Rockin a Quarter Century Back

I ran across this great article on Metallica's Master of Puppets album's 25th anniversary and it got me to thinking. First, 25 freakin' years? Seriously? I remember first hearing the album after seeing Metallica open for Ozzy Osbourne at the Mid South Coliseum in Memphis not long after it came out. It's hard to believe that was a quarter of a century ago. I don't want to be one of those "the old days were so much better" blah blah blah type of people, but damn the music scene was great for me in the 80s... especially 1986.

I graduated high school in 1984 (shaddup you!) so I was in my prime beer drinking, rocking out, mullet-headed (oh precious hair, how I miss thee), bombing out of college stage by this point. Sammy Hagar was the new lead singer for Van Halen (which I was fine with really, David Lee Roth had gotten on my nerves a bit), wildman and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee had married Heather Locklear and you couldn't turn on MTV without seeing A-Ha or Mr. Mister or maybe even Falco singing "Rock Me Amadeus". At least you could see videos back then, but that's a whole other post. The cool dudes had mullets and the cool chicks dressed like Madonna. But sadly, it was also the same year that Cliff Burton of Metallica was killed in a bus crash and Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy died of heart failure. R.I.P.

There were so many artists I was getting into then, mostly to do with "hair metal" or pop metal with hairspray. Most wasn't actually metal, but it was fun and harmless (except to maybe the ozone layer) with catchy hooks and sing along lyrics. The odd thing, or maybe not so odd really, is that I still listen to a whole lot of this stuff today. Metallica is probably still my favorite band. I never had a problem with the music Van Halen made with Sammy out front either. Sure it was a bit polished, but I found it fun. Poison took off the make-up and got hair plugs, but still draw skanky hos on reality TV so that's good. Right?

So just because I was thinking about this over the last few days, I give you a list of my top 25 favorite albums celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. These may not have been my favorite 25 at the time, for instance I didn't really get into Metallica until their next album, but looking back these are the 25 that were released that year that turned out the most important to me.

My Top 25 Albums of 1986

25. Steve Earle - Guitar Town
24. Fastway - Trick or Treat
23. Ratt - Dancing Undercover
22. Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time
21. Motörhead - Orgasmatron
20. Billy Idol - Whiplash Smile
19. Queensrÿche - Rage for Order
18. Poison - Look What The Cat Dragged In
17. Huey Lewis & The News - Fore!
16. Boston - Third Stage
15. Dio - Intermission
14. Run D.M.C. - Raising Hell
13. David Lee Roth - Eat 'Em and Smile
12. Peter Gabriel - So
11. Judas Priest - Turbo
10. Journey - Raised on Radio
9. Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin
8. AC/DC - Who Made Who
7. Cinderella - Night Songs
6. Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
5. Tesla - Mechanical Resonance
4. Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?
3. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
2. Van Halen - 5150
1. Metallica - Master of Puppets

Sorry, no New Kids on the Block, but holy cow that is a lot of great music (to me anyway). My iPod is still packed with songs off all these albums today, and probably always will be. 1986 was one of the best years ever for my musical tastes.

Hagar on Leno

The Red Rocker Sammy Hagar was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night talking about a number of insteresting subjects, including his new book Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock (which is in my "on-deck" pile to read), his belief in aliens, seeing a flying car, a Van Halen reunion being a mess and comparing Charlie Sheen to Eddie Van Halen. Here's both parts:

Duran Duran Live on Kimmel Kimmel

Duran Duran is back with a new CD and played "All You Need is Now" from it and their classic "Notorious" on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night.

Movie Review: Buried

Synopsis: Paul (Ryan Reynolds) is a U.S. contractor working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it's a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap.

If you decide to make an entire movie with only one guy on the screen the entire time, buried in a coffin, that one guy better be damn good. And Ryan Reynolds is just that here. He's got a cell phone, flashlight and a Zippo but it's all him. And he goes through fear, anger, panic, sadness, happiness, depression and acceptance all convincingly.

I thought the script was great as well. The pace of the film is perfect as the suspense builds and the shots within the coffin keep it from getting bogged down somehow. If you are claustrophobic, avoid this. I beg you. You're in the coffin with him for 90 minutes.

