Ben's Blog Roll

Top 10 Films of 2008

2008-12-26T03:02:00.000-08:00

What a fantastic year in cinema and here are my favourites for the year...

01. The Wackness
02. Gone Baby Gone
03. The Strangers
04. 3:10 to Yuma
05. Pineapple Express
06. The Dark Knight
07. Stop-Loss
08. RocknRolla
09. Cloverfield
10. Speed Racer

Top 15 Albums of 2008

2008-12-13T01:31:00.000-08:00

This year proved that Aussie rock was at it's brilliant best. Aussie bands managed to take up 6 spots in my top 15 and 3 in my top 5. Go Aussie Go! Here is the best albums of 2008...

01. Nada Surf - Lucky
02. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
03. Birds of Tokyo - Universes
04. Youth Group - The Night is Ours
05. The Silents - Things to Learn
06. Trial Kennedy - New Manic Art
07. Kanye West - 808's & Heartbreak
08. Bloc Party - Intimacy
09. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
10. Children Collide - The Long Now
11. Mystery Jets - Twenty One
12. Sparkadia - Postcards
13. Muse - H.A.A.R.P.
14. Fall Out Boy - Folie à Deux
15. Funeral for a Friend - Memory and Humanity

Top 30 Tracks for 2008

2008-12-13T01:08:00.000-08:00

If Edgar Wright can do it, then so can I! Here are my top 30 favourite tracks of 2008... enjoy.

01. Nada Surf - Everyone's On Tour
02. Birds of Tokyo - Broken Bones
03. Coldplay - Lost!
04. Nada Surf - See These Bones
05. Death Cab for Cutie - Grapevine Fires
06. Children Collide - Skeleton Dance
07. Mystery Jets - Veiled in Grey
08. Kanye West - Street Lights
09. Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Thou Shalt Always Kill
10. The Kooks - See the Sun
11. Bloc Party - Flux
12. Trial Kennedy - Hollowood
13. Youth Group - Friedrichstrasse
14. Mates of State - Get Better
15. The Silents - Generation Space
16. Fall Out Boy - Disloyal Order of Water Buffalos
17. MGMT - Kids
18. Laura Marling - Old Stone
19. Death Cab for Cutie - Bixby Canyon Bridge
20. The Fratellis - Tell Me a Lie
21. Sparkadia - Animals
22. Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (Live)
23. Snow Patrol - Disaster Button
24. The Music - The Price (Steve Fitzmaurice Remix)
25. Black Strobe - I'm a Man
26. Martha Wainwright - You Cheated Me
27. Nine Inch Nails - Echoplex
28. Hot Chip - Shake a Fist
29. Gnarls Barkley - Run (I'm a Natural Disaster)
30. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - We a Heavy Heart (I Regret to Inform You)

Playlist 002 - 24/11/2008

2008-11-24T01:57:00.000-08:00

WOW I'm getting lazy already. Oh well forgive me, I'm a pretty busy man, but have faith because I won't forget this section.

1# - Metronomy - Heartbreaker
Album - Nights Out
Released - 2008
Why? - It's a really funky dance track thats super addictive, like crack. Plus I'm a sucker for songs that incorporate whistling. Watch this group, they will be the sound of summer!

#2 - Rammstein - Du Hast
Album - Sehnsucht
Released - 1997
Why? - Well I'm sure you all know this song and it's unrelently awesomeness, but I picked this because it was used really well in last week's episode of Entourage (S5E11) when the crazy German director gets angry. The scene was a laguh and was made by this wicked song which is all about hatred.

#3 - Laura Marling - Old Stone
Album - Alas, I Cannot Swim
Released - 2008
Why? - This song is just pure depression and listen to the lyrics closely it raises one big question, are you ever to young for love? Marling's voice is amazing and she is only 17. She is an incredible song writer and this song shows her amazing ability to make a listen feel what she feels. Listen to this song when your sad, it will help!

4# - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Angles
Album - Angles
Released - 2008
Why? - You really have to listen to this song's lyrics to understand why I have picked it. The lyrics are brilliant and the song is massively depressing, download it and listen to it.

5# - Gerard McMann - Cry Little Sister
Album - The Lost Boys Soundtrack
Released - 1986
Why? - Super shame, but the soundtrack really made The Lost Boys and this was the theme and even after 22 years this song is still (oh shame!) brilliant. I don't like to admit this, but this 80's goth song has some very good points. The bass is really good and the chorus is one of my all-time favourites and it echoes through-out much of the movie. Watch the movie, then listen to the soundtrack, even if you didn't live the 80's you will still appreciate it.

That's all for this week! Stay tuned for more songs next week.

Playlist 001 - 16/11/2008

2008-11-16T03:45:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the very first weekly playlist!

1# - Airbourne - Let's Ride
Album: - Runnin' Wild
Released - 2007
Why? - Song features in recent release movie Sex Drive and it's a good old fashioned Aussie rock track in the vein of AC/DC

2# - Mos Def - Dollar Day (Surprise, Surprise)
Album - True Magic
Released - 2006
Why? - Just a great song. The beat is good and the lyrics are great and it feels like old school hip-hop.

3# - End of Fashion - Dying for You
Album - Book of Lies
Released - 2008
Why? - I really really like the bass and guitar in this song, it's really groovy and I'm sure it would make a great dance song if remixed and fucked up.

4# - The Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
Album - Aftermath
Released - 1966
Why? - Because its a classic that everybody should have in their collection! Simple as!

5# - Sonic Youth - Kool Thing
Album - Goo
Released - 1990
Why? - Like the last, it's a classic and it's a fucking wicked song to play up to loud. Don't play to much though, it's only good for the ocassional listen... much like the album it's off.

And that's this weeks playlist... stay tuned for more next week.

Welcome to Version 2.0!

2008-11-14T00:47:00.000-08:00

OK so the blog has gone from always fresh, always new, always exciting to being completely void of anything (and anybody!). Well welcome to Version 2.0, the completely re-boot and re-structure of this blog. Instead of me randomly posting just anything, I will be changed it a bit to give both myself and the page more structure. How will it work? Like this...

Monday = my weekend... boring? probably, but hey, my site so fuck you! But anyways I will discuss my weekend, music, movies, tv, gaming, whatever I did on the weekend you will get the low down!

Tuesday = weekly feature albums! yes how exciting, it may be one, it could be 5, but albums will be discussed on Tuesday.

Wednesday = in-depth look at the movies being released on the Thursday.

Thursday = my fucking day off.

Friday = movies feature which will work like the music on Tuesday!

Saturday = games? well its a maybe, only if I get bored... hehehe

Sunday = my top 5 songs of the week... how cool is that! A weekly playlist suggested by yours truely.

Now if all this doesn't make you want to cream yourself, well then your probably quite sane! It all starts on Monday and I look forward to posting shit up then. Take it easy, Benny out!

Very Sorry!

2008-08-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

Hi All

Just like to say that I am sorry that the review for Tropic Thunder has not yet been posted up. I will do my best to have it up by week's end. Things have been extremely busy here and I have 4 film reviews to do and no time to do them!

Take it easy and you will be hearing from me soon!

Lost Boys: The Tribe (Movie)

2008-08-23T04:08:00.000-07:00

Lost Boys: The Tribe - Review by Ben Chamberlain

A Sequel That Tries to Play Homage But Screws It Up!

Why would Warner Brothers do a sequel to their 1987 film The Lost Boys? I can't answer this question, but as soon as the first film was released to buckets of money, the film studio and various people have been working on a sequel. 21 years of development hell we are finally given Lost Boys: The Tribe, a film so pathetic that in comparison it makes the Lost Boys look like the greatest film of all-time.

What went wrong? Well they try to play homage to the first film, we have everything from repeated lines, repeated scenes and minor roles being reprised. I'm not sure quite where to point the blame. The idea of a homage is a good one, but this feels too much like a remake, do I blame the script-writer? At the moment, yes. He has littered the film with an extremely amount of swearing, the opening scene has at least 20 f-bombs, thats 20 more then the first film and thats just in 1 minute. Now this may not all be his fault, directors are known for changing things, and considering this director is known for making bad sequels to classic horror films, I would put money on him too.

You see the film has heaps of gore, not to the extent of say Saw or 30 Days of Night, but it contains much more than the original. As well as the 20 f-bombs in the opening scene, we also have a rather grisly be-heading scene. There is as much blood and gore in this as what there was in the whole first movie. After this opening minute I had already made up my mind on this movie, it was going to be a shit-house remake and it really didn't disappoint me on that!

The story is a exactly like the first, two siblings arrive in a new town and straight they get involved with the local motorcycle riding blood-suckers. The gang is yet again lead by a Sutherland, except this time it is Kiefer's little half-brother Angus, who has absolutely no skill and its like watching a puppet. The rest of the cast don't far any better, Autumn Reeser was likable in TV's The OC, but she is just annoying here. The lead role here goes to Tad Hilgenbrink, and he seems to like doing sequels which are not wanted or need, he previously played Stifler in American Pie: Band Camp. Award winning stuff there. But! Yes but! What annoyed me most was Corey Feldman, he was in the original and if he had any brain at all, he would have said no, but instead he got a major role playing the exact same (yet much older) character he did 21 years ago and just like before, I wanted to hit him.

Back to pointing the finger, I have decided that I will blame everyone involved! They are all ignorant fucks that should have avoided it when Warner Brothers put it in front of them! The writing is terrible, the direction is even worse and watching the actors is like having your head bashed in with a lead pipe. Think god they didn't release this in cinemas, cause my local would have got extensive fire damage! DO NOT SEE THIS... EVER!

1/10

The Lost Boys (Movie)

2008-08-23T03:18:00.000-07:00

The Lost Boys - Review by Ben Chamberlain

80's Vampire Madness is the Bomb

The Lost Boys was released in 1987 to outstanding critical reception and has since been highly regarded in the movie world. It's a film that I have always been curious to see, it has an interesting premise, it launched the careers of Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric and it is apparently Joel Schumacher's best ever feature. The film is an extremely witty and clever take on the Peter Pan story, where a group of "lost boys" become "immortal".

The movie centres on Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam Emerson (Corey Haim), as they move from Phoenix to Santa Carla in California, the self-proclaimed murder capital of the world. It all moves with much pace and before we know it older brother Michael is off in the secret lair of a local gang lead by David (Kiefer Sutherland). David offers Michael a drink of wine, which latter turns out to be the blood of the vampire leader and now Michael and Sam must find a way to survive.

What makes this movie so good is that it find that rare balance between comedy and horror. It contains before the scary and violent vampire attack scenes, and also features stupid humour. I guess if I could compare it to anything more recent then it would be Seed of Chucky, a film which like The Lost Boys, is very funny and yet features boundary pushing violence. I'm not saying The Lost Boys features boundary pushing violence, but for when it was made it was rather violent and much like Seed of Chucky, the violence becomes rather comical, especially towards the end of the film. I know I pissed myself laughing when one of the vamps suffered "death by stereo"!

Like any film featuring young actors, the acting is rather poor. Jason Patric is very wooden and its hard to believe he turned into the scenery chewing actor that starred in 2002's Narc. Corey Haim is also very wooden and his real-life best buddy Corey Feldman is as annoying as shit. Strangely enough Oscar winning actress Dianne Wiest is given very little screen-time and when she is, she is pretty much sleep through it. Kiefer Sutherland is the stand-out from the younger actors, and I felt he displayed the kind of menace which makes him so great in 24.

The film is directed by Joel Schumacher, a director who has great skill but is more up and down then a yo-yo. Sadly, he has recently become famous for his sloppy handling of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, as well as massive flop 8MM and his most recent film Number 23 was a critical bomb. Just one look at his great films, like The Lost Boys, and you can quickly see that he is a director who has lost his way under the pressure of Hollywood studios and big budget movies. His handling of The Lost Boys is one of the reasons this movie was both an great success and such a pleasure to watch. In some parts he conjures some beautiful scenes, and the aerial work is better then many films you see release currently. This really is his best work.

Luckily enough The Lost Boys manages to hold up very well over time and what we have here is a film that is both lots of fun and thrilling to watch. It is a far from the perfect film, but who can complain when it moves this quick and keeps you this entertained. If your standing in the video shop and you this and its lame 2008 sequel next to one another, get this, because it is one awesome movie!

4/5

Birds of Tokyo (Gig)

2008-08-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

Birds of Tokyo - 21st of August 2008

Review by Ben Chamberlain

7th Viewing is the Best Yet!

Its amazing that a band I have seen 7 times still has the power to serve up something so amazing that it leaves me in absolute awe. The reason I have seen Birds of Tokyo so many times is the fact that they are great live and were a very small Perth band, that was until their new album which has rocketed the independant foursome into the rock limelight and now instead of playing small venues, Perth's heroes are now playing the bigger venues, and with bigger venues comes bigger crowds to impress and impress they did!

The night kicked off with us arriving 90 minutes after the door opened, but it turned out we were just in time as the support band Calling All Cars was just kicking off. I would describe the band as Post-Hardcore (my new favourite saying... haha) with the screaming and the swearing and the guitar solos. They were pretty solid, however I thought the lead singer/guitarist was too in your face, and in the end I just wanted to kick him in his tiny nuts. I'm sure their record would sound ok though.

Birds come on stage to a massive roar, their intro was Uno, which is the introduction to their new album and as soon as Uno is finished it leads straight into Broken Bones, and Birds did the same live. The crowd was screaming and jumping and it was the usual extreme rock-fest. It was incredible stuff, Birds have literally become massive. After Broken Bones shock the house down, the band lead straight into Wild Eyed Boy, which like Broken Bones had everybody moving, shaking and screaming. After rocking on two songs in a row, Ian Kenny took control and said hi (what a nice gentleman) and than they were off again and what followed played like the fucking best of.

Seriously there was not one person in the place that didn't know the lyrics to every single song, it was literally a 90 minute set in a venue full of 2000 people that straight out loved the band. The band knew this and played everything that could keep the crowd moving and screaming. What more if that the band played stadium like rock, right until the finale, which was phenominal to say the least. An Ode to Death, Wayside and the extended version of Desperate got the crowd screaming like no tomorrow. Desperate is my favourite Birds song, and it was fantastic to see a different side to the song. The band gave it a slow introduction, which lasted about a minute before going completely into the song and rocking out like nobodies business. The finale of Desperate was also brilliant, the band added a two minute jam session into the end and boy was it fucking wicked.

The night finished with the boys playing Silhouettic, and like Desperate, they added a fucking ramage of a jam onto the end. Kenny was off the stage and the other three just went fucking bonkers. It was more wicked then their jam on Desperate and it turned out to be the hightlight of the night! All in all it was a freaking great night and if you get a chance, then you have to see our local heroes!

Death Cab for Cutie (Gig)

2008-08-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Death Cab for Cutie - 20th of August 2008

Review by Ben Chamberlain

At last, Death Cab Get a Chance to Blow My Mind Live!

Death Cab are my all-time favourite, and I think I have said this a million times in the 62 posts on this blog. When I heard they were coming to town, I literally creamed myself. I have seen all my top 5 favourite bands except one, the infamous Death Cab and I finally had a chance to see them and they finally had a chance to blow my mind with a live extravagansa!

The night started pretty good, although it was fucking freezing and I was about 500 people deep in the line. Mitch was present as was 6 of his other friends, including Perth musician Tim Nelson (of The Cartridges and Timothy Nelson & The Infidels). I got in a straight out raided the merc table, got myself a super sexy Death Cab tour shirt, which I haven't taken of since, literally. Then came the waiting. It was one hour of standing in the dead centre of the floor before the first act came out.

The first act was Brisbane duo An Horse, and although I don't own any of their shit, they played a great set. They are pretty much Australia's version of Mates of State or Tegan & Sara, and ironically enough they were T&S's support band when those lesbo sisters toured the States last year. So they must be good if they can support 2 of the biggest indie bands in the world.

After An Horse came another 30 minutes of waiting, and then my heroes finally entered. Jason McGerr was at the back (of course) as he is the fucking drummer! Nick Harmer was dead centre, and man his a nut case, probably cause his German (OMG racist!). Looking like a super pale ghost, Chris Walla was on the right side of the stage and than my #1 musician entered, and boy he looked different from usual. Sporting massive mutton-chops and wicked long hair that makes my mop whimper, Ben Gibbard entered to the left side of the stage, he walked up to the mic and so started their opener, Bixby Canyon Bridge.

What a super great opener it was too, however I don't remember the order of the rest of the songs sadly. All I can remember is that they opened with Bixby and closed with Transatlanticism. I can tell you what songs they played, but not in any kind of order, will that do? It will now.

From everybodies favourite album Plans, they played the following - Marching Bands of Manhattan, Soul Meets Body, Different Names for the Same Things, I Will Follow You Into the Dark, Crooked Teeth. From Transatlanticism - The New Year, Title & Registration, The Sound of Settling, Transatlanticism. From The Photo Album - A Movie Script Ending, Styrofoam Plates. From Narrow Stairs - Bixby Canyon Bridge, I Will Possess Your Heart, Cath..., Grapevine Fires, Your New Twin Sized Bed, Long Division. They played a couple of other songs that I didn't recognise, could have been covers.

One of the massive highlights was I Will Follow You Into the Dark, in which all the band members sat on the stage whilst Ben Gibbard pulled out an acoustic guitar and had the whole crowd chanting the lyrics, it was absolutely magical, probably the best concert atmosphere I have yet to experience (and trust me, I have been to heaps of concerts!).

All in all it was a fantastic experience and I have an extra amount of memories. From the raw emotion of Grapevine Fires to the epic finale of Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie were absolutely amazing and blew my mind beyond belief. The countdown begins for their next expedition to Australia.

Mean Creek (Movie)

2008-08-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

Mean Creek - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Frustration, its what Mean Creek gave me!

3 years after its release I have finally seen Mean Creek, a film which I have been looking forward to seeing but I have always had some excuse for not watching it. The reason I was putting it off wa because I knew it would be as depressing as all hell and that I needed to be fully aware and awake to take in all the messages the film was given. Whilst watching Mean Creek I was angry, disappointed and frustrated and let me explain why.

The movie follows Sam Merric, Sam is sick of getting bullied by dyslexic fatty George Tooney. Sam is extremely small and very shy and is a very easy target for George. After being bullied one to many times, Sam tells his older brother Rocky and soon starts a series of events that leads Rocky and his mates creating a plan to get George back. They pretend its Sam's birthday and they take George on a boat-trip. The plan is they will dare George to get naked and swim in the creek and than leave him there. They quickly realize that George is just a misunderstood human being and they call the plan off. However something goes wrong and the tragedy happens.

The movie rests purely on the script. For almost the whole the film the script works in favour of the movie, but than all of sudden writer/director completely over characterises many of the characters and it does it very frustratingly. It completely under does all the hard work of the first two thirds of the film. George may be annoying in the early parts, but we understand why he is what he is and maybe he is not all so bad, but when the tragedy hits George turns into the completely opposite of what he was earlier in the film. We now want the tragedy to hit him, and it does and as a viewer I felt no sadness, because he deserved it. This is where Jacob Aaron Estes script falls down, he is convinced that me should be feeling sorry for George, and yet he made George such an asshole (like seriously, George would have made Freddy Kruger cry!) that we just don't care. What I cared about though is the fact that these kids lives are ruined by the incident, and maybe thats what Estes is really trying to get us to feel, but I guess we will never know.

The acting is all class, every young actor (and actress) acts their pants off and they seem to be having a competition to see who can act who off screen. Rory Culkin is brilliant as Sam, and he is now one of my favourite up and comers after this and The Chumsrubber. Trevor Morgan is also amazing, and shows that he has some real acting chops. Scott Mechlowicz is present and doing a might fine job. If I have one bad thing to say about the acting, than it would be Josh Peck playing George, and I feel that he may be part of the blame of why nobody cares what happens to his character. Peck over-acts to the max, perhaps a bigger budget could have found a better talent.

Speaking of budget, this film is extremely beautiful and it was shot for only $500,000, a very tiny figure indeed. The direction here is a very good, it seems to be Estes real strength. He has made the film very indie, and it contains everything a good indie film should have. I often wondered how he managed to create the scenes on the river, espically with such a small budget, there is no other way apart from that the camera man was in the boat with them. I commend that.

In the end this film has disappointed me, and because of that I have no energy to continue writing about it. It has so many great aspects, but Estes chocks right at the end and only delivers an average film. For those more tolerant of the characterization, than they get more out of it, but me, I walked away with frustration. I was frustrated that a film so good could get fucked up right at the last breath. I'm more depressed by the result than the film itself.

3/5

Katy Perry - One of the Boys (Album)

2008-08-19T07:23:00.000-07:00

Katy Perry: One of the Boys - Review by Ben Chamberlain

US Version of Lily Allen Creates Pop Album of the Year

Now I know what your all thinking with that above title, but I spend long and hard trying to find the coverted Pop Album of Year. I also know that your thinking that surely Pop Album of the Year is not hard to win? Well actually, it is! It's probably the hardest honour an album could get out of me, because everytime I call what the Pop Album of the Year is, it is also my most guilty pleasure album of the year. I'm sure you know from my reviews that pop is not a genre I listen too, in fact the last pop album I bought was Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds (now thats an album!), so for me to actually sit down and listen to a pop album from beginning to end, then it must be pretty fucking good.

Katy Perry's debut album is just this, its pretty fucking good. It has everything a catchy pop album should have, it has the catchy lyrics and tons of choruses you have to belt out. It features hypnotic beats, which is perhaps the only thing pop music is really good for. It is controversial, like every pop album should be, JT got in the shit for saying fuck many times throughout his out-standing album, Katy loves singing about kissing girls and calling indie kids gay. And what is not to love about a super sexy chick playing guitar?

What I love about Katy so much is the fact that she has taken what Lily Allen did so well on her debut album and she has made it more mainstream. It has the abrupt and rude humour, and she is also has the whole angry female thing working too. She also holds much power in her lyrics, another one of Lily's strengths. Katy is very clever with her wording in songs, so clever in fact that if you listen you here a pop song but if you dig a little deeper than you find a song with much meaning. In this way she is very much an indie artist in the vein of Tegan & Sara or even Imogen Heap.

I find something really funny about this as well, because Katy became very mainstream because of the massive wrap she got from fellow pop-star Madonna. You see what I find so funny is that Madonna is the queen of pop but her new album failed harder than, well anything really, because she tried to make music like her younger counterparts. So for her to give her biggest wrap to Perry, that obviously makes her the best? And that's probably true, but she has to take care of Nelly Furtado first, as she is her only real competition when it comes to making classy pop albums.

The stand-out songs here would be the lead single, and I'm sure you know it, its called I Kissed a Girl and its one fucking sexy and catchy song. Other stand-outs include Hot N Cold, Ur So Gay and Fingerprints. The album perfectly blends pop-electro beats on some songs and some wicked guitar from Katy on other songs, and its amazing how the album all blends together so well and I credit this to her song writing, cause as stated earlier she knows how to write and every song both has meaning and a killer chorus, as good pop songs should have.

One of the Boys is a clever and smart album, and for someone of her youthful age, she has some very good song writing. She is literally Lily Allen for America, except she is much better looking and she knows how to rock. Check it out, because pop doesn't get any better than this in 2008!

Death Cab Tomorrow!

