blu-ray

#326: Not the Best Buy (RSTs Mk II: Getting More Tale)

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RECORD STORE TALES Mk II:  Getting More Tale

#326: Not the Best Buy

I don’t shop in the big corporate record stores that often anymore. Hell, I don’t even really shop in stores anymore! I used to, even at the big stores. When I started working in Cambridge, my buddy Chris and I would go to Future Shop once a week at lunch time to check out the new releases. I would typically buy a new movie and a new CD release at least once a week, sometimes more.  I’d stock up on blank CDs, or just impulsively buy a guitar there.  It happens!

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We would do the circuit around the store. We’d start with the new releases up front, then head to the movie section. I would detour over to CDs while Chris would look at electronics and computer games. We’d meet up at the bargain bin as we left. It’s there that Chris and I acquired two copies of Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield on DVD for $4.99 each. The girl at the front counter was jealous and asked if there were any left! She always knew us as the “Tuesday new release guys”. We sometimes wondered if she thought we were a gay couple since we rarely went in without the other!

Sometime in the last few years, both Future Shop and Best Buy (which are the same company) really started to change. They moved the music and movie section to the very back of the stores, providing more room for cell phones and tablets. It was a sign that things were getting worse for people like myself who enjoy owning physical product. Chris is similar to me. He likes to own “whole collections” of movie or TV series. Some of us are just like that.  He always likes to own the ones he really loves. (Such as the Police Academy series. Yes Chris I just outed you.)

So, we stopped going to Future Shop at lunch. In fact we haven’t been in ages.  Same went for Best Buy.  Strangely enough, a Best Buy soon opened in Cambridge, right next to the Future Shop.  Even the new Best Buy store didn’t have much in the way of music and movies, so we just stopped spending our money at lunch time.

IMG_20141004_123453I can tell you exactly what CD it was that I purchased the last time I bought one at Best Buy. It was the 2 CD/1 Blu-ray/1 DVD version of Led Zeppelin’s Celebration Day (2012) which was a brand new release.  And even a release that monumental was hard to find at Best Buy!

I walked into the store a few days after the initial release.  I saw that all they had on the front “new release” display was the DVD combo sets. I went over to the Zeppelin section in music – nothing there. I checked the same in the movies.  Nada.  Then I found a Zeppelin display at the side of one of the aisles. All they had there was CD and DVD; none of the 2 CD/1 Blu/1 DVD.

I found a customer service person that wasn’t chatting up her co-workers, and asked her where they kept the brand new Zeppelin Blu-rays?

In the back room, apparently! She found one for me and I purchased it, a little confused why a Led Zeppelin new release on the hot newest format would be in their back room.

So I bought the package; the very last CD set I have purchased at Best Buy. Best Buy have really abandoned the physical music releases, and that’s too bad. I used to enjoy buying music and movies at that store due to the prices, two nearby convenient locations, and the fact that I could usually find everything I was looking for. No longer. Sorry Best Buy: you and I are no longer besties!

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Blu-ray REVIEW: Sound City (2013)

“The internet’s cool for some stuff, but like many things, there’s no book store, there’s no music store, and there’s no Sound City.” — Josh Homme

SOUND CITY (2013 Roswell Films)

Directed by Dave Grohl

Uncle Meat persuaded me to see this movie, and I’m glad that he did.  He said it wasn’t optional; that it was a must and that I would love it.  So I bought it on Blu-ray, invited him over to co-review it with me, and we viewed it one afternoon after work in 5.1 surround.   Needless to say, Sound City was good.  So good that we never felt we could do it justice in a review, so I sat on my notes for over a year!  Having recently re-watched Sound City (directed by Dave Grohl) with Mrs. LeBrain, now I can finally finish what Meat and I started last year.

Van Nuys, California.  Sound City Studios, the legendary place where everybody who is anybody recorded.  Nirvana?  Check.  Fleetwood Mac?  Rick Springfield?  Tom Petty?  Check.  Slipknot?  Also check.  Neil Young recorded much of  After the Gold Rush there, after being enamored of the vocal sound that he got on “Birds”.  Keith Olsen learned his craft there.  It’s not much to look at on the outside:  according to producer Butch Vig, it’s “kinda dumpy”. On the inside, there’s booze and cigarettes everywhere.  Big room, huge floor. Lots of black magnetic tape.

Grohl narrates, personal anecdotes flow, then he steps out of the movie’s way.  Grohl has a nice visual style, a combination of close ups and wide shots with plenty of details to look at.  He infuses the movie with plenty of humour, sometimes at his own expense.  The film has two phases:  the first is a history lesson regarding the studio and the artists who created the hits there.  The second consists of Dave purchasing the studio’s Neve board, moving it north to his own studio, and recording a brand new album with the same legendary artists.  Pretty cool concept.

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The huge Neve console was built like a “brick shithouse” (Keith Olsen), or a “tank” (Neil Young).  Its original purchase price: bought for $75,175  in 1969 dollars.  A nice house at the time cost around $30,000!   The Neve was one of only four.  Combined with the room itself at Sound City, the drum sound you can capture is incredible.  The studio’s acoustics were not designed; it was a complete fluke.  It was originally a box factory that happens to sound magical.

