Monday, April 27, 2009

How long until ABC Family evicts its "Roommates?"

Eviction notice please be served!

I hoped that the show might be good because the classic sit-com has become an endangered species - you know the sort, the one that's filmed in front of a live studio audience or at least leads us to believe that it is by using a laugh track - but rather than aiding the decaying idea, Roommates is digging the grave.

The situation comedy starring Sister Sister's Tamera Mowry - what happened to the other twin, and for that matter the little brother? - revolves around the lives of four roommates and their love lives and a not-so-secret crush. However, the show is riddled with 1990's sit-com cliches and hemorrhaging crappy plot lines and premises. Is there hope for the classic sit-com set up? With Roommates sticking around, I'm sure that it's as good as dead.

The show also stars Tyler Francavilla, as Mark who is "secretly" in love with Katie (Dorian Brown); Tommy Dewey as wise cracking, sex-crazed, typical man's man, James; and David Weidoff as Thom, Mark's odd-ball former roommate that adds nothing to the "comedy" except witty one liners and cliched situations.

It's like Friends only no one's watching and it sucks completely. If the show makes it to a second season, I'm going to start judging this country's funny bone.

Lacuna Coil introduces us to the "Shallow Life"

Shallow Life
Artist: Lacuna Coil
Genre: Hard Rock, Metal
Label: Century Media
Tracks: 12
Amazon's rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
My rating: 3 stars

Lyric quote: "The struggle within/Now I understand/Freedom begins/When you get out of the cage/You've built." from "Wide Awake."

Thoughts: Where has all the good music gone? Down into the trenches of this ongoing battle for radio time, that's where. Lacuna Coil returns to the scene with an explosion so loud that it'll leave pussies like Gerard Way clenching onto their mother's teat while emo fans run in fear. Shallow Life reminds me that there is hope out there for the real music.

As always, Cristina Scabbia's vocals wail over heavy riffs, evoking pain, hate, anger and love in a single lump. Along with Andrea Ferro's male vocals, the music comes alive with edgy glory.This twelve-track album is worth cash dished out, if only to celebrate the return something as powerful and meaningful.

While Scabbia has announced on Rock Sound that "It's different, but it's our style. We haven't done anything absolutely different from our style, because that wouldn't be natural, that would be weird - it wouldn't be us. The songs are definitely more powerful, more complete, more intense, more straight-to-the-point," one will notice that they have taken it up a notch.




Sunday, April 26, 2009

Fast & Furious
Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez & Jordana Brewster
Genre: Action
Rated: R
Tag line: New Model. Original Parts.
My rating: 4 stars

Plot: Taking place five years after the original, The Fast & the Furious, Dominic Toretto returns home when news reaches of him of a fallen friend. Vowing revenge, Dominic is thrust back into the life he left behind, having to turn away old grudges of FBI agent and former friend, Brian O'Connor. As a team, both men hunt down a common enemy.

Review: Like many of you, I'd given up hope on The Fast & the Furious franchise after seeing 2 Fast 2 Furious. The latest installment was a thorn in my spine the moment I heard the original team was back. That can only mean one of two things: The movie can revive the dying franchise that had to suffer through horrible sequels that, bringing back enthusiasm into the movies, not using recycled material for the sake of explosions; or it could bring the hatchet down, leaving the series crawling on its knees, dying, hoping for some sort of mercy kill that Hollywood refuses to give other franchises that have suffered badsequelitis (ahem, Saw!)

Fast & Furious, however, offers us something its predecessors (meaning just the sequels) failed to deliver: Good acting. Paul Walker and Vin Diesel have a good chemistry; Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster offer up even better chemistry when mixed in with the male leads. Even though most will say that the movie is a mental masturbation - don't get me wrong because with all the explosions, the fast cars, the hot babes, the fighting, shooting, the car chases, reunited old characters, exciting plot line and so on, it is very much a mental masturbation - but to call it anything less than a stellar movie is just begging for something that will never be, a sequel that will out live the original.

Before I get too much into it and wind up spoiling it for you who still haven't seen it - it's been a month guys, what are you waiting for? - the one thing that truly disappointed me was the half promise stated in the tag line: "New model. Original parts." While the gang is all present in the movie, the events leave on member sitting out for most of it due to the circumstances that I will not get into. You'll just have dish out the bucks to see it for yourself.



(photo source)


The Children

The Children
Director: Tom Shankland
Starring: Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell Moore, Jeremy Sheffield, Rachel Shelley & Hannah Tointon
Genre: Horror
Rated: UK 18 (so I'm assuming R)
Tag line: You brought them into this world. Now ... They will take you out.
Amazon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Rating: 4 stars

Plot: On Christmas vacation, a family of children begin to turn on their parents. A simple way of describing it would be think Children of the Corn meets 28 Days Later, only without the zombies.

