I’m going to pose a philosophical question for you.  What is an album?  Or more to the point, how should an album be considered?  As a collection of music in and of itself, or as a series of songs to be experienced through the filter of the artist and their past work?  If it’s the former, then White Crosses basically works.  However, in the case of the latter, it is an unmitigated disaster.

Long gone is everything that had come to represent Against Me!  The acoustic guitars and general folk mentality had already disappeared a few albums ago (the closest they come here is the bonus track “Bob Dylan Dream” which plays more as them taunting their fans rather than catering to them, like “Hey, remember when we were an awesome folk band? Nyah nyah!”), but joining them now is any semblance of edginess.  This album is too slick by half, which is troublesome as Against Me! is a band that thrives on roughness.  It’s their lifeblood, and they have slowly been polishing it away, and now they have succeeded in completely negating any punk credibility they had once brandished proudly.

Several long-term fans had issues with their previous album, New Wave, citing a lot of issues I have brought up here.  And while they’re not necessarily wrong, that album still had plenty of rough edges due, in large part, to singer Tom Gabel’s vocals, but alas, those too have had a belt sander taken to them and have been brought to a shiny veneer.  Now, typically I’m not one to get too hot and bothered over high production values, as I think it’s odd to fault a band for trying to make their music sound as good as possible, however, you can take it so far that you no longer sound like yourself, and that is exactly what Against Me! has done here.  They have over-polished their album into a beige mass of blah.

I had this album in my car where it cycled through a couple times, and it got to a point where, even after a few listens, I would turn it on and have absolutely no idea where in the album I was.  Almost the whole thing bleeds together.  Ironically, the only two songs that stood out to me were the two that drove me the most crazy.  The aforementioned “Bob Dylan Dream” stands out for the aforementioned reasons, and “I Was A Teenage Anarchist” is notable for being infuriating.  Against Me! used to sing about practicing anarchy in the present tense (“Baby, I’m An Anarchist”), but that is just one more thing that has gone by the wayside.

What is probably the most frustrating thing of all, though, is the music isn’t necessarily unlistenable.  A different band could release this same album and I would probably like it a heck of a lot more.  But as an Against Me! album it is so completely misguided, that at a certain point it becomes more funny than anything else.  As a matter of fact, I recommend you listen to it for that reason alone.

So where does that leave us?  Well, if you’re unfamiliar with Against Me!’s past work, you will probably enjoy White Crosses much more than I did.  The bottom line is I was unable to separate the music from the musicians, and that is the album’s fatal flaw; it’s for new fans only.  Against Me! has been heading this direction for a few years now, and they don’t seem to be altering their course whatsoever.  My advice to them?  If they plan on releasing more albums this safe, they should probably, if nothing else, drop the exclamation point.

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

As I’m sure you are already aware, new episodes of Futurama premiere tonight (Thursday, June 24th) on Comedy Central.  And if you’re not already aware, that’s fine, it just means we will NEVER BE FRIENDS!  I’m just kidding, we can be friends.  Do you want to be friends?  Please, I’m so lonely… Oh, sorry, hi!  New episodes, right.  Futurama was cancelled in 2003, but after finding success in syndication, there came a renewed interest in producing new material.

That led to the four movies that most would argue are amusing, but don’t quite measure up to the show’s original run.  The most likely reason for this is the, perhaps, misguided attempt to expand the stories to what amounted to four episodes apiece.  Futurama works best when it’s tight, and the movies were just stretched too thin.  Hopefully going back to 22 minutes will yield more brilliant outings along the lines of Jurassic Bark, Roswell That Ends Well, Luck of the Fryish, or Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles.  Or literally any other episode, are there bad ones?  I haven’t seen one.

But enough of this chitter-chatter!  All it’s doing is taking away from the really important matter at hand!  Rampant, context-free Futurama quotes!  And please, feel free to add your own in the comments section below.

“Ladies please, we need rest.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.”

“I can’t wait ’til I’m old enough to feel ways about stuff.”

“Fry, you can’t keep boogeying like this, you