As for that Neve console, it is of course entirely analog.  The one at Sound City was unique, considered the best sounding one. Rupert Neve tried to explain the electronics of it to Grohl in one of the movie’s more humourous scenes.  The very first song recorded on that board was “Crying in the Night”, by Buckingham Nicks.  This led directly to Mick Fleetwood hearing them while at the studio, and hiring not only the studio, but also Buckingham and Nicks!  Essentially, the modern Fleetwood Mac formed right there at Sound City. The studio’s success really began with Rumours.  Then, everyone wanted to record there.   As for Tom Petty?  It appears that Tom Petty pretty much spent his entire career at Sound City.  In fact one of the coolest scenes was an old behind the scenes video from the 1990’s.  Seeing Rick Rubin produce Tom Petty and being brutally honest was very interesting.

Rick Rubin to Tom Petty:  “Sounds like you’re aiming a little lower today than you should be.”

Along came the compact disc, and the infancy of digital recording.  Digital was the latest trend, and you could do new things with a computer that were harder to do on tape.  Sound City suffered during this time, as newer rival studios were on trend. Sound City was dead…but one album helped resuscitate it:  Nevermind.  Then came Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Slayer, Kyuss.  Analog tape and vintage equipment became popular again.  Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash recorded Unchained there with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  Nine Inch Nails combined the old with the new, by bring in their own computers to record on ProTools along with the Neve.

Unfortunately ProTools was heavy competition, and working with tape was so difficult by comparison, that Sound City finally shut its doors.  They just couldn’t pay the bills anymore, even after selling off their excess equipment.  Then Dave bought the board.  It is amazing to watch it taken apart, boxed up, reassembled and functioning in Seattle.  Regarding the sale of the board, Grohl says, “I think they knew that I wasn’t just going to bubble wrap it, and stick it in a warehouse.  I was gonna fuckin’ use it.  A lot.”

SOUND CITY_0001On November 2, 2011, reassembly of the board began at Dave’s Studio 606.  Then he invited all the original artists back to record a new album on it, produced by Butch Vig.  Regarding Stevie Nicks, in a memorable moment Vig says, “Fuckin’ A, that girl can sing!”  More artists arrive.  The Foo Fighters plus Rick Springfield create a monstrous sound together, a neat amalgam of their respective genres.  Lee Ving (Fear) is hilarious, and performs the fastest count-in of all time.  I discovered a new respect for Trent Reznor, a guy who uses the technology to create original sounds, but desires the warmth of tape.  It’s incredible to see him collaborate with Homme and Grohl.  It’s the sound of humans communicating with instruments.  And they wrote a pretty frickin’ cool song together.  Then, watching Paul McCartney writing “Cut Me Some Slack” with the surviving members of Nirvana is a moment that I’m glad was frozen in time.

Grohl:  “What can’t it always be this easy?”

McCartney:  “It is.”

The blu-ray bonus features include three additional performances: “From Can to Can’t”, “Your Wife is Calling”, “The Slowing Down”.  It was these bonus features that inspired Meat and I to add “Your Wife is Calling” (with Lee Ving) to our 2014 Sausagefest lists.  Our votes allowed the song to clock in at #64.  (The track was my #1.)

Sound City is a complete triumph of a music documentary.  It is the kind of music documentary designed for serious fans, not just passers-by.  I would welcome another movie directed by Dave Grohl with open arms.

5/5 stars

Blu-ray REVIEW: Trailer Park Boys – Don’t Legalize It (2014)

NEW RELEASE

Thanks to Chris Thuss for loaning this disc to me.

TPB3_0001TRAILER PARK BOYS – Don’t Legalize It (2014 Entertainment One)

Directed by Mike Clattenburg

Two years prior to the start of the new Trailer Park Boys opus, Ricky and Julian were released from jail for the 17th time.  Jim Lahey has suffered from a Ricky-induced stroke.  He now limps with a cane, hooked on coke (“white liquor”), still beside an increasingly disgusted Randy.  Lucy is living with mall cop George Green (aka “Fucky McFucksnapper”).  Ricky and Julian have ceased working with each other.  Ricky’s growing dope on an unprecedented scale, in a house in the subdivisions, but the Shitmobile only drives in reverse.  Bubbles is delivering chicken and beer on bicycle, living under J-Roc’s front step.  Terry & Dennis (the Flappy Bird Brothers) and Sam Losco are working for Cyrus.  And Lahey’s buying coke from Sam.  It’s a viscous circle.  Julian was bouncing at a local club, but now has taken a step up (?) in the world by selling piss.

Let me repeat that: Julian is selling piss.

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Clean piss, stolen from the military, at $60 a vial.  Paying $60 to pass a drug test and keep your job is apparently worth it in Julian’s world.  “Liquid gold,” he calls it.  The quality and freshness of the piss is important to his customers.  Ricky’s business of choice, however, is about to be shut down.  Canada is legalizing marijuana, turning Ricky from king of the hill to unemployed overnight…unless he can stop legalization.

Allow me to repeat that too:  Ricky needs to stop the legalization of marijuana.

Bubbles then receives a mysterious letter from a lawyer: his long-lost parents have passed away, but have left Bubbles a piece of land in Kingston, Ontario.  All he has to do is claim it.  Since Ricky needs to get to Ottawa to stop legalization, and Julian needs to get to Montreal to sell his stolen piss, it only makes sense to combine road trips.  Or a “working vacation,” says Julian.  He’s turned the Dirty Burger into a “Piss Wagon” to transport the liquid gold.  And Lahey’s following them.