The only thing I can think of to compare this to is the CSI 2-parter (Grave Danger) back in season 5 that Quentin Tarantino co-wrote and directed where Nick gets buried in a glass casket and has a video camera on him while the team tries to find him and get to him. I also thought a bit of Colin Ferrell in Phone Booth back in 2002 for some reason.

So just one actor in an edge-of-your-seat thriller? In one location? Yes, it's possible. And the finale is mind-blowing. Good movie.

8/10

You Might Want To Stay Down

Welsh metal quartet Revoker present their debut video "Stay Down", taken from the forthcoming album "Revenge for the Ruthless". The beast featured in the video is Nick 'Headhunter' Chapman, a UK mixed martial artist. This song is the official theme of BAMMA (British Association of Mixed Martial Arts).

Movie Review: Scream of the Banshee

Synopsis: An archeology professor unearths a dangerous artifact, unwittingly releasing a creature that is able to kill with the power of its bone-splitting scream.

Another production from the fine folks at SyFy and also After Dark Films, this one is a bit better than most of the (lovable) schlock that SyFy produces I thought. Sure, the story is pretty much exactly the same... take a monster (in this case a banshee) and have it knock off people while they try to solve the mystery of what's going on and how to kill it. Insert big showdown at the end and presto... a SyFy network movie.

So that all being said, it's usually acting, special effects and script that set these movies apart. The script in this one is good but there are some head-scratchers in the storyline for sure. The cast I thought was pretty good with the best being Lauren Holly and Lance Henriksen. The directing is very competent. The creature and special effects? Well they're sort of hit and miss. Some of it, like a banshee head-in-a-box, look sort of cool. But then again, some of the more gory effects are pretty crapola and funny.

Overall the concept and mythology of the banshee is sort of fun as it kills you only if you scream. The story moves along at nice pace and kept me wanting to see what happened next. But it's still a little too formulaic and full of cliches with a pretty predictable conclusion. Still though, it provides an adequate amount of fun, thrills, chills and suspense to be watchable.

5/10

Whew!

It's hard to wear me out, but it has been done by my "spring break". I'm exhausted... but damn what a week. When last weekend stopped kicking me with beer tastings and watching fights, we hit a great concert Monday night and equally fun college baseball game on Tuesday night... then the real fun began. We got up Wednesday morning and headed out for 4 days in one of my favorite cities, New Orleans.

As soon as we found the hotel and got checked in we began the onslaught of walking, eating, shopping and drinking that I'll be smiling and laughing about for a few decades. We hit so many great restaurants and pubs and such it would be impossible to recap. After all the beignets and coffee from Cafe Du Monde, Lucky Dogs, beer from the pubs and all the awesome cajun chow from all over the city settled in I think I gained a good 5 lbs. There's just so much great food and drink in this city. The only thing that saved us a bit was all the walking... maybe 10 miles a day I'm guessing between the shops on Canal and the whole French Quarter area as well as walking way down St. Charles.

We also made it out to the aquarium, the zoo, Audubon Park, an NCAA tournament game (Butler upsetting Florida), rode the mule-drawn carriages, took a walking ghost tour, hit the casino, wandered around the French Market for hours with mimosas in hand (and spent money), sang at a piano bar and went to a concert (Apocalyptica at the House of Blues).

It was non-stop almost from start to finish. On the way home we even stopped at the legendary Myrtles Plantation, an antebellum plantation in St. Francisville, La. We didn't get there in time for a ghost tour, but walked around a bit. In addition to being on the national register of historic places and just being a gorgeous place, it's also one of America's most haunted homes. Neat place.

Sadly, it was 74 degrees when we packed the car in NOLA yesterday morning and 44 when we got back to Little Rock. The whole time we were there it was sunny, windy and warm. I got a sun/wind burn and we wore short sleeves most of the time.

Really the beautiful weather just added to the near perfection of the whole thing. But oh well... back to reality. It won't be my last trip to NOLA though.

Next up? Some rest this week then Kenny Chesney's "Goin Coastal" tour on Friday night with Billy Currington and Uncle Kracker in support. That should get the weekend going. Baseball season also gets kicking this week so the Travelers will be playing home games in just a few weeks. We've also got a Vegas trip planned in 5 weeks. When that one is over, the boat should be cleaned up, launched and providing some partyin' fun on the lake.

