Can't set your expectations much lower than this. The first Aliens Vs Predator was so Astonishingly bad, I had all but given up on the franchise(s).

100% of the the problem with both of these films is the writing. The original Alien and Predator franchises had interesting characters, and interesting character development, clever plots and plot twists to go with your monster SFX.

But in the first AVP, the plot was written by 9th grade boys who played Traveller while listening to Dio, and hadn't discovered girls yet. I think the original working title for AVP was "Robots Vs Dinosaurs!"

Sad to say, the second one isn't much better. I can't imagine how anyone signed off on the script for AVP-R, perhaps they thought it would be unique to have a bunch of teenagers doing stupid teenager things like, "Lets meet at the pool at midnight!" Did you really think people going to see this movie are interested in teenage relationships? Obviously not, because none of that shit showed up in the preview. Adding it in only reduces the film to another tired remake of Friday the 13th or Halloween.

Of course from a budgetary standpoint, it must be a lot cheaper to find teens who want to be in a movie and film them delivering pizza and getting into fights over the pretty girl...

But there was one advantage to watching a HALF AN HOUR of useless characters doing useless things: It made me happy to see them die. I cheered every time one of the stupid people got killed off, because that meant less contrived domestic / high school bullshit to get in the way of what SHOULD have been a decent horror / sci-fi flick.

The second half of the film can't quite make up for the first half, but if you come in an half an hour late, you will probably enjoy it more.

By the way, you might expect that if someone is going to fuck with the mythos, say for instance, by making an Alien/Predator hybrid, then you would think they might actually DO something with it. Don't count on it. It's just the FX department getting bored...

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: movie reviews

That blog post title is deceiving, because I can't give a real review for the movie Disintegration, since I only watched the first ten minutes. But in those 10 minutes, I did observe the following:

Bad acting...

Bad direction...

Bad production...

Bad sound... (including bad ADR, bad Foley and bad music/dialog levels...IE: Bad Sound)

Bad lighting...

And absolutely NO sense of timing.

I can't tell you much about the plot, because I couldn't finish the movie. In fact, I couldn't make it past the first 10 minutes of ridiculous, complicated relationship backstory, narrated (yes, NARRATED) by someone who sounded like they were from the cast of Fargo. Really, if the backstory is that complex, then you need to show it onscreen somehow. Work it into the story. Flashback. Dream sequence. Conversation between characters. Something. But for the Lamb Of God, would you please not try to force us to sit through ten minutes of fucking Norwegian narration, rattling off names and relationships as though you were at a High-Schools 5-year Reunion?

I scrolled through the rest of the movie at high-speed, and still couldn't finish it. A bunch of talking heads. Shoulda been a graphic novel instead, and it only would have taken a half-dozen pictures cut-n-pasted over and over. It could have come with a diagram of relationships and family trees, that would have saved all the overdubbed relations/narration...

If I had to rate this movie based off what I saw of it, I'd have to give it a 1 out of 10. The only thing keeping it from a solid "0" would be that I didn't hear any Emo or Country music in the score/soundtrack.

Roger McLeod, you should Watch some movies first, before you go trying to make one yourself...

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: movie reviews, Ubersuck

For movies like The Reaping, I'm more than happy to wait till they come out on DVD, because honestly, it's less than half of them that are any good at all.

But I enjoyed The Reaping. It had it's lame moments of Trying Too Hard To Shock to keep the suspense up, (and someone please tell me how a hoard of locusts can kill someone,) but all in all the story was interesting, and the pace didn't let up for long, kept me guessing, and a couple good solid twists at the end.

Stephen Hopkins wisely avoided the temptation to make Hillary Swank uber-sexy by messing with her looks. Hillary Swank is a natural beauty like Milla Jovovich, who doesn't put on her makeup with a trowel like Paris Hilton. Stephen Hopkins also did not force Hillary Swank to carry the movie by stuffing the camera in her face for extended periods. Someone explain this to Peter Jackson before he tries to make King Kong 2.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: movie reviews

Matt Groening thoughtfully provides his own review of the Simpson's Movie in the movie itself. At the start of the show, Homer stands up and announces that anyone who pays to see something that they can see on TV for free is an idiot, and points to the audience, "...and that includes you."