Will things go off the rails when Randy dumps all Lahey’s “white liquor” out of the window of their station wagon?  Can Julian trust Cyrus?  Will Bubbles stay in Kingston?  And can Ricky stop his precious illegal crop from being legalized and taxed by government dicks?  All will be decided by the time they get to Ottawa…

Trailer Park Boys shows are known for the mangled English known as Rickysisms.  Some of my favourite lines and Rickyisms in this installment included:

“Instant carla, fucky!” – Ricky.

“Just shutty that fucky!  What’s with your hair man, you think you’re a fucking Beavil or something?” – to Randy regarding his “Beatles ‘do”.

(Laughs) “Meth!?  He’s selling piss, you fucking dum-dum.” – Ricky to Lahey, who thought the test tubes and hazmat gear meant Julian was cooking crystal meth.

“Cocksuckers chicken-jacked me!” – Bubbles after being mugged for chicken.

“Julian, can you stop handling the weiners for a second?” – Bubbles

The movie is dedicated to Richard Collins, aka Philadelphia Collins, who passed during the filming of the movie.  Phil Collins has some excellent scenes in this installment despite being confined to a wheelchair.  It is also dedicated to Brian Huggins (Shitty Bill) and Rita MacNeil.

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Special features: a 1976 vintage VW camper is discussed in the “Cars Of” feature.  Apparently that camper was a bitch!  The Laheymobile is an ’89 Crown Victoria station wagon that Randy is not allowed to fart in.  Ricky’s Shitmobile is a ’75 Chrysler New Yorker, which had to be drastically revamped structurally just to make it safe to film with.  Then there’s the Dirty Burger, which is actually an old camper that Robb Wells and John Paul Trembley bought years ago.  “Dogs, Busses & Barf Tubes” reveals the origins of Bubbles’ bus.  My favourite featurette is “The Cock Bomb Problem”.  What’s the “Cock Bomb” you ask?  The crew and cast ceaselessly pranked each other by drawing cocks on all of their stuff.

I felt that Trailer Park Boys went a little too dark on the last couple outings.  The final TV episode before the recent revamp of the show was the dour “Say Goodnight to the Bay Guys”, which was followed by the similar downer movie Countdown to Liquor Day.  Don’t Legalize It has its own moments of sadness and quite a few tears, but measured against its predecessor, it’s a much funnier and re-watchable film.  I think this captures the heart of the series better than the last film, even though many characters are absent or have smaller roles.  The core is the triumvirate of Ricky, Julian and Bubbles, along with the evil duo of Randy and Lahey.  As long as you have those ingredients, you have potential for a lot of fuckery.  Don’t Legalize It delivers.

4/5 stars

Further reading:
TRAILER PARK BOYS – The Movie (2006 Alliance Atlantis)
TRAILER PARK BOYS – Big Plans, Little Brains: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons
TRAILER PARK BOYS – The Complete Third Season
TRAILER PARK BOYS – The Complete Fourth Season
TRAILER PARK BOYS Xmas Special (Conky Puppet, Dope and Liquor Editions)
TRAILER PARK BOYS – The Complete Fifth Season
TRAILER PARK BOYS – The Complete Sixth Season
TRAILER PARK BOYS – The Complete Seventh Season
TRAILER PARK BOYS – Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys

Blu-ray REVIEW: Billy Connolly – Journey to the Edge of the World (2009 Blu-ray)

BILLY CONNOLLY_0002BILLY CONNOLLY – Journey to the Edge of the World – A voyage through Canada’s Northwest Passage (2009 ITV Blu-ray)

I’ve always found Billy Connolly to have an incredibly warm sense of humour, and that is on full display in this wonderful TV series. Because of recent decreases in Arctic sea ice, the Northwest Passage is now clear for several weeks during the summer. One can now travel along the northern coast of Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Connolly begins his journey in Halifax and travels north, and west. Along the way he sees sights that many of us will never have the chance to experience. It is all captured here on Blu-ray, in gorgeous 1080p. Towering icebergs are crisp blue and as detailed as you can imagine.

The isolation of these places is quite breathtaking. The real selling feature of this series is the hi-def glory of Earth’s nature in full 1080p. If you’ve ever romanticized about cold seas, towering icebergs, or glaciers without another human being in sight, then this disc will put you right there. It’s just awesome to behold. However there is a dark undertone here, as global warming is always just beneath the surface of the beauty. (For example, hearing the ice cracking with sounds like cannons.) By the time Billy finishes his journey in Vancouver, powerful images will be etched into your mind. This is not a disc to watch just once.

One of the charms of this series is that Billy genuinely seems to love people. Whether it’s the humble Newfoundland fisherman, or the smiling faces of Inuit throat singers, Billy loves them all. Billy has no problem getting wet, or trying dishes that are foreign to his palette. He’ll treat you to some folk music along the way, his banjo never far from his side. It is a joy to watch this film and learn about parts of my geography and culture that many of us are ignorant. A lot of activity is crammed into each episode, meaning you’ll likely take it off the shelf for another spin periodically, whenever you get romantic for the snow and ice of the north.  With summer here, why not?

5/5 stars

Blu-ray REVIEW: Get Him to the Greek (2010)

Welcome back to the Week of Rockin’ Movies.  We’re looking at movies all week, with significant rock n’ roll connections.  If you missed anything, click below!

MONDAY:  House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
TUESDAY: The Devil’s Rejects (2005)
WEDNESDAY: 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
THURSDAY: Record Store Tales Part 284: The Impact of Movies


GET  HIM TO THE GREEK (2010 Universal)

Directed by Nicolas Stoller

WARNING: If you can’t sit through two hours of anything with either Jonah Hill or Russell Brand, don’t even finish reading this review. Just hit your “back” button now and read something else.  Or click here if you’d like to read something more your speed.