I've got tickets to not 1 but 2 Keith Urban shows later this Summer... in Jonesboro, AR and Nashville, TN. Edgefest 2011 with Stone Sour, Avenged Sevenfold, Seether, Sevendust, Three Days Grace, Halestorm and others is coming up in April. I've got tickets for the Foo Fighters show here in May with Motorhead and Biffy Clyro. Lastly, Riverfest has announced a fun line-up with Nelly, REO Speedwagon, Barenaked Ladies, Poison, Papa Roach and others for Memorial Weekend.

So sleep when you're dead.

Here's a decent video I found from the House of Blues show I was at on Thursday night:

34 Katherine Heigl Films Released At Once

The nation is still reeling from accident at Sony Pictures which unleashed dozens of films starring the irritating actress on an unsuspecting public.

Airdate Set for Scream: The Inside Story on the BIO Channel

Airdate Set for Scream: The Inside Story on the BIO Channel: "

Good news for Scream fans coming in today - 'Scream: The Inside Story', the Dan Farrands-directed Scream documentary for A&E's BIO Channel, now has a confirmed airdate of Wednesday, April 6th, with repeats later that night and during the early morning hours on Thursday, April 7th. Check your local listings for the exact times.

Synopsis:

In 1996 director Wes Craven unleashed Scream, a slasher flick that shattered box-office records for horror films and turned Craven and some hot young actors (Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, and Rose McGowan) into overnight stars. In this two-hour special, we go inside the Scream story with all-new, exclusive interviews with cast and crew. Viewers will learn that Craven originally didn't want to direct the film, the production had to survive delays and objections to its violent content, and industry analysts predicted it would be bomb at the box office. But Scream became a blockbuster and single-handedly revived the horror genre.

In a recent interview with HelloSidney.com Farrands discusses the challenges he faced putting the documentary together:

'The biggest challenge in terms of acquiring material was that the ownership of the SCREAM films is extremely convoluted, and this was compounded by the fact that while we were in production, the entire Miramax library was being sold off by its then-owners (The Walt Disney Company, no less) to a new group of investors. It literally took months of sitting back and waiting to see how and if the sale of Miramax was going to be handled. And it took several more months of waiting, back and forth communicating, and finally negotiating with the new owners to get permission to use the film footage and archival materials. And all of this while we were on a pretty tight deadline to deliver the show to BIO Channel. It was a big leap of faith to even start the show knowing that any time the house of cards could have toppled. Fortunately, the new owners of Miramax really loved what we were doing and made it possible for us to have access to all of the materials that we needed.'

As for the message the doc relays and how the original Scream impacted him personally, Farrands shares the following:

'I'm not sure what kind of message it sends, but it certainly tells the most complete story of the making of the original film. We touch on the sequels, including the genesis of SCREAM 4, but it's really the story of a struggling screenwriter, a director in need of a hit, and a maverick studio who came together to create cinematic history. It's a very respectful and in a way nostalgic look back at a horror film that came out of the blue and took everyone by storm.'

'SCREAM came around right as I was embarking on my own career as a filmmaker, and certainly its success opened doors for me (and people like me) to be able to sell projects in a genre we loved. I remember that after SCREAM became a hit, everyone in town wanted to hear horror pitches, and I suddenly felt like I was riding that wave. I sold several projects, some of them right in a studio executive's office, because suddenly horror was 'hot' again. Had it not been for SCREAM, I'm not sure some of those opportunities would have existed.

Going into this project right on the heels of our epic NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET retrospective (NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: THE ELM STREET LEGACY), there was already a familiarity with Wes and a certain level of comfort with the form. We knew what worked from that show and what fans seemed to respond to, so even though this one was different in that it needed to fit the format of an existing documentary series for television, we really tried to bring to the table as many of the cool elements from NEVER SLEEP AGAIN as we could.'

Click here for the BIO Channel's overview of 'Scream: The Inside Story', 'like' 'Scream: The Inside Story' on Facebook, and then turn out the lights, brush up on the rules of horror movies, and get ready to 'Scream' all over again!

Make sure to check out our SCREAM 4 Coverage.

