The Fast/Break parallel
If this site had some sort of breaking news graphic, this bombshell that was passed along to me from my friend Jeff Harnisch via email would definitely warrant it. Be advised “The Fast and the Furious” fans that all you believe in might be crushed if you read on.
I watched “The Fast and the Furious” today for the first time because I felt like watching something mindless. Holy shit, that movie is a rip-off of “Point Break.” Hard to believe. The following similarities:
1.) Stone-faced, rigid lead actor with poor acting skills (Keanu Reeves/Paul Walker).
2.) Number 1 is an undercover cop trying to infiltrate a group of guys who do some seriously illegal shit (rob banks/hijack trucks) to fund their passion (surfing/making Honda Civics into rocket cars).
3.) There is a lady friend in the gang who they develop “real” feelings for (Lori Petty/some chick who plays Vin Diesel’s sister).
4.) Very early in the infiltration members of the gang question the motives of the “new guy” only to have the leader (Swayze/Diesel) back the “new guy” up. Continues after the jump »
Inundated with material!
Hey kids, loving the Crap yet?
In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been pumping out reviews like the media was cancelling everything ever invented and we needed to get our take out there NOW!
Over the next few days we’ll try to stagger the content and reviews we post so that it’s not as overwhelming when you stop by. As a teaser, here’s the upcoming reviews you can expect from me (at least) in the next week:
-Trapped In The Closet: Chapters 1-12
-Serenity: An Obituary Rantview
-Beavis & Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection, Vol. 1
-Concert Review: Death From Above 1979
Resume your conversations about how rad we are.
Beavis and Butt-Head do DVD right
- The Mike Judge Collection, Vol. 1
- America's two dumbest teenagers return in a collection of episodes hand-picked by Mike Judge.
- Check it on Amazon
In March of 1993 I stayed home from school the day “Beavis and Butt-Head” premiered and I have to say that it was one of the best television experiences of my life.
The crude exploits of the two dumbest teenagers to ever exist were a staple of my life — and many other 20-somethings, I’m sure — for the next five years. Their media empire could not be avoided: clothing, CDs, toys, books, a feature film; there were precious few people who didn’t know who these two were. Then, in late 1997, Mike Judge closed the book on the duo, and the media saturation that was once unavoidable had now been shuffled off to the clearance racks of Spencer Gifts nationwide to make way for all the crazy new South Park merchandise the kids were going ga-ga over.
In the ensuing television archival boom that came with DVD, a Beavis and Butt-Head collection seemed like a no-brainer. A show about media-obsessed teenagers that wound up shaping the pop culture landscape itself? Duh. Unfortunately, several behind-the-scenes issues, like Mike Judge being at odds with Viacom and retaining the rights to the massive number of music videos the boys watched have kept us from having a truly definitive collection of episodes — until now. Continues after the jump »
Adam Sandler - ‘The Thanksgiving Song’
- They're All Gonna Laugh At You!
- Old school Sandler will take you back to the days of when you thought SNL was funny, even though it usually already wasn't.
- Listen on iTunes
- Buy it at Amazon
Yeah, I agree that it’s a little suspicious that a Thanksgiving song — the only Thanksgiving Song — comes up as the song of the day just two weeks before Thanksgiving, and on the second day I do this. But that’s the breaks. It’s random.
Everybody knows this one, and even if it barely qualifies as a song, you know you knew every word the Monday after you first saw Adam Sandler sing it on Saturday Night Live. Sandler first performed the song on Nov. 20, 1992, and the album came out in time for Thanksgiving 1993, when he reprised it as Bruce Springsteen.
The Thanksgiving Song certainly isn’t the best Sandler bit, but it’s certainly not the most annoying either. If you used to watch SNL as much as I did in junior high and high school, or if you used to listen to this album as much as my friends and I did around the same time, it’s hard not to get a little smile out of this tune.
Giant Drag’s “Kevin Is Gay”
I first heard Giant Drag’s “Kevin Is Gay” after receiving a free compilation CD with a purchase at Urban Outfitters. Wow, there are so many things wrong with that admission that I don’t know where to start.
Most of the CD was forgettable, but “Kevin Is Gay” really stuck out, maybe because the title was “Kevin Is Gay.”
The first thing that hits you is the catchy guitar, which is so heavy and swaying that it makes your balls vibrate. For girls, I guess it would do the same for your ovaries or something.
The female lead singer’s voice also grabs your attention from the time she mutters something in Swedish or whatever at the outset, as it is very distinctive. Think a more infantile and twisted version of Gwen Stefani. Or stop thinking and just listen to a sample of the song at the band’s web site — GiantDrag.com. Towards the end of the song she starts meowing along to the guitar, which I guess is pretty standard in pop music these days. Continues after the jump »
I’m getting really sick of this shit
I swear I have a really bad memory. Every so often, I’ll get in my car, and rather than put on NPR or a CD, I’ll take a chance with commercial radio.
What a waste of my time.
