Friday, October 31, 2008

The Night of the Chins

It's been about 15 years since I last saw The Evil Dead, and boy howdy, I forgot how, well, nasty it was. And it just starts with the gross zombie chicks, and really you expect that with your ultra-low budget horror flick: the spurting blood, the jiggling rcorpse remnants of said zombie chicks...actually the jiggling was pretty hilarious. But I totally forgot about the raping forest, like branches actually accosting and molesting a young woman. Holy shit. Not really what I wanted to see on a fun Friday night.

That said, the demon zombie chicks were suitably creepy and frightening. And I just can't say no to Bruce Campbell, even in his early 80s floppy bangs and unibrow phase.

Still my favorite Bruce is Brisco Bruce:



But back to Dead.... I know I shouldn't try to apply basic logic to a movie like this, but I gotta ask: after all this, Ash, why do you bring your next girlfriend back to this secluded cabin in the demon-possessed woods just to make with the screaming and the death again. You know, after that sort of experience, I'd head straight to the biggest, noisiest city and pray that I might sleep again, and tell any and all shrubbery to fuck the hell off.

Ah, well. Kudos to you, Messrs. Raimi and Campbell. I'm gonna have to watch Fraggle Rock or Meet Me in St. Louis now so I don't have to sleep with the lights on.

I'm such a wuss.

Monday, October 27, 2008

"Tom Sawyer" is the music of the universe?

Chuck is the best piece of pure entertainment on the airwaves: action, comedy, romance, super spies, a lovable geek and his lovable friends. And above all it's NerdTastic. Our hero is a computer geek who wallows in Missile Command, Commodore 64s, and Huey Lewis and the News. Of course, being TV, he's also tall, dark, and handsome and able to woo the hot, blonde CIA agent with a dimpled smile and self-depricating charm within a couple episodes. Add Jayne as your hard-ass sidekick and Endless Mike's little brother as your wiseass BFF and you got yourself one hell of a TV hour.

Of course, my favorite moments are at the Buy More. As a veteran of retail hell, I relish in these characters living out a sales drone's best fantasies: backroom cage matches, post-closing keggers, a barely-there boss who's fierce rather than completely incompetent. *sigh* Almost makes me want to work at the Buy More. Almost.



Agent Sean and Hiro just beatboxed the NBC chime. That's the best thing the cast of Heroes has done in a season and a half.

Me Myself And I

source: MTV Music

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Amelia Bright

The Ben Folds Five reunited one night only to play The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner in its entirety for MySpace a few weeks back. It was quite a kick to see them together again, older, rougher, not quite able to hit those high notes in "Narcoclepsy" like they used to. But a couple things stood out: First, no one plays the bass like Robert Sledge and that inventiveness and uniqueness in the bassline is what's sorely lacking from Ben's solo recordings. Second, Messner, is and was a great record that hit the streets at the wrong time to a college fandom that wasn't ready to drop the punk for orchestras and jazzy noodling. And it's hard to follow the greatness that was Whatever and Ever Amen.

From the heyday, "Philosophy" off their debut.


Aren't those harmonies somethin'?

Drummer Darren Jessee has own project, Hotel Lights. His new record includes a new version of "Amelia Bright" which he wrote for the BF5's never-to-be fourth album. Here's a shitty bootleg of BF5 from many moons ago: Amelia Bright.


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