Album Review: Pumpkin Head's Orange Moon Over Brooklyn

Its been awhile since I downloaded any underground hiphop, so when I got an Itunes gift certificate I took the opportunity to look up Pumpkinhead. You may be familiar with Pumpkinhead if you are a fan of Immortal Technique, he was on the tracks "Peruvian Cocaine" and "The Illest" and he impressed me, however I was never able to find any of his solo work before deciding to pony up some money to apple.  The Itunes page has 4 reviews giving the album 5 stars; one of said reviews compared this album to the 36 Chambers by The Wu-Tang Clan, and Madvillany by Madvillan a.k.a MF Doom.  With those types of comparisons I was obviously very excited to give this thing a spin, sadly I was a little let down. 

What impressed me about PH when he was making guest appearances on other albums, and on the only other song of his I owned was his upbeat and quick inventive rhymes. However the style of Marco Polo his DJ was very downbeat and slow which does not compliment PH's style.  Pumpkinhead just dosen't really shine in many of the tracks and I have a feeling its because the beats are so homogenous and  uninventive. This isn't to say all the songs are duds, here are the highlights:


Track 2: Authentic
 This beat is a little bit boring but it manages to keep your attention for the first half of the song and it at least uses some sounds uncommon to the rest of the album such as a xylophone, the rhymes are good but not great.

Track 3: I Just Wanna Rhyme
This song features sampling from Nas' One Mic which is one of the few samples on the album, If Marco Polo had replicated this approach and used some more samples to spice up his beats and create interest the album would have been much better.

Track 4: Trifactor
This song features Wordsworth and Supastition, generally as a rule any song on the album that brings in other rappers has the type of variety to keep you interested.  The beat has strings in it which help to create interest as well, however asthetically something about this song left a bad taste in my mouth.

Track 9: Swordfish
The beat on this song reminds me of something from Ong-Bak, it has a eastern type of feel this is probably my favorite track on the entire album.  The chorus features high speed rhymes that showcase some skill on PH's part.

Track 15: Anthem for the End of the World Featuring Jean-Grae
Another track with some sampling in it, this is a slow song but the lyrics are well thought out and serious in nature, the beat is a little more distinct than some of the others by Marco Polo but the rhymes are what make this worth a listen.   


His Label is Located Here.

Album Review: The Journey: The very best of Sizzla

This is why I love Pandora radio so much, because it helps me find great music like this.  Sizzla came up on my Buju Banton radio station the other day and I was so intrigued that I had to learn more about him.  He is supposedly a dancehall artist but on this particular album he seems to be channeling Bob Marley more than Bounty Killer.  This actually serves him well because he has the vocal chops to stand up as a peer to Bob Marley in fact when he gets too many synthesizers and dancehall elements into his songs it actually takes away from them in my opinion.   He creates a distinctly old school reggae sound by incorporating real instruments in with his electronic sounds and by utilizing some very talented back up singers to really hammer home the melodic choruses that are common in his songs.  The tone on this album is very Rastafarian with most songs involving praising Jah, Selassie and Rastafari. 

Sizzla's voice work is pretty exquisite, he almost takes a R&B approach to many of his songs, and his vocal range is impressive to say the least, in the song "like mountain" he utilizes quick upbeat rhymes in a driving beat; while on the track Be Strong he utilizes an impressive falsetto over a slightly latin sounding guitar and classic reggae instrumentation.  In all it is safe to say that Sizzla's vocal prowess is advanced and he knows how to use it to keep the listener interested.

The tracks that I like on this album are:

1) Just One of Those Days (Dry Cry)

This song is a straight up classic reggae throwback, complete with reggae instrumentation a minimum of electronic tinkering if any,  It also comes complete with skilled background singers and showcases Sizzla's vocal range.  This is also one of the only songs not concerning Rastafarianism on the album instead being a "Missing You" type of regretful love song.

2) The Solution

A little bit more Hip-Hop than Dry Cry, this one utilizes mellow reggae instrumentation as well with minimal electronic meddling.  The lyrics are what make this along with the heartfelt delivery.

3) Ain't Gonna See us Fall

Getting into more dancehall territory with this slow jam, electronic manipulation is a little more evident, the beat is pretty sick, and the intro really gets your attention right away. Vocal work on this track is exquisite and the lyrics are great.

 4) Love is Divine

This song uses a drum machine in more dance hall influenced beats but also uses instruments in a Reggae influenced manner, the intro gets your attention right away and the lyrics again are very good. The vocal work besides the intro isn't as interesting but this is one of my favorite songs on the Album nonetheless.

If you like Reggae, I would strongly recommend checking out Sizzla and this album in particular. 