2008-08-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

For those that don't know Death Cab for Cutie are my all time favourite band and tomorrow night I get to see them for the very first time! So come Thursday morning you will be getting all the low down from the night. I'm hoping it will rock my world because I'm absolutely fucking pumped.

Also, on Friday morning you will getting a gig wrap up of the Birds of Tokyo concert I'm happily attending on Thursday night. 2 great bands over 2 great nights!!!

And if that wasn't enough, I will be seeing Tropic Thunder on Friday night and giving you a stellar review on Saturday. I'm hoping it will be a really funny movie, because lately all I have been watching is depressing shit. Speaking of depressing shit, I will have reviews for Bug and Mean Creek up within the next 2 days!

The picture above is of The Academy Is... lead singer William Beckett, I thought it was such a cool photo that I had to share. Have a good one everybody and stay tuned.

The Academy Is... - Fast Times at Barrington High (Album)

2008-08-17T03:02:00.001-07:00

The Academy Is...: Fast Times at Barrington High - Review by Ben Chamberlain

The Energetic Power-Pop Band Are Back With Their 3rd Album!

Welcome to the world's first review of the new The Academy Is... album "Fast Times at Barrington High". Well it may not be the first, but as its not released anywhere for a while yet, I thought it might sound like a wicked opening. Anyways, The Academy Is... have been a secret favourite of mine for quite a while now and when I heard that they would be releasing their second album in 18 months, well that just put a smile on my face. This review may also seem a bit weirder then usual, because I'm actually listening to it for the first time as I'm reviewing it, so the wording may be a little weird.

TAI's first album "Almost Here" is one of my all-time favourite albums, and their second album "Santi" just didn't stack up. When I started listening to their new album "Fast Times at Barrington High" I was excited but also worried, if it was another "Santi" than I don't know if I would stay interested in TAI, if it was "Almost Here" all over again, than my hope would be regained and I would yet call TAI one of my favourites.

The album opens with About a Girl, and it's a lot of noise. You see we have a band that usually make songs that a good rock material but are not just pointless noise. And About a Girl kicks the album off with pointless noise, however it does have some catchy pop lyrics. It is also the lead single on the album, which is surprising, cause its not that good. The second song is Summer Hair = Forever Young, which is quite obviously trying to be a new version of Forever Young. It even features the "Foreverrrrrr Youngggg" in the chorus. It is however a very solid power-pop song and is a really good track. Not TAI at their best, but still pretty fucking good.

Upon listening to the straight-up noise of the third song, I decided to listen to some of "Santi". They have gone from making a solid album which was listenable and actually contained some beat to making an album that is just straight out noise. Its like they are fucking our senses. Mostly my ears, and they hurt. So far, sooooooooo disappointed. FINALLY! A song with a little bit of beat, it actually has some rhythm you can tape your toes too. This is more like the good old TAI of old. In the early part of the album, this is a big standout. The song is called The Test by the way!

The next song is called Rumoured Nights, and it is slower TAI and sounds like its straight out off of Almost Here. This is the TAI that I love so much and as we get to the half way point on the album, this is the best. Here is hoping that the rest of the album is like this and not the shitty noise of the earlier songs. Automatic Eyes is sitting pretty at the half way point, and we have TAI playing a slower song again. The first three songs on the album were the band at their absolute worst, but songs 4, 5 and 6 have quickly brought it back up, in fact they are almost as good as the songs on "Almost Here"!

Crowded Room is an extremely fun song, and although it does have that noise aspect, the band have actually made it good noise and its very cool. I hope they release this as a single, cause I sense a hit with this one if its released. Very cool track, I really dig it. Coppertone is song eight on the album and its another good track, these making it five really good songs in a row. Whats more is that this song has some really good lyrics. It also has a bit of a musical punch too, its another great song and at the moment it is my favourite.

After the Last Midtown Show is next up, and its a 5 minute monster, although its not so much a monster but a very slow and very lyrical song. This song seems like its a very important to the band and because of that it really stands out when compared to the rest of the album. This is a song from a band that is grown up, but fails because of the immature noise earlier in the album, thus making this song seem rather pointless. Remember to block out the first 3 tracks when listening to this long song. The third last song on the album is Beware! Cougar! and it is somewhat going back to the noise of earlier in the album but like Crowded Room, this is fun and enjoyable. It has nothing on some of the albums best tracks, but it is not skip worthy.

Paper Chase is another loud one, but thankfully it has a little beat and its not all "lets fuck this place up with aggression" which is what I got from the first three tracks. Like the last track and Crowded Room, this song is all about having fun. The last song is a fitting ending to the song, its fast and I wouldn't have ended it any different. Its fun and has a really solid beat. All-in-all the second half has owned!

Despite some early hiccups, TAI have brought the album back from the brink in the second half and have created an album with lots of depth. It features some fantastic slow ballads and some really good fun songs. Remember to skip the first three songs and you will be fine! Its not as good as "Almost Here" but they shouldn't lose any fans, and its the high school album it should be and it aims to be.

3.5/5

The Strangers (Movie)

2008-08-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Strangers - Review by Ben Chamberlain

One of the Greatest Horror Experiences Ever!

WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

When I first heard of this project about two years ago, I was instantly pumped. Tyler and Speedman can both actually act, it was being funded by a tiny company and it had a brave first time director. It also had a story which you knew was just going to scare the living shit out of you. After two years of waiting (it was originally meant to come out in July last year) it is safe to say that this is the scariest movie since 2005's The Descent and quite possible the scariest film to be released in the last 10 odd years.

The film opens like this - "What you are about to see is inspired by true events. According to the FBI, there are an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes in America each year. On the night of February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt left a friend's wedding reception and returned to the Hoyt family's summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known." From the moment you read this on screen the tension is there, it is automatic tension. Bryan Bertino, the director, is a master of creating tension and dread. He takes his time to generate compassion towards the character, and depending on how you react to the early set pieces will determine how the rest of the film works for you.

You see I would call The Strangers a dramatic horror film, the first 30 minutes has been set aside to build characterisation. Bertino has created characters which are suffering from pain and their is much tension between them. If you go into this expecting more than a horror film, then I believe you will be more rewarded because you will find the opening sequences extremely important to the film. The tension between the characters will come off the screen and effect how you view the film. I went in knowing that I would be getting more than horror and I embraced it and I feel that I was rewarded for this by getting the shit scared out me. People who don't relate and feel for the characters early on will get frustrated and will just want the horror to begin, and the horror won't be scare for them, it will become another generic horror film. Which it very much isn't.

This in turn makes the acting incredibly important and Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman put in some of the best performances of their respective careers. Speedman perhaps generates (and probably deserves) the most compassion from the audience. His character is what a woman would call the perfect man, and yet despite this Tyler's McKay has just shot down his marriage proposal, this leads to the tension between the characters and gives Tyler some work to do to win over the audience before it all begins. And it doesn't take long. Tyler has grounded her performance, she has worked out what a good performance in a horror film takes and she has run with it. Her character is scared and tense due to the marriage proposal, and when things start going bump, it sends her character over the edge. For a performance in a horror film, Tyler displays a tour-de-force. Every scene she is in she displays an incredible amount of fear, it almost like someone is standing off the side of the camera with a gun to her kids head. This is a great example of how brilliant performances can be in horror films, because in horror flicks the characters experiences emotions which are just not needed in our genres. Tyler and Speedman both deliver truly great performances, and their performances make the film even more scary.

The scripting here is top-notch, and people really need to understand that this isn't your regular horror. The film I can probably compare it to most is Funny Games, as both are a keen study of evil. Where as Funny Games wanted to abuse its audience for watching it, The Strangers is very much here to scare and as said the scripting is top-notch. It's hard to create a horror film and have it be called cliché and Bertino does his best to avoid this title. His lead characters are not stupid, in fact they are very smart. So accordingly the leads don't do stupid things and this makes the film even more scary, because these psychos are just that tiny bit smarter than them.

This is where most people will stick their noses up at The Strangers. The killers are extremely smart, and in the end the killers win. Which is sad, but I felt it was a satisfying and completely non-cliché ending. However, most audiences will want the killers to get some back, but instead they don't. They don't get even as much as a scratch. Its the kind of depressing ending that you never see in horror films, and in the end thats what horror films were created to do! They were made to scare and depress and this film does it in spades. It's old school horror, and modern audiences won't like it.

Bertino has made a film that relies heavily on sounds. The male killers breathing is extremely loud, and when you hear it you know something bad is about to happen. Although Bertino never hides his villains, he is happy to have them out in the open, but you just have to remember how many there are, and this is where Bertino will get you. You will either hear or see two baddies, but the third is always there for the scare, there is a prime example of this when Liv Tyler hides in the cupboard, she is watching the male killer walking through the house with his extremely heavy breathing and as he leaves the room, BANG one of the ours pops up and terrorises Tyler. And a majority of this is done through sounds and its something that gets used lots in horror films, but never to effect. This film is different, because it doesn't need the big score to carry the scares, it has tiny sounds which create tension. The sounding of the film is a brilliant example of how well it can be done, I hope that our horror directors take notice.

Bertino's film has a very 70's film to it. As was mentioned earlier this film is set in 2005. Yet you would swear it was something straight out of the mid-70's. Without a doubt everybody knows the best horror films came out of the 1970's, whether it be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Shining or The Exorcist, and its obvious that Bertino was paying homage to these films in creating his masterpiece. Bertino used a 35mm camera, these types of cameras have been used since 1955 and are not hugely used by the big studios these days. From what I can gather Bertino is trying to say is that his film deserves to be regarded amongst the best from the 70's, and in both look and feel you would think it was from the 70's. It's very cool to see a modern film with this type of look.

I know this review is very messy and very long, but if you have stuck through it then thank you. The Strangers won't work for everybody, and if watch it with friends then I bet you half of them will complain. The film has been created for people like me, people who like to watch films which change and re-mould genres, call them Indie movies or whatever, but this is what this film is. It's a horror film which breaks the mould and it a drama with plenty of dread and fear. Its one of the most depressing films you will see, and if your in the right mind it will be scariest you have seen. The film is so many things, and to me this is the years finest film and one of the finest of all-time. Perfection is The Strangers.

5/5

Trial Kennedy (Gig)

2008-08-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

Trial Kennedy - 16th of August 2008

Review by Ben Chamberlain

Vic Boys Give WA a Top-Notch Rock Show

I have been a big supporter of Trial Kennedy since I saw them live back in 2006. Since then I have been patiently waiting for them to return to WA and give us another serving of their awesome live shows. Luckily for us it has come after the release of their new album, and with this they now have a longer set list, which puts a big smile on my ugly dial.

The night opened with a local and extremely shit band called Grim Fandango, seriously this band should put on masks and fucking hide, they were fucking shit house. Funnily enough I know the bassiest in the band, he works at JB Hi-Fi, and not only is he shit at his job but he is also shit at creating music. All me and Mitch heard was RAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Fucking terrible.

Next up was Adelaide band Mere Theory, and these guys were impressive. Think Birds of Tokyo except from Adelaide, of course they aren't as good as our Birds boys, but they still put on a very solid show. Mitch was probably more impressed then I, but they put on a good show. Was far more enjoyable then the opening act.

After a 30 minute wait my boys came out on stage and got right into it, all we heard was "SUNDAYYYYYYYYYYY WARNINGGGGGGGGGG" and the crowd was off! Was a wicked way to open their gig, and was a perfect choice for the opener. From here the lead directly into Hollowood, like literally straight into, they didn't stop. I love this song, and belted it out like nobodies business. It translated very well to the live gig.

Surprisingly enough Trial played shit loads of old songs, and the third song for the evening was Damage on Parade from their super old Picture Frame EP. Their old songs were the ones that seemed to get the crowd jumping the most, which was promising to see, due to the fact I didn't think TK had so many old fans over here. From here they went into another oldie called Sonic Affair which is a personally favourite of mine. To me it's probably one of their hardest songs and its fucking great to jump around to. Old school rock at its best.

Colour Day Tours was next up, and this had the crowd going crazy. For those that don't know, Colour Day Tours is the lead single off the new album and its pretty much loved by everybody. So as you can imagine everybody was going fucking nutso. It's short, hard and fast rock and a bloody good anthem too. Was one of the highlights of the night. After this they played another oldie, Tuesday Shoes, which if your a fan of the band means that this is pretty much as old as Trial songs get. And after all this time its still one of the their best songs. They actually played "All the Lonely People" by the Beatles before it and then after about a minute they just started screaming "SUMMERSSSSS GONEEEEEE" which is the very opening of the song. It was very cool.

Next up was my favourite song off the new album War King. The song just has the opening guitar solo (what else would you call it?!) and the chorus is just extremely cool to sing too. In fact it has one of the best and most singable chorus of recent memory and it translated really well to stage. Knife Light was next, which put the world's biggest grin on Mitch's face. This song is a old as Tuesday Shoes, and its just as cool. This was the song of the evening, the whole crowd was jumping around like nut cases and they played it to absolute perfection.

The last two songs are probably their most rock-est songs. First up was The Great Escape, which was awesome and got the crowd jumping as usual. From here they then finished with Neighbours, which is not what I would have picked, but hey. Good thing is they came back for an encore and played a song nobody knew except me, I was proud of this fact and I belted it out accordingly.

All in all the night was great fun and Trial Kennedy put on a great show! They are one of Australia's best rock acts and they play a very energetic live show. Next time they play your city you must go and see them!

Skinwalkers (Movie)

2008-08-13T03:13:00.000-07:00

Skinwalkers - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Underworld Rip-Off Fails Despite Promising Premise

To put the record straight, Underworld and its sequel will never go down in history as classics. However, they are two of the more enjoyable action flicks released over the past 10 years. They managed to blend a likable cast with some original ideas and add in some cool special effects to match. Since Underworld (and also Dog Soldiers) have been so successful, we have had many straight-to-DVD films that have tried to recreate the black comedy and skillful action of both the Underworld series and Dog Soldiers.

Sadly for Skinwalkers, a solid idea has been ruined by a production team that want to do Underworld all over again. What sucks more is that they even had a super cool story outline that could have made this a film all of its own. Have you ever heard of a horror-western? Didn't think so, but thats what Skinwalkers aims to be in its early parts. However after the first shoot out scene, which is a fairly cool (if rather generic) western scene, the film aims for the "new Underworld" crown and it fails.

The makers have managed the cool special effects, and you will see some creative and original uses here, but the action are as simple and common as they can come from the action horror sub-genre. By the end the action is just a bore to watch and it gets to the point where you just want it all to end. You all action sequences have literally been seen before in Underworld or the many other films like these, and it sadly picks the worst ones to copy.

Whats more about the action is that it is completely bloodless. Apart from the odd look at a corpse, the movie is totally bloodless. Its a movie about people eating werewolves for christ sakes! And even more sad is the fact its rated MA, and thats pretty much for the lame sex scene in the middle of the movie which is literally taken straight out of Underworld: Evolution.

After all of this the film still continues to anger me! It actually has a decent cast! Sure none of them have ever been bound for greatness, but come on, these people have been in the industry long enough to know both a bad script and how to act solidly. Jason Behr is a good actor yet gets stuck in shitty movies, lets hope Oliver Stone's Pinkville sorts him out. Rhona Mitra has done some very good roles (Boston Legal anybody?) and yet she acts like a wooden dummy here. Elias Koteas should be the most ashamed but, he can act the pants off a lot of great actors, and here he stands doing the worst acting of his career. Maybe he was stuck in a contract with Lionsgate, but hell he could of at least put in some effort instead of phoning it in. Can't wait until your back working under David Finchers guidence.

What we are left is with a B-Grade movie with a massive budget and some good actors. However, the budget is only used on the pathetic action scenes and the actors are just as pathetics as the action they take part in. Sadly this was one of Stan Winston's last movies, and it features some of his worst creature effects. The movie is bad from the get go and the only thing worth mentioning is the solid special effects which have been created, and in some scenes they leave you in awe, but you don't watch films for special effects. They really should have developed the horror-western story better, cause I probably would have reviewed a decent film then.

1.5/5

The Silents - Things to Learn (Album)

2008-08-11T03:03:00.000-07:00

The Silents: Things to Learn - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Local Lads Make Years Most Consistant Album!

The Silents, they are an extremely tiny (not as in midgets!) Perth band with a tiny yet devoted local following. I have seen them twice, and both times they have blown my socks off. Recently I saw them support The Fratellis, and sadly, despite a recent album release, nobody in the crowd knew them. Bad for the crowd, because they are really missing out on Perth's most classy rock act. Good for me, because I own their album.

The band plays the sort of unique rock you just don't here from bands anymore. I personally would classify them as pyschedelic 70's rock and others would describe them as grundgy garage rock. What ever you call them, their is no doubting one fact, their debut album "Things to Learn" will absolutely knock your socks off with its epic sound and powerful energy.

Whats more is that The Silent's have crafted the years most consistant album, out of all my favourite albums released this year not one of them has had a perfect 100% record, they always have one song that ruins my parade. However, "Things to Learn" is some of a question, how can a band so tiny make such an album that is so amazing and still go un-noticed? What is wrong with people these days, here we have a band that is bound for a greatness. I would even say that they are a band that could get to the heights of similar, and hugely international band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Its a fucking outrage!

The album kicks off its perfection with the title track. This is an absolute serve of epic stoner-like rock. He have monster 70's like riffs and killer vocals from lead singer and utter scarecrow Benjamin Stowe. I must admit that the super skinny Stowe can really belt out these numbers. This is the must hear song on the album (one of about 10!). From here we go into the sweet and a tad softer track "Ophelia", this is another standout track and is an amazingly beautiful track.

Song 3 is taken from their 2007 "23", and funnily enough the track is "23". This song oozes cool and for a band that released this on their 2nd EP, it shows an extreme amount of greatness. This is one song that deserves to be cranked up loud through your speakers! Now we have the sad sounding "Tune for a Nymph", and Stowe's vocals really shine through this song. He sounds vulnerable and you can tell that this song really means a lot to him. Very emotional sounding track.

We now move into a few short numbers, first up is the very country sounding track "Turn Black". Like the last track, Stowe's vocals are fucking killer on this epic track of pure guilt and sadness. This is one of the best tracks on the album, and is a very beautiful tune. "Nightcrawl" sees the band doing some fast pyshedelic 70's music and when mixed with song 7 "Little Girl Lost" they make for two very awesome and very fast epic tracks. When fast old school rock is done with skill it sounds like this, and you can't get music much better then these two songs.

The next song has some crazy weird lyrics, the song is called "Devil" and when you listen to the song you will understand what I mean, but it still manages to be a very haunting song. This is followed by the bands truely epic song "See the Future", it is a 6 minute monster and it has superb 70's pyschedelic rock written all over it. The second half of the song absolutely shines through, and is hypnotically brilliant. I highly recommend this song, and is an strong contender for song of the year. Perfection is here.

Now we are reaching the tail end. "Asterial Child" is a very easy going and lovable song. It's very sweet sounding and is just a straight out lovely song. Next up is "Generation Space" and this is the kind of super cool and wicked fast music you would expect from some of Australia's more energetic bands, and in that I refer to British India, who if they had any songs half as good as this on their new album then I wouldn't have given the serving they deserved last month. Anyways, "Generation Space" is an awesome track when they play it live and its hard to turn the speaker up loud and scream the chorus. My 2nd favourite track on the album. The album ends with the likable, slow and sad song "Bruised Sky". It is a good way to round out the album.

This is quite simply the years most consistant, and one of the years best. The Silents' said that we have "Things to Learn", but its not us that have things to learn, its other musicians that should learn. They should learn from what has been created here and do their best to beat it. The Silents have created a brilliant album and I'm so glad that they are from Western Australia. We officially have the best music state in Australia. Go us!

5/5

Lots to Come!

2008-08-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

Yes I know that I have been very quiet this month, and believe me I am sorry for this! However it will pick up! This week and next week are jam packed with review potential, all I have to do is get off my lazy ass and do them.

So what can you expect from me for the rest of this month? Well hopefully lots, but here is a quick overview. We have movies galore, this is pretty much movie month here at BRB. Coming is reviews for unknown horror flicks Skin Walkers and Bug. I will try and give you a review for the 80's classic Blade Runner. New release film The Strangers will get the Ben do over, and Tropic Thunder will also get a serve. I also have celebrated indie film Mean Creek.

The music world isn't any smaller. The Silents will have their debut album Things to Learn reviewed and English lads Stereophonics will have their entire catalogue reviewed. I will also try and push out a review of the new Living End album White Noise and Aussie dance floor heroes Van She will also have their new album get the BRB treatment.

Not much happening in Gaming at the moment, sadly, but I will give you a review of something by months end. What it is I don't know. I just finished Condemned 2, so that is likely to be reviewed but games like Crackdwon and Grand Theft Auto 4 are also begging for a review. We will see.

Also! I have a super special report that will be posted at months end, so keep a watchful eye out for that.

Anyways, I have reviews to write, so stay tuned cause I have tons to offer this month!

He Was a Quiet Man (Movie)

2008-08-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

He Was a Quiet Man - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Slater hands in his best performance ever...

This review contains an extreme amount of spoilers. You have been warned.

I remember reading a review for this film when it was released in America about a year (or so) ago. In the review the reviewer talks about how if the Academy weren't such pussies, then Christian Slater would have gotten (well he said get cause it was before the award nominations) an Academy Award nomination for his brave and daring performance has mentally unstable Bob Maconel in this small time film. You see because Slater's character commits suicide at the end of the film the Academy would never in a million years accept a nomination for Slater. This is probably one of the biggest mistakes in history, because it is truely one of the most gripping and demanding on-screen performances I have ever seen.

Its a real shame for Slater, 15 years ago he was a fairly bankable actor but there days he is stuck making straight-to-DVD releases and working along side Tara Reid just to make a living. I think Hollywood gave up on him, and thats how he ended up in this extremely small production. I would put the budget as under a million and then I would say most of that would have gone into the actors and the minor special effects. In fact its movie poster was home made and it couldn't get together enough money to muster up a bigger release then 3 cinemas in the US. Thats how small this movie is.

Its credit to Slater that this movie even made it too me, because if I hadn't of read that review then I would never have seen this movie and that would have been a massive crime. So what makes Slater so good? He is not himself. Its that simple! He is actually acting instead of playing the same roles he always has done. Its incredible to think that one change of character can mean that Slater can become an actor of this much skill. His portrayal of the dark and depressed, mental unstable Bob is a masterpiece. Its amazing to see because he acts William H. Macy off the screen and as everybody knows, Macy is no slob, he is one of the best actors around. It is a performance that really must be seen to be believed.

Sadly the movie is only solid. What have here is a really good idea for a drama but it gets badly handled by an inexperienced writer/director and also fails from the lack of funds avaliable to it. The story goes a little like this. The film opens with the police raiding a house and it is been narrated by Bob Maconel, we then see Bob as he is loading a gun and talking about which people in his office he would kill as he looks at them. After a couple of days (or 10 minutes in the movie) we see Bob yet again loading his gun at his desk, but this time he drops a bullet and it rolls into the hall. As its rolling into the hall (and Bob is under the desk trying to get it) another employee comes out and shots a whole bunch of people. Bob comes out and talks to the guy as he is loading his gun. He wants to kill the girl on the floor, the girl Bob loves. Instead of him killing her, Bob quickly kills him and saves the girl. However, and heres the twist, the girl has already been shot and she becomes a completely quadroplegic. Bob decides to take care of her and they fall in love.