Get Him To the Greek was the spin-off from Jason Segal’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  Sarah Marshall’s ex, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) is back to his hard-partying ways, and his relationship with singer Jackie Q is on the rocks. Worse, his most recent album with his band Infant Sorrow (African Child) is a commercial and critical bust. The New Musical Express has dubbed it “the worst thing to happen to Africa since apartheid”, and while that may be a bit harsh, the music video featuring Snow as a “white African space Christ” certainly didn’t help.

Meanwhile, Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) works for Sergio (Sean “Puffy” Combs) at Pinnacle Records.   The label needs to thicken its revenue stream or go bust.  Sergio wants fresh ideas, but there’s nothing. Aaron Green suggests a 10th anniversary concert for Infant Sorrow at the Greek theater, to commemorate their most celebrated performance. That can be spun off into a series of reissues, live albums, and DVDs; a potential game changer. Sergio orders Green to get Snow to the Greek.

For Green, everything is on this line.  This one opportunity will either make, or break his career with Pinnacle Records.  No matter the odds, he must get Snow to the Greek!

This sets into motion a series of events to test Green’s resolve and Snow’s stamina for partying. Getting Snow to the Greek is not as easy as it sounds. A notorious rock star, Snow has no interest in doing anything besides living in the moment, even if it means missing flight after flight after flight. The plot here is not complicated, it’s just a series of funny misadventures as Green desperately tries to make the right decisions to somehow complete this mission. Add in a couple unnecessary side plots about the girlfriends of both main characters.  Because you need that, I suppose.

The lowbrow humour is captained by the amiable Brand, with Jonah Hill playing a less loudmouthed version of Jonah Hill.  He’s playing the lovable version of Jonah as Green.  The best of the bunch is Sean Combs as Sergio. It was he who surprised me the most, as he stole every scene he was in. I also enjoyed numerous celebrity cameos.  Sadly for Aldous Snow, Jackie Q seems to have a thing for short bald Danish metal drummers.

The Blu-ray is fully loaded. Rated and unrated versions. Deleted scenes. Commentaries. And so on. You know the drill! Most entertaining are a series of live concert clips of Russell in character as Aldous Snow with Infant Sorrow. There are actually a whole bunch of bonus songs on the blu-ray; totally worth the purchase to have these. The big surprise was a live version of “Dracula’s Lament” with Jason Segal and an understated Jack Black.

Get Him to the Greek lacks Sarah Marshall‘s heart, but it does lampoon rock stars and the music industry quite effectively.  Do not watch if easily offended.

3.5/5 stars

Jonah Hill as Aaron Green
Russell Brand as Aldous Snow
Elisabeth Moss as Daphne Binks
Rose Byrne as Jackie Q
Sean Combs as Sergio Roma
Colm Meaney as Jonathan Snow
Aziz Ansari as Matty Briggs
Nick Kroll as Kevin McLean

Part 284: The Impact of Movies

Welcome back to the Week of Rockin’ Movies.  Today I wanted to talk about my own movie collection, because pretty much the whole thing rocks.  If you missed a previous installment, click below!

MONDAY:  House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
TUESDAY: The Devil’s Rejects (2005)
WEDNESDAY: 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

RECORD STORE TALES Part 284:  The Impact of Movies

Way back, I discussed how the CD store began stocking used DVDs.  It was a slam dunk success, once the word got out.  When we had built up decent inventory,which took time, DVD sales really took off.  At first, our DVD purchases were slow.  Not enough people were selling them for us to have a large selection of movies.  In order to help maintain our stock, staff members were initially only allowed to buy one DVD per pay period.  That was to prevent us from taking all the good stuff (although some figured out ways around this if two must-haves arrived at the same time*).  Once inventory exploded, we had boxes and boxes of overstock.  We had to add a new center island to the store for the growing movie section.   Some days, we’d buy a hundred movies, but only a couple CDs.  How things had reversed!   We ended up with DVDs in our Bin O’ Bargains.  (It was in Joe‘s Bargain Bin that I acquired Incident At Loch Ness.)

This ushered in a whole new set of customers.  Now I had customers that weren’t interested in music at all.  Many people exclusively bought and sold DVDs.  I had some that were only interested in buying TV show seasons, which were expensive back then.  Now you can get a whole series for the price of what a season used to cost back then.

 

My friend and collaborator Aaron hasn’t had cable TV in a dog’s age.  Much like myself, he considers most of what’s on TV to be mindless, useless, and brain-rotting.  So he ditched his cable.

Meanwhile, I still had my cable, but my growing DVD collection was rendering it obsolete.  Once the restrictions were lifted on staff DVD purchases, my collection grew prodigiously.  I endeavored to collect complete filmographies from the directors that I liked.  I sought all the Kubricks, then everything by Sam Raimi, and Terry Gilliam.

Then one day in 2003, I decided to follow Aaron’s example.  If he could do it I could do it too, so I decided that I didn’t need the brain-rotting tube anymore.  I was hardly watching it anyway.  Rogers don’t like losing customers, the customer service rep asked me, “But what will you watch?” He didn’t get it.  I guess not too many people decide they’re not going to watch TV anymore, and this was long before Netflix.  Once I declined all his offers for deals and discounts, my cable was disconnected.