VISIT THE EVILSHOP @ AMAZON!

Got news? Click here to submit it!

Scream your head off in the comments section below!"

Sunday Funnies

Love Is Dead?

Here's Kopek's sexy video for "Love Is Dead". These guys hail from Dublin, Ireland and their US debut album, White Collar Lies, will blast your blarney stones off. Check out more of them here.

We Are The Fallen Acoustic

Opening for Apocalyptica tonight are this band, We Are The Fallen. Here's a live "unplugged" style radio performance at the Q101 (WKQX) studios playing "I Am Only One" and "Bury Me Alive" off their debut CD.

Apocalyptica Not Strong Enough

I'm in New Orleans and will be seeing these guys, Apocalyptica, tonight here at The House of Blues. Here's their latest video for "Not Strong Enough" with Doug Robb from Hoobastank on vocals.



(C) 2011 Sony Music Entertainment

Panel Of Caged Average Americans Weigh In On Economy

The most reliable caged Americans in cable news give their trenchant, homespun insight into current events.

New Video From Sister Sin

The new video from Swedish female-fronted rockers Sister Sin is called "24/7" and posted below. The track comes off their second album, "True Sound Of The Underground".

Spring Break?

Odd that it's called a "break" when I'm always busier than normal... but it's a good week. Had a huge beer tasting at the house over the weekend with UFC, hoops, Baggo, the first grilling of the season and of course lots of great beer.

Last night we hit a solid rock show with Valient Thorr, Iron Tongue and Cerebral Ballzy at the Rev Room. Crazy show. Tonight I've got a college baseball game between University of Arkansas and University of Memphis, my first of many, many baseball games at the park this year.

Then tomorrow morning I'm off to New Orleans for some time in The Big Easy eating, drinking and doing touristy stuff. Got a concert Thursday night at The House of Blues with Apocalyptica and We Are The Fallen then we should be at the NCAA tourney game to decide one of the Final Four spots on Saturday between the winners of BYU/Florida and Wisconsin/Butler. I'll be hitting all my favorite NOLA haunts and hopefully find some new ones. Headin' home Sunday.

Whew. Then the "break" is over I guess. Cheers.

Small Town Throws Pride Parade For Only Gay Resident

WONN5 reports that hundreds turned out to support Pennington's single gay resident Paul Webster.


Small Town Throws Pride Parade For Only Gay Resident

Movie Review: The Fighter

Synopsis: A drama about the Rocky-like rise of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his half-brother (Christian Bale), a boxer-turned-trainer who rebounded in life after nearly being KO'd by drugs and crime, who helped train him before going pro in the mid '80s.

If you're not a fan of sports films or more specifically boxing films, you'll still probably like this as it's more about family and overcoming adversity really than anything. Sure, it's not incredibly original but it's based on a true story so I can overlook that a bit. The story is still very interesting and the Ward family overall is both annoying, entertaining and funny. But Bale, Adams and Wahlberg stand out.

Wahlberg doesn't get too emotional but has to look like he knows what he's doing in the boxing ring and occasionally act torn or confused, all of which he's good act. It's easy to believe him as a professional boxer. Amy Adams gives a nice tough girl touch to the film and is great and exactly what her role needed. But Christian Bale as the former fighter turned drug addict is outstanding. You can tell he's just totally submerged into the character is so believable I was afraid the guy would OD for real by the end of it. Maybe Bale's best role yet, and that's saying something. The rest of the family from Mickey's mother and father to all the sisters are fantastically entertaining.

It's another rags-to-riches, feelgood boxing movie with great in-ring action but it has brains as well as muscle with great drama outside the gym. It doesn't dip into the smaltyz area a lot of these "inspirations sports dramas" do. It feels real. A solid movie. And it throws a little Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Whitesnake at you for good measure.

9/10

Valient Thorr Invade Little Rock

Chapel Hill, North Carolina's Valient Thorr are stomping mud puddles in people's backsides tonight at The Rev Room here in Little Rock. Your's truly will of course be there to get said backside stomped. Here is their video for "Double Crossed" to shove in your ear holes.