Yes, yes, how very sweet. Although I did mention Bob commits suicide at the end. The film has a nasty little edge, and its the final 5 minutes that completely lets the film down. It runs along nicely right up until the film hits cliche. I won't go into the cliche that it is abusing, and although its not a common cliche, its just a very annoying one and instead of getting the happyish ending that would have got Slater some award action, we are stuck with this frustrating and depressing ending. I asked myself a big question when the film finished suddenly, I said "Ben, how would you have ended that film?". A hell of a lot better was my answer, but then I thought about it and the ending was actually the best fit, no matter how annoying it is.

Now I said the writing wasn't the best, and its not, but it is somewhat more character driven so that actors have something to work with and its the acting which keeps the film running. I have mentioned Slater's incredible performance, but another revelation here is Elisha Cuthbert as love of Bob's life Vanessa. It must not have been easy for her to be carried around, made out or had her tits grabbed by Slater. For a performance in which she spent most of the film in a wheel chair, it was a really good. William H. Macy was sadly not at his best and seemed to over act the asshole boss. The rest of the actors were very cheap rent-a-actor type people, but the film was all Slater and Cuthbert pretty much.

The film is all held together by the performances from its two leads, without them I wouldn't be reviewing the same movie. It has a solid story and it is interesting to watch (and more interesting to read up on) but a lack of funds as stopped the writer/director getting the most out of his movie. Its a must see for Slater's performance and its also a good film if you give it a chance. If you see it at your video shop then it gets my recommendation, just don't blame me if you don't like it, it is only suited for those with a unique taste.

3.5/5

Pineapple Express (Movie)

2008-08-08T02:12:00.000-07:00

Pineapple Express - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Seth Rogen creates years most entertaining movie!

After walking out of seeing Pineapple Express my mate asked me if I thought it was better then The Dark Knight. When I reviewed The Dark Knight, I bravely stated that it was the years second best movie. Now when I look back on that statement, I somewhat regret saying it, because to put it frankly, I gave The Dark Knight such a good review because of the hype surrounding it. Now when I walked out of Pineapple Express, I realized that here was a film that didn't have much hype and had a high chance of fail and yet it perfected itself wonderfully. I realized that this is how a good movie should be watched.

Now I'm not saying The Dark Knight is a bad movie, I'm just saying that hype has ruined it for me and I never want to see it again out of fear that I won't like it on a second viewing. I want to keep it as the great film that it currently is in my mind. Pineapple Express has no fear for me, and I am proudly going to see this movie again in cinemas and buy it the first day its avaliable. It is pure entertainment, and whats better is that it is still art. Seth Rogen and director David Gordon Green have created the perfect indie film, both full of heart and full of wicked black comedy. This is entertainment at its peak.

Pineapple Express tells the story of extreme slacker Dale Denton. His day consists of serving people with court orders and take a good dose of weed in between trips. He leads a happy life with his high school girlfriend and enjoys regular trips to his just as slack drug dealer Saul. On this particular visit to Saul, Dale is given a super rare and new drug called Pineapple Express. This drug is the best of the best and Dale is the only person in town smoking. When Dale is going to serve somebody he witnesses a murder by a bad cop and the towns biggest drug dealer, when he witnesses the murder he panics and drops his Pineapple Express. It doesn't take long and they have found him and he is on the run with Saul.

The story is incredible simple. In fact its pretty much as simple of a story as you can get. Rogen and Evan Goldberg have managed to create a story that runs at break neck speed and keeps the belly full of laughs coming from every angle. The film is action heavy and yet they still manage to slow the story down to through us some witty lines whilst our heroes have some weed. Even when the action is at a high they have written in some of the best action lines you will see. Bruce Willis eat your heart out.

If the story has one fault, it is the first scene that Rogen and James Franco's Saul share. The scene is probably about 10 minutes long, and it is very talky. Whats worse, unless you actually know a huge amount about drugs, then now of it makes sense to you at all. Add this on top of the fact that its not very funny. You see Rogen and Goldberg wanted to create a bit of character, and it does work (and I think its good that they tried this out) but you can't just slow a movie down like this for that amount of time. The 10 minutes really should have been cut down, its the only bad thing about the movie.

David Gordon Green, the films director, is a very experienced indie film maker. In fact (just proving our indie he is) out of his 4 previous films he has won 8 internationally recognized awards but not one of his films has made more then $500,000 world-wide. Which is sad considering the skill this young director has. And he puts this skill to great use in Pineapple Express. At its heart it is a very much an indie film. He approaches the action very small time and none of the action scenes are over-blown. They just click, much like the action in Hot Fuzz, its not blockbuster action but it just works and the film is better for it. He directs the rest of the movie with much skill and lets his actors do what they do, although he could have perhaps controlled Danny McBride a bit better. All in all is a great attempt at a first "blockbuster" film.

The acting here changes from first class to what where they thinking. Seth Rogen and James Franco absolutely command the screen and when ever they are not on the film dies a little. They also have the sort of chemistry you rarely see from two completely different actors like these two. On the other end of the spectrum we have Danny McBride's Red, who is Saul's best friend and drug dealer. He is very annoying and I think that McBride over-acts to the extreme, thankfully he doesn't have a massive amount of screentime and he calms down before the pictures end. Sadly young up and coming actress Amber Heard isn't given enough screentime and Gary Cole perhaps is not given enough material either. It is great however to see Rosie Perez in a mainstream picture. As I said though, this is the Rogen and Franco show!

Pineapple Express does have its failures, but I dare you to find a more entertaining film released this year. If the stand-out performances of Rogen and Franco don't leave you wanting more, then there is something seriously wrong with you. On an entertainment scale, this film craps weed all over The Dark Knight. If The Dark Knight wins the awards, then Pineapple Express will win your mind and heart. This is a film for the people and not a film for the critics, do yourself a favour and ride the Pineapple Express!

4.5/5

Prom Night (Movie)

2008-08-05T02:50:00.000-07:00

Prom Night - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Lots of style, absolutely no substance!

This is not usually the type of film that I would review, but as I said in my review of The Ruins, I have an extreme weakness for teeny horror flicks. So straight after reviewing The Ruins, I had a strange urge to watch Prom Night, a remake of the 1980 horror flick. When watching Prom Night, it really made me realize what I like about teeny horror flicks, apart from the obvious of stupid teens getting killed, but I like them because they are very stylish.

When saying this, I don't when the films fashions are stylish, I mean the way the film is directed is very stylish and when realizing this, I worked out that this is the appeal to these types of films. These types of films become so popular because they are extremely modern in their style of direction. Prom Night is no exception to this, in fact you could say that Prom Night is most stylish teeny horror for many years.

And why is this? I point the finger to director at Nelson McCormick! In the last 3 years McCormick has worked on 15 different TV shows, these include House, Prison Break, Nip/Tuck and ER. I don't care what you say, but TV directors make the best style directors. TV shows have to stay current stylishly wise, and in a way can set the style. These shows have to keep viewers, and surprisingly enough lots of them do this by being exceedingly cool in style. This is where I think director McCormick has come up with the goods in making Prom Night an extremely cool film to look at.

Some of examples of this coolness can be seen in the killings. Although the film is gorey, the deaths are super cool and its all the cause of the way they have been created. One of the deaths in particular is great, its a slomo wide shot as the killer jumps out the closet like a lion and onto his prey and as quick as ever he starts the stabbing. Now this scene really has to be scene to be understood, but its the kind of coolness that you rarely get from a movie like this. Teeny horror flicks (along with chick flicks) are the most standard films you can get, no matter what they are all the same, so its refreshing to see a director take the film beyond all the genre's creative cliches and create some sequences which are cool to watch.

Like any other film of its type, everything about the story is cliche, and everyone will guess exactly what is going to happen. The film has no surpises at all in the story department, and it just plods along like everyother film like it. Its just the regular shitty story from the writer most famous for 2006's The Covenant.

Much like the writing, the acting is on the same piss poor par as everyother teeny horror flick before it. It's sad that a somewhat skilled actress like Brittany Snow gets stuck in films like this. She was super good in the TV series American Dreams, and I heard she did a stellar job in musical Hairspray. However, after this and John Tucker Must Die, her stock is going down in my books. Neither Dana Davis or Jessica Stroup can actually act, althought Davis is mildly enjoyable in Heroes. The male leads are just as bad and the rest of the cast ain't even worth a mention.

The film is very stylish, and is only worth the watch if you want to see some interesting filming techniques. However, the film has no substance and is extremely predictable. If you have 85 minutes to waste, then the are worst things to do (like kick yourself in the nuts), but if are you standing in the video shop looking for a horror movie to watch, then do yourself a favour and skip this and pick something like The Descent or 30 Days of Night. Not terrible, just not much of interest.

2/5

The Ruins (Movie)

2008-08-04T00:43:00.000-07:00

The Ruins - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Interesting horror adaptation crippled by script

For those that don't know, I have a super weak spot for enjoying teen horror flicks like When a Stranger Calls, The Grudge and The Eye. I find these types of films a guilty pleasure, and although I do enjoy them, I don't rank them as pieces of art, in fact I don't rate them very high at all. When first watching The Ruins I thought I was in for another one of these teeny horror flicks.

The first 30 minutes are extremely cliche, and this is where my early perception of teeny horror comes in. The movie opens with the usual person in a dark room and then BAM, they are grabbed by something. From here we go into even more cliche territory, we have some weak character development and quickly realize that we hate everybody. We are introduced to the 4 Americans (or the 2 couples) as they party at a nice hotel in Mexico. The night after their big piss-up, the 4 of them decide, with the help of a friendly German (world first!), they are going to go into a scary jungle and see some anicent ruins.

Once at the ruins, this is where the movie starts to take some big leaps into a very good place. When they get to the ruins, they are stopped by a local crazy on a horse. He starts yelling at them and eventually kills one of the them. There is only one way out, up the ruins, so the 4 yanks and the German race up to the top of the ruins. They quickly work out that the locals will not come up the ruins, but they will not let them leave either. The rest of the movie takes place on top of the ruins, and I won't go into to much else without spoiling it.

What I really liked about this movie was the fact that it was willing to push some boundaries and also be willing to avoid being completely cliche. The makers weren't afraid to show some gore and as this not your conventional horror flick, the gore comes from unconventional areas. What I also loved about the flick is that you don't know if the crazy stuff is real or just a hallucination. Although it does seem to push this a little to far by the films end.

If I have one gripe with The Ruins, its that it has a lazy script. For those that don't know, The Ruins was a book and the book was adapted for screen by its writer. From what I have read up on the book, the writer seems to have gone a bit soft in adapting his novel. The film doesn't explore many of the ideas and themes that it really should. He seems to have completely skipped over the fear of isolation. These people are stuck on the top of the ruins yet seem to have no fear of isolation, they believe that someone will come for them, but even in the most extreme situations one would have fear of isolation. The writer seems to be stuck on crazy drive, everybody is just crazy and thats that and he expects us to believe this. However, he showed us earlier that his characters are strong, and the by trying to tell us that his characters would go crazy so easy is questionable of his skill. I have no doubt that creatively he is very good (and perhaps as a novelist too), but he seems to no beable to handle any kind of basic understanding when it comes to writing on the screen.

The look of the film is really good, and I seriously doubt it was cheap to make. Although it is set in the Mexican jungle, it is very easy to tell that it was filmed in good old Australia. The director has managed to make a very sexy and vibrant movie. He doesn't make the film dark, it films it with colour, which makes a great change for a horror flick. He has also managed the special effects well, he hasn't used a huge amount, but what he did use he made believable.

The acting is not the best, which is a shame for the cast that was involved. This however could be due to the fact that the writer had no skill in showing any kind of human emotion, perhaps his a robot. All the actors play the angry, strong and extremely unlikeable characters well, but Jena Malone, Jonathan Tucker and Shawn Ashmore all could have handled more emotion driven characters and its a big shame that they weren't given the opportunity too.

The Ruins is a great movie when it comes down to its ideas and creativity. Its a horror flick with a difference, and although people will struggle to like it for this reason, I believe that the film is only good due to the balls the production team had to create the flick. The film lacks a good all-round script and the actors are too skilled enough to be treated the way they are. The film is not a must-see flick, but if your after something thats a bit different from your regular horror, then please look no further then The Ruins.

3/5

Coming This Month!

2008-08-03T02:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to August everybody!

Ok, so I know I have been very slack the past 10 days, but its because I have been very ill, had everything from the flu to an ear infection to non-stop watering eyes. Now I know this is the big month of change, but don't expect things to move fast, I am still recovering and it could be a week until lots of content starts to come up.

However, when the content does come, there will be heaps of it!! Lots of music will be reviewed, and expect a few out there movies as well. At the moment, I don't really know what I want to review, we will just see how the month goes.

Keep an eye out!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2008-07-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome its the end of July, and with the end of July comes the beginning of August, and if you can remember I promised that lots will change come August. Yes, I can give you some new changes which will take effect from Saturday.

- update every Monday on the weekend's US Box Office results
- there will be a weekly update in news - which will relate to music, movies and gaming!
- every month I will do an exclusive artcile - this will be either to something coming soon or a flashback
- the site may change look - I have been told that it needs more colour, more life
- you will also get "Trailer of the Week" - although this feature may take a while to come into affect

These are not the only new sections coming to the site! So stay tuned.

Also, I'm guessing that if your reading this then you have realized that the site has a new URL and it is: http://www.bensreviewblog.blogspot.com/

Tune in again soon to see some of the updates.

Nine Inch Nails - The Slip (Album)

2008-07-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

Nine Inch Nails: The Slip - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Trent releases 4th album in a year (and its really good!)

It's been over a week since a review, and I'm sorry for this, but I have been rather busy and tired and couldn't be bothered typing any reviews at all. Anyways, here is a review, not one I was expecting to do but I thought I should do. The Slip is the 4th album to be released by Nine Inch Nails in a year. Which in itself is an amazing fucking feet. Whats more is that this album is completely free! Yes, if you go onto the NIN official website, you can download it for completely free or if your a die hard NIN fan, you can buy it from the shops for $40 as there has only been 250,000 made.

Down to business, The Slip is a very tidy 10 track album. It is a tad experimental, but if you know anything about NIN, Trent Reznor is a very experimental type of guy. The other albums released this last year are: Year Zero, Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D and Ghosts I - IV. Ghosts was an extremely experimental 2 disc instrumental album, and Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D was Year Zero, totally fucked up by some masters of remixing. Year Zero was just a standard album from Trent and co, but the publicity was huge and surrounded by mystery. It seems Trent and NIN loved the publicity so much that 4 albums in a year was something they wanted to do.

The Slip is hopefully their last album for a couple of years. Its not that its bad, in fact its actually really good, its just they need to slow down and produce a whole album of brilliance instead of 4 albums with a few bright patches. The opening 5 tracks (including the intro) are all kick-ass and I would say it is NIN at their best. Discipline is probably by favourite track on the album, and its funny cause its slower, more drum & bass NIN, yet it proves to be the most different track on the album. It contains some piano/keyboard for christ sakes, since when has Trent used a piano as a major part of a song.

The 2 songs before Discipline are really good, and sound like they belong on Year Zero. Song 5 on the album is Echoplex, which is pretty fucking cool, from its groovy lyrics to the really good guitar and bass. Easily one of the standouts on the album and a super smooth track at that! The next 3 tracks I don't really like so much, they just seem a tad bit messy to be really enjoyed, apart from my first time listening to the album, they have been skipped everytime.

The last 2 songs I really like and they finish off the album well. One is an instrumental, and is actually a lot better then all of the instrumentals contained on the 2 discs of Ghosts I - IV. The last track, Demon Seed, is a fun little track to finish off the album. Its not classic NIN, but its far from their worst stuff, it is just a cool way to finish it off and the guitar and bass are great.

For a free album, they don't get much better then this. Not Nine Inch Nails' best work, but it is still good listening, I promise you won't regret the time you have spent with The Slip. Below is the link to download the album from NIN's website.

3.5/5

http://theslip.nin.com/

Random Update

2008-07-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hello Amigos!

If you reading this, then you have seen the awesome new look. I thought it was time to really get serious about this blog, and by doing so I had to make it just that bit better then the rest. As you can see I have made my own banner and created a tiny little side-bar ad thing.

Also! Yes more good news. I will be expanding the blog, so it will not only be reviews anymore. Expect some new and exciting things. Starting from the 1st of August you can expect regular news posts and previews of upcoming movies, albums and games. I will also be posting up new movie trailers and various new movie marketing.

There is also a possibility of bringing in another person to help me run this blog, of course I can't be on here 24/7, so having a second content provider would make a ton of sense.

Keep yours eyes peeled, cause everything new and exciting will be starting on the 1st of August.

Cheers

Ben

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs (Album)

2008-07-20T03:52:00.001-07:00

Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Death Cab says it's their best, what do I say?

As you all know, Death Cab for Cutie are my all-time favourite band. I love them. I love them so much that I am incapable of loving anything other then Death Cab. Just ask my ex's. Anyways, this has now been out for two months, and I have not done a review. What is going on. So, I'm sitting here on a Sunday night and I can't be bothered cooking dinner, so whats my excuse? I'm writing a review! And its no other then my precise Death Cab with their latest effort Narrow Stairs.

Upon release Narrow Stairs was hailed as Death Cab's darkest and hardest album yet. I laughed at this comment, cause it seriously wouldn't take much to make Death Cab harder, they are probably the softest band on earth. Softer then a cuddly teddy. However, I did scoff at the thought of them being darker, you see Death Cab may be soft, but they are dark. Darker then that pesky Batman. Mostly Death Cab's songs involve heart-break, death and ossacionally suicide and drugs, alcohol abuse too? So how on earth could they get any darker?

How about an album that is not stop full of depressing sounding and depressing lyrical songs? That would do it and that's what the boys have produced. An album that just keeps on pounding in the pressure, and doesn't stop depressing the shit out of you right until the end. I actually can't say that one song on the album is happy. It must have been a dark 3 years for Death Cab since their album Plans, which seems like the total opposite to this album.

The album opens with a cracker. The song is called Bixby Canyon Bridge, and its the best track on the album. Starts off nice and soft, but then half way it turns into a totally different song and becomes a rather heavyish instrumental. Ok so its not that heavy, but this is Death Cab and this is the hardest they have ever got! It is also some of Ben Gibbard's finest lyrics and his vocals are at their best. Classic track.

From here it goes into lead single I Will Possess Your Heart, which when heard on the radio is a nice little 4 minute love ballad, turns into an 8 minute monster track on the album and without its super lengthy intro, this song is not as good. Those that say they heard it on the radio and fell in love with them make me want to skin them alive. Fucking idiots. Anyways, the beginning only really works once you have listened to the song a few times, and you start to realize how it really connects with the song. The song itself is all about heart-break, a theme we are very familar with when it comes to Death Cab.

Now comes No Sunlight, which is one of two songs I don't overly like on the album. The other song is song five, called Talking Bird. It's not they are bad songs, its just they don't really with the super depressiveness that is the rest of the album. On any other Death Cab album they would have fitted perfectly.

Between the last two mentioned songs we have Cath..., which has a ripper opening and it makes you sway to the beautiful beat. Like the albums opener, this is Gibbard at his best and we all know that when Gibbard is on a roll, he can't be stopped and he commands the song. He does that here, the song is his. From the great chorus to the way he changes his tone of voice through-out the song, this really is Gibbard at his greatest and it is the reason he is my hero.

I love this next song, the song sounds like it sounds so fun, yet when you take closer inspection to those lyrics you see that this song demands (yes demands!) your sympathy. The song is You Can Do Better Than Me, and it has a chorus that goes a little like this "Cause You Can Do Better Than Me, But I Can't Do Better Than You". Gibbard belts out the lyrics with his tiny man voice just demanding that you fell sorry for him, and you do. Really good song! And it's extremely short too, and it leads straight into...

Grapevine Fires, which has to be one of the most heart-breaking songs I have ever heard. It tells the story of a family that travel into the grapevines and get stuck in the grapevine fires and all they saw was death can they knew they were going to burn. The song is essential listening, and the whole song is held together by Gibbard's soft vocals and the way the band play their instruments oh so perfectly. To me, this is the second best song of Death Cab's 7 album career, its sad, very very sad and it's the perfect song. And never have I heard a song end on a cliff hanger. Pure perfectness.

This next song is a strange one, its titled Your New Twin Sized Bed. It's solid is presentation, but look a little deeper and the song is somewhat confusing, with too many messages being given off. Still a good song but, and its a little more upbeat then some of the other songs. Fits rather nicely on the album.

And here comes the tail end. Death Cab always have totally killer tail ends. They do know how to finish an album off perfectly. The next song is Long Division, which is clever and sad at the same point. Gibbard and co. smoothly tell a story about love. About how the love of his life has chosen someone over him due to their long division and now his the remainder. Sounds like maths and that what I think they are getting at. Strange. They seem to be telling a love story through mathimatical lyrics? Huh. Anyways, it works and its one of the more moving songs on the album.

Now we have Pity and Fear, don't have a huge amount of feelings for it, but it is a really good song. It's soft and slow. And then, half way it picks up and has some toe-tapping moments along with the drums. Never really listen to the lyrics on this, but I'm sure they are important. Its the soft and then faster beat that I like about this one. Good track.

The finale is The Ice is Getting Thinner, which I think (but don't hold me to it!) is the second single off the album. It is a really good track, very sad in delievery and again this is through Gibbard's knack for being able to create heart-breaking tunes with his tiny voice box. The bass is very heavy, in fact its probably the most bass I have heard from a Death Cab song. The song has much in common with fellow indie rockers The Shins. This is one of the album's standout tracks. Love it.

Is it Death Cab's best? Painfully just short of a yes, at the moment it doesn't rank as highly as Plans and Transatlanticism. However, this is an album which is going to hold up really well and in five years I know that this will be my favourite Death Cab album. Much listen to stuff for everybody, even if you just listen to it once, this is still a must listen to before you die album. One of the years finest efforts and will hopefully go down in history as an essential album.

4.5/5

The Dark Knight (Movie)

2008-07-19T22:15:00.001-07:00

The Dark Knight - Review by Ben Chamberlain

The Knight is Darker with Nolan in Control!

I am willing to beat that nearly every review you will read on The Dark Knight will talk about the cracking final performance from Heath Ledger (R.I.P) or the equally cracking performance from Aaron Eckhart. Unlike the majority I think the films best performance comes from edgy Writer/Director Christopher Nolan. Before his famed Batman movies, this was the man behind the dark and depressing and highly valued Memento. Also, he was the man behind the very clever Insomnia, which sadly was missed by the public during its general release, but has since later become a neat little thriller in many peoples DVD collection. So how does a man go from Memento to writing and directin $150 million Batman movies?

And heres the shock, Nolan's Batman isn't that much different from his previous efforts. They are dark, confronting and adult. The characters, including the hero, are incredibly flawed. Nolan also hasn't changed his approache to direction, I know Memento was a little crazy in direction, however he still managed to keep it restrained and he does the same with The Dark Knight, you won't see any extremely quick edits that give headaches, everything is under control. So before I wanted to go into the rest of the movie, I just wanted to give a brief little speech about Nolan, because without him we would not have Batman Begins or The Dark Knight, and that would be a deep shame.

