Monthly Archives: January 2012

Inside Job

The Inside Job is one of the most important documentaries ever made. I’m late to the party on trumpeting it’s merits, but as the economy is still in the toilet and we are headed for the presidential election, it’s still timely. Inside Job is story of how the financial collapse of 2008 happened. If you know nothing, a little, or all about it you must watch this film and tell everyone you know about it. 99% of the world got screwed and nothing happened to the scum that did it. In fact, they made even more money when it all did collapse. Everyone needs to know the facts of what mind boggling greed does. Pay attention and let’s try to keep it from happening again by calling for extreme reform of Wall Street. A must watch.

Haywire the Review

Pro MMA fighter, Gina Carano makes her film debut in Haywire. I was in the mood for an action movie and Haywire fit the bill. The tale is simple, Malory is a black op for hire. You need someone taken out, someone extracted or the like and she can probably help you out. After a mission from her employer, she’s sent on another “quick and easy” assignment where she’s betrayed by her boss to seal up a shady deal. Quick to sense something is wrong, Malory goes on the run and out for blood to get her revenge.

Direct and to the point story with a stacked supporting cast. Gina is a real fighter and it shows on screen. The fight scenes are all her and all awesome. Just brutal and creative, each globe trotting action scene is a lot of fun to watch. She’s a promising actress too! Her voice was altered (I think to make it more rough, she sounds very feminine in intervews) but for her first time out I was totally impressed. I hope this is just the start of a long career, I dig her a lot.

Harmonix has finally come through

Korn is finally on Rock Band. Yes, “Word Up” is on Lego Rock Band, but that is a terrible cover of a terrible song so it doesn’t count. Freak on A Leash was in Guitar Hero 4 or 5, but this makes it official.

Freak On A Leash and Falling Away From Me are now in my library. I stopped buying tracks about a year ago in protest, it was down right ridiculous that Korn didn’t make it in after freaking Ramstein, who had one notable song in the US in 1998, did. It was some serious conspiracy stuff! There’s probably about a dozen bands that Korn opened the door for that had DLC added over the years, but not a drop for Korn (was it a label issue? Sony and Road Runner are well represented in RB though…). I can only hope this does well enough for them to add more, there’s a ton of good songs that would fit well. Would have been great if they released these tracks when the franchise was still huge. But I digress, 2 songs is a treat for me. Playing on Medium Pro drums is actually more difficult than playing on Hard Pro. There’s so many notes taken out that it’s really hard to follow, the chart looks so wrong. FOAL is a lot of fun in particular, the drum pattern is really unusual.

Mischief Managed

After being on the injured reserve list for the passed 6 days, I watched Deathly Hallows pt 2 (I think I’m going to watch it again), finished reading Book 6 and just finished Book 7 a few minutes ago (I practically ate the book..I did it in like 4 days). That’s the 3rd time I’ve read Deathly and the first time I’ve read the whole story in a row. It’s a hell of a story man! Seems kind of passe to talk about it now since it’s been over for years now, but it really stands up. Rowling had a really clear vision from the start of the journey she wanted to write. There’s all sorts of plot points that thread around every book and most of it is explained well (there’s a lot of world lore that comes into effect in 7). Considering the story goes for around 4,000 pages (US Hardcover editions) it’s amazing that Rowling manged to keep everything so strong for that long.

The first 2 books can certainly be called children’s books, but the further you go the more complex and adult it gets. There’s a lot of intense real world adult content that takes place. It’s a story that took 10 years to write so the audience grew with it. If I gave it to a kid, I’d probably start around age 8 and give them each book a year apart. I’d blather on more, but there’s so much to cover, it’s easier to talk about in person. Years later I’ve come to appreciate the ending more. I still feel like it was cut short, she could have easily written more, but I think I understand her intent. It’s still a powerful and focused finale. That said if Rowling ever wrote more, whether that be filling in gaps at the end of 7 and the epilogue or anything before or after the story, I’d be there day one. I have a couple problems with the books (she sticks very closely to a timeline and event formula), but I can’t honestly call out anything that really bothers me about what she’s written. It completely grabbed me the same way it did when I first read it which is amazing. I’m such a fan that I pretty much shrug off any criticisms I hear or read about it…you have to read every word of the books to understand it.

The movies are a big success too. Cast and crew did they’re all out best and it really shows (I see the main cast when I read the books now). Sure tons of stuff was taken out, but that always happens from page to screen. I question some things more than others, but it all works in the end. Anyone can say they’d do better if they had a crack at it, but I think very few could. It’s a daunting task to start, and hindsight is always 20/20 so you have a finished product that you can easily criticize about what did and didn’t work. I wonder if the books will ever be done in long animated form. The fan in me would love to watch every bit of the journey; there are so many great characters and moments in there. Will they ever remake the movies? Seems hard to believe but you gotta think that some decade down the line they will.

2012

The whole world is back in motion today. The last 2 weeks of the year are always called in, everyone just wants to go on vacation. It’s the end of the year, let’s just call it a day and wait until the new year to do anything significant. Back to work, back to school.

Let’s all hope for a better year, 2011 was a rollercoaster. It’s down right freezing today, it’s run through the outdoors to get back inside when the wind kicks up.

I’ve been on a major Harry Potter kick since the end of Thanksgiving. ABC Family played most of the movies and the last movie hit DVD around the same time so I got swept up in that old feeling again. Decided to read the whole story from beginning to end, which I have never done before. I’m half way through Year 6 right now and I gotta say it still remains my favorite series for good reason. Amazing to think that it ended almost 5 years ago. The last movie I watched in 2011 was Deathly Hallows Part 1 (it’s a damn good movie), I’ll be watching Part 2 this week. I’ll probably finish reading by February. That’s a shit load of pages.