Sunday Funnies

UFC 128 Tonight

Tonight's UFC 128: Jones vs Rua is coming from New Jersey, a state where I'd like to see a whole group of fake-tanned, loud mouths get their faces punched in. Unfortunately non of the stars of that reality show will be getting in the cage as they are the wrestling ring, so I'll take this excellent card instead.

The light-heavyweight champ, Shogun Rua, has his hands full with the most hyped fighter of all-time maybe in the UFC, Jon "Bones" Jones. I love Jones and all the hype is because of what he's done in the cage so it's all justified. I'm with the odds makers on this one... we're gonna have a new champ.

Also a few favorite fighters of mine like Urijah Faber, Nate "The Great" Marquardt and more recently Kamal Shalorus are on the televised card so this ought to be fun.

Sports Illustrated column on Jon Jones

Sports Illustrated column on Nate Marquardt

Rua article at Versus

5 notes not about the main event (Bleacher Report)

Main Card (PPV)

* Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Jon Jones (for light-heavyweight title)
* Urijah Faber vs. Eddie Wineland
* Jim Miller vs. Kamal Shalorus
* Nate Marquardt vs. Dan Miller
* Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic vs. Brendan Schaub

Prelims (Spike TV)

* Luiz Cane vs. Eliot Marshall
* Edson Barboza vs. Anthony Njokuani

Prelims (Facebook)

* Ricardo Almeida vs. Mike Pyle
* Kurt Pellegrino vs. Gleison Tibau

Movie Review: The Resident

Synopsis: When a young doctor (Hillary Swank) suspects she may not be alone in her new Brooklyn loft, she learns that her landlord (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has formed a frightening obsession with her.

Despite good performances by Swank and Morgan plus a very nice direction, good production values and cinematography, this movie is just sort of one big long feeling of deja vu. It's the screenplay that drags this down.

There's no twist or suspense really, you know right away what's going on and who is doing it so it just follows along that path until it ends pretty much exactly like you'd expect.

There's pretty much zero character development of the protagonist so you never really get any insight into what makes him click. He just does what he does. Morgan is good, but is dealt little depth to work with. Swank, a great actress, has the same fate. She just get partially naked occasionally and acts confused and scared a few times. That's seriously wasted talent. Speaking of wasted talent, Christopher Lee is in it but is totally wasted also with just a few minutes of screen time.

Overall, it's a watchable film but instantly forgettable with nothing remotely new or surprising.

5/10

The Last Ride Trailer

If you want to know who the original bad boy of music was, perhaps you'll like the new biopic coming out about Hank Williams. It was shot here in Arkansas, Benton mostly I've read, and stars Henry Thomas (E.T.) as Hank. Another Arkansas connection... the director, Harry Thomason, is from Hampton, Arkansas. The filmmakers just announced that "The Last Ride" will screen at the Nashville Film Festival (April 15, 7:45 p.m.) and the movie will open this year's Little Rock Film Festival (June 1st - 5th).

Synopsis: A man hires a kid to drive a legendary country singer to two concerts. Based on the last few days of Hank Williams' life.

Sounds a bit like Get Him To The Greek, but with no Russell Brand and if Aldous Snow didn't actually make it to the show. Plus very old cars.

Jesse James plays the young driver and the very lovely Kaley Cuoco from The Big Bang Theory has a role. Check out the trailer:



And for good measure, a sexy photo of Kaley. Grrrr baby.

Awesome Simpson's Medley

I saw this posted on TV Squad and just had to re-post it as such a huge fan of The Simpsons. I've actually posted something by this guy before, TV medley folk hero Fredrik Larsson, and this medley is just as good. Of course, fans of The Simpsons will probably pick-up on all of these but he's listed them just in case.

Song list:
0:01 Happy Birthday, Lisa
0:32 Baby on Board
0:57 The Monorail Song
1:26 We Do (The Stonecutters' Song)
1:41 Canyonero
2:00 We're Talkin' Softball
2:37 Who Needs the Qwik-E-Mart?
3:03 Mr. Plow



Visit FreddeGredde.com

Ben Stiller Speaks Out Against Shaken Manchild Syndrome

Actor Ben Stiller urges parents with adult kids still living at home to think twice before shaking their manchildren in frustration.


PSA: Ben Stiller Speaks Out Against Shaken Manchild Syndrome

Shamrocks And Shenanigans?