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

 Over the last couple days I took the time to read Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, My interest was immediately piqued by the description on the back, a psychotic child murderer loose on an Alcatraz-esqe island. Of course the fact that it was going to be put on film by Scorsese starring Leonardo Dicaprio also got me interested.  This book was a great read, however if you read the description you may be expecting something a little along the lines of "Silence of the Lambs." This is not the case however in fact the book comes of a little more along the lines of "Memento." The story reads great however despite being a little slow at times this only helps to accelerate the story straight into the mindbender of an ending.  Although I am not a big fan of thrillers, this book is obviously what makes the genre so popular; and I would strongly recommend picking it up.

Forests of Mystery: A hidden Gem?

So today I was on Facebook and I saw an ad for Forests of Mystery which mentioned something about mysterious happenings in forests near Tillimook, this intrigued me and I clicked on it. It led me to a web based series called Forests of Mystery.

Done in a Blair Witch pseudodocumentary form this show really took me by suprise.  It is done by amateurs and the acting and production values obviously reflect that, however the writing is actually pretty good, So far what seems to unfold is a mystery regarding malevolent and somewhat lovecraftian forces in a specific area in the tillimook forest that two young research assistants are trying to investigate.  So far there are 5 webisodes online. The first one had me instantly hooked as soon as I saw it.  The following 4 webisodes are more of a build up to some sort of revelation that we will have to wait for.  What also makes this interesting is that forests of mystery's facebook and webpage are designed in a way that presents the story as a true documentary, complete with interviews with experts that seem to be both real and fake, and even a link to a fake website purportedly run by the crazy man that they interview in episode 4.  It is this format with both facebook, the webpage, and the show itself all informing each other and all being completely devoted to portraying this as "truth" which really breaks new ground with me.  Another thing to note is that the camera work is actually done pretty damn well, the camera shakes and doesn't always capture what is going on completely, however this is only done enough to aid in the plot and to really help drive home the "real" feeling of the series.  There is a nice little jab at Cloverfield in the first episode when Dewey tells cameraman Jeff to hold the camera still so people don't puke. 

Of course the show could benefit with better actors in the supporting roles. However the two main characters do their job solidly and the writing is pretty damn good if you like lovecraft-esqe weird fiction, some people may be frustrated with this because it really just creates more questions than it answers.  I am impatiently waiting for the next webisodes to be posted. If I were you I would be watching these guys because they really may go somewhere with this. 

www.forestsofmystery.com



Edit: visit the links on their webpages to get the whole experience. 

Halloween 2 (Spoilers)

So last night I decided to go out and watch what could have either been an awesome horror remake or a piece of absolute garbage.  Unfortunately Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 didn't exactly come out smelling like roses. Don't get me wrong, while Rob Zombie's over the top gore and brutal violence are usually a little bit too much for me I respect him alot, The Devil's Rejects was a great film however disturbing it might be, and his first Halloween remake made a really good impression with me.  This film however was not executed correctly.  The beginning of the movie showed alot of promise, taking place in the familiar hospital setting that helped to make the original Halloween 2 so cool.  Michael Meyers obviously shows up and starts brutalizing everyone in sight, unfortunately this turns out to be just a dream that his younger sister and would-be victim from the first flick is having.  From then on out the film gets a little bit boring, so there are some stabbings, but they are all just about exactly the same, Meyers' sister Laurie has a few more nightmares that would be disturbing if the acting was better.

Speaking of the acting in the film, there were ups and downs, mostly downs. For one In all honestly the actress playing Laurie Strode pissed me off so much I hoped Mike would just come put a knife in her and get it over with. My next issue: Rob, stop putting your wife into films, she may be attractive but she can't act to save her own life.  The writing was cheesy at points too, there were so many F-bombs that I began to wonder if Mr. Zombie knows any other words, he wrote F*** into that film so many times that any emotional emphasis made by the characters was lost completely when they would shout out some expletive.   The psychological aspect of this film with the dreams and hallucinations of both Meyers and his sister come off as cheesy and forced and detract from the film instead of helping drive the plot.  Of course there is a lot of violence, but it is not even very creative, Michael Meyers is a great character because he is both creative in his violence and brutal at the same time,  this film only showcases the brutality with Michael killing the majority of his victims by stabbing them in exactly the same way after a minimal amount of stalking. There are problems with the music as well, the movie really could have benefited from using the original score which gives a creepy and suspenseful feel to the original, the only time that the score really helped the movie was when "Knights in White Satin" was playing during the hospital scene, giving it a really dreamy and unpleaseant feeling.


Of course this movie isn't all bad.  I thought that Malcolm Mcdowell brought his A game in playing doctor Loomis, despite the real problems with the  writing for the character and his transformation from a main character and an okay dude to a more tertiary role as a huge asshole. I was also impressed by Brad Dourif as the sherriff, who managed to make his character actually seem 3 dimensional despite the shit writing.  In all I would say that while this may scare some folks, If you really want to be frightened look to something else, if you are a fan of the Halloween franchise I would rent this but don't bother seeing it in theatres.