I lived happily without cable for five whole years.  Only my massive movie and music collection kept me company.  I enjoyed saving the money, and I continued to immerse myself in new movies all the time.  In fact, in the latter days of the record store, when I was miserable, I was more into movies than music.  Music didn’t bring me the joy it once had, it was a dark time for me.  That was when movies had their greatest impact on me.

Then I got a new job. Then I got married.  To a Maple Leafs fan.

One of the pre-conditions of marriage was that we were getting cable again.  Another pre-condition was that Mrs. LeBrain was to get the TV any time there was a hockey game on.  During hockey season, that’s three nights a week.  I didn’t realize that when the Leafs were (inevitably) knocked out of a playoff position, that Mrs. LeBrain was still going to watch hockey games right to the Stanley Cup.  I didn’t get that.  My movie watching time went down, and down, and down.  Eventually, I just gave up custody of the remote control.  I sat by as hockey and then reality TV sadly took over my screen.

I still have my movie collection, pared down a bit, to the 4 or 5 hundred that I love most.  I just wish I had more time to watch them!  Unfortunately, the Leafs are playing the Florida Panthers tonight.  Maybe I can schedule some movie time during the playoffs, since Toronto was eliminated last night.


* to be discussed in a future Record Store Tale…the story of Ivan.

 

MOVIE REVIEW: G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Extended Action Cut) 2013

“We’re the Four fuckin’ Horsemen / Back for a second time.”

G.I. JOE: Retaliation (2013)

Directed by Jon M. Chu

I’m sorry if you saw the first movie, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009). That lowly turd of a film is one that I own, but can only sit through by splitting it into two or more sittings. Never in one. I saw it this way recently, and I managed to make it through. The movie was crap, and so was the toyline that went with it. All garbage. I don’t care to review the movie again, so to quote from my own old Amazon 2/5 star writeup:

The acting here is bad bordering on terrible. This Channing Tatum guy can’t act at all. Dennis Quaid pours the cheeze-wiz on every line of dialogue that General Hawk delivers. Marlon Wayons (Rip Cord), Rachel Nichols (Scarlet), and Sienna Miller (Baroness) are passable. The heavies tend to get the best roles and the best actors: Arnold Vosloo (Zartan) steals every scene he is in, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is surprisingly serpentine as Cobra Commander. Christopher Eccleston is good as the Scottish arms dealer Destro, just menacing enough while also dignified and cool. Also, it’s nice to see Jonathan Pryce in anything…The direction by that hack Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) is gawd-awful.

Pryce was in the first movie far too briefly to be of any consequence to the finished product. That and many of the other weaknesses with the first film were dealt with here in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Most of the cast was jettisoned. Wisely, Ray Park and Lee Byung-hun were retained as the iconic ninjas Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow. Cobra Commander was re-cast (Gordon-Levitt being unnecessary and expensive behind a silver mask). Otherwise only Pryce, Arnold Vosloo and Channing Tatum survive to the second film. Even though Dennis Quaid was contracted to do three movies, leadership has fallen to Tatum’s Duke. Newcomers include Duke’s buddy Roadblock (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and new recruits Jady Jaye, Flint, and Jinx.

Another issue that I had with the first film was that I felt the tech was too sci-fi and outlandish. This is tamed down a tad in this movie, although everything is still futuristic enough. The bad guys don’t all have ray guns and anti-gravity jets and shit this time. They usually fire bullets and fly helicopters and jets and stuff. The characters and vehicles look more like the original toys did. There are things such as the HISS (High Speed Sentry) tanks that look like the toys you had. Roadblock looks like the figure you had, or wanted (in my case the latter). So does Cobra Commander, finally.

JOE 46Anyway that’s all window dressing if there’s no story. The story is this: Master of disguise Zartan is still impersonating the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce, who is the real star of the movie). Cobra Commander and Destro are still imprisoned, but the Commander is freed by his ninja Storm Shadow. With the explosives expert Firefly (another toy you wanted), they engineer the betrayal and destruction of the entire G.I. Joe team. Only a handful survive. Then the President replaces them with the services of a new security contractor called Cobra.

There’s also a new Ultimate Weapon called Zeus which is pretty silly physics-wise, because in real life it wouldn’t work. (If a satellite merely “dropped”, ie: let go of, a rod of tungsten, the tungsten would simply settle into the same orbit as the satellite.) We’ll overlook this because BOOM! DADOOOM! KABLAAAMM! SLASH! SWISH! SWING! There’s action. There’s a frickin’ battle with ninjas hanging off the side of a mountain, people. It makes no sense in any sort of real physical way but it looks nifty and must have looked great in 3D in theaters. I found it odd that the G.I Joe team is the only military force in the world today operating without any sort of helmet or hat or head gear of any kind.

Pic from yojoe.com

Joe Colton pic from yojoe.com

Back to the story, G.I. Joe has been wiped out.  The Rock and his friends need help, so they go to the only man they know they can trust: Bruce Willis. In the original Marvel comics and Hasbro toyline (fuck Sunbow), Joe Colton was the original, retired G.I. Joe. In fact his code name was “G.I. Joe”. Willis is the perfect choice to play this hard-ass and I have to admit it’s big fun to see him and the Rock kicking ass in the same scenes.

As a self-proclaimed Marvel Comics Joe nerd, the original gospel of Larry Hama is all. I enjoyed that this movie tended to go back to the original source material for ideas more so than the original film did. I won’t get into specifics too much, except to say that certain things especially in relation to Snakes and Stormy reflect events that happened in the comics. Staying truer to the strong source material (Hama was no slouch) only helps the movie which otherwise is just a collage of BOOM!