The St. Patty's Day fun keeps coming! Meet Everlast, Danny Boy and DJ Lethal... aka House of Pain. These Irish-American rappers had 3 albums out in the early 90s before Everlast decided to go solo. They got their name from from H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. Here's "Shamrocks and Shenanigans."

Pure rap gold my friends...

The House Of Pain's the name of my clique
You can't be down, punk, get off my d%#@
You make me sick, like strawberry Quik
Your style is wack, you ain't the mac
So yo step back, get off the crack
And sing a new tune like boom sha lock lock boom


House Of Pain - Shamrocks And Shenanigans by vlna

I would also like to go on record as saying I personally enjoy strawberry Quik.

Tips for St. Patty's Day

Sometimes its tough to know how to drink on St. Patrick's Day when you're not Irish. So Comedy.com brings you 8 tips on on how to celebrate St. Patty's Day like the Irish. I don't want to say this is the greatest video ever made... but it does have beer chugging, some Riverdancing monkeys and a projectile vomiting muppet... so I'll let you figure it out on your own.

Now THIS is Irish

I was trying to come up with music video for the St. Patrick's Day holiday and this one hit me. How about Dropkick Murphys performing "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" on the waterfront in East Boston while hanging with hooligans and runnin' from the cops. That's Irish my friends. I mean, I guess it is anyway. What would I know? I hear the saying "everybody's Irish today" but I really don't subscribe to that theory. I'm American today, just with a green shirt on. Sure I intend to drink a few brews tonight (none green) and maybe slam an Irish Car Bomb, but that doesn't make me Irish... it just makes it Thursday.

So rock this! Sainte!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Well, the fine folks at CollegeHumor.com have outdone themselves this time. Maybe it's just because I'm such a huge fan of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, but this Nightmare Before St. Patrick's Day video has to be the greatest thing in the history of the holiday. Jack Skellington chugging brews and singing "What's This" with the frat boys? Brilliant. If Sally or Oogie Boogie were in this it'd be perfection.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Keith Urban's Without You Video

Here's Keith Urban's new video for the track "Without You" and to say the video is about as personal as the song would be an understatement. There's never-before-released candid moments caught not only between him and wife Nicole Kidman but with their oldest daughter, Sunday Rose, as well. Check it out:

First Conan Teaser

Well it ain't much, but it's the first teaser trailer for this Summer's big Conan The Barbarian reboot, so check it out below. It's pretty simple, but gives us a little glimpse of Jason Momoa as our favorite raper and pillager.

"I live. I love. I slay...I am content." - Conan The Barbarian

Aren't we all?




In theaters August 19, 2011

The most legendary Barbarian of all time is back this Summer. Having thrived and evolved for eight consecutive decades in the public imagination- in prose and graphics, on the big screen and small, in games and properties of all kinds- Conan's exploits in the Hyborian Age now come alive like never before in a colossal 3D action-adventure film.

A quest that begins as a personal vendetta for the fierce Cimmerian warrior soon turns into an epic battle against hulking rivals, horrific monsters, and impossible odds, as Conan realizes he is the only hope of saving the great nations of Hyboria from an encroaching reign of supernatural evil.

Deftly adapted from the original works of Robert E. Howard and faithful to the mythology and psychology of his iconic character, CONAN THE BARBARIAN stars Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Ron Perlman and Rose McGowan, and is directed by Marcus Nispel.

New Foo Fighters Video

Huge news dropped today... Foo Fighters are coming to Little Rock finally! They'll bring Motörhead on May 18th for a killer night of rock n roll and yours truly will be front and center.

Perfect timing for the new video, "Rope", which is the first single off their upcoming 7th studio CD, "Wasting Light". It is set to be released on April 12, 2011, and is the band's first album in almost four years.

Movie Review: Faster

Synopsis: After 10 years in prison, an ex-con (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) sets out to avenge his brother's death after they were double-crossed during a heist years ago. During his campaign, however, he's tracked by a veteran cop (Billy Bob Thornton) and an egocentric hit man.