Now into the film, I will sum up the film very easily, think the crime saga Heat mixed with Batman Begins with an extra bit of fear and darkness and now you have The Dark Knight. Ok so maybe that wasn't so easy, but if I was going to go into the story, then I would either ruin the movie for you or I would confuse you. Running at 152 minutes, the movie is not at all lite on story. In fact it has one of the biggest and most well connected story you will see in movies. With a story this big you would expect plot-holes, however Nolan's story is so well done that there is no plot-holes just lots of story.

Here is the jist, The Joker is torturing the city by stealing the money of bad guys and by killing high profile government officials, but this is leading to his bigger plan which is to unmask Batman and turn the cities other hero Harvey Dent into a madman like him. Now this is just one part of the story, but as this is the major part, I will not be going into the other parts of the story. If this was written and directed by someone of lesser skill, it would have been a mess of a movie, like the terrible original series started by Tim Burton (who I secretly hate!).

The acting here is first class, and I know that most of the world is aware of this. Heath Ledger is truely amazing. It's hard to find the words to example just how good he is. He plays The Joker with much energy, fear, darkness and just enough comedy, he acts all type of acting to make The Joker the type of cinematic madman that comes along only once every 20 years. To say this is the late actors best performance is true, but although he is very well deserving of the credit, I just hope that people don't forget about he is haunting and extremely brave performance in Brokeback Mountain. Ledger's performance for this is Oscar worthy, and I truely hope he reserves it, he does deserve it.

Aaron Eckhart also does a fine job here. The actor plays the all-American hero with much bravado and never lets the character show fear, this is until a tragic accident which turns Harvey Dent into the cities new criminal. This criminal is of course Two Face, and although Eckhart isn't the kind of hardass that can pull off such a revenge-driven force, he never throws in the towel and just keeps plowing through the role. Well done son. Bale plays Batman much like the first, and although he plays Bruce Wayne perfectly, I still struggle to get use to him as Batman. He just can't seem to nail the extremely deep throat voice which belongs to our dark hero. Morgan Freeman is always likable as Lucius Fox and Michael Caine is not given enough screen time as Alfred. Maggie Gyllenhaal does a much better job playing Rachel Dawes. I also love seeing Gary Oldman play Lt. Gordon, because he usually plays a bad guy and its great seeing him play a good guy and Batman's allie, and he is also extremely likable. That's performances covered.

The action in this one is awesome. Where as Batman Begins wasn't long enough and was action packed enough for my likings, The Dark Knight has been injected with clever action sequences, which don't go beyond being implausible. The opening scene is perhaps one of the best movie openings ever, and after this we just keep getting great action scenes after great action scenes. Whether he on his bike or in his car, spectacular action seems to follow Batman wherever he goes.

How dark is this movie? It's extremely adult and very dark. Thats what makes this movie so good, is the fact that Nolan has crafted a comic book movie purely aimed at adults. The movie has many disturbing scenes, people get hung and there is one scene in which The Joker talks about his scars which is incredibly creepy. The Joker's final test at the end of the movie will have everyone on the edge of your seat, and it may test some people as its gets towards the end, its one of those scenes in which everyone will talk about what they would do in a situation like that. But yes, this film is very adult, very dark and shouldn't be viewed by anybody under the age of 13.

The best films of all-time stand the test of time. With everybody regarding this as one of the all-time greats, it really begs the question, will we being thinking of this as classic in 50 years like our grand-parents think of Gone With the Wind and our parents think of The Godfather? The answer is double-sided, this isn't the best movie we will ever see, however this is the best mainstream movie we will ever get to see. Strange I know, but in 20-30-40-50 years this will be the film we talk about, because everybody of our generation would have seen it. The film is essentially perfect, and it will stand the test of time due to the issues that it covers which will always remain current and topical. I can't say this is the best of the year, because Gone Baby Gone effected me like no other film I have ever seen, however this will be always and forever be regarded as a classic. Thank you Nolan, you have made a cinematic classic that will be remembered by myself and everyone else to live in this generation. It will be a crime to miss this in cinemas!

5/5

British India - Thieves (Album)

2008-07-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

British India: Thieves - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Poor effort from Aussie Punk Outfit

Now I was once obessed with British India! I saw them 6 times in one week, which is just fucking extreme. Their first album was released last year and was one of the years stand-out albums. It was lyrically snappy and featured some awesome garage-rock like jamming. The album was incredibly fun, with songs like Black and White Radio, Run the Red Light and Automatic Pulse, they were the type of songs you just had to move too.

Sadly, their Sophomore album is an example as too why young bands should not release albums so close together. In fact the album is so poor that the best songs on the album are songs they have been playing live for almost a year, and would have to be the b-sides from their first album. It should be said that British India have lost their edge and seem to think they can keep it by screaming fuck and having "touchy" and "politically incorrect" lyrics.

The album opens with the extremely boring song God is Dead, Meet the Kids, which judging by the title, should be a fast and edgy punk rock song. The song is slow, and sounds messy. If you could understand what is being said, then perhaps I may have some respect for this song. Sadly, British India have disappointed me with what is a terrible opening track for a band that is known for being hard and fast.

The 2nd song on the album is one of these previously heard live tracks that I mentioned earlier, and it's one of 2 great songs on the album. The song has killer drumming, and the boys do truely rock out on this track. This song is an example of how British India can be, they actually can be a really good punk rock band. However, the rest of the album is so poor that the song is over shadowed by some of the other songs shitness.

Fuck me the next song sucks balls and its the fucking lead single. Why would they choose this? Its not even a radio friendly song. Its a song with too much too say and not enough time to say it and it fails at what it does say. Poor choice as a lead single, and it seems they purely made it the lead single due to its representation of the bands world-wide political views. Just shut the fuck up already.

Put It Right Down is the next track, and this is a more radio friendly song and is an improvement on the last track, but its too slow to keep me interested and yet again British India seem to want to talk about their views again. Next up we have Funeral for a Trend, and as you can tell from the title alone, this song is going to be a lyrical bog drop. And guess what, it is! It's full, yet again, of lyrics nobody cares about but the British India boys. Oh and its just a straight-up annoying song.

Airport Tags is another pointless song and I won't go into details on this one cause its just like the others. Now the next track is what I'm talking about, You Will Die and I Will Take Over is the title, and this is another song they have been playing live for a while and its a great track. Its got an original beat and the lyrics are not made the major point of the song, and it has the punky garage feel that made their first album such a delight. Easily one of the albums stand-out tracks, but I don't think many people will like it due to the lead singers approach and singing.

As we are coming towards the tail end, the album actually starts to improve. Quite dramatically. With the previous track, and this song Mona Lisa Overdrive, the album seems to start moving towards were it should have gone. Although this song is not exactly fast and punky, it is extremely easy to tap your toes too and is very easy to disgust. Should be a really good, crowd pleasing song if they play it live.

Now here is track I wanted this album for! Everytime I have seen these cunts in the last year they have played this awesome track and I have wanted it like a fat kid wants cake. The song is fast, hard and punky and is easily one of British India's grundgest songs. This should have been the album opener! With a chorus that screams "3000 Kids, ALL ON THEIR MOBILE PHONES!", thats just pure awesomeness. Also, with lyrics like "4 white boys are getting high tonight" and "you can't fuck with the real shit homeboy", this is the kind of jam song I have wet dreams about. Official the albums best track and probably British India's best ever track, they will do no better then this! Oh and the song is called Nic the Poet. I can't be bothered listening to the last track, cause I continuesly skip back to Nic the Poet. Plus the song starts super slow... boring!

British India fans rejoice in your disappointment! The years most disappointing albums, if they had of stayed on course after the first album, they could have made a great punk rock Sophomore album. However they haven't, whether it due to extreme touring and late nights or the fact that it is too soon for a second album, the British India boys have majorily disappointed me and probably the rest of the country. Hang your heads in shame!

2/5

Funny Games (Movie)

2008-07-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

Funny Games - Review by Ben Chamberlain

An Interesting Study of Evil

Funny Games is a remake of the 1997 Austrian film called, ironically, Funny Games. This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill remake but, both are scene for scene, shot for shot films. Both are written and directed by celebrated film-maker Michael Haneke, who remade his original film so the story could be seen by a wider auidence and so the experience could be become more accessiable. Haneke was wrong and has failed.

Let me explain, although I think Haneke has incredible large balls for even trying to pull this off, sometimes however I think his a nutcase for thinking it might work. Funny Games is not a film that should have seen a wider auidence. It is not an experience that should have become more accessiable. In fact, I bet the world is now a worse place for this film getting a wider auidence. The film is a very daunting experience, it is down right horrifying. The film is a study of evil, but not the kind of Michael Myers evil (cause thats fun!), this is the kind of evil that is real and will make most peoples blood curdle.

The film tells the very simple story of a family who are held captive by two psychopaths for a night. The story is extremely simple, it is just too real. Haneke has written a script which contains nothing totally unplausible. This is not some stock-standard Hollywood horror flick, this is a well thought-out study of the mind of evil. I mentioned Michael Myers, now he was evil, but his story was completely unplausible, hence making the film fun and not even a little bit scary. But the story contained in this film is scary.

Its a pity then that Haneke completely ruins his scary story but giving the viewer no tension, the menace contained in the opening credits was a really good way to kick it off, but then Haneke decided to what ages before anything happened. The first 45 minutes is empty, completely void of any tension or anything happening at all. He seems to be trying to build character development, but you pretty much know within 5 minutes that you hate everyone except the kid. This makes the build-up un-need and completely unwanted.

I hated the characters in this movie. The kid is the only likeable one, which is natural cause you always have to like the kid. All the other character though are so easy to hate, no effort is made what so ever to make you feel sympathic towards them. Maybe its just me, maybe I'm a totally heartless asshole, but I will stand with what I'm saying. The wife, the husband and the two pyschos are just not good characters or good people. In fact I was cheering on the killing, annoying people should be killed, right?

Haneke has also made the film too much of an art film. Although I love long shots (see the ending to Children of Men for great film-making!), Haneke goes over board with long shots. Nearly every single scene is a 5 minute long shot. The extreme amount of long shots is just a true testament of how Haneke knows nothing about real film art. Of all the long shots, only one is deserving of being mentioned.

Don't read the rest of this paragraph is you want the movie spoiled for you. The scene in which Naomi Watts is trying to stand and hobble after her son is killed. The long shot goes for about 10 minutes, and it is just totally heart breaking as you see her struggling to move and her son's blood is puring down the wall and pooling on the floor. The scene is pretty much the scariest thing in the movie, how can they kill an innocent boy and then just leave? This is the scene in the movie were the true evil is revealed. It's a major shock to the system. Another scene which is just truely horrifying is when they finally kill Naomi Watt's character, earlier in the movie they say that all three will be dead in 12 hours, they decide to kill Watt's character early because they were hungry. This is probably the first time a film has truely shocked me, these two boys are pure evil.

Everything I admire about the film is everything that shocked me. Only two scenes. In the whole two hours I spent watching this film, I can only mention two scenes that made me feel that this was worth watching. Apart from these horrifying scenes the film is terrible. It is boring and builds no tension. The performances are below par for all the actors involved and its Haneke's direction is his worst yet. This film should not be seen, by anybody, the two seens of shocking are probably the most depressing pieces of cinema ever. Forget the ending to The Mist, Funny Games has truely shocked and depressed me to my core with only two scenes. If only the whole movie managed to do this.

2/5

The Bourne Conspiracy (Xbox 360)

2008-07-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Bourne Conspiracy - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Can a Great Film Series Translate to a Great Game?

Most people will agree that the three Bourne films are one of the greatest action series ever put to screen. Mixing brutal, real and confronting violence with a good dose of brains and great acting and direction, the series is pretty much regarded as the perfect series, and probably the only series in which each new film bettered the last. The idea of bringing the Bourne movies (and books!) to the gaming world is very good idea. The films contain awesome hand-to-hand combat, car chases through populated cities, gritty gun fights and plenty of hardcore boss battles, and this sounds like it would make an abosutely brilliant action game.

In bringing the Bourne story to the consoles, Sierra definately got it right. The games story is A plus, the game starts before the beginning of the first movie. It starts off with a very good introduction to the game, the first 2 levels in fact are pretty much an intro. The first mission teaching you the well thought-out hand-to-hand combat system, and the 2nd mission introduces you to some of Bourne's other tricks. Every mission is extremely high octane and fast paced, it just never stops and what else is great about this story is that every mission is different, never will you feel like your repeating what you did 2 missions ago. The games story is extremely well planned and thought-out.

There are 11 missions in total, some are epic and some are rather short, but as I already said each is original. The car chase through Paris is one of the best gaming car chases I've experienced and the Escaping the Ambassy mission will have you on absolute edge, in fact you should finish the mission with a racing heart due to how fast and quick the mission moves. The assassin versus assassin mission called Surviving the Professor is just brilliant. If the game has one fault it that there are not enough missions and this leads me onto my next point.

The game took me just over 4 hours to finish. In fact, you can finish this game quicker then it would take you to watch all 3 movies back to back. Sure its great to have a fast moving and well thought-out action game, but it only covers one of the films, surely it could have covered all 3 and pushed the games length out to 12 hours. It seems to be a trend lately, huge hyped up games are embarrasingly short. With this taking 4 hours, and PS3 title Haze taking 6 hours, also Metal Gear Solid 4 can be finished in around 8 hours when you skip all the cut-scenes. Add these on top of Army of Two, Stranglehold and Call of Duty 4, all of which can be knocked out in 8-10 hours. They need to get there act together, dammit I want an epic shooter!

The graphics are very good. I must admit to expecting to be the kind of below par graphics you get with most other games that originate from movies, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The character modelling is very good, and when you have you hand-to-hand combat battles with various opposition or bosses, you can't notice anything other then stellar graphics. The environments are also great and very well designed. Paris is probably the only graphical flaw, but thats forgiven due them re-creating the city for just one mission. The game also has no screen tearing, which is really good to see because LEGO Indiana Jones screening tearing completely ruined that game for me.

The fighting system is all class and I would go as far as say its the best on the system. The quicker you learn the great hand-to-hand system, the quicker you can dispatch enemy after enemy and trust me, when it comes to the assassin versus assassin missions, your going to need to know exactly what does what. The range of moves you can do is huge, and it all comes from just 2 buttons, which is great when compared to some other games where you have 4+ buttons for fighting. Another highlight is the Takedown system, every time you hit someone you build up your Takedown bar once a part of it is full then you tap B and Bourne kills the person very quickly by either slamming his head into something or by just straight-out kicking his ass.

The shooting system is one of the games other flaws. Ok so its not completely terrible, but its rather poor when compared to many of the other shooter games on the system. So whats wrong with it? It is slow, very very slow and unless you shoot them in the head, it can take 10 bullets to take an enemy down. Also the third person view used in the game just feels all wrong. The game should of adopted a third person shooting system similar to Gears of War, or heck, even Kane & Lynch. The fighting system also uses the Takedown system, when you tap B for a shooting Takedown, Bourne just shoots them and kills them in one shot.

The re-play value of the game will change from person to person. If you like achievements then there are plenty to get on a second (or third) play through. If you started on an easy difficulty, like I did, then a re-visit may be something you also want to do. It will change from person to person, personally however I do intend on re-playing it and I will be doing it fairly shortly.

Other little bit and bobs, the cutscenes are really good and look exactly like they do from movie. The voice acting is also very good, although Bourne just doesnt sound the same as when played by Matt Damon (please, no Team America jokes!). The menu is very well set-up, and contains some very novel ideas, like the ability to re-play various boss battles aand the achievements menu which is very great idea and works fantastically if your an achievement whore like me.

The Bourne Conspiracy has lots going for it, the story is a fast paced action extravagansa, the hand-to-hand combat system is easily the best on the console and the graphics are of a high standard. However, the game has many bad-sides, the shooting system is not thought out what so ever, the game is extremely short and won't take even the most amateur gamer long to pass and the camera system can occasionally be annoying. If the game has more gameplay to offer, despite its flaws, I would say its a must own, however due to how the short the game is I can only recommend this as a rental. Great action game, just not long enough.

Gameplay - 8/10 - The story is brilliant and the hand-to-hand combat system is stellar. Its a fast paced game that only suffers from its short length

Graphics - 8/10 - the graphics are very good and won't disappoint in any aspect

Sound - 7/10 - Solid voice acting and just general sound effects here. Nothing new or special but nothing bad that is worth commenting on

Value - 4/10 - 4-5 hours max. The games only terrible aspect

Overall - 6/10 - The game is great whilst it lasts, just doesn't last long enough. Its a highly recommended rental.

The Fratellis - Here We Stand (Album)

2008-07-11T23:18:00.000-07:00

The Fratellis: Here We Stand - Review by Ben Chamberlain

A Darker Turn from the Crazy Scots!

No doubt about it, The Fratellis first album Costello Music is one of the stand-out album released in the last few years and because I love it so much, I first approached this album with caution, fearing that they would not be able to follow up the greatness of the first. When I first listened to the album, I honestly didn't like it. It didn't have the pop-rock power and fun that the first absolutely owned at. After a few weeks, its officially grown on me.

The Fratellis, much like the recently reviewed Birds of Tokyo, have grown up. Here we have songs that don't aim to be the fast-paced bounce around songs that the first had. If the first album represented your graduation party in High School, then their sophomore album would represent either your first day of work or your first day at higher education. Ok so that may not make a lot of sense right now, but I will explain.

Costello Music was pretty much fun song after fun song, you couldn't pin point a song on the album and say it wasn't fun. Hence this representing your graduation party, and event most people look forward too for 12 fucking years. Here We Stand goes in different directions, in a sense you could say that The Fratellis now have to stand, and here they stand. Pardon the pun. If I was going to convert the album into your first day at real work or your first day at Uni, then this is how it would be done...

My Friend John, the opening track of the album. Well its an extremely fast head banger, filled with nutso lyrics and much of the same energy that was contained on their first album. This song would represent ones excitement the day before their big day. A song that could be easily digusted over a beer with mates to celebrate the future.

A Heady Tale, this song would represent getting up on the Monday morning to start your new job/education. In fact, this song is pretty much the perfect Monday morning song. It has enough warmth to get you out of bed and enough energy to put a smile on your ugly face. The song also marks the debut (or noticeable debut) of the piano/keyboard for The Fratellis.

Shameless, this is where the fear kicks in, you are just leaving to go and everything is closing in and everything is becoming more serious. Doesn't contain the same amount of fun as most the songs on the first album, yet still contains a good amount of energy. You of course would still have the energy has your leaving, but there is just a hint of fear.

And this what the fuck review continues down stream now with Look Out Sunshine! I love this song, as it contains the word cunt. Any kind of material which can brave it and have cunt in it gets five stars from me straight out. The song is slower then usually for these dudes, and kind of feels like how one would feel upon entering the new office or edu-ma-cational facility. Fun song with some darker tones.

Now you are starting to realize that perhaps this is all wrong. Stragglers Moon, a song with heavy bass, moody lyrics and a rather depressing tone. A song which sounds like it belongs on some 70's Porno Tribute Album. It perfectly sums up your fear of starting fresh. Still a rather solid song.

Mistress Mabel, what a fucking sexy song this is. This song is dedicated for when you first meet the office hottie or the stunning chick you got to uni with. This is the first single off the album, and its fun, cheeky and a rather speedy and sexy song. Rather fitting as the album first single and is a throw back to many of the singles that were released from the first album. This is one of this albums stand-out tracks.

Jesus Stole My Baby, what kind of a cunt would steal someones baby? Does this mean that Jesus is a fucking Dingo? OMG Ernie Dingo is Jesus. I always knew Jesus was black. Anyways this song is dedicated to the religious nut-job in your office/uni that everyone hates.

Next song Babydoll represents some of the challenging tasks that will be present in your life. Rather sad song actually, you can tell this song means a lot to the band and hopefully it will become a fan favourite. The albums most honest and real track, and should rightfully be regarded as The Fratellis at their emotional best. Pure greatness.

Now its time for lunch! Tell Me a Lie is a great super fast track, full of everything from guitar solos, to those crazy "ahhh-ahhhh-ahhhh"s that the people from the UK seems so very good at. I personally love listening to this big bitch of a song during my lunch break. I have it up so loud that it feels like my ear drums are about to explode. Yippy. This is the albums most fun track.

I don't really like the next song, so it doesn't get mentioned! After this we have Lupe Brown, which perfectly represents the end of your first day. The song is long, but it is fun. Its not The Fratellis at their cheekiest or funniest, but it does song that they can successfully mix some kind of fun into a song that does feel real and honest. Milk and Money is the albums finale and makes a really good bed time melody.

So where do The Fratellis go from here? Their next album can go very many directions. If you don't like your new found life, perhaps The Fratellis will do a darker album or an album full of hope. Perhaps you love what you do, so then they will do an album full of fun, life and love. They have partyed and they have turned a new page, I really can't wait to see what these crazy Scots do next. After this album, they have proved that can do no wrong, no matter how much they change. A very good album!

4/5

The Music - Strength in Numbers (Album)

2008-07-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

The Music: Strength in Numbers - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Solid Albums All Round!

So far this year only 5 albums have really surprised, these are albums that are so brilliant in writing, in what they had to say, in how they sounded and in how they made me feel. 3 of these albums are by bands that are consistantly great, and have rarely let me down. 1 of these is a fairly new band, but its their 2nd album and its much better then their first. And the last came from complete left field and surprised the hell out of me. These 5 albums are, Nada Surf's Lucky, Coldplay's Viva La Vida, Death Cab for Cutie's Narrow Stairs, Birds of Tokyo's Universes and Youth Group's The Night is Ours. These are the best 5 albums so far this year and they are the complete stand-outs in what I would call the Year of the Solid Album. This album I'm about to review is no exception.

Now I don't know much about The Music, in fact I know nothing, but I do hear great things about them and I honestly hope they have much better under their belt then this album. I'm not saying the album is terrible, cause it isn't. It's just solid. It has many great songs on it, but for every great song they have a rather average one.

The album keeps off promisingly with title track Strength in Numbers, which sounds like a very modern rock song, including everything electronic and it utilizes every track avaliable to them. They sound like Kasabian, both bands can play their instruments, both have a charasmatic sounding lead and both like to play with the electronic toys at their disapossable. Where the bands differ is the fact that where as Kasabian can make a whole album work, The Music seem to be stuck, some songs they absolutely nail and the opener is a great example of this, but others just seem to fail due them playing with the toys to damn much.

After the first track, the album stays steady for a few tracks, songs two and three are not brilliant but they are good enough to less too every now and then. Idle is where the album starts to turn, its a song with a lil to much bass and it completely screws around with the lead singers voice. To much playing is the problem with this song, in fact they have fucked up the vocals so much you can rarely hear what they are singing about. The next song, titled The Left Side, continues with the toy playing and like the last it has far to much bass. Bass is not cool all the time, there is having a cool amount of bass and having to much and this completely ruins this song, cause it has its beat and sing-a-long chorus spot on.