Review: I don't think a movie I liked could irritate me so much like The Children did. It starts off rather relaxing, a lot of whispering which made the film hard to hear at times, but it did pick up as it progressed due to the fact that we had to higher the sound and children started screaming (which was the irritating part).

Taking much from what I saw on the Internet, I already knew the plot to the film, the children were going to kill the adults not unlike something out of Stephen King. But wait! There's a twist. And what a twist it is because the children aren't consciously killing the adults but are motivated by a symptom of their disease. Each child gets sick, and it appears the older they are the longer it takes before their immunity breaks down and they go psychotic on their elders.

What looked like an isolated incident turned out to be wide spread when a carefully planned "accident" leaves on father dead and a pregnant mother screaming in pain as her leg snaps, bone tearing through her flesh. There comes a time when you have to start to wonder why aren't these parents reacting to any of the strangeness that is happening with their children.

Even though the movie leaves you on the edge of your seat, and in some cases completely annoyed by the fact that you have no idea what the virus is or where it came from, or if it's even the "real" reason why the children are revolting, the acting, the story the suspense is all perfect - no Hollywood cliches here! It's a must watch, one that you will remember in the weeks to come.


Rest Stop

Rest Stop
Director: John Shiban
Starring: Jaimie Alexander, Joey Mendicino & Joseph "Joey" Lawrence
Genre: Horror, Suspense Thriller
Rated: R (or Unrated, depending on which you get)
Tag line: Dead Ahead
Amazon rating: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars
My rating: 3 stars

Plot: Aspiring actress, Nicole Carrow runs away to Los Angeles with her boyfriend, Jess Hilts. Upon their travels, they encounter a man driving a yellow truck who begins stalking the couple. When they come to a rest stop 60 miles from anywhere, Jess is kidnapped by the sadistic driver leaving Nicole to fend for herself. Throughout the night, she is mentally tortured by the man in the yellow truck causing her to lose herself in delirium. In end, one can ponder if Nicole isn't just haunted by her own feelings of guilt.

Review: A huge leap away from her Kyle XY character, Jaimie Alexander (yes, she has a nude scene) delivers her full acting potential, working with what she was given.

The plot of the movie reminds me a lot of that Paul Walker film about the sadistic truck driver, just with less driving and with more phantoms in the night. The story's riddled with Hollywood cliches, leaving the view disenchanted at times. However, rather than to toss this DVD aside to the do not watch list, leave it in queue on your Netflix because you just might be in for a treat.

While several have grunted that the movie was terrible, one has to keep in mind that the "internets" are a shallow group, not withstanding the intellects of others. Most of them want to be served a storyline that makes sense, which they can decipher before the end credits roll. Rest Stop is definitely not the brain candy they seek, nor is one that anyone who wants the Hollywood "five-paragraph" story that tells you what's going to happen, what's happening when it's happening, and what just happened.

Rest Stop leaves you in riddles, trying to figure out what exactly is happening and what is merely the psychosis of a guilt-ridden girl stranded in the middle of nowhere. Or perhaps they are simple holes in the plot, left unsuspectingly by an amateur film director slash writer, which Shibon is not.

Watch it or don't, it doesn't matter because in the end we all get what we deserve.


Sunday, April 19, 2009

Latest Fox Show Should Take Own Advice

Not sure if I should be surprised that the latest addition to "Animation Domination" sucks more than anything that it has thus far released. Greg the Bunny, please come back!

Sit Down, Shut Up is set within the halls of a school and revolves around the lives of the faculty who run it - or attempt to, anyway. Within the walls of the school is a masculine boy-hungry librarian, a effeminate bisexual theatre teacher, a bumbling couch who's in love with a holier-than-though, moron Christian stereotype (is she a teacher?) Miracle...I think you get the point.

The show won't be on long. And if it is, then I'm going to have to start questioning the intelligence of those who kept it on. It's insulting to our intelligence that Fox would think to even green light the school. The pilot alone is everywhere, introducing each character and their "catch phrase," instilling their stereotype and characteristics, giving a crumbling premise. It makes me wonder if Fox is using this show as a replacement for King of the Hill, whose cancellation was announced last Fall.

Animation Domination, which lineup includes The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad, is expected to gain another show this Fall, a spin off of Family Guy - The Cleveland Show. I'm wary that Fox might be losing its touch, however the success of the latter two just might prove that a third just might be as funny. I just wonder what will replace Sit Down, Shut Up when Fox finally comes to its senses and axes it.