As for the Blu-ray, I was pleased to hear a balanced 7.1 surround mix.  I was a bit baffled to hear The Four Horsemen’s “Back In Business Again” in the movie soundtrack, but more power to ’em.  I didn’t watch too many of the special features.   I did watch both versions of the film (the “Extended Action Cut” is on the Blu and the theatrical on the DVD) but I don’t have any impressions of which is better.  Most recently I watched the extended version and it was plenty cool.

3/5 stars

RETALIATION_0002

REVIEW: Black Sabbath – Live…Gathered In Their Masses (CD/DVD/Blu-ray box set)

NEW RELEASE

BLACK SABBATH – Live…Gathered In Their Masses (2013 CD/DVD/Blu-ray box set)

Any time a classic rock band releases new music and goes back on tour, there has to be a live album to go with it these days.  Actually, to be more accurate in the current age it’s more likely to be some kind of CD/DVD combo pack.  This deluxe of Live…Gathered In Their Masses contains 1 CD, 1 Blu-ray, and 2 DVDs.

The visual program opens with a collage of pre-gig ritiual.  The band arrive, and get ready in their own dressing rooms, the cameras offering a brief intimate glimpse.  Before too long, the air raid sirens of “War Pigs” brings us to the stage.  The Blu-ray looks absolutely gorgeous.  Every line on every face is visible, every grain on Tony’s Gibson SG, and the stage is gorgeously lit.  It’s a beautiful disc to watch in 1080p.  I couldn’t help myself; I sat there playing air drums, and putting my hands in the air when Ozzy commanded.  It was fun!

Ozzy hops about, but most exciting visually is unofficial member Tommy Clufetos.  I wonder if it’s intentional, but he definitely resembles a young Bill Ward circa 1976 (as long as he keeps his shirt on).  And Tony?  He smiles, a lot.  You would too if you’ve been through what he has I imagine!  Ozzy’s already dumped a bucket of water over his head before they get to the second song, a sludgy “Into the Void”.  I think the temptation is often to play this song a little faster live, but this version is very much in pace with the deliberately slow original.

My cell phone ring tone these days is that riff from “Loner”, one of the best songs from 13.  Unfortunately, the fact that this is a new song means Ozzy’s rivited to one place on stage, concentrating on the words, glancing at the floor.  Even so, Ozzy remains a mesmerizing presence.  Another bucket of water, and Ozzy’s the cheeleading frontman again.  The bonus interview on the disc, by the way, reveals why Ozzy really douses himself in water!  (You probably don’t want to know.)  “Snowblind” then erupts, Ozzy hitting the high notes with cracking but real voice!  (That’s the part that counts.)  Tony’s extended guitar solo is a stunner in itself.

The rain and tolling bells of “Black Sabbath” sound great on blu-ray, though I was hoping to hear more stuff going on behind me in the 5.1 mix.  “Black Sabbath” is the standard workout, no surprises here.  Likewise, “N.I.B.” is very much the traditional Sabbath version, even down to each note of Tony’s solo.  Ozzy somehow manages to still be menacing behind the mic.  “Methademic” is one of the new songs again, but oddly it’s a only bonus track on the deluxe versions of 13.  This is a song that resembles Dio-era Sabbath and would have sounded at home on Dehumanizer or The Devil You Know.  With Ozzy behind the mic, it’s still classic Sabbath.  I think it’s a great number, only weakened live by Ozzy struggling through the wordy lyrics.

Oz doesn’t seem to have trouble with the old favourite “Fairies Wear Boots”.  His wail of “Allllllright now!” looms, and out comes the water again!  “Symptom Of the Universe” then stomps on the stage.  This is the song that Clufetos can really sink his chops in.  He’s obviously not Bill Ward, but I like his interpretation of Bill’s parts.  They’re as close to the mark as any other Sabbath drummer’s parts, if not more.  Tommy gets an extended drum solo too, during “Symptom”, not bad for an unofficial member!  Mrs. LeBrain called the solo “Sweet!”

GATHERED IN THEIR MASSES_0004A drum solo naturally suits “Iron Man” to segue into.  “Iron Man” is wooden, Clufetos unable to cop Bill Ward’s loose feel.  It’s still “Iron Man”, a song Black Sabbath have probably played live at every show since ’72, but it’s not definitive.  Only when the song gets up to speed does it become the beast it should be.  Another new song, the deliberately vintage sounding “End of the Beginning” takes over, but it’s not the song I would have chosen to play at this point of the set.  Not only is it too similar to “Black Sabbath” but it slows the set down too much so close to the end.  It does pick up, but I feel it would have worked better closer to the start of the show.

Ozzy then teases out that they will only play one more song, unless the crowd goes “extra crazy”.  This “final” song is the storming “Children of the Grave.”  The audience bounces like a wave in sync with the classic tune, led by an energized Ozzy.  I detected some clever editing here to make it appear that Ozzy is jumping around more than he actually is, but that’s video.  One pretty thing about this song is the appearance of Tony’s old cream Gibson SG, paint cracked and chipping.  Blu-ray allows you to see every scratch in the paint.