The Wolfman By Nicholas Pekearo

Last night I picked up a book titled "The Wolfman" by Nicholas Pekearo at Albertsons and read it at work.  I have to say that it was a pretty exciting read. There is also a sad story behind the book Pekearo wrote this particular story and was then shot shortly afterwards working as a volunteer police officer in New York.  He had originally intended this book to be the first in a series which sadly will never see the light of day.  The book still stands on its own rather well despite the tragic story behind its authors' death.  While I was skeptical for the first forty pages or so after that the author really seemed to get into a groove and some of his lines really shine.  I found myself laughing at the sardonic main character and his witty comments and horribly foul mouth.  One thing that struck me however is that the writers youthfulness rubbed off on his character making him seem more like a twenty something than a forty year old vet. This and a few unclear or slightly rediculous passages (like the first sentance) take a little bit of wind out of the sails but not much, I found myself to be riveted at certain points and dying to find out what happens next.  Unfortunately we will never know what happens the the Marlow Higgins after he leaves town at the end of the book beacause some sick bastard took it upon himself to open fire on the young author before his book even hit shelves, cutting short what could have been an illustrious career in horror fiction given just a little more experience and practice under Pekearo's belt.  As an added bonus at the end of the book is an essay written by Pekearo about why he became a volunteer cop and why it is important to him, which I found to be soul-crushingly sad, but in a beautiful kind of way.  Definitely run out to the local bookshelf and fork out the 8 bucks for this book ASAP.

Mercury Man

Ok so today I watched the movie Mercury Man which is a film done by Sahamongkol Film and Baa-ram-ewe productions.  Of course Sahamongkol films was responsible for Ong-Bak, Tom Yum Goong (The Protector), Born to Fight, and Chocolate.  Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goong are possibly 2 of the top 10 best marital arts films ever.  Mercury Man also boasts Panna Rittikrai the mentor of Tony Jaa and stunt coordinatior for Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goong as the stunt coordinator in this film.  Of course even though this film does have some good fights in it and you can definitely see Rittikrai's fingerprints all over this film's stunts it falls flat on so many other levels that I couldn't enjoy it.  For one the plot was not well written and was overtly convoluted for what it was trying to accomplish.  Another problem is that unlike Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goong, this film uses special effects heavily; this becomes a problem when B-rate special effects are used for the superhero action scenes.  Even with Panna Rittikrai behind the stunts in this film, the action cannot live up to the other films coming out of thailand right now because the cinematography does not do a good job complimenting the stunts.  There are a few scenes in this film worth watching, but prepare yourself for disappointment if you are a fan of any other marital arts films coming out of Thailand recently.

9, and Food Inc.

So today I saw 2 flicks, the first was the animated movie 9 and the second was Food Inc.

9 was really a disapointment, It only had 2 things going for it, it had amazing visuals and an interesting premise; however the execution was very poor. For one it was too short, the story felt rushed, for example 9 awakens one day and stumbles out into the world where he meets the other various numbered ragdoll people and within a day they all treat him as if they have known him for years.  Elija Woods'  voice acting also seemed forced, It didn't really feel like anything he said was authentic and everytime 9 opened his mouth I could picture him standing in a recording booth reading lines off of a script.  The storyline in 9 had some potential but unfortunately things were not well explained, and the ending felt like some kind of cop-out because the writers couldn't think of an ending, also it was a huge downer when it could have easily been reconciled to be at least a little bit happier.  In conclusion the premise was interesting and the visuals really shine during the action scenes but this is not enough to really draw you in completely or make up for the lackluster feel of the story.

Food Inc. on the other hand was great.  For a documentary it was really engaging with excellent production values.  Also the film does not rely on gross out tactics by showing animals being brutally slaughtered.  There are a few instances of footage of animals being abused however they are not what makes up the bulk of the movie. What really disturbs the viewer in this film is the various people who had their lives destroyed by large agricultural conglomorates for various asinine reasons.  Another huge plus is that the film is very bipartisan, democrats and republicans are both shown in positive and negative light an equal amount.  It was a tad bit long and viewers may find themselves getting a little fidgety by the end however it is definitely worth watching to see who owns what we eat and where what we eat comes from.  I think that this film should be shown in public schools so everyone can learn the truth about industrial agriculture.

Heres an older review taken from my facebook page, the flick is still in theatres though so see it quick.