Sorry, but I can't sum it up better myself.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: movie reviews

Good luck.

www.silverladder.com

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Cool Website

It's almost impossible to have an interest in the Minneapolis music scene without hearing rumors of the sordid history of the Replacements; mostly filtered through elder hipsters who like to rant about how awesome it was to be here in the 80s. [Editor's Note: The 80's weren't really that great, it was just that the 70's sucked SO BAD that the 80's just seemed better than they were.]

I managed to miss out on the lot of it by leaving Minnesota for a few years. By the time I got back in the early 90's, the Replacements had broken up. "I'll Be You" was still on the radio, but Matthew Sweet and Bob Mould were getting all the airplay. I dived headfirst into the local music scene, working at a recording studio in Minneapolis, and habitually reading the Reader and the City Pages, always on the lookout for new and interesting bands. The Nixon Pupils, Johnny Clueless and Mile One were the bands to see live then, and Grunge was king. I was playing solo-acoustic-folk-rock (like my hero at the time, Stuart Davis) in coffee shops you ain't even heard of, (and couldn't find even if you had) and my circle of friends coulda cared a whole lot less for "The Greatest Band That Never Was". I listened to "The Replacements A to Z" on KQ92, and was unimpressed. Eventually, I ended up with "All for Nothing and Nothing for All" the Replacement's Greatest Hits (kind of), and what I was told was their definitive album, "Tim". Again, color me unimpressed.

It wasn't till recent years that I would hear the whispered bits and pieces. Rumors of a band from Long Ago, who shone so bright they burned a hole in the heart of Minneapolis. Every rumor put a look on my face as if I had just taken a bite of my Mom's Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies and discovered that she had substituted Vanilla Extract with Windex.

"They stole back their own master tapes from the record company, and tossed them in the Mississippi River?"

"They played 'Hello Dolly' until everyone left?"

"They did entire gigs without finishing a single song?"

Honestly, I heard more about the Replacements antics than I ever did their music.

So, I was pleased to hear that a book about the Replacements was being released. "The Replacements - All over but the Shouting" was released by Jim Walsh on 15 Nov 2007. I got a signed copy, and read the entire book over three consecutive evenings.

"The Replacements - All Over But The Shouting" is an Oral History (which is an oxymoron for a book, but there you are.) The book is written in quotes from a large number of people, including the band. It's interesting to read the different perspectives on key moments of the band history.

But remember, this is the current-day perception of the band, a conglomeration of The Replacements as These People Remember Them. There are some assumptions made that you know certain things, and there are undoubtedly people who either cannot or did not participate in the book. So keep that in mind. Those looking for the real documented history of the Replacements might want to look elsewhere, but I don't think that was Jim Walsh's intention in writing the book. I think Jim Walsh wanted to capture the spirit of the band, and he managed to do that pretty effectively, because that's what survives in people's memories; the brightest and darkest moments.

However, the quotes of the 'oral history' did make the book a bit disjointed to read. It wasn't till I was halfway through the book that I stumbled upon a glossary of names in the back, which makes the book easier to trudge through. Better still would have been to give a description of each contributor the first time they were quoted, because many of the quotes required that information to process.

It amazes me how hard the Replacements tried to sabotage their own success, and how everything they did simply made them more and more famous. It makes me think some bands are destined to be famous, and have no choice. The Replacements seemed to be dragged kicking and screaming into popularity, confounded by the personality of Paul Westerberg, which glares through the cracks of the writing.

After reading it, I can say that the Replacements deserve a book like this. Jim Walsh has done a great job, and I'm glad I read it. It should be required reading for anyone who is in a bar band in Minneapolis, because whether you know it or not, you are living under the shadow of a glorious tragedy.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Authors, Book Review