The next few tracks get the album in another good direction, Fire is a great rock track and the guitar is really good. Get Through It has much playing with those electronic toys, but they seem to nail the balance in this song. The beat is wicked and the chorus is yet again a stand-out, they do know how to craft a good chorus. Vision is a really good rock song, the drums and guitar are superb and the vocals are spot on. They need more tracks like this.

The album then takes another turn for the worst, which sucks. I do hate it when an album turns bad towards the end. The next 3 tracks are all fairly average. Good thing the epic finale is there to pull things back in time, but the damage has already been down and what the final result is, is a solid album. That's all I can call it, solid. If you are lucky to get the bonus disc however, put it in, cause the every single one of those 7 remixes and b-sides is good, makes you wonder why the actual album went somewhat pear shaped.

Strength in Numbers is a solid album, and it continues the years trend of being rather solid and rather average. I am now going to suss out the old The Music albums, just to see how they compare to this. Although this isn't terrible listening, the bad tracks will put you off from making this album a regular player.

3/5

The Subways - All or Nothing (Album)

2008-07-08T02:47:00.000-07:00

The Subways: All or Nothing - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Angrier, heavier and rockier, but is it a better album?

This album got off to the kind of kick off that makes this young chicken absolutely cream himself. The song is called Girls & Boys, and it is super fast, super franitic and goes at break neck speed. It kicks off with a fucking sweet guitar solo and the pace is kept through the whole song. This is a lot of noise from the British Trio, who absolutely rocked my world with their 2005 debut Young for Eternity, it was the fast indie rock album for the ages. It was what it was, and it didn't try to pretend to be anything. And although the opener to this album is the kind of hard rock song you dream of, it just doesn't seem to be The Subways.

They seem to have lost sight of what made their first album so fucking good. After the speedy opener, the album just goes into a rather generic hard rock album. Something of the complete opposite of their first, which was a fresh take on the indie scene, with songs that held a good amount of emotion and matched the emotion of other bands but also had a bit of speed. They seem to just want to make noise, and noise is what they make. The songs don't seem to hold much emotion at all, with nearly every song containing a scream and being exceptionally fast.

What pisses me off more is the fact that the only song on the album that remotely sounds like it should belong on the first album is this albums lead single. Perhaps a clever marketing ploy to make previous fans buy this one for some more of the same. As a huge fan of the first album, I seem rather ripped off. I was thinking that I would be getting more of the same, and I wanted more of the same, but instead I got the hard rock album of the year.

Oh yeah, I said it. Damn right am I pissed that this is not Young for Eternity all over again, but this is without a doubt the hard rock album of the year. I know I said it was generic, and it is, but its fucking great generic. I dare you to listen to this album without wanting to breakout in air guitar! Girls & Boys, Kalifornia, Shake! Shake!, I Won't Let You Down, Turnaround and bonus tracks Streetfighter and Burst all kick complete ass. They are super fast, head-banging rock. These are the 7 best hard rock songs you will hear this year, and I'm actually glad to see a band go against the British "trend" of indie rock.

If you were a fan of Young for Eternity, hold that close and don't get this. Unless of course you want some hard rock madness. The album will disappoint fans, but The Subways will get a new batch of friends and fans with this album of pure hard rock. The album will give men an instant hard-on as we hear guitar solo after guitar solo. Hard rock album of the year!

3.5/5

Brit Showdown

2008-07-08T02:42:00.000-07:00

I got three albums by good British rock acts sitting here which have all been released in the last month. So I have decided to review all three and tell you which is the best! But, you going to have to wait until the final review is up to see my winner. Just in case you wondering, the albums are:

The Subways - All or Nothing

The Music - Strength in Numbers

The Fratellis - Here We Stand

Let the battle begin!

Oh also, more coming soon news. I will be giving you a review for the new Youth Group album this week (currently addicted to it!) and my first game review in a while, that will be Condemned 2, but that may not be for a fortnight or so. There is also a couple of movies I want to review, including an exclusive (and Aussie first!) review of Funny Games and if I get a chance I will review the new Robert Downey movie Charlie Bartlett. Also expect another TV review!

So stay tuned, we are in for a massive month!!

Peace out,

Benny

Birds of Tokyo - Universes (Album)

2008-07-05T01:53:00.000-07:00

Birds of Tokyo: Universes - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Can these local boys deliver on their Sophomore album?

Now I explained a while back on how I rate perfection in movies. Shamefully enough, I can't explain how I rate perfection in an album. Different albums can say completely different things to me without me even known. When local band Birds of Tokyo released their first album "Day One", I thought it was a great fun album, far from perfection, but for a first effort it was a really good album. Universes is their brand new album, in fact so new that it only came out today. I hope this is one of the first reviews on the net.

The songs on this album vary from the hard and fast with the harrowing vocals of Ian Kenny, to the slow rock ballads. It all starts with the opening instrumental called Uno, its only short but gets you in the mood for whats to come, and like the instrumental for Coldplay's new album, it is a great way to open the album. I hope this is a trend that continues in future albums. This is followed by Broken Bones, and its one of the albums straight-up highlights, the song starts of hard and fast, and it automatically signals that the boys have grown. The drums are hard, and the lyrics are really good and it shows off the true capability of Kenny's vocal output. The song is pure kick ass.

Next up is a shortish song called Wild Eyed Boy. Perhaps not the best way to full up the intensity and speed of Broken Bones. From 2 listens, I'm still deciding what to make of it. It's slow, yet strangely fast at the same time and it sounds like a love song. I see this song as an enigma. Or perhaps the song is confused. Doesn't really matter, its a great track with a killer chorus, again pushing Kenny's vocals. They get pushed a lot on this album.

Now we have the albums lead single Silhouettic, which is a good example of awesome head-backing rock. Forget the first albums slow yet fun songs, this album wants to be dark, hard and mysterious. This, and Broken Bones, are the lead examples of this. Not the best track on the album, but its one of the leading tracks that shows the Birds growth as artists. I love the random jam about 2 minutes in, makes me cream myself every listen.

Head in My Hands, the albums first slower track. Its a rather haunting track. It's the lyrics I love on this track. "And I Hate My Melodies, They are All the Same, And I Can't Get them Out of My Head", kind of leaves you wondering at what the boys are trying to say. The song has many powerful lyrics, and after your 1st, 2nd and 3rd (and many more) listens, it will leave you thinking. This song really is beautiful, its a very strong and powerful song in lyrics, and these are put out wonderfully by Kenny. He really is the shining light on this album.

The next song is White Witch, I didn't really like it at first, but it has grown on me. It is perhaps the only track on the album that sounds like it belongs on the first album. I think it may even be a B-Side from the first album, still a rather solid track but, its just on the wrong album. The next song, An Ode to Death, is my favourite track on the album. It has kick ass guitar, and its the only track on the album I like purely for its instruments and how they are played and not totally because of Kenny's vocals. I remember seeing this being played live a couple of months ago, it was titled Turkish Wolf back then, the new title suites it better. Just a straight-out kick ass rock song.

The album now has a couple of low-points. Armour for Liars has a great beginning, but I don't know why, just can't really dig this track. It's not a totally bogus song, it does have some good points, just not as good as many of the other tracks on the album. The next song is The Bakers Son, which is far to long. I'm sure many would call it a slow and brooding masterpiece, its just too slow when put in comparission to the first half of the album. Like Armour for Liars, its not a terrible track, just far from the best this album has to offer.

The album from here ends with 2 much slower and much darker songs. Train Wrecks is just great, thats it, can't really explain it. Its just a great song. Kenny and the lyrics his singing are haunting and somewhat scary in the fact that what he sings seems real. Like the first album, which featured many songs about drugs and the effects of drugs, this and the albums finale seem to be about drugs. Except, unlike those on the first album, which can be misconsued as fun tracks, these are not very fun tracks. They are just great haunting music. The last song is Medicine, its the first track on the album to utilise piano's and violins. If I have one gripe with the album, its that they seem to be trying to create anger in you (or perceive that they are angry) by using the word fuck many times. This is very unlike the Birds, and its the only thing that brings the song down. The chorus is chilling, which is purely "I've Got My Medicine". A great track, and a great one to end a dark album.

Birds of Tokyo seem to have grown as a band in the last year, and their song writing is a great example on the bands strength. This album is dark, haunting, chilling yet also fast and hard. They may lose some fans with the change in direction, but will gain lots of respect for making a very brave and very daring sophomore album. Bound to be one of the years highlights and bound to become one of my favourite albums, I highly recommend this to anyone you loves their music doing with some balls.

5/5

Pathology (Movie)

2008-07-04T04:45:00.000-07:00

Pathology - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Killing, its what we were born to do!

Pathology, it was a film that I could not wait to see. Late last year I was doing my random IMDb browse and I came across this film. It seemed to have so much going for it. It is written by the crazy duo behind cult classic Crank, it has Milo Ventimiglia in his first real lead role and the premise seemed to good to be true. It tells the story of a group pathology residents, who play a game in which they take turns in killing bad people in obscure ways.

Sounds like a genius idea, and it is, but where Pathology fails down is in its direction and its concentration on being too clever. In fact, it is probably to clever for its own good. Whilst watching I felt as if the director was doing everything in his power to get our attention off the story on put it on himself , and attempts everything to do so! What we are left with is a feel with so many clever concepts and ideas but mixed with poor filming and editing.

It is a real shame to the story that the director was so aggressive in the way he wanted to present the film. We have heaps of sex scenes, which are ugly and edited together at break neck speed, it feels like your watching a porno if it was made by Michael Bay. On top of this we have an inconstant soundtrack, some scenes are ladenned with a very heavy rock sound and others have composed music. It should have stuck with one, and my choice would have been composed music. The scenes in which the music is composed, we have a chance to relax and feel some of the tension the film is given off. And then has soon as thats finished we have a scene with a heavy soundtrack, that puts the film off balance.

Don't expect ground-breaking characters or mind-blowingly great performances. Milo does a solid job, and he is far from the world's best actor, but there is something you can't help but like about him. He seems to just get the job done, and he seems to have a regular Joe feel about him as an actor. I like that. The other performances are solid. Michael Weston plays a solid villian and Alyssa Milano plays a cute enough love interest.

I said earlier that is was written by the crazy duo behind Crank, their names are Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. They also directed Crank, and one of the reasons Crank is so loved is due to its crazy, on the edge direction. I feel that they could have done the same with this, the script has many scenes of psychotic madness, and their direction would have greatly helped the film. In fact, I may very well be sitting here direction a totally different movie. Neveldine and Taylor, I feel, would have a made this into a really great black comedy. It's shame really.

The story is the winner in this film, the residents as part of the game have to kill their victims in bizarro ways and in discrete manners so that the others will have to fight out as to what killed them. What is produced is many scenes of extremely clever death sequences. The first 2 deaths that Milo's character Ted is involved in are extremely clever, and I hope nobody copies it. Although, they may not actually be possible. Not a perfect script by any means, character development isn't exactly present, but the ideas are there and are good.

Pathology won't win any awards, but it does win your heart. Although the direction is a let down, the stories clever twists and turns and unexpected shocks will have fans of the pyschological thriller jumping for joy. It's not perfect viewing, and you will find many holes in its production, but its hard not to enjoy a film with this much presence.

3/5

Havoc (Movie)

2008-07-02T04:33:00.000-07:00

Havoc - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Gangsta's and Sex are Mixed together in this Stephen Gaghan Mess!

WARNING: This review will totally destroy the movie if you intend on watching it!

Ok, where do I start? I'm trying to calm down here, but I'm just so pissed off with this movie. I literally don't know where to start my bitching. I start at the source of this terrible story. Stephen Gaghan, you know, the guy that won an Oscar for Traffic? Well he is responsible for this, the story came from his head and it was written by him. When watching the film, you can't help but wonder how this film got green-lit by such a tiny company that needs a great movie. It's almost like they thought "hey, Gaghan won an Oscar, his script must be good". Well it's not, Gaghan as terribly mixed teen boredom with Mexican gangsta's, lots of sex and tons of drugs.

Let me some up the story, a bunch of bored teens run an angry white boy gang that thinks its an angry black boy gang, when the females of the gang (sorry, "gang") are sick of these try-hards, they decide to hang out with a real gang of hardcore Mexican guys. And here is some more, these are not regular teens, they are very smart and extremely rich teens. Yes yes, I see! 2 smart and rich teens are hanging out with drug peddling Mexicans! Sounds like something I read in the paper everyday. Gaghan seems to think he can translate the success of Training Day and his own film Traffic into another gritty and clever hood thriller. Wrong.

Now although I totally blame Gaghan for the complete and utter crappy story, I also blame the Director! The Director is Barbara Kopple, you may not know her, but she is a very strong-minded woman who loves to make troubling documentaries. In fact, her docos are so good she has won 2 Oscars. So what would have made her do her feature film debut on this heap of crude? My guess would be money. And this is where I lose all respect for Kopple. Just look at the 2 films she won Oscars for, now I haven't seen them, but one is about the US prison system and the other about the American Dream, she sounds like she has a brain. I just wish she had of used it and said no to this film.

And the bitching continues! The casting, its perhaps some of the worst mis-casting I have seen. Although its role Anne Hathaway probably needed to curb her "good-girl look", she just can't play the bad-ass, gangsta loving, druggie, horny teen slut. Yeah thats her character, mix every teen cliche into one character and you have Allison Lang, the world's biggest cunt! Channing Tatum is here, as he is in every gangsta white boy movie, but for a guy of some skill, he spends a whole 20 seconds on screen. Freddy Rodriguez! What where you thinking? Over-acting to the extreme from you, you bad man! Starting getting some good roles son, you have some skill. Matt O'Leary, I loved this dude in Brick, but come on. You can't turn him from The Brain into some angry white boy gangsta, terrible casting here.

Here comes a tiny high-note and the only thing I liked about this film! Joseph Gordan-Levitt, totally mis-casted like the everyone else in this waste of time. However, its almost like he took the role to give it crap, and if you ever do see this movie, you will see what I mean. He plays an angry, gun totting white boy/wigga. In my mind, he just spends the whole film taking the piss out of it and its a laugh watching him just jump around on screen dropping f-bombs, singing and calling people nigga. What a legend.

Ok back to bitching. Why did the producers insist on showing Anne Hathaway's tits every chance they got? Every scene she flops those fun bags out, its the world's most ugliest nudity. From when she goes down on this guy to when there is a "rape", everything is ugly and yet they seem to try and glamourize it. Also, if they are not exploiting Hathaway, its Bijou Phillips that has to be exploited. It almost like they knew the film was much chop, so they decided to market the film as "The First Movie Anne Hathway Got Nude In!", which is how I knew the film until I saw it!

I'm running out of breath and this review is coming to an end. Please avoid, its really not worth the 78 minutes that this film runs at. Watching this film induces much anger. I really feel for Hathaway, she is one of my favourite actresses, and its a crying shame to see her talents and diginity go to waste in this terrible flick. It also makes me sleep better to know that Gaghan has not written a film in 3 years. Brings a smile to my face. If you really must see this film, then please only see it for Joseph Gordan-Levitt and his total piss-take performance.

This movie is as poor as they come.

1/5

Coming This Month!

2008-07-02T04:27:00.001-07:00

Its July!!! We are in the 2nd half of the year and also the month in which The Dark Knight is released!

So what can you expect from me this month, heaps! June was full of great reviews, and it would be a crime against you for me to stop here. I will be starting the month with a scathing review of Havoc and by the end of the this week I will give you a review for The Black Parade is Dead! which is the new live album from My Chemical Romance.

A review of The Fratellis new album should also be expected and an exclusive review of Pathology, the new flick yet to be released in Australia from the guys that made Crank.

Also, The Dark Knight will be getting Ben's doing over, and I prayer that the movie is fucking ass kicking!

What else to expect? Well that would ruin the surprise wouldn't it! Take it easy folks, and keep in tune, this month will be BIG.

Peace Out,
Benny

30 Days of Night (Movie)

2008-06-28T23:41:00.000-07:00

30 Days of Night - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Let the Blood be Spilt!

David Slade, he is becoming one of my favourite directors at the rate of knots. In 2006 he brought a little film to the screen called Hard Candy. The film was a very disturbing and low-budget hit with both critics and the general public. The film made Ellen Page a star over-night, and big studios came out of nowhere to offer Slade some massive scripts. Out of all offered, Slade choose to make this, 30 Days of Night, a story about an Alaskan town that is sent into darkness for 30 Days. During these 30 Days the residents are attacked and mutilated by a group of vampires.

So why did Slade want to do a film that is so different in concept to his first film? I can't answer that question, but what I can say is that these 2 films are not totally different. Both are very clever pictures and have much smarts about them, both look amazing, although the budgets are very different, and they both have a tragic and very uncliche endings. Where as Hard Candy was a very smart thriller with lots to say, 30 Days of Night is a very clever horror film with lots of balls.

Many will disagree with this review, and I'm fine with that. When released, 30 Days was not all that well received. To me this has been a mystery. The film does not glorify gore, it is well acted, it looks amazing and the Director of Photography Jo Williams has managed to keep the feel of the graphic novel strong and present in the movie. So what are the critics problems? Many say the vampires are just ot scary. From what I can gather, this is the major problems most critics could come up with. Should we condemn a film for not having scary villians when the rest of the film is so spot-on?

The look of the film is brilliant and breath-taking. The general look of the film is incredible, the whole film takes place at night, yet the amount of detail is incredible. The sets look amazing, and considering the whole movie takes place in and around them, they really needed to be. 2 different sets were created for the movie. Both sets were exactly the same, except one was outside and was used for the car chase and the birds-eye view of the town when the slaughter first starts, the 2nd set was inside and was for all interior shots as well as small scenes that take place "outside".

Acting was also a highlight when considering the actors involved! Yes, Josh Hartnett, I'm talking about you. Usually an actor who annoys me (and pretty much everyone else!), he does a great job here. Showing a great detail of desperation and pain playing Eben. It would be his best role. Melissa George over-acted her way through The Amityville Horror, but does a very solid job here playing the sassy Stella, who is Eben's wife. However, as he has done in nearly every movie he stars in, Ben Foster yet again comes out as the shining light. He acts the pants off everybody else involved, and its a real shame he doesn't get more screen-time. Foster is one of my favourite actors, and he always seems to imbody himself into a role. Future star right here.

So are the vampire scary? No, not really, but we have seen enough vampire movies to realize that they are harmless. They are not completely un-scary but, they do have something going for them! These are smart vampires, calculating and malicious. These are not like any vampires you have seen before. They will do anything to kill you, and when they strike the whole town, Slade cleverly crafts a scene that is a birds-eye view of the town. Perhaps one of the best directed and most gruesome scenes in recent years, the scene goes for about 2 minutes and is just a long shot over the town, which shows dozens upon dozens of people getting mauled by vampires. Blood is spirted here, there and everywhere. The scene is silent except for screams and gun-shots. It is a very haunting and scary scene and shows that these vampires are total bad-arses! On a whole, the vampires are scary in a sense of what they will do for your blood, but what they do is not overly scary.

The gore is not overly high, ok so I'm comparing this to the likes of Saw and Hostel etc, but I still don't think it is hugely gore. It doesn't glorify the gore, its just there. It doesn't try to make things extra gruesome for the hell of it, the gore is just there, its part of the story. I also like how Slade doesn't entirely show you Eben cutting off people's heads. He cuts off maybe 4 heads during the movie, and many other heads roll as well, but Slade knows what to show, what is exceptable to show and he doesn't ever show anything that is entirely un-acceptable.

The ending is good, but perhaps a little open-ended for my liking. A cliche ending for this would have been, Eben and Stella get guns and kill all the vampires or burn them to death, and its good to see a film that is willing to break the ordinary and go for an ending that is not cliche, even if it means they have lost fans. I think the ending is one reasons critics didn't like the film, the film doesn't go out on the bang many may expect it to. To me, this is the film at its strongest and one of the best aspects of the film, it doens't try to out do itself by making itself cliche.

Slade has made a film that is very original in both story and design. It may not be everybodies favourite movie, but to me this is a great movie. I love the story, and I love the look of the film. Its set design is amazing and the effects are top-notch. I also love how Slade and company never let the film slip into the cliche and they always keep the film at a high pace with originality and difference. Don't hate this film cause its different, love it cause its original.

4/5

Batman Begins (Movie)

2008-06-28T18:08:00.001-07:00

Batman Begins - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Batman Begins a New Era

Before I write every review I do (and I do heaps!), I d a little bit of research. Depending on the type of media depends on what kind of research I do. With movies I like to check out someothers people's opinions on the movie, I like to check out the IMDb boards for some info and I also check out BOM to see how much it made. So what dirt did I dig up on Batman Begins? Well, it looks as if its the best received comic book of all-time. It sits at #102 on IMDb's Top 250 and it sits at #10 on BOM User Grades Best of All-Time. Despite this, Batman Begins can be seen as a fail at the box-office. It only took $370 million world-wide, which if it was any lesser kind of movie, that would have been great, but as a mid-year blockbuster that figure is not good.

Why did Batman Begins fail at the box-office when it is so good? The reason is a rather simple one. Why would parents want there children seeing a film this dark. Writer/Director Christopher Nolan has crafted a world full of criminals and no-gooders. The city is black, bleak and differnately not the type of world parents of children would want them to see. Add this on top of the fact that Batman is not a pleasant man, and this is all explained in the first half of the movie.

The movie starts off with Bruce Wayne (or Batman) kicking ass in a asian prison. After winning the fight against 10-odd men, Bruce is chucked into a dark and dirty cell. In here we meet Liam Neeson's character Henri Ducard. He tells Bruce that he is being released and he is to grab a pretty blue flower at the bottom of the mountain and take it to the top. Here is where we learn how Bruce becomes Batman, through flash-backs as a children and also through the intense training he is put through by Henri. Without spoiling anything, Bruce returns to Gotham City. A city which has tore itself apart since Bruce was last here. From here Bruce mets Lucius Fox, who works for Wayne Enterprises and has all the gadgits Bruce needs to start a vendetta on the city.

Nolan tells a great story, and fills it with lots of darkness. Batman is as troubled as they come. He is haunted by nightmares and the death of his parents, he blames himself for his parents death which was the death of the city. By creating such a dark hero, Nolan is giving the auidence a hero like no other, and this is why the film was so well-received. The film mixes the darkness with much excitement, but it is also rather gritty. You won't watch any of the film action sequences and think "that is so awesome", like you would with films such as Spider-Man or X-Men. The action is dirty, its not clean, its an old-fashioned action film.

Compared to films released this year, the special effects don't hold up all that well, but Nolan hasn't relyed totally on them. Instead of being the major aspect of the movie, they are forced to the background. The birds-eye views of the city are clearly special effects, but they look good and this is perhaps the only time the special effects are front and centre, but the effects are needed due to Gotham being a fictional city.

The casting of Bale is spot on. Bale probably does not get the credit he deserves, as many don't see the smaller roles he does that he does so well in. The Machinist was a role that if any lesser actor has played, the movie would have been a huge failure. So for Bale to be working as another dark character like Batman, it is a huge credit to the casting director. Bale plays the role with much darkness and intensity, and as he continues to play the role, I am sure he will get lots of recognition.