It's been since "Doom" in 2005 that The Rock has been in what I'd call an action flick. He's been family movies, acted like a tooth fairy, worn a tu-tu and been a straight man to Steve Carrell. Some with good results, some with bad... but it's definitely good to see Dwayne Johnson back in full-throttle action mode.

At least I thought it would be "full-throttle"... it's more "half-throttle" maybe. There's some action and violence for sure, but not a huge amount by any means. The movie tries to develope 3 big, fairly complex characters throughout, but I'm not sure it really developed any of the 3 enough. I should say they all could be fairly complex, but end up sort of one-dimensional. I understand that though, as you can't have something labeled as an action flick running too long. They do enough character development for the 3 characters though and leave rest up to your imagination. Billy Bob Thorton and Oliver Jackson-Cohen are both excellent, but The Rock was really just asked to be The Rock more than do any real acting. That subtracts a bit.

It feels like an action/revenge movie right out of the 70s, complete with all the stereotypical characters and formula, and I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. It's got that gritty feel to it and the direction is sort of frenetic at times. It gives the film a nice edge and ups the intensity and viciousness.

You'll get your very tyipcal "twist" and there's some pretty heavy-handed, dumbed down morality about redemption and forgiveness at play as well here (which feels almost like a parody at times), but I think in the end what I'll take home from it is all the ass-kickings. And that's what I missed from The Rock anyway.

7/10

Galifianakis Brilliance

I've watched Saturday Night Live for well over 30 years now, meaning that I've seen pretty much every episode ever, and I thought Zach Galifianakis' opening monologue this past weekend was one of the funniest I can remember. Most of it was his stand-up bit, but by the end he'd stripped to an Annie outfit and lip-synced to the song "Tomorrow" while tearing messages off an easel and I was literally laughing outloud. This guy is just genuinely hilarious to me. He played some other funnies characters during the whole but I thought the monologue set the tone perfectly.

Here's the whole bit:

Movie Review: Restrepo

Synopsis: Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's year dug in with the Second Platoon in one of Afghanistan's most strategically crucial valleys reveals extraordinary insight into the surreal combination of back breaking labor, deadly firefights, and camaraderie as the soldiers painfully push back the Taliban.

A very thought-provoking look at the war from the inside, told by the soldiers that were there. This is a very moving, emotional version of reality TV. The cameras put you right there where the soldiers are working, playing and dying. You are so right in the middle of the action that I found myself nervous and almost ducked a few times. Then there are the same sort of "confessionals" you see on most horrible reality TV shows, but they mean so much more coming from brave heroes who fight for freedom other than attention-seeking, fake-tan, wannabe TV stars talking about who they drunkenly plowed the night before.

During the scenes of fighting, the camera focused more on the soldiers and their actions than on the actual bloodshed and action. I'm sure partially because they wanted the human side of the story instead of turning it into a bloody war film, but probably also because during the intense battle scenes the men operating the cameras didn't want to get blown apart. There are real bullets flying and real injuries happening.

There's also no political agenda to this movie. It's just the story of the platoon fighting the war. You can hear the stories and thoughts and make your own conclusions here with what you are given.

Watching it made me want to thank every veteran I see because I'm sure there are thousands of platoons with thousands of stories like this one. It's pretty sad that I need a reminder occasionally of how brave some people are and who are willing to put their lives on the line for this country and ideals, but I just kept thinking about that while watching these guys, mostly in their 20s, struggle with their words and obvious mental anguish that they'll probably live with for the rest of their lives. While I'm sitting around watching movies and reviewing them on a blog.

8/10

Foo Fighters: Back and Forth

If you love Foo Fighters like I do, in a few weeks on April 5th I'm sure you'll want to roll down to your local multiplex to see a screening of the Foo Fighters' new documentary, "Foo Fighters: Back and Forth," directed by Oscar winner James Moll ("The Last Days"). The movie charts the entire career arc of the band, from the cassette demos leader Dave Grohl recorded during his time as Nirvana's drummer through their rise to the top of the rock world.

Personally I can't wait as not only do I love their music but I find Grohl to be one of the coolest, most interesting people in rock. If you don't believe me, spend some time between now and April 5th checking out not only Nirvana and Foo Fighters but also Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures and the awesome Probot CD from back in 2004.

Here's a quick preview of the documentary:

Sunday Funnies