The crowd goes “extra crazy” and then Ozzy says they’ll play one more song.  It’s “God Is Dead?”, the excellent first single from 13.  Clufetos nails the stuttering drum roll, but Ozzy’s back to reading lyrics off the floor, which is distracting.  But does anyone actually believe it is the last song; that they won’t play “Paranoid”?  Of course they play it, and the riff from “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” too.  It’s the quintessential closer, ending the concert as a party, not a session of pure doom!  Clufetos and Ozzy are quite animated on “Paranoid”, and of course Ozzy reminds the crowd that they are “number one”!  I just wish Tommy would pull up his pants.  Fuck, I wish I could fit into that size!

The DVD and Blu-ray versions contain three bonus tracks.  “Under the Sun” is a nice one to pull out of the hat.  Ozzy handles the difficult vocals without issue.  How does he do it?  You can hear his voice cracking from time to time; it sounds live.  “Dirty Women” is a personal favourite of mine.  This is an interesting version.  It’s the one that Spotify have as their own exclusive bonus track to 13.  I already had an audio copy of this bonus track, but Blu-ray is cool, too.  It’s a damn great rendition of a lost classic from Technical Ecstasy.  “Electric Funeral” is the big surprise, a song I don’t think I’ve ever heard played live.  Ozzy really struggles with the words on “Electric Funeral” but it’s a treat.

Elsewhere on the disc, there are more bonus features.  I have to say the Blu-ray menu is an annoying, repeating tolling bell.  Leaving the menu running unattended for more than 60 seconds is an excersize in testing your patience.  In the bonus features, the Sabbath interview is typically low key.  You know what to expect:  a difficult to understand Ozzy, and a soft spoken Tony, with occasional comments from Geezer.  There’s not too much here in the way of revelations.  Vegetable juice and food have replaced vodka and a line before the show, although Geezer still drinks wine.  How scandalous!  I don’t know who the interviewer is, but he’s very good at getting the band involved and in good humour.

Lastly there’s a feature called “Show Day”.  This is a behind the scenes look at the goings-on in the 24 hours before the show in Melbourne.  I love it!

Ozzy:  “You know what I was looking at, the old re-runs of the Twilight Zone.”

Geezer:  “You told me that about 40 times.”

Ozzy:  “Sorry.  Trying to make conversation.”

Tony:  (Laughs.)

Even Joe Perry and Steven Tyler show up backstage.  I enjoy watching Joe and Tony chatting…what a meeting of guitar greats in one room.

The packaging for this box set is loaded with goodies.  I always enjoy some complimentary guitar picks.  There’s one here from Tony, and one from Geezer.  There’s also a replica concert ticket, setlist, and a small poster.  Nothing to get too excited about, but when you buy an expensive box set it’s nice to get these added touches as a bonus.  There’s also two DVDs included with the same content as Blu-ray.  That’s extraneous to me, I may never play them, so they’re sealed.  I don’t have a problem with that, but I do wish they didn’t edit the CD version of the concert down to fit on one CD.  I’m pleased that the CD version contains all the new songs, but for the price of this set relative to the cheap cost of a CD, I don’t know why they couldn’t just make it a 2 CD set.  That part is disappointing.  When I buy a deluxe edition, I want the whole thing on CD.

That niggle aside, Black Sabbath Live…Gathered In Their Masses is worth:

4.5/5 stars

Blu-ray REVIEW: Machete Kills (2013)

NEW RELEASE

“Oh my goodness.  That lady just shot blades out of her boobs.” – Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom

MACHETE KILLS_0003MACHETE KILLS (2013 Aldamisa)
Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Machete Kills is the sequel to Robert Rodriguez’ Machete (2010), starring 69 year old cult hero Danny Trejo.  Minor spoiler alert:  It begins with an over the top preview trailer for the third Machete movie, guest starring “Justin Bieber” as “Bleep”.  (Guess what happens to “Bleep”!)*  Hold on to your hats.

For Machete Kills, I decided to co-review it with special guest, Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom.  I enjoy subjecting Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom to movies now and then.  Sometimes she likes them:  Paul (2011) was her favourite of my selections.  Jackass 3D (2010) was definitely her least favourite.

Machete Kills sort of has a plot:  The US military is selling weapons to the cartel.  Another mysterious faction with black Venom-like masks are also after the weapons.    The masked leader of this group gives Machete something terrible to avenge.  Then, the President of the United States of America (Carlos Estevez/Charlie Sheen) makes him offer he can’t refuse, and he is soon back in Mexico fighting a one-man war.  But he is not completely on his own, as undercover agent Miss San Antonio (Amber Heard) has plenty of gadgets that go boom.  His target: Marcos Mendez, the head of the cartel with a nuke aimed at Washington.

Add in a master of disguise after a $20M bounty, a Star Wars-obsessed evil genius, Sofía Vergara’s machine gun boobs, a madman with multiple personalities and a load of evil clones, and we’re in for a good time.

The story as such serves simply to introduce the complex of characters.  Machete is less a film and more a series of action sequences separated by dialogue explaining what’s happening.  As the movie goes on, many interested parties emerge (all played by big name actors or Rodriguez regulars).  There are so many back-stabs and switcheroos that we are well past incredulity and into outlandish.  Machete is a perfect mix of camp and violence.  Although the movie seems built to support the large cast, the actors in turn are all pros clearly having a good time.  I liked them all…all but Amber Heard.  Something about her, so wooden.

I made three minor observations. 1) It’s convenient that the bad guys only attack Machete one at a time.  2) It’s also a good thing for Machete that none of the generic bad guys can aim. 3) The female characters in the movie might want to put on some pants next time they go into combat.