I had the good luck to randomly ask Danielle to go see this movie last night, we went to go see "Moon" starring Sam Rockwell at the Dark Side Cinema in Corvallis. This movie was a very pleasant surprise. As an independent film I was expecting Moon to have some lower production values, especially in a sci-fi movie that seemed to call for some pretty demanding special effects. Moon's effects were great, the music was the perfect eerie score to help underscore the theme of isolation and mystery and slight menace that permeates the entire film. In the end the music and the special effects would have been nothing without Sam Rockwell's excellent performances in his multiple roles; I cant really go into the details of what i found so impressive or the plot may be given away, but suffice to say Rockwell did an excellent job and turned an interesting yet slightly predictable plot into an intense eerie and sometimes creepy drama. Kevin Spacey also makes an appearance doing the voice overs for Rockwell's robot helper and did a really solid job at it as well.

I definitely recommend that you look up Moon in your area and go see it before it is out of theaters. Below is the trailer for those that are interested.

http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/moon/trailer.html

Samurai 2

Ok, folks I have just finished watching Samurai 2: Duel at Ichioji Temple and I have one thing to say:
TURN UP THE BRIGHTNESS ON YOUR TV.  Seriously, the lighting in some of the most climactic and crucial fight scenes is absolutely ATROCIOUS. I understand that Samurai like to fight it out at either dusk or dawn but come on get some lights on that scene.

Other than this glaring problem the movie was great. Mifune is a great samurai yet again; probably because he is so good at looking so damn pissed off.  Ok maybe there is more to it than that, he can actually show a pretty solid range of emotions and he's got that really deep japanese badass voice that a good samurai actor needs to have. Of course the romantic subplot is developed and becomes more complex and the characters that were all seperated througout the first movie start to come back together. Also some of the stylistic signatures that we expect to see in a samurai film start to make an appearance such as duels consisting of a couple feints and then one decisive slice; and of true sword technique being displayed instead of just raw slashing and fighting.  In all this is a great movie, I will probably have to watch it again though because the darkness of some of the shots ruined a few scenes for me.

Samurai 1

I watched the movie Samurai 1 the other day, as I was watching the sequel, cleverly named Samurai 2 I decided I would review it here. Samurai 1 is the tale of Musashi Miyamoto, a Japanese folk hero. I read the book attributed to Musashi "The Book of Five Rings" in it he claims to have killed over a hundred different people in duels and fights and is believed to be the best swordsman who ever lived.  Of course when you are dealing with a historical figure and folk hero, who happens to be the best fencer to ever live, it is not exactly hard to come up with an interesting movie, add to the mix that Toshiro Mifune one of the best samurai-actors of all time stars in the lead role and you have a recipe for a masterpiece.

Obviously you can see where I am going with this, the film is great.  If you are a fan of stylistic elements of films like Afro Samurai, Kill Bill or the pulp samurai adventures characterized in movies like Shogun Assasin in the 70's you may be a little disappointed because this movie is a character driven narrative, focusing on the growth of Musashi from headstrong outlaw to upstanding retainer.  Also the highly stylized fighting we see in martial arts movies today is lacking with the few fights in the movie consisting of people slashing wildly in a mad free for all.  The fights seem like true struggles in this movie, they may not be meticulously choreographed or full of stylish flourishes however they do have their own legitimate sense of realism. The score to the film is great as well. It gives the movie an epic type of feel and actually brings to mind the often cited similarity between Samurai films, and the American Western film. 


There are a few problems with this film. I do take a little issue with the fact that the majority of his maturing and growth takes place in the 3 seconds it takes "3 years later" to flash across the screen towards the end of the movie. Also some of the shots are painfully dim, making it difficult to tell who is who or what is going on.
These problems aside, the film is a wonderful work of art and a window into midievel Japan and one of Japan's greatest historical figures.  

Ok I lied.

So I will actually post some content today; its kind of a cop out because it is just a link to another page however you should really check this page out because it is HILARIOUS.  Of course i need to qualify that statement; it is hilarious in all caps if you think that stupid fanfics and people on the internet making fun of them is hilarious.  Really I cant even begin to explain to you what this is you just need to read it for yourself. Also if you have ever written a fanfic... Please never return here again.

First read the backstory here:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2974771

Then read this awful piece of garbage in comic book form in an attempt to immortalize its god-awfulness forever:   
http://chr.nerdramblingz.com/


That should keep you busy for awhile. 

First Post

Ok, so on a whim I decided to whip up this little monstrosity so I could impress my views and values onto you people, every so often I'm going to review a movie, album, pretty much any type of mass media that I see fit so all those Philistines out there can get schooled in the ways of a counter culture loving pulp fiction devotee such as myself.  Any requests for things to be reviewed, original works or whatever will be honored to the best of my ability... Anyway I have been awake for a rediculous amount of time and there won't be anything forthcoming until I get some rest.  Keep it real out there.