Other castings are also good, Liam Neeson is very sinister, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are both extremely likable and it's great to see Gary Oldman play a good guy for a change. The casting of Cillian Murphy was good, but he was perhaps not given a suitable amount of screen-time, I hope they give him more time in the sequel. Katie Holmes is perhaps the only bad casting, and the casting of Maggie Gyllenhaal in the sequel seems to be a much better fit.

As a director Nolan is not afraid to do dark and confronting material. Insomia is a chilling experience and Memento is often regarded as one of the best films of all-time. Both are very dark films, with even darker characters, and this is why I suspect that he got the job as writer and director of Batman. He is a man not afraid to challenge his auidence, and in Batman he does this, but I think he will really challenge the auidence with The Dark Knight.

Dark, intense and exciting, Batman Begins is everything the series re-boot had to be. Nolan has brought Bruce Wayne back to the screen with feriousness. Perhaps not as dark as it could have been, but Nolan has still crafted a very good movie. We are all waiting on the sequel, The Dark Knight, which has it title says, it should be very dark. Nolan and Bale are to credit for this great return to cinema for one of Hollywood's most loved heroes.

4/5

Pan's Labyrinth (Movie)

2008-06-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

Pan's Labyrinth - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Is it the Masterpiece everyone claims it to be?

mas·ter·piece (noun)

1. a person's greatest piece of work, as in an art.
2. anything done with masterly skill: a masterpiece of improvisation.
3. a consummate example of skill or excellence of any kind: The chef's cake was a masterpiece.
4. a piece made by a person aspiring to the rank of master in a guild or other craft organization as a proof of competence

Everyone claims this film to be a masterpiece. And by going to by the above definition, Pan's Labyrinth ticks off all of those. However, when a film is generally given a masterpiece credit by all critics, then it generally means it one of the best films of all-time. It is my displeasure to say that this film is not a masterpiece. This does not mean its bad, it just means the film is not one of the best of all-time.

I know what your probably thinking, "this guy is just a kid, what would he know!". I may only be 18, but I like to think I know a great film when I see one. I know that when I go to see a film by the Wachowski brothers, then I will be entertained and I know that when I go to see a film by the Coen brothers, then I will be watching art. To me, a masterpiece should be a high level of both. The Wachowski's wrote "V for Vendetta", which is a masterpiece, it is both entertaining, fun yet a very artistic film. The Coen's have many films like this, "Fargo" perhaps being their best, and that is a masterpiece. Pan's Labyrinth is not a masterpiece in my eyes.

As an artistic film, Pan's is perfect. It looks absolutely amazing to watch. The set design is incredible, make-up is all class and the cinematography is captivating. Guillermo del Toro has structured a film that looks amazing at every possible point. From exploring the Labyrinth to exploring the giant tree, del Toro has created a world with an artists paintbrush, meaning every tiny detail is perfect. And although the film looks fantastic, this is probably its downfall when it comes to entertaining.

The film is too dark, sinister and adult to be entertaining. I know this is an adult fairy-tale, but this is far to adult. You can't indulge in fantasy, yet still want to make a dark adult film. The film is to brutal for its own good, in one scene the Captain bashes an innocent man's face in with a wine bottle. The scene is rather gore, and although I wouldn't mind seeing it in a horror film, to put a scene like it in the film was not-needed. And yes, I understand this is an adult fairy-tale, I just don't think the two should ever be mixed.

How can you like such stupid characters? The little girl is so annoying, everytime she is on screen you want to slap her around. I don't blame the actress, cause I believe that she does a great job, I blame the writing. She has been written as a total numb-skull, she is 11 and does some very stupid things. Pan is not at all likable either, you can't watch him without having a dark feeling that this faun is very sinister. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the film has only one pure likable character in Mercedes. So much time has been spent on developing a great fantasy story that del Toro seems to have forgotten about basic character development.

Now don't let my review put you off, cause I actually did like Pan's, although I'm showing it in a strange way. As an artistic film, then I will go and tell my mates at amazing this film is. It truely has to be seen to be believed. In fact, from the opening scene all the way through this film never drops the ball graphically, and I will give it lots of praise for it! As entertainment, well I can't partically call the film entertaining, cause its not entertainment, its dark, brutal and scary. You will get some excitement from it, but not enough for it to be hailed masterpiece. If I was to compare it to anything, I would compare it to "The Virgin Suicides", a film that is a brilliant piece of art, but is far to be depressing to be entertaining. I'm glad to say I own Pan's, cause it is a film I will re-visit, just to amaze my eyes and please don't let my bad comments put you off, cause your eyes will not forgive you for denying them this visual wonder.

3.5/5

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (Album)

2008-06-23T04:22:00.000-07:00

MGMT: Oracular Spectacular - Review by Ben Chamberlain

I'm a Superstar

Well I am! Anyways, 3 reviews in one day. You guys are lucky, just be happy that I finished watching Veronica Mars last night, otherwise I would not be here providing for you bastardos. I'm back with another killer review, I don't mean killer as in what I just did to The Ting Tings. Mind you, I feel no regret about that now, a shit album should be named and shamed! Like The Ting Tings, this band came out of nowhere and released their debut album to great reviews and immediate superstardom. And just like The Shit Shits, they are a duo. Except a kick ass duo, and I will proudly admit straight out that I really like this album. It's like a sugar layered trip to the funny druggie times of the 1970's.

This album is the ultimate throw-back! It's like listening to a total drugged-out album from the 70's, completely with the electro beats, screechy voice and guitars everywhere. Listen to this album without thinking about smoking some weed in the back of van, in flare jeans with some long haired chick with flowers in her hair. Hippy for the win! This album is pure guilty pleasure.

The album kicks off with its best track, "Time to Pretend". The song is rather big at the moment, as it appeared in the movie 21, from there it was rocketed up the charts. In fact, I would guess about 80% of album sales are owe to this song and/or because of its apperence in 21. It is the album's best track, and a really fun song. From here we it goes in "Weekend Wars", which I love. It is a very 70's style song, like the first track, it is extremely fun and is easy to digest and listen too.

After this we get the album's first bum track, "The Youth". The song just doesn't work and is a train-wreck of a song. This leads into "Electric Feel", which follows on from the first 2 tracks, and its an upbeat, dancey song with a 70's porno feel to it. It's probably my favourite track on the cd. Then we have "Kids", which is a pretty solid track. It's not a great song, but its not skip-worthy.

The next 2 tracks are not great, but are enjoyable enough. Song 8 is "Of Moon, Birds & Monsters", which I can imagine not many people liking. But I really like it cause its different. Its rather unique in both style and delivery. Then we have "The Handshake" which is good, easy to listen to in the background, its an all round solid track. The album ends rather boringly, but thats ok. It started with a big bang, can't expect it to finish with one.

MGMT stands for The Management, and they have managed to create a very fun album. Never dull, with every song sounding different, this album should be the soundtrack to summer come December. Bring on the feel good times.

3/5

The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing (Album)

2008-06-23T03:56:00.000-07:00

The Ting Tings: We Started Nothing - Review by Ben Chamberlain

A Lesson in Failing... HARD!

This album made me grown. With so much frustration that I just wanted to scream FUCK at the top of my lungs and then belt the idiot who made me review this. Ok, so she didn't make me! She requested that I review this piece of shit. It is by far one of the worst albums I have heard, and it had so much promise. So what went wrong?

The buck stops at lead singer Katie White. She sounds like a 60 year old smoker. Her vocals make me want to scratch my eyes out. She is the most annoying sounding lead singer I think I have ever heard. And it really does suck, cause the dude behind the beats has real skill. When ever the stupid cunt is not singing, the songs are enjoyable. Jules De Martino is the man behind the beats, and he creates some phat beats, he is the only shining light this album and The Ting Tings have going for it/them.

You know what sucks more? They have become a big hit overnight! They are like last years Operator Please, who, hopefully like The Ting Tings, will never make another album. I will be sure of this. And you know whats surprising? This album got killer reviews on release. Now I'm no real critic, but if a pop album is good but I don't like it, I will at least acknowledge it is good just not me. I don't like this, but its not good. It's terrible. It's pure fail!

Also, there are no good songs on the album. It has 2 average songs, but thats it. The rest are sooooo bad. The 2 average songs just happen to be the 2 lead singles off the album. Go figure. "Great DJ" is catchy, but don't become a classic in nobodies books. "That's Not My Name" has a good beat and some good lyrics, but again, it is not going to become a classic. In fact, I highly doubt that in 6 months people will know who The Ting Tings are! And I won't lose a night's sleep over that.

This is by far the ugliest review I have ever written. I don't like typing bad stuff, but if I have too, then I will. I usually only bring you guys the best, and I'm sorry to let you down. Please blame the requester! Avoid this album like the black plague, it has absolutely nothing going for it. If you see The Ting Tings on the shelf, please start screaming at the top of your lungs "POOKIE! LET'S BURN THIS MOTHER FUCKER DOWN". It gets 1/5 from me, an album of pure failure.

Veronica Mars: Season 1 (TV)

2008-06-22T23:43:00.001-07:00

Veronica Mars: Season 1 - Review by Ben Chamberlain

The Best Show to Ever Be Cancelled Prematurely!

So this is my first TV review. How do I sum up a whole season of a TV show in a short, accurate and precise manner? That's a great question. The answer is I don't talk about all this shit first and get straight into the review! Now I will try and not talk about how hot Kristen Bell is, cause although she is Veronica Mars, I want to talk about the show and not her great ass.

VM was the hottest show when released onto our tiny boxes. In Australia it wasn't so big. This was due to Channel 10 being a bunch of fuck-wads who doesn't know quality TV when it smacks it in the face. They showed the first 12 episodes, which I saw on TV, before completely fucking up and sticking them to the extreme hours of the night, which made it totally un-accessable. It's a real shame, cause VM is one of the best new shows to hit the best in the last 10 years, I would even go as far as saying its the best. When the show was at its hottest in the last half of the 1st season, it was white hot!

It was the perfect mix! It had the brave creator, who fought to keep the show fresh, real and sexy. It had the perfect cast. It had a witty and creative writers with balls. It had a great soundtrack. It was very well directed, with very well done flashbacks. In other words, it was the perfect show at its hottest, and its hottest was the 1st season!

From the very first episode the auidence is taken on a spin. The creator, Rob Thomas, went all out on the first episode. He went for broke. No sense in making a soft first ep, go all out! In the first episode we find out that VM has been raped, that VM's best friend was murdered, she has boy troubles, her mum has left town and her father is struggling to provide. Sounds like a rough life. And yet the show is so much fun! So many dark themes get thrown around the place as her and her father run their P.I Practice, yet the show still keeps the fun and energy high.

The whole 1st season is one big long investigation for VM. She is trying to find who really killed her best friend Lilly Kane. This leads her through lots of different situations, they are all extremely clever, and all builds up to the epic finale when the whole murder investigation comes to a very surprising close. In fact, the conclusion is so clever that nobody would have guessed it, the writers did so well that they put little clues here and there that you don't realize were actual clues until the finale.

Kristen Bell is perfectly cast as VM. She is easily lovable in the role, and has since become rather huge. She has the balls as an actress to do whatever it takes to play VM. Veronica is not the easiest character to play, she is extremely troubled and requiries the kind of emotion a lesser actress would have failed at. All-in-all Bell is one of the major reasons VM was so well received upon release.

I would love to say that the shows smarts and hotness was carried over into the next season, but I'm yet to watch. What I have heard is that it kept it all up until the show was sadly cancelled last year. It has been rumoured that creator Rob Thomas is working up movie ideas, and Bell has said that she would want nothing more then to return to the character that made a superstar.

The first season is a must-buy DVD, and will be watched multiple times. The whole first season doesn't skip a beat and its as perfect as television can get. I would even be as bold as saying that is the best show to air on TV in the last years, and I proudly stands as my all-time favourite season of TV. It's exciting stuff and you should all run out and pick it up right now! It's addictive, white hot TV.

My Favourite 50 Albums

2008-06-20T00:25:00.000-07:00

I told you I was working on something big! And here it is. My all-time 50 favourite albums! This list has taken me a week to get together, and a whole weekend of editing to make it super sexy. Starting from 50 and finishing on 1, here is the ultimate list of albums. Read, Learn and Enjoy!

50. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours (2008)
Stand-out tracks: Far Away, Lights & Music and Hearts On Fire

Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future (2007) 49.

Stand-out tracks: Atlantis to Interzone, Isle of Her and Gravity's Rainbow

48. Josh Kelley - Special Company (2008)
Stand-out tracks: Grey Skies, My Kind and Masterpiece

Matt Nathanson - Some Mad Hope (2007) 47.

Stand-out tracks: Car Crash, Come On Get Higher and To The Beat of Our Noisy Hearts

46. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations (2006)
Stand-out tracks: Assasin, Super Massive Black Hole and Knights of Cydonia

Coldplay - Viva La Vida (2008) 45.

Stand-out tracks: 42, Lost! and Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love

44. Funeral for a Friend - Hours (2005)
Stand-out tracks: All the Rage, Streetcar and Roses for the Dead

The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003) 43.

Stand-out tracks: Those to Come, Mine's Not a High Horse and Kissing the Lipless

42. The Postal Service - Give Up (2003)
Stand-out tracks: Such Great Heights, Sleeping In and Nothing Better

Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City (2007) 41.

Stand-out tracks: Hunting for Witches, Uniform and I Still Remember

40. The Used - Lies for the Liars (2007)
Stand-out tracks: Pretty Handsome Awkward, Wake the Dead and Paralyzed

Boy Kill Boy - Cilivian (2006) 39.

Stand-out tracks: Civil Sin, Killer and Back Again

38. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (2007)
Stand-out tracks: Dashboard, Fire It Up and March Into the Sea

Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris (2007) 37.

Stand-out tracks: Misfit Love, 3's & 7's and Sick Sick Sick

36. Lily Allen - Alright Still (2006)
Stand-out tracks: Alfie, Friday Night and Knock 'Em Out

The Killers - Sam's Town (2006) 35.

Stand-out tracks: Bones, Sam's Town and Uncle Johnny

34. The Honorary Title - Scream & Light Up the Sky (2007)
Stand-out tracks: Stay Away, Radiate and This City's Summer

Foo Fighters - In Your Honour (2005) 33.

Stand-out tracks: The Last Song, DOA and No Way Back

32. Anberlin - Never Take Friendship Personal (2005)
Stand-out tracks: A Day Late, Time & Confusion and The Feel Good Drag

Archie Bronson Outfit - Derdang Derdang (2006) 31.

Stand-out tracks: Cherry Lips, Kink and Dart for My Sweethart

30. Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High (2007)
Stand-out tracks: Thriller, Thnks fr th Mmrs and Fame < Infamy

David Gray - White Ladder (1998) 29.

Stand-out tracks: This Years Love, Babylon and Sail Away

28. Billy Talent - Billy Talent II
Stand-out tracks: This Suffering, Fallen Leaves and Surrender

Kasabian - Empire (2006) 27.

Stand-out tracks: Shoot the Runner, Empire and Stuntman

26. She Wants Revenge - This is Forever (2007)
Stand-out tracks: Written in Blood, Rachael and Pretend the World Has Ended

British India - Guillotine (2007) 25.

Stand-out tracks: Automatic Pulse, Council Flats and Black & White Radio

24. Gyroscope - Are You Involved (2005)
Stand-out tracks: Sexxxy, A Slow Dance and Fast Girl

The Academy Is... - Almost Here (2005) 23.

Stand-out tracks: Classifieds, Down & Out and Black Mamba

22. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs (2008)
Stand-out tracks: Bixby Canyon Bridge, I Will Possess Your Heart and Grapevine Fires

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf (2002) 21.

Stand-out tracks: Song for the Dead, No One Knows and

20. Rock Kills Kid - Are You Nervous? (2006)
Stand-out tracks: The Hope Song, Hideaway and Paralyzed

The Fratellis - Costello Music (2007) 19.

Stand-out tracks: Chelsea Dagger, Henrietta and Creepin' Up the Backstairs

18. Birds of Tokyo - Day One (2007)
Stand-out tracks: Desperate, Eduardo and Off Kilter

Muse - Absolution (2004) 17.

Stand-out tracks: Time is Running Out, Hysteria and Stockholm Sydrome

16. She Wants Revenge - She Wants Revenge (2006)
Stand-out tracks: Out of Control, Tear You Apart and Monologue

The Used - In Love and Death (2004) 15.

Stand-out tracks: Listening, Under Pressure and Sound Effects & Overdramtics

14. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)
Stand-out tracks: The Underdog, You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb and Don't Make Me a Target

Muse - H.A.A.R.P (2008) 13.

Stand-out tracks: Supermassive Black Hole (Live), Hysteria (Live) and New Born (Live)

12. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005)
Stand-out tracks: Helicopter, Positive Tension and Banquet

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (2006) 11.

Stand-out tracks: House of Wolves, Dead! and Famous Last Words

10. Nada Surf - The Weight is a Gift (2005)
Stand-out tracks: Concrete Bed, Do It Again and Blankest Year

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Baby 81 (2007) 09.

Stand-out tracks: Weapon of Choice, Berlin and Not What You Wanted

08. Karnivool - Themata (2005)
Stand-out tracks: C.O.T.E, Themata and Fear of the Sky

Kasbian - Kasabian (2004) 07.

Stand-out tracks: Club Foot, Processed Beats and Reason is Treason

06. Tegan & Sara - So Jealous (2004)
Stand-out tracks: Walking With a Ghost, You Wouldn't Like Me and I Bet It Stuck

Nada Surf - Lucky (2008) 05.

Stand-out tracks: See These Bones, Beautiful Beat and Whose Authority

04. The Killers -Hot Fuss (2004)
Stand-out tracks: Jenny Was a Friend of Mine, All These Things I've Done and Smile Like You Mean It

Death Cab for Cutie - Plans (2005) 03.

Stand-out tracks: Soul Meets Body, Someday You Will Be Loved and Crooked Teeth

02. Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
Stand-out tracks: Clocks, Daylight and Green Eyes

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism (2003) 01.

Stand-out tracks: A Lack of Colour, The Sound of Settling and The New Year

Coldplay - Viva La Vida (Album)

2008-06-17T02:12:00.001-07:00

Coldplay: Viva La Vida - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Have they saved themselves from another mistake?

A Rush of Blood to the Head, it is one of the greatest albums of all-time. I think most critics will agree with this statement. Since its release no other album has come close to being as great. It was what made Coldplay one of the world's biggest and most popular bands. In another sense it was also what brought them down. X & Y, it was the follow up to A Rush of Blood to the Head, and to put it blunt, it was not good. Maybe it was just me, but I could not get into it, it just wasn't what I would classify a good album, heck, wouldn't even call it average.

When I first heard that Coldplay's new album was going to be brave. I coughed. I choked. Cause I thought they had done their dash, they can't create greatness ever again. Closer to release of this album, I thought about it a bit more and realized that Coldplay can again play great music, they just need to change themselves as people and play some daring and challenging music. After my first play through of Viva La Vida, it is confirmed, Coldplay are back and, dare I say it, better then ever!

Ok so that was just to create some mystery, A Rush is the my all-time favourite album and no way on God's green earth could another album ever compare. But boy, Viva La Vida is one fucking great album. Coldplay name the influences for the album as Arcade Fire, My Bloody Valentine, Justin Timberlake and Blur. Now I don't see where these come from, cause they have created a purely unique album, an album they will (and should!) proudly call theirs.

The album kicks off with an instrumental, a 3 minute instrumental. It's a sweet song, soft and child-like in delievery. It sounds like Evermore without vocals. It is a great way to kick off a new beginning. This then leads into "Cemeteries of London", which is a dark song. It isn't one of the extreme highlights on the album, but it is extremely different to anything presented on X & Y. The song shows that the band have grown, but doens't truely represent the skill they now have.

The album gets into gear on song 3. The song is called Lost! and Chris Martin has said it is Coldplay's version of Blur's Sing. Pity I don't own Blur's album Leisure, so I can't compare the 2, but Lost! is a brilliant track. Starts off so well, and it keeps it going. Martin's vocals are pure gold on this track, and the song-writing is all soooooooo good. This is one of the albums singles, and rightly deserves to be, one of the albums highlights.

Song 4 is called 42, and its my favourite song on the album, it starts off very slow. With only piano and Martin, its a beautiful intro to the song. And then all of a sudden the song picks up and it gets faster and faster, until finally the piano is down away with and its all drums and guitar baby. Ok so its not that fast, but it is very similar to Death Cab for Cutie's Bixby Canyon Bridge. Actually, it is so similar you may very well confuse them. Maybe not, but this is a fucking stellar song, its the chorus that sticks, it is sung oh so sweetly yet it is not all that sweet at all. The chorus is "You Didn't Get to Heaven, But You Made it Close", which is brilliant.

Now we have the 2 epics on the album, big and bigger if you will. This is the Justin Timberlake influence for you! Get 2 shortish songs and stick em together to make 1 big song. They make it work, the first song on both is slow and then the 2nd song is fast. The first of the epics is the best, Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love, with the 2nd still being awesome just not as good as the first epic.

Now we come to the title track of the album. And its a great song, up there with Lost! and 42 as the best on the album. Its fast, well faster then usual Coldplay, and makes the album bright. It is purely a great song. The albums lead single Violet Hill is next up to the plate. It's not a brilliant track, but it still is pretty good. I wouldn't have made it the single, the intro is too long and perhaps sounds too much like old-school Coldplay compared to the rest of the album.

The last 3 songs is probably where the album takes a stumble, its not that they are terrible tracks. Just after 8 songs of greatness, its sad to see an album end on a good note and not a great one. Strawberry Swing is catchy but not that great. Death and All His Friends is a pretty solid track and I can see it growing on me over time. The Escapist is rather boring, but still not an overly bad track.

What makes the album works is that Chris Martin and co have grown some big fucking balls and realized that their last effort sucked cock. Album of the year? Maybe not, I hold Nada Surf's Lucky to close to my heart to let this beat it for album of the year. But it definately will be in my top 5, and is a must buy for anybody that loved A Rush of Blood to the Head and was let down by X & Y.

9/10

Something Special This Way Comes...

2008-06-17T02:05:00.000-07:00

Now this has been my most proactive month yet when it comes to this blog, but the biggest and best thing is yet to come!! I am working on something so brilliant and so awesome it will have you jumping around with excitement!! I will put it up this weekend and it is taking lots of work to get it all together, but I promise you it will be the best post on this blog yet.

Make sure your excited!
Ben!

Transformers (Movie)

2008-06-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

Tranformers - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Transformers: More then Meets the Eye?

When Transformers was annouced a large groan could be hard around the world. Hollywood has clearly lots its mind if it thought it could remake the classic cartoon series into a mind-blowing piece of action. Many even doubted that Steven Spielberg could rescue this from being a disaster. Then Michael Bay was annouced as Director, and this brought about the biggest groan yet.

Personally, this was the point in production where I sparked interest. Bay was a master of creating implausible, yet amazing action sequences. Sure, The Island was a good concept ruined by silly action, but the silly action was very well made. I felt very early on that Bay could make the Transformers film that everybody wanted. Then the writing team behind Mission: Impossible 3 was annouced as the writers of this, and from here on in Transformers became my most anticipated film of the year.