As for my co-reviewer, Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom didn’t like when Machete’s girlfriend Sartana (Jessica Alba) gets shot in the head.  “She was a pretty girl,” she says.  “She shouldn’t have been shot.”  She also didn’t like seeing Marko Zaror getting sucked into helicopter blades by his intestines.  Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom had a few choice words for Lady Gaga, which she asked me to edit out so to avoid the wrath of her Little Monsters.  She did not enjoy the number of heads that got removed from their bodies (at least a dozen), but I did see her laugh at several points.  She largely enjoyed the cast, particularly Mel Gibson.  Upon seeing Carlos Estevez, she shrieked “He’s the President?  Oh my God!”  She did not enjoy the foul language, particularly when out of the mouths of the young female characters.

4/5 stars – LeBrain

A “solid” 3/5 stars – Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom  (“It was really kind of…strange.”)

* actors subject to change

MOVIE REVIEW: The Last Starfighter (25th anniversary edition blu-ray)

Dedicated to Zachary Britton
LAST STARFIGHTER BLU_0001THE LAST STARFIGHTER directed by Nick Castle (1984 Universal, 25th anniversary edition)

Hot on the heels of the then-defunct Star Wars franchise came The Last Starfighter. There had been other copycat films before, but few were as well done as The Last Starfighter. The theme that they both have in common was the young boy, stuck in the middle of nowhere, aching to get away and make something of himself. The Last Starfighter wore its themes on its sleeve. Like Otis says in the opening scenes, “When life gives you a chance, you gotta grab on with both hands and hang on tight!”

I recently re-watched my old DVD and was shocked to see how bad that 1998 release looked. Certain frames had sections that were washed out, I could see a hair on the film, and there were plenty of scratches that begged for digital restoration. I immediately went out and bought the blu-ray. Suddenly, everything was crisp and clear in glorious 1080p hi-def. All the defects I noticed before had been cleaned up. The film looks great!

Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) is your average American teen living somewhere in the southern states (Arizona? New Mexico?) in a trailer park. His application for a loan has been rejected and it looks like he’s going to be stuck going to city college with the locals. His dream of finally getting out has been quashed. However, Alex has a talent — more accurately, “the gift” — to be a Starfighter. Only he doesn’t know it yet. All he knows is that he just scored 1,000,000 points on a video game console called “Starfighter”.  Small triumph, sure, but more important than he knows.

Light years away, the peaceful planet of Rylos is about to be decimated by the traitor Xur, who has declared himself Emperor (Hmmm…Star Wars?).  Xur brings with him his allies, the deadly Kodan armada. Rylos’ best hope are the Starfighters: an elite group of fighters who have mastered the difficult gunnery station aboard the immensely powerful “Gunstar”  fighter ships. A heavily armed beast of a spacecraft, a Gunstar is manned by a crew of two: a pilot and a gunner.  And that video game, back in the trailer park, on Earth?  That was more than just a video a game. It was simulator, planted there by the alien recruiter Centauri (Robert Preston in his final role).  It was designed and built specifically to find someone with “the gift” to be a Starfighter.

In short order, Centauri appears, as a 70-ish year old human in a (then!) futuristic car. He whisks Alex away, across the lightyears to Rylos where the whole situation is explained to him.  One slight problem though:  Alex doesn’t want to be a Starfighter. It’s not his war, and he doesn’t want to die for a planet he didn’t know existed, so far from home.

Will Alex remember old Otis’ advice? Will he grab hold of this chance with both hands, and hold on tight?

What made The Last Starfighter fun was that it had a dual plot. While Alex has been swept away to the stars, he has been replaced back home with a “Beta unit” that looks exactly like him. It’s a robot, also played by Lance Guest, but his “fish out of water” scenes return the movie to comedic moments.  These scenes help ground the movie and keep it relate-able.  A lot of the humour comes from Beta trying to understand Alex’s girlfriend Maggie (Mary Catherine Stewart). But it’s not all fun and games for Beta. Emperor Xur thinks he has destroyed all the Starfighters, but he learns that there might be a last Starfighter, a human, alive on Earth….

Comedy, lasers and action! Cool looking aliens! All that fascinating early CG animation!  These all make The Last Starfighter a blast for me to revisit. Although today it looks horribly dated, it is easy to overlook the primitive CG and just get into the story and characters. The only way this movie could work, then and now, is suspending your disbelief and getting into the characters. Thankfully, some great performances from the lead cast make that easy to do.  In particular, Robert Preston and Dan O’Herlihy as the reptilian alien pilot Grig are standouts.

Blu-ray bonus features are excellent. The original documentary from the old DVD version is included, as well as a brand new one in 1080i hi-def. Both Lance Guest and Mary Catherine Stewart appear and provide fascinating insight. As a kid, I always suspected that the “Beta” version of Guest was wearing a wig, as the hair never looked right. Guest confirms this: Many of the Beta scenes were added as an afterthought, and he had already cut his hair short. Stewart is good humoured about her awful Michael Bay moment in the film (“I love you Alex Rogan”).

The Last Starfighter, while appearing dated, is still the same old timeless story it always has been.  Recommended for anyone born before Jurassic Park came out.

5/5 stars

  • Lance Guest as Alex Rogan / Beta Alex
  • Dan O’Herlihy as Grig
  • Catherine Mary Stewart as Maggie Gordon
  • Norman Snow as Xur
  • Robert Preston as Centauri