The state of the radio has gotten out of control. When something bad works for the stations, and I mean “works” in a commercial sense, their response is to come out with something that manages to be worse. My case in point is Nickelback.
There’s always been a lot of crap out there, and there always will be, but Nickelback seems to have figured out the exact formula that it takes to be absolutely awful, yet just catchy enough to get played over and over again.
I don’t remember what their first song was that I heard, but I know it was before the one that appeared in “Spider-Man.” I haven’t even had to try very hard to put it out of my mind. I also don’t recall it being very good. Continues after the jump »
Howard Stern, radio martyr
This is hardly any big scoop, but Forbes.com is running a story about how Howard Stern is being silenced for talking too much about his move to Sirius.
Howard was taken off of Citadel stations, including the new rock station here, last year. The main difference here is that Infinity, his own bosses, have taken him off this time.
The part about all of this that I find most ridiculous is not the fact that Howard Stern is convinced that he’s the greatest thing to happen to radio, but that Infinity seems so inclined to believe him. Howard’s got a fairly rabid fan base, but I really, really doubt that they’re going to follow him to Sirius in the numbers he’s expecting. You can’t write a story about Howard Stern without mentioning Sirius, and by shutting him down, even temporarily, they’re only providing more press for him and his move to satellite. The people who will buy a satellite system have either already bought it, or are at least sold on the idea.
I really wonder how many people would really invest $100 or so in the receiver and then pay the $13 a month for Sirius service, just to listen to Stern. I’m also willing to bet that most of his listeners catch less than an hour, and more like a half hour, of his four-hour program every morning. I realize that listeners will get a lot more than that, with all the other music and talk channels, but is a half hour of Stern worth the initial investment? I really doubt it.
A bit of an aside: If you’ve ever listened to Howard Stern, you know that the commercial breaks are probably run about eight to 10 minutes at times. What’s that mean? It means that people change the station. People will sit through a minute or two of commercials, but once you start stretching the breaks out much longer than that, they start switching. They might switch back, but then they’re still not hearing the ads, which is really what the radio business is all about.
Buy it again for the first time
In case you missed it, the new Beastie Boys collection, Solid Gold Hits, comes out today. What’s the difference between this and The Sounds of Science, which came out five years ago? Well Solid Gold Hits has 15 tracks, as opposed to the 42 on The Sounds of Science, but it features a few newer ones that you won’t find on The Sounds of Science.
It’s your money, so if CH-Check It Out, Open Letter to NYC, and Triple Trouble are worth $15 to you, then don’t let me stop you.
The last great SNL sketch
I understand it’s not exactly bold nowadays to declare that “Saturday Night Live” is no longer funny. To the contrary, it’s rather common. Well, because I haven’t been involved in one since like the fifth grade, I intend to pig-pile.
Let me catch you up to “SNL” in the post-Will Ferrell era: It blows. In fact, in Ferrell’s last season or two, you could definitely tell the writing was slipping. I blame head writer Tina Fey, mainly because she’s a woman. Face it, Jerry Lewis was right — women just aren’t funny.
Seriously though, the current version of the show wouldn’t be able to survive without sex jokes, racial jokes or gay jokes. For middle school students or Jimmy Kimmel these might be fine, but for what was once regarded as a cutting-edge comedy show, it’s sad.
And don’t even get me started on “SNL“‘s lack of bite when it comes to political humor in times like these. “The Daily Show” basically blew it away in this area years ago, so maybe “SNL” has just accepted defeat.
For me, the show hasn’t produced a funny sketch in two seasons. Continues after the jump »
‘Wu-Gambinos’ by Raekwon
- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
- Deceptively simple beats hold you down while members of the Wu-Tang give you a merciless lyrical beating.
- We're going to run out of stars, but this one gets the cinco.
- Get it cheap at Amazon
It takes talent to turn a simple beat into something. Long before he was scoring films for Quentin Tarantino, the RZA was turning simple beats into works of art. Speed it up, add a few more layers of production, and you’d have something that might be considered a good starting point for one of today’s rappers. The key, and ostensibly the entire point of a simple beat, is that it must complement the lyrics. It’s not what he puts in, but what he leaves out that make the beats right for this song and the whole album, “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.”
That’s what you get with “Wu-Gambinos.” The beat is an integral part of the song, separate of the vocals, but equal. Without the story to tell on top of it, RZA’s beat would seem empty. Without the beat, the track’s lyrics would tell a different story.
Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, RZA, all Master Killer each tell their own tales of what it takes to make it as kingpin. Every member of the clan on the track is impressive, but listen for RZA’s verse to make your head spin.
“Wu-Gambinos” is the kind of song that you can sit back and listen to while knocking back a few 40s, but you’ll probably find yourself trying to analyze the lyrics and take in the story. The rough beats say “sit back and relax,” but the raps say “you’re going to drive yourself nuts if you don’t Google the lyrics.”
Luckily there’s plenty of time for both.