In some respects, Transformers did let some down. The film is broken in 2 halves. The first half is the intro to the story, we meet the characters and the action is darker. The second half is the fun, non-stop, showdown-fest that most people came to see. It was the first half of the film that came out on top. It not only contained the best action scenes of the movie, but it was also funny and warm. Shia Be Leouf carries the first half of the film on his shoulders, and he shows that he is the real star of this show. Big robots are not going to rain down on the Shia-Show.

It's when the big bots are giving time to move that the movie somewhat falls down. The action is fast, too fast. It takes far to much time to process what is happening. You can't see who is beating the crap out of who. It's loud, it's fast and it will blow your mind, but only cause it is cut together so quick that you don't know what is happening.

The special effects are amazing, and probably are the best yet to be put on screen. The amount of work that would have gone into creating each frame of an action sequence is incredible. I said that Bay knows action, and he did know how to direct it in this, he just went a tad over board with the speed.

I really commend the casting, Shia came of the top-notch Disturbia and he really shows why is the new star of Hollywood. Megan Fox is unknown, yet only there for eye-candy. Jon Voight adds a touch of old Hollywood class. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson add some young muscle. But as previously mentioned, this is the Shia-Show.

This will not get considered the best movie of all-time, but it sure is entertaining. Bay's direction of the action is solid, but its what he does with the first half of the film that makes this so good. Shia steals every single scene and when standing next to him, the Robots look pale in comparison. It really is good to see a kid come from nowhere to become Hollywood's new star. Watch it and enjoy it for what this film is, mind-less eye-candy.

8/10

Mr. Brooks (Movie)

2008-06-13T23:26:00.000-07:00

Mr. Brooks - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Costner and Hurt Get Sadistic!

I will not beat around the bush on this one, this is one of my all-time favourite movies. The last 5 years has produced 2 of the best movie killers of all-time. The first is Jigsaw, who is a brilliant master-mind who never actually kills his victims. The other is Mr. Brooks, perhaps the most brilliant serial killer ever put on screen. He is the perfect killer.

Mr. Brooks has not killed a person in 2 years, he is known as the finger-print killer. He kills couples. He spies on them, and whilst in the act of sex, he walks in the pops them in the head. He then moves them in certain positions and photographs them. He then wipes their bloody finger-prints on furniture, hence the name. But it's all about how he does his murders, he uses a silencer, he puts a bag over the gun (catching the shells), he always retrives the bullets, he vacuums the scene with the victims vacuum and then takes the vacuum bag and he burns all his clothes. He is the world's first perfect killer.

This may sound like any other regular thriller, but its not! William Hurt plays Marshall, he is Mr. Brooks "special friend". He is always there, encouraging him to kill kill kill, and he makes sure nothing ever happens to him. This 2 are the reason this film is so brilliant. Hurt and Costner have some of the best chemistry I have ever seen! They are both sick, sadistic individuals, yet they are extremely likeable. Just try and watch Hurt and Costner as they watch Dane Cook cross a road and hoping he gets hit by a car without laughing!

The film opens with a murder, and this where it all goes wrong for Mr. Brooks. He was spotted commiting the murder by Mr. Smith (Dane Cook) who took photographs of him "offing" the couple. From here we learn that Mr. Smith wants Mr. Brooks to teach him to become a killer. Whilst Smith and Brooks play their games, they are being hunted down by a crazied cop (Demi Moore).

The film has lots of story, some would say to much, but if you are thinking whilst watching then it is perfect. Despite all the story, the script is rather perfect in making sure there are no plot-holes. Side stories include the fact Mr. Brooks daugther is pregnant, and may have killed someone herself. The cop is going through a divorce and is being hunted by The Hangman, another sadistic serial killer. With having so much story, the movie never stops moving. This has always been a planned trilogy, and this is the introduction, so the extreme amount of ideas and plot is probably needed for the sequels.

The film only has a one short-fall. Detective Attwood's shot out with The Hangman feels like something that Paul W.S. Anderson would have put to screen. But this would probably be about it, the scene is rather terrible, but luckily only lasts a minute. Just for this scene, the movie loses a star.

The performances are great. Costner is very restranded, he is scary as the great guy with a really dark side. He never over-acts and this is probably the best performance of his career. Hurt is sadistic, scary and sick as Marshall. Moore has a nice little return to some form, but perhaps is not given enough screen-time. Dane Cook is great, he really does know how to act when given good material (also see Dan in Real Life to confirm this!). Danielle Panabaker scares the crap out of me as Jayne Brooks, she plays the role with much confidence for a young actress.

The last 3 minutes will have everyone with the jars to the floor. It has to be one of the most shocking, most out there endings ever. It comes from complete left field and scares the living crap out of you.

I watched this with 4 other people, and all of us thought it was brilliant, in fact I have recommended this to so many people and I have yet to hear any bad feedback. This movie is just so hard to like, it would have to be the most entertaining movie of last year. It is not the best film of all time, but it is great entertainment. Hurt and Costner command the screen and the final scene is absolute brilliance. A must watch for all!

9/10

Pnau - Pnau (Album)

2008-06-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

Pnau: Pnau - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Aussie Dance, the Way it Should Be!

What's cracking everybody? I have been here so much lately, illness? Fuck off, rather illness but! My Xbox got RROD, so I have time to blow (hehehe blow). Oh and I'm slowly losing my mind. Help me? Please?

Anyways, Benny is back with another stellar, breath-taking review. I'm reviewing for you, Pnau's latest and self-titled effort "Pnau". Magical. The album starts with a rather boring effort. But after this it changes into another gear, with everybodies favourite, "Wild Strawberries". You cannot listen to this song without screaming "wiiiiiiiild strawberries, pick em up!".

After this, the album keeps on keeping on. "Shock to My System" and "Baby" are both really solid songs. I don't really like "Come Together", however when I hear this song, I smile cause I know it's coming to my favourite part of the album. The next 4 songs are perfect.

"We Have Tomorrow" has a killer beat. So really its a really fucking kicking ass. I can imagine this being a hit on the dance floor! "Lover" is a strange song to lead into after "We Have Tomorrow" but it starts off so well. You know when you see a movie and they build up the music as someone gets closer to something, that how this starts. When I hear it I can imagine using it in a sweet as disco scene in a movie, that I would make. Cause I'm a star.

"No More Violence" kicks off with what sounds like guitar. And great guitar too. This song is loud, and although the lyrics are preachy, the song itself is awesome. "Embrace" is my favourite song on the album, awesome beat and a beautifully sounding female singer. 5 and 1/2 minutes of pure ectasy.

The album ends rather poorly, but the last few songs are easy enough to listen too and disgust. Dispite a few hiccups, this album is really good. With 4 stellar songs back to back in the middle of the album being the massive highlight for me.

3.5/5

Shine a Light (Movie)

2008-06-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

Shine a Light - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Musical legends meet brilliant director in this visual masterpiece!

I will be the first to tell you that I don't know much about the Stones, I know they are huge and I know they have been around a long time. So why did I choose this movie to see on the big screen? The fact of the matter is that it was the only thing out worth seeing, and the trailer looked like it was a visual masterpiece. The trailer did not lie.

Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese is the man behind this piece of art. And this is what it is. Pure art. Visually and spirtually, this is a masterpiece. Never has this massive film and music fan seen anything like this captured on film. It was filmed over 2 big nights, the Stones were playing at the Beacon Theatre in New York, and Scorsese and his minions were there to catch all the magic of The Stones live.

Judging by this beginning to the review, many may think that this is a greatest film experience of all time. In a way this is true, it should be something that every film and music fan should see. So yes, its a must see. But what lets this film down is the build up at the beginning. This seems rather pointless, and is a terrible way to start the movie. Its boring and seems tacked on to add some length. Also, after 2 or 3 songs they start to show catalogue footage of the band. This would be great if it was a doco I found in the bargin bin of my local K-mart. These pointless additions really hurt the film, and stop it from being the classic it should rightfully be.

The guest duets are the highlights of the movie. Mick's soulful acoustic based duet with The White Stripes Jack White is wonderful, they play together well. Buddy Guy is next guest, and by far the best. His voice is killer, and really brings the house down. People in the cinema where cheering like nuts, crazy Stones fans, but Buddy Guy was really that good! Christina Aguleria is the last guest, and the worst. But thats not so bad! She was dressed like your local corner's hooker, and didn't really have her singing vocals. Although, it is clear that Jagger wants to hit that. Dirty old man!

The first 5 songs and last 5 are the best. They are all extremely well known. Opening with Jumping Jack Flash and finishing with I Can't Get No (Satisfaction). Sadly, Shine a Light, the movies title song, is subjected to end credits and Paint It Black is painfully excluded, even though it was on the set-list. All in all Scorsese has made something visually wonderful, and for all Stones fans this is a must see at the cinema movie. For other film and music fans, pick this up on DVD and enjoy it pumping through you subwoofer and surround sound, and it enjoy it in its visual wonder.

3.5/5

What to Review?

2008-06-05T04:58:00.000-07:00

I'm lost on things to review. I got a couple of Aussie acts sitting here, begging to be reviewed, these are Sparkadia and Pnau. But I just don't have the energy. And I got films to review... 30 Days of Night, 3:10 to Yuma and Transformers. Also, a Wii game is begging to make the Wii debut. Either way, I will push to get these out this month... push so fucking hard it will hurt my head, and leave me crying with my brains on the floor... mmmm yummy!!

Anyways, keep an eye out, Benny has some greatness in him!

If you don't like my blog, then think of me as Johnny Depp...

Trial Kennedy - New Manic Art (Album)

2008-06-03T04:43:00.000-07:00

Trial Kennedy: New Manic Art - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Debut album is a hit from young Aussie rockers

Ok so I was online, and I have this sitting on my desk, so I thought I better come on here and give it a plug. So its not really review, just a quick comment. I will probably update this in the coming week. I also just wanted to give you guys something to feed on.

Trial Kennedy is a punk rock band from Melbourne. They have been around for a million years and finally they have released their debut album, "New Manic Art". The album has gone up to number 5 on the charts, which is awesome for young and not very known band. This has been due to great reviews, many calling it the album of the year.

Now it is good, but album of the year it is not. It's rock, and its the way it should be. It's not ground-breaking. It's just good old TK doing what they do best, playing emotionally charged rock. And it's the kind of album that you listen to on a Sunday arvo whilst reading the paper. It's a great effort, but don't expect it to rock your world.

Good work TK, I love you guys, and thanks for giving me an album at last. I feel blessed to give you a plug, and I can't wait to see you again. Keep up the work, and a good album.

Enchanted (Movie)

2008-06-01T06:58:00.001-07:00

Enchanted - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Disney Classic or Disney Joke?

Classic! Sorry, I couldn't butter you fools up. I just had to say it straight out. This is one of the best family films of all time, and easily the best of 2007. With a clever, witty script and a lovable cast, this was always bound to be a classic.

Enchanted, in a way, takes the shit out of every Disney classic that has come before it. And it is great seeing classic scenes you grew up with being re-created. The scene in which Gisele cleans the house with rats, pigeons, cockroaches and flies, I think we all know what classic movie this was blatantly ripping off.

Amy Adams is wonderful, she plays the role super cute and her smile makes me smile everytime I see it. On top of this she looks incredibly pretty in every single, she is such eye candy. Talking of eye candy, the ladies man of choice is also here, present and accountable for. Patrick Dempsey, his a man I want to be (who wouldn't!) and he is extremely likable. He plays the role well, and he and Adams have great chemistry. Marsiden obviously loved playing the extremely outlandish role. Spall looks like he loved the break from the stupid Harry Potter films. Only real let down casting wise was Susan Sarrandon, who should have given up a long time ago, I don't remember liking her in anything for a long time.

It was also great to see a return to hand-drawn an animation. It is only in it for about 15 minutes, but those 15 minutes took over a year to be made. This is the reason it is no longer done, but it looked so amazing and I was pleased to see it make a return, even if it was only short.

The good thing about this movie is that it has the song & dance numbers that Disney are famous for, but they don't go overboard. They have made sure the whole movie isn't about them. There is, from memory, 3 song and dance scenes in the whole movie. And they a good too, well put the getting and funny. Made me giggle like a lil school girl.

The ending, when the Queen becomes a dragon is somewhat bogus. But hey, it lasts like 3 minutes and im not going to hate a classic any less cause of 3 bogus minutes. This is a must own, on Blu-Ray! Hence why I have it, and have enjoyed it 4 times in a fortnight. This is a classic.

Gets 10/10 from me!

Tegan & Sara - So Jealous (Album)

2008-06-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

Tegan & Sara: So Jealous - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Cute Voices + Cute Lesbians + Cute Twins = Tegan & Sara

Welcome back to another review by Benny, on the bestest blog around. Now this is only the second album review I've ever done, so its not so good. Games and movies I got down pat, albums, not so much. But I will give this ago anyways!

"So Jealous" is the title of Tegan and Sara's 2004 album. And it is totally kick ass. No seriously, this is one of the best albums I have heard in years and Im embarrased to admit I only just started listening to it.

For some strange reason I have all of sudden become addicted to T&S and also Mates of State. Both are very similar, T&S are twin sisters, and Mates of State are a husband and wife duo. Both sing beautifully soft and emotional songs, yet also seem to have fun and make them occasionally upbeat. So lately, these 2 plus Death Cab, Josh Kelley & Matt Nathanson have commanded my life.

This is T&S's best album! The Con, their last effort, has absoutely on this classic album. "Walking With a Ghost" is the standout, and was later covered by The White Stripes. "You Wouldn't Like Me" is also a great track, as are "Downtown", title track "So Jealous", "I Bet it Stung" and "I Know I Know I Know".

The album has a great mix of mainstream pop sounding songs, but high class pop songs! And also a good mix of keyboard flogging indie tracks, and tons of acoustic guitar. All the kind of stuff that makes me crack wood! Doesn't really, its just fucking kick ass music the way I love it! Download this, buy it, iTunes it, whatever, just fucking get this album! The best of 2004, and one of my favourite's of all time. Enjoy!

Condemned: Criminal Origins (Xbox 360)

2008-06-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

Condemned: Criminal Origins - Reviewed by Ben Chamberlain

Let's Kill the Angry Homeless!

Condemned, yes its a launch title and yes this review is coming over 2 years late. However, I had to share my experience of what is one of the best games on the 360.

Despite the fact this game is quite old, it still holds up against current releases. Perhaps not graphically, but with gameplay that rivals BioShock and tension that in some instances kicks BioShock's ass! The story is quite simple in theory, but as you get through the game it becomes a very dark and deep story line.

Condemned was developed by Monolith, the same company that put out the also super scary F.E.A.R. and both around the same time. Monolith have since released a sequel to the game, which has received pretty solid reviews. Now that I have given you some background information into the game, lets get into the gritty details.

I see this whole game as a major highlight in the thriller genre for gaming. From my point of view, this is usually a genre that falls flat on its face. They usually start out well, but cant keep the tension, scares, shocks, thrills or a high level of deep story. Condemned manages to hold all of those through its 10 chapters and actually go beyond.

This game will most compare to BioShock, and for BioShock it comes as a compliment. When I heard that I should play Condemned cause I loved BioShock so much, I thought that I might enjoy it but wouldn't find it brilliant. Boy was I wrong. If I rank BioShock has the best game I have ever played, then this would slot in not to far behind it, it proves that the 360 has the best of the best in gaming.

Graphically, the game hasn't held up, but this is common. It has been more then 2 years since its release. As this was a launch title, we can't expect it to push the systems tools. Where as new games like Call of Duty 4, Grand Theft Auto IV and Halo 3 all push the systems boundaries. Condemned doesn't. But that is ok, cause no matter what, its still a great game. Gameplay is a real massive standout in this game, it is not 100% perfect and if given a lil work it could be classic, but it is still great.

Melee is awesome and works really well in this game. The only issue I have is that you cant punch, but not a huge issue. The addition of dead birds and metal give you something more to do in the great environments. Firearms are not common, which is different and again works really well. The taser is also a very needed addition.

The story is awesome, it starts out simple enough, but of course as you go through the game you find out more information and come chapter 5, everything changes! You can tell the developers put a lot of thought and effort in creating such a rich, dark, creepy and scary story. The end may confuss some, but its nothing a lil web investigating can't handle. I only hope that Condemned 2 is such a rich and disturbingly wonderful story to enjoy.

Is this game graphic? No. Not really. There are plenty more graphic games out on the system, BioShock is more gore drentched. It is disturbing but, if the thought of bashing someone in the head with everything from lead pipe to signs to paper cutters, then perhaps its not a game for you.

The game has no multiplayer, so this greatly reduces the replay value. However, Monolith have creatively constructed the achievements so that you will need to do multiply play throughs. And if you enjoyed the game as much as I did, then a second play through is not at all a task, but more of an honour!

The environments are beautiful, they are the best part of the game. They are very well constructed and add so much character to the game. Walk through the blood filled showers of the school and tell me you dont get a little bit scared. Or walking through the train platforms. Most of the scares and thrills will come from the environment.

If its not the environment scaring the living shit out of you, then it will be the sound. They have mastered the sound of the game. The sound is all very perfectly timed. People can be heard running in the distance, people can be heard yelling at you or even fighting with other bums. The sound makes become alert and when mixed with the stellar environments, you have a recipe for scariness.

Gameplay - 10/10 A rather lengthy single player that is both scary and thrilling. Mix this with great in-game play and a wonderfully rich story and you have a classic.

Graphics - 7/10 Graphics are not up to the standard of current releases, but the environments are brilliant, they add a whole new level to the game.

Sound - 9/10 Like the environments, adds a whole new character to the game. Outstanding!

Value - 8/10 A single player that will take 10 hours and of course you are likely to replay it like I have.

Overall - 9/10 One of the best titles on 360, easy. A must own for all

Coming This Month!

2008-06-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to June everybody!

What shall be expected this month? Well, not much I don't think. It's end of financial year, so could pick up a few things that may be reviewed. My Xbox RROD'd, so I wouldn't expect many Xbox reviews. Althought I do have a review for Condemned ready to post up.

I will post up some special reviews but, and will try to become a bit more weekly, cause at the moment things seem to be only going up fortnightly.

Otherwise, take it easy and stay tuned!

The Club (Xbox 360)

2008-05-19T00:56:00.000-07:00

The Club - Review by Ben Chamberlain
Killing People for Sport = Loads of Fun!

Typically speaking, arcade games are one of my least favourite. Usually I find them to be to short to be worth a purchase, and while they may be enjoyable for a short time, they usually just end up sitting there after 5 hours of play. The Club is somewhat like this, sadly, but has enough to do to make sure it doesnt just sit there.

Developed by Bizarre, the guys behind the PGR series, this makes their first attempt at arcade shooter. They have sold millions of copies of the PGR series, and it is strange to seem them want to make an old style arcade shooter. Now lets get into the gritty details.

This game is purely a purchase for those that want a different online experience to the likes of Grand Theft Auto IV, Call of Duty and Halo. This doesn't pretend or want to be anything other then old school. And it does it so well, however, by making a game that is pretty much purely for the online player you can get a few problems. And these problems do arrise!

These problems being the fact that nobody is online! And this is what lets the whole game down, I have tried about 6 times to find a ranked match online, and nothing. This is what brings the whole game down. Hopefully I will one day find some online games, but I truely doubt I ever will.

The single player is enough to entertain you for an afternoon, and is extremely fun. If you go for achievements, then you will find it extremely fun going for some of them. I spent around 3 hours just going for achievements, and it was fun. The tournament mode is entertaining, but far to quick. There are 8 tournies in total and each will take you 30-45 minutes, depending on skill and if you have to replay a level. Or course this is on casual, so the harder the difficultly, the longer it will take.

Casual mode is extremely easy and you can do all 8 tournies without losing a single round or dying. Insane is somewhat easy, but the timed rounds will give you some grief. There is also Realistic, which is kind of like medium and Real, which is much harder then Insane. The difficulties are well thought out.

The different rounds are fun, and there is 5 different types. There is the easy, yet fun, Sprint. Siege and Survivor are very similar, where you have to fight off many enemies for a certain amount of time. Then there is Run the Gauntlet, in which you have to get to the exit before time runs out. And there is a timed run, where you have to pick up time icons and kill people for time. So they are all pretty basic.

The characters are well thought out, but there is a lack of women, which may in this day and age is quite surprising. So you versus 8 men! Awesomely enough, the best character is the Aussie, Killen! What a cool name. Anyways, you unlock Killen after 4 tournies, and I swear you will continue to use him until you unlock Nemo at the end.

Gunplay mode is a great idea, in which you create playlists of your favourite courses and rounds. It works well, and Im sure that when you have mates over and after a few drinks, then gunplay could be become addictive fun.

The game is presented very nicely, but it isn't without its bugs. The controls can be annoying from time to time and some areas can be too dark. You can be killed before you even know where the enemy is. The characters and environments look awesome but, and a lot of effort has been put into them. I credit Bizarre for designing such wonderful areas, pity you dont get a chance to stop and enjoy them with all the killing you have to do!

Gameplay - 7/10 Single player is fun and very enjoyable, but won't last you more then 10 hours before you get bored. The first 5 hours of playing, you will love it and it is worth the purchase. I'm sure online is great, but you are unable to play due to lack of users.

Graphics - 8/10 Looks sexy! The environments and the characters are well modelled and made. One of the games highlights!

Sound - 7/10 Just your standard arcade sounds here, even down to the FIGHT! at the beginning of each round.

Value - 7/10 Single player is around 10 hours of gameplay and for those that want to bleed it dry probably 15. Same system multiplayer will be good if any of you have friends. Online would also be good if people actually used it.

Overall - 7/10 Not a brilliant title or a must own. But it is fun will it lasts! Its old school fun!

Made of Honour (Movie)

2008-05-05T07:20:00.000-07:00

Made of Honour - Review by Ben Chamberlain

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I don't understand it! I start watching Grey's Anatomy, I watched all 70 odd episodes in 10 days, and then I feel the need to watch everything done recently by its cast members. I'm losing my fucking mind!

Anyways, this movie ain't to bad! Dempsey is always likeable, his a blokes bloke. And this is his film to show that, and the best scenes are those with his best friends. They have some pretty funny conversations. Whenever they start playing ball you know your going to be in for some belly laughs. A lot of laughs also come from a clueless grannie with glowing thunder beads around her neck.

Michelle Monaghan is pretty a usual, but she isn't given much to work with on screen, and is mainly on screen to compete with Dempsey's scenerary chewing. It's good to see Kevin McKidd do something American, and I love his little joke about werewolves, which is an obvious nod to his best movie Dog Soldiers.

The locations look good and so go most of the woman, but like my last reviewed movie, this is one for the chicks. And they will eat Dempsey, and good for him! I'm hoping this soon stops and I have no compultion to watch movies like this! But as this is sometimes disgusting and features The Fratellis in all their swearing glory (actually im surprised they didnt beep out the word cunt from their song!). Anyways, good movie.

3/5

27 Dresses (Movie)

2008-05-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

27 Dresses - Review by Ben Chamberlain

Heigl Comes Out of Surgery, Only to be Rushed into Another!

