favor and stick around after the credits.I'm off to go petition for the release of the movie The Grudge on a Plane!
 

G.I. Joe Retaliation

I have a buddy that likes chocolate women and white linen suits. Nothing wrong with that but he also likes action figures just as much as these things. And they aren’t just lying in their packaging waiting to be sold for profit; they are hanging around his house in full on attack mode! So needless to say that I rely on him for when studios release movies like Transformers and GI Joe to remind me of what characters do what and who is actually fresh. I mean I did play with these same toys when I was kid but that was quite some time ago. So while I do get slightly pumped for these movies, I am also leery of the fact that my childhood memories can be permanently damaged by the likes of Michael Bay. 

The first GI Joe movie sucked for many reasons but mainly because Cobra Commander was just some dude who walked around claiming to be mean. It wasn’t until the end that he turned into the evil leader that we grew to love but even that didn’t save this otherwise forgettable debacle.  I wont insult your intelligence by trying to eloquently explain what this movie called a plot. Simply put, the GI Joe’s seem to be rocking and still knocking out important missions for the president which includes gaining control of nukes in war torn North Korea. But the Cobra Commanders seem to be a little miffed over the fact that their leaders are held in custody and have a deceptive and evil plan to free them and gain control of the world. This includes using Zartan (the master of disguise) to impersonate the President and trick the Joes into a trap that will ultimately kill them all while at the same time setting up a conference with all the world’s leaders to fool them into using all of their nuclear weapons. All of this will ultimately rid them of any possible resistance to their own weak version of the Death Star that could destroy an entire country with a single bomb. 

To the movie’s credit, the plot sounds about as ridiculous as the cartoon plots we were exposed to as kids but this isn’t a cartoon. These are real people spitting out these stupid lines but trying to make it cool by quoting Jay Z or talking about threesomes. Yes, you read that correctly. The movie is wall to wall action but the problem with this is the movie is pg-13. So you never see any blood or anyone actually killed. You just see roundhouse kick after roundhouse kick or random explosions. And after 90 minutes of this, it all runs together and you really don’t know or even care what’s happening anymore. All action movies should be like horror movies; if you can’t make them rated R with boobs, blood, and decapitation, then just make it a cartoon where you can get away with at least two of the three. 

This movie's release was delayed to shoot another scene with Channing Tatum, which when you look back at it, it was a complete waste of time. The Rock seems to be having fun as Roadblock and the new hot ladies in Elodie Jung (Jinx) and Adrianne Palicki (Jaye) are…well…hot. I guess Rachel Nichols and Sienna Miller are too old now. It’s always good to find a reason to keep Willisfest going and honestly he’s the only fresh part of this movie. I rate this movie as unbelievably WEAK and suggest staying at home and playing with the figurines instead; yes, even if you are an adult. 

 

Lore

Sometimes I find myself wondering how many more Holocaust movies can be made at this point? I mean wasn’t Robin Williams in Jakob the Liar the death of these films? He kills everything else he’s in! But then I hear stories about idiot 8^th graders who are Neo Nazis and I realize that we need constant reminders of the past so that history doesn’t repeat itself. I think any moron that calls themselves a Neo Nazi or a skinhead should be forced to be a part of a real life Death Race (the Jason Statham movie)where they have to race against one another in armed cars and fight to the death. And on top of that, I think South Park should make Terrance and Philip characters modeled after Nazis. Don't get me wrong, making fun of Canadians is always awesome but these clowns are more deserving. 

Well thanks to director and credited screenplay writer Cate Shortland, we are given another interesting view on World War 2 through the eyes of a Nazi family. This story takes place in war torn Germany, which has just been occupied by the Allied Forces. All of the Jews are freed at this point and every Nazi is in hiding or on the run.  This would include our focus in the film Lore, who is played by the young, talented, and uncomfortably attractive Saskia Rosendahl, and her family which includes her younger twin brothers, younger sister, and newborn baby Peter. She immediately lets you know where the entire family stands by giving you a shot of a Swastika on a cuff link followed by their SS officer father barging in the door warning everyone that they need to be on the move immediately. Their mother thinks that they are cowards for running but reluctantly agrees to head to their safe place in the woods. 

Once they get there, Lore and her siblings' lives are turned upside down as their father is killed, their mother is taken away to a Nazi camp, and they are left on their own. But before their mother is taken away she gives them instructions to head across the country to their grandmother’s to stay. The only issue is that it is obvious that these kids are Hitler youth with their perfect blond hair and blue eyes, so they get little to no help from people along the way. That is until a young man who appears to be Jewish comes along. At first he provides security from a distance but then eventually works his way into the group as he provides food and guidance for the young kids who are making this difficult trek.

It sounds pretty straight forward but the mood that Shortland creates with her camera angles, cinematography, and story makes this movie anything but normal. You are basically uncomfortable for the entire movie. First, it’s hard to feel sorry for Nazis of any age but then you remember how young these kids are and you see some of the horrible things they are exposed to during their journey. Apparently when German soldiers found out they were on the brink of defeat, they decided to rape everything in sight. But you also see Lore struggling with what she’s been taught about the Jewish people and the new information she is receiving about the how they were treated. If you weren’t an SS officer, then you were like the majority of the people in Germany who had no idea about the torture, starving, and killing that was going on in the camps. To them Hitler was a hero, a father figure,a deity and someone who was saving their country. But here Lore found herself accepting help from someone she hated.

The weirdness however doesn’t end there. This is also a coming of age story as Lore finds herself discovering things about herself sexually. Keep in mind that this girl cant be more than 14-15 years old but she finds herself attracted to the Jewish boy that is helping them. Every interaction is intense as you don’t know if they are going to rip each other’s clothes off or literally kill each other. You see her growing sexually with the way Shortland creatively films scene after scene of Lore’s subtle glances at this mysterious guide of theirs. And honestly, the cinematography plays the role of dialogue at numerous times during this movie, much in the way that Terrance Malick uses it in his abstract films. The only problem with that is it makes the movie drag at times. 

I actually really liked this movie but I am not sure it is one I would ever watch again because not only do you see the physical toll this journey takes on the kids and the horrific things they have to go through but you find yourself wondering how blindly you support something without gaining all of the facts first. So just like Lore, you are questioning your beliefs, your views on the world, and some of it’s history. I rate this movie as really FRESH but suggest that you rent it and watch it over two sittings.