If I was to say that this movie was a mess, then I would be partially telling the truth. Usually I would sit here and tell you that this is mainstream fluffy chick flick crap, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't hate anything Katherine Heigl. There is just something about her, she could play the world's biggest bitch and I would still think she is awesome! So when I sat down tonight to watch this, I wanted to hate it in all its fluffy shitness, but sadly couldn't.

I will be the first to tell you that I hate chick flicks, I really do. I have only ever liked 2, Love Actually and Serendipity. They are the ultimate chick flicks and the only 2 I like. Will 27 Dresses be enjoy that rank? No, it won't. Cause apart from Heigl and James Marsden, the film is a fucking disaster.

Here is my take on it, they obviously wanted Anne Fletcher to direct another movie as soon as possible! After she has just made Step Up, which became a critical, commerical and cult hit overnight. So again, this is my opinion. They quickly got a script together, grabbed a star on the rise, and got Fletcher to control. Now Fletcher can not director! And this is the films major flaw! If Heigl wasn't so good at being cute, then the film would not have been such a success. Most the actors seem bored. Ed Burns is wondering where the fuck his career went. James Marsden is wondering why he isn't doing something more to his skill level. For Heigl though, its something light, cute, fluffy, that she can quickly digust and do in a small time frame before going back to Grey's Anatomy.

And in all seriousness, I only watched this film for her. And for 111 minutes, she made me smile. Cause she is so fucking cute! And this isn't really a review, I just wanted to express my love for her. Yes yes, I'm a pussy! I watched a chicks flick to stare at Katherine Heigl for 2 hours. How pathetic. Anyways, this is one for the ladies and the Heigl lovers.

2/5

Coming This Month!

2008-05-05T03:41:00.000-07:00

Ok so I didn't deliver with last months promise, but I will try my hardest this month! All I'm going to say is expect a few movies and perhaps the debut of a tv show!

Only time will tell!

Cheers
Benny

DiRT (Xbox 360)

2008-04-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

DiRT - Review by MilkySheep

He May Be Dead, But McRae's Legacy Lives on!

When I play a racer I put it into one of 3 catagories. The mainstream racer, which is a game that is easy and can be played by everybody, this includes Need for Speed and Midnight Club. The skilled racer, stuff like Forza 2 and PGR, which requires a bit more skill and a bit more patience. And the extreme racer, in which the main objection is to have fun, these include Burnout and FlatOut. Now these are my opinions, and in each I think there is one extreme stand out for the 360! Need for Speed: Most Wanted dominates the mainstream racer, it is both lenghty, fun and looks good. Forza 2 wins with no challenge in its field. Burnout Paradise, like the other 2 just mentioned, completely kicks ass.

Now where does this leave DiRT? DiRT has a catagory all to its self, which only the best racer on 360 deserves. Despite what everybody says about Forza 2, there really isn't a stand-out brilliant racer on the 360! This was my thought, until I played DiRT, the most addictive racer I have picked up in years.

Although it has a few faults, DiRT combines a lenghty and quite seamless career mode, with amazing graphics, outstanding sound and some original ideas. Where does the game fall down? Its Multi-player mode is far from perfect, but we will go into that later in the review. This is on top of the annoying voices, which sound more yanky and wanky then all wanky yanks! But, lets get into the meaty details...

Career mode is where all the fun is! Its deep, real deep. Its extremely original and looks amazing (you really have to see it to believe me!). The career mode is made up of tiers, there are 11 tiers in total and its set up like a triangle, as you work your way up the tiers, you get closer and closer to the tip of the triangle. Now when typing this review, I was about 6 hours into the career mode and up to tier 5, so you should have it done by 12 hours. As you work your way up, you get one less event in the tier, but in the event there is usually more races. What makes career so good is the fact that not every race is the same, different car classes, different enviornments etc.

Like all races, you love some race types and hate others, the game has many different race types, there is the general time-trial like race, there is actual racing, cross-overs (which I love!), buggy races and races with big trucks. Depending on your patience and skill will depend on what races you will enjoy. Cross-overs are fun, as you try and beat your opposition through the course. Time-trials are great, they are easy if you think, but really difficult if you switch off for just the briefest of seconds. I hate buggy races, they are hard and annoying! There are many more race types too, you just need to play to experience them all!

As well as career mode, there is a championship mode. There are 3 different championships, Europeon, International and Global. They are pretty easy to complete, all you have to do is race and win the championship. It should take around 4 - 5 hours to complete all 3 of the championships. They are rather pointless, but good for the easy achievements.

The controls in this game are amazing! The cars handle amazingly. One slight wrong move with the sticks on the controller, and you could have your car rolling. It takes a little while to get use to the games physics and how to control certain cars in certain environments. Steering and braking will cause most people some grief in the beginning.

The graphics are outstanding, really they are the point in the game that sounds out a lot. The cars and environments looks incredible. Driving through Australia seems real, you can feel the heat and the dry surfaces. And just like real Australia, it is unforgiving, and are easily the hardest tracks to drive on. The other cities are also amazing to look at, although all of Germany's look the same!

Codemasters has always been a studio that loves to realistically damage cars. I rank the V8 Supercar series as the hardest car games out there, because if you screw up in that game, then your stuffed. And depending on the difficulty you play on, then this game can have the same effect. Even on easy, you need a flawless race to escape with no damage. This is a fantastic addition to an already great game.

Online, a game can either make or break when it comes to online. Some games are designed for online only, and some have it as a nice addition. When it comes to DiRT, you really start to wonder why they bothered! It is DiRT's extreme fault, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. It is bare. It is empty. It has nothing! I'm not a huge online player, but when I went to play this online, I was horrified at the lack of options and races avaliable. It seems they were intending on making this game for offline, single player use only, and only decided at the last moment to hack on some little online and multi-player options. This is the games real let down!

The menu's are easy to navigate, extremely easy, and they look amazing and original. If I could give a game 10 out of 10 based on its menu, then this game would steal it. It basic, yet looks flash, its easy to use for everybody. This can be said when going through the whole menu, you can never not find anything. It really impressed me.

Another thing that impressed me was the loading screen, which displays all your stats and facts. It has everything from the number of cars you own, to the miles you have driven etc. It all you could want on a stats page, with out having to go looking for it in the menu. Also the achievements are easy and you should be able to rack up an easy 1000 in 20 hours, and it is also extremely fun to achieve them!

Gameplay - 8/10 Career mode is a stand-out, it is brilliant. Loses 2 points for its poor online gameplay.

Graphics - 9/10 Some of the best graphics the 360 engine can produce. Cars, tracks and menu all look incredible.

Sound - 7/10 Great car sounds, but some annoying cut scene voices and the menu dude let the sound down with their shockingly bad voices!

Value - 8/10 Career will last you around 12 hours, which is good, and I can see you wanting to replay it, so it gets an 8! I think 12 hours for a career is pretty lenghty.

Overall - 8/10 The best racer on 360? Yes. It is. Although thats not a very hard title to win, DiRT is still the must-own racer on the 360. But I guess its all about what kind of racer your into! I love it and I think its a great game, so I highly recommend you run out and get it! You can pick it up on the cheap.

Muse - H.A.A.R.P (Album)

2008-04-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

Muse: H.A.A.R.P - Review by MilkySheep

The Way Live Music Should Sound!

Now I will be the first to admit that I don't really like live albums. The sound can be horrid, the crowd sound bored and the band sound god awful! There is only a select few live albums I like, Billy Talent's 666 is a great showcase of a band that is not given the credit they deserve, and they show why they are one of the best hard rock outfits out. Death Cab for Cutie's John Byrd EP shows the band soft side, and they play a short set to a small and intimate crowd, and it is also good for a laugh. Sadly enough though, neither of these great offerings have anything on Muse's H.A.A.R.P, which is the very definition of the perfect live album.

H.A.A.R.P is a package, its a cd/dvd pack. The dvd has more tracks then the cd, but thats good as the cd has all the fast tracks, where as the dvd has a couple of extra slower songs. What makes Muse's album so good is the fact that it sounds perfect, like literally perfect. Never has live sounded so good, it sounds like the actual songs, only live. They don't change the songs, they play them, and they play them with so much energy.

Matt Bellamy is the world's best guitarist, and everytime he plays you feel like your going to explode with awe. Listen to Supermassive Black Hole and try and tell me that you didn't just cream yourself. What Bellamy does is pure guitar wankery, he knows he is fucking brilliant, and does everything he can to change those that don't believe, and by doing so makes everybody there stare at him and think "Wow, I want to be him!". You see, Muse is Bellamy, without Bellamy then Muse would be a solid rock band with a pretty good drummer and good bassiest. Bellamy's vocals and god like guitar skill is Muse. Bellamy is Muse. Muse are so fucking great because of the tiny lil Brit with a world of skill!

Anyways, now that I have pretty much creamed myself all over Bellamy, its back to the album. The album has a short little intro and if you watch the dvd, it is really good. The band wearing bright colours, look like a small group of joggers, as they walk through the crowd to the stage. This was a Wembly Stadium by the way, which holds 150,000 people, Muse played 2 sold out shows in 2 nights. After the intro they break into Knights of Cydonia, which is one of the greatest guitar songs of our generation. After this the band breaks in Hysteria, and Hysteria is what they get, this is a crowd mover and yet another song which shows off Bellamy's freaky skill. Supermassive Black Hole is their 3rd track, and is actually better then the original version. This, to me, is the highlight of the album, it sounds perfect and when you watch the dvd, you can really see Bellamy's skill in action.

Map of the Problematique is played very well, and after they have finished with it they all break into this random and extremely heavy jam, which is super cool and they should go and make it into a song right now. Butterflies & Hurricanes is played and shortly followed by Invicible, which I didn't really like until now. Starlight, Muse's biggest hit, was up next. And although its not a great song, it sounded pretty damn good live. Time is Running Out is played brilliantly, but has nothing on New Born, which gets turned into an 8 and 1/2 minute monster of pure rock legend!

After this Muse play a couple of slow songs in the old classic Unintended and the great song Micro Cuts. When Micro Cuts is finished they go straight into Stockholm Sydrome, which Rolling Stone called the 5th greatest guitar song of all time! And when you listen to it on here, there is no denying that!

They close with Take a Bow, which is appropriate and a really good choice. And that concludes what is a spectacular live album. I Take a Bow to Muse, as they are easily the best rock band on earth at the moment, and I really don't see them being matched for years to come! Matt Bellamy is my hero and Muse are my band!

V-Festival 2008 (Gig)

2008-04-09T04:41:00.000-07:00

V-Festival 2008 - Review by MilkySheep

It Came, It Conquired!

The 6th of April 2008, the date that V-Festival hit Perth for the first time ever! The Blonde On Blonde of music festivals had the biggest and best line up Perth has seen. The Smashing Pumpkins, Queens of Stone Age & Duran Duran were the 3 headliners, with support from The Presets, Modest Mouse, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Cut Copy, Hot Hot Heat and many more both internatioanl and national acts. Here is my review of the day, from go to woe!

The day started good, I got up and had Macca's for brekky. Then I went home got dressed (Walkmen shirt, grey shorts and joggers), I got on the bus at 11.23 and headed into the city. The day was lovely, the sun was shining, but it wasn't hot, its was nice! I meet Mitch and Louie in the city and we walked down to the Esplanade. At this point I'm an asshole, cause I didn't tell Louie it was 18+, so she had to call her mum to come and bring her, her I.D. So me and Mitch went in there minus Louie to start with, we raided the Merc tent, I got me a Queens shirt and Mitch got a cool Hot Hot Heat shirt. Then we moved to the stage, a band called Little Red were playing, they had a crazy asian drummer who loved to jump around. Go figure. They played good.

Plug-In City were next. This band was recently signed to Modular, as label in which The Presets, Cut Copy and Klaxons are also on! The music they played did not however watch their looks, 4 white, bogan men playing electronic music. They had mullets and cowboy shirts!

Hot Hot Heat was the next band up, and I like them, but wasn't able to fully view them as I had to get Louie from the gates! And then we raided the merc tent all over again, with her buying a bag, a Duran Duran tour shirt and Queens shirt like mine! We got back to the stage and Hot Hot Heat were playing my fav song of theirs "My Best Friend" which they played awesome.

My highlight of the day was Cut Copy, a band in which I have only recently got into. They played a fucking awesome show.They play with so much energy, and have the sweetest sounding lead singer ever (yes, that may sound gay!). Why I like CC so much is cause all their songs are happy and they make the crowd move, and jump and generally have a great awesome relaxed time. They were extremely enjoyable and I can't wait to see them again.

The Jesus & Mary Chain were up next. And I fucking wish they had of went back to their retirement home. I can't recall a live performance so terrible, they were like statues. It was shockingly bad to see a band which, I'm were once respected, playing such a bad show. As my mate said though, they are just noise, nothing to them, just noise! And that gig proved it!

One of my most listened to bands of the last year, Modest Mouse, rocked the stage next. I was very anticipated, and nervous at the same time. But I was not let down! Although they didn't have my moving like Cut Copy, they did have me in awe. Johnny Marr, MM's lead guitarist is a man of great skill. For those who are not musically inclined, Marr was the lead guitarist of one of the best band's ever, The Smiths. The fact Marr has joined a band like Modest Mouse is a great credit to the band's originality and skill. Cut Copy must have blown some speakers or something, cause after them this stage seemed to have less then perfect sound, and this was the only hole in Modest Mouse's flawless set. Thanks guys for playing so good!

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE! OMFG! (Oh My Fucking God!) for those not knowing of net slang! My hard rock band of choice, actually, everybodies hard rock band of choice. And WOW! Yes, WOW! They played perhaps the most awesome set I have seen, they played every song I wanted them to play - 3's & 7's, Little Sister, No One Knows, Feel Good Hit of the Summer, Burn the Witch, Sick Sick Sick, Make It Wit Chu, Misfit Love... in other words, they played the greatest set of hard rock ever. They didn't even touch their slow songs, it was all hard rock baby! Guitar heavy rock at its absolute finest, great gig boys!

80's pop-rock favourites Duran Duran were next. They were on their Red Carpet Massacre tour, an album which is currently on my great albums playlist, an album which is one of my most listened to this year (if not THE most listened too) and what do Duran Duran do? They play a 90 minute set, with only 2 RCM songs!! I was not happy, thats why I saw them, cause RCM is so flipping good. Oh well, I built a bridge and got over it and enjoyed what they did play. It was like a greatest hits tour, playing old hit after hit after hit, and credit to them, they had all the old ladies moving like it was 1985, only problem now is that if they move to much their hip may break, so I guess thats why Duran Duran choose not to play much RCM, which is a shame for us young folk who could have taken the rough movement!

I didn't see Smashing Pumpkins! Now don't shoot me, I have good reason! I just don't like them, why see them when The Presets, a band I like, are playing in a tent next door! So I went and sat on the grass and watched The Presets. They were good, played a good solid set, but I was kinda beyond caring as I just wanted food. Oh and I visited the Merc tent and got a Modest Mouse shirt! Anyways The Presets were good, they played all their best tracks, except my favourite - Get the Fuck Outta Here!

From V we went to Macca's and had dinner, then I got the train home and walked from there to my house, I went to sleep and woke up the next morning deaf. That was V-Fest, the best Festival this year! Bring on 2009!

Coming This Month!

2008-04-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys, We got a big month this April, so let me give you the low down on what I will be reviewing for you!

GTA will be the major part of the month, due to the release of GTA IV, I will be revisiting all the classic GTA games that you all love and enjoy!

V-Fest is the music event of my month, so I will give you an indepth review of the day and I will be reviewing the artist's albums, both new and old ones!

And whatever movies I see I will be happily review for you!

So keep an eye on this space, its going to be very full, very shortly!

Cheers

Ben (aka Milky)

Army of Two (Xbox 360)

2008-03-29T01:27:00.001-07:00

Army of Two - Review by MilkySheep

Who Needs Thousands, When You Only Need Two?

Now every gamer will tell you that Electronic Arts (or EA) are far from the best game maker. In fact apart from their annual sport game updates, the occassionally good Need for Speed game and the Burnout series, it really doesn't have much credit to its name. You see the reason they are one of the biggest is the fact they do many quick movie cash-ins and series which may have only ever had one good game, but people buy them in hope of another good one. That's why when EA annouced they were doing Army of Two, many were worried that EA may screw up a great premise.

The good news is that they haven't screwed it up! In fact they have managed to create a game that will give them many kudos and a little bit of credit. In a dreadful year in which they released terrible game updates and the worst Need for Speed yet, they really needed to start 08 with a bang! And they certainly have, after the incredible success of Burnout Paradise, they follow it up with Army of Two.

Many will compare Army of Two to Gears of War, and this comparison makes a lot of sense, they are both a majority co-op game and both have only a small portion of extremely long chapters. But dispite these obvious comparisons, Army of Two still manages to stand on its own feet. One of its benefits is that it has tons of different weapons, which you have to buy, as you get paid to fight. Awesome ey!

Another benefit is its story, sure Gears has a great story, but the basic outline of this is not original but very futuristic. You see you work for a company called SSC, which is hired by the US Government to pretty much fight the war for them. The game plays brokenly, in that in each chapter you have to do something different, but you always find stuff that leads to the bigger picture and eventually the epic final mission. This is truely one game that would make a sweet movie!

The sound and voice work is great, although at times the dialogue can be a bit hammy and seems like something out of a day time TV show. The gun fire sounds great, and realistic. The voice actors are actual real voice actors, not Hollywood actors who are not trained to work with only their vocals. This adds a lot to the game, more then many may think, and it makes the 2 lead characters extremely likeable. All our sound effects are also great!

The graphics are some of the best I have seen, espically in the in between missions! The blood effects are wicked, and will make ever gore hound want some more. The graphics really are amazing and its good to see EA putting all the not-so-hard earned cash so some good use! The enviroments, although rather common for this type of game, do look really good and they really come into there own in the last missions in a flood Miami. Rios and Salam also look incredible, and an extreme ammount of detail has gone into making them look so good, in fact the reason they look so good is due to the fact they don't look perfect. What I mean is that, they are not extremely beautiful people like you usually see, they are sad scarred people and they have been incredible designed that way!

Single player is probably the let down for this game. Where as Gears and Kane & Lynch are both solid single player games, Army of Two just can't hack it. The AI is amazing, but its difficult to get use too in single player, plus your partner just doesn't do what you want to do. This game is purely a co-op game, plain and simple, you cannot fully enjoy this great gaming experience if your not playing co-op.

And that leads me onto co-op, this is easily the best co-op game I have played, and by using achievements, it has made its replayability high. My friend and I have just finished it on Contracter difficulty (like Hardcore on Gears) and we are about to start playing through it again on Professional (Insane on Gears). Never have a wanted to replay a game so soon after completing it.

The gameplay is amazing, although the first 2 levels are fairly standard action stuff, the game really gets into another gear for its 2 half, and the final mission is amazing. The final mission is 2 hours of non-stop action, you are killing guys non-stop, literally and you can't move without getting shot! It is incredible, and although it is set in a washed-out hurricane affected Miami, it feels like your in the middle of a war. The gameplay is brilliant!

Gameplay - 9/10 Dispite its poor single player, the gameplay for co-op is amazing stuff, the kind of gameplay that games will be coping off for years to come!

Graphics - 8/10 Not perfect, but great characters and environments make this one of the better graphical efforts.

Sound - 8/10 Great voice acting, the music is solid and the general sound effects are also great.

Value - 7/10 Co-op is replayable, but the single player mode is not so good. I have yet to play online, so I will give it a 7 for co-op and online.

Overall - 8/10 Perhaps not a must-own, but for anybody looking for an amazing co-op experience, then look no further then here. It may also fill that gap where Gears is until Gears 2 is out, but in my personal opinion, this game shits all over Gears of War. It really is a truely incredible co-op experience!

Southland Tales (Movie)

2008-03-29T00:34:00.000-07:00

Southland Tales - Review by MilkySheep

I Was Ready for the Apocalypse, But Cleary Richard Kelly Wasn't

Southland Tales was the most anticipated movie of 2006, Richard Kelly had become an over-night mega star by creating what some critics called the greatest film of all time in Donnie Darko. Donnie Darko has gone onto become one of the most popular movies of this millenium and is loved by nearly everybody that sees it. When Kelly first annouced Southland Tales, people were on the edge of their seats with anticipation. When the film was aired at Cannes, the grumpy French critics hated it and in turn this destroyed (DESTROYED!) everything the film had going for it. 2 and a bit year later, I have finally seen the film I have been longing to see since its completion, so here is my review of what is probably the movie I have wanted to see more then another other... EVER!

What is Southland Tales? Well ST (as we will call it) is set in the future, well actually, present day now but for when it was suppose to be released it was the future! Anyways, back on track, the world is at World War 3 after nuclear bombs were dropped on 2 places in the US, The US Government acts fast, launching into World War 3 and completely taking over its country. The US is no longer a safe place, there are snipers strategically placed all over the cities, which at any moment can take down anybody with force, efficiency, speed and deadly power. The internet is controlled by the Government and everything is being watched at all times by a company called US I-Dent. Now this is just part of the story, this is maybe 4 characters out of many.

The Rock plays an actor with amnesia, Sarah Michelle Gellar is a porn star, Sean William Scott is a disgraced cop, Justin Timberlake is military, a sniper and drug dealer, Mandy Moore is a bitch, Holmes Osbourne the next president, Miranda Richardson in charge of US I-Dent, Kevin Smith is crazy and there are so many characters that I will be here all day. But they are all relate to one another, there has never been a movie with so many characters that all relate to one another in one form or another, Kelly has obviously put a lot of effort in to this, as it is almost seamless and hole-less!

However, this is the films weak-spot, due to such a confusing script, by having so many actors you are bound to have a few that just don't understand their characters and this leaves you with terrible acting. The Rock, for the whole movie, seems to be lost! He drove me into insanity, he is not the type of actor that can carry such a film, he is like Jake Gyllanhaal in Donnie Darko, except Jake could carry Donnie through the confusion. The Rock doesn't have the power to make you feel anything for this character and whenever he is on screen I feel myself getting lost. Gellar, Scott and Timberlake on the other hand are outstanding and they really do show their acting chops.

The script, as well as The Rock, is what brings this film down. It is on confusing and oh so hard to follow. It is a modern-day adaption of the Book of Revelation, and thats cool, but surely Kelly could have choosen a much easier way? He tries to be "cool" like he was with Donnie Darko, by adding in 4th Dimensions, Tangent Universes, Time-Travel, heck its all chucked into the blender and whats come out? A mess! A literal mess! Sure the version I watched was the cut down version, but still, a film doesnt need to be this heavy, this confusing. It is almost unenjoyable because of the confusion. Kelly writes well, but writes so much shit!

Visually this film is a masterpiece, from the opening second this film succeeds visually! From the bombs being dropped, to Timberlake's song and dance, to the amazing ending, this film is a visual masterpiece! Kelly clearly had heaps of money to play with, cause he creates the kind of visuals many great directors would have a wet-dream over! And it the visuals which make this movie, I personally think Kelly knew he had written such a confusing piece of work that he would completement it with amazing visuals.

Ok so I have said a lot of negative about this movie, but the visuals are so beautiful that I can't fault the way it was directed and I can't fault the acting (except the fucking Rock!) but I will happily fault the script, which needed so much more work and in the end we are left with a film that had heaps of potential and looks fantastic, but ultimately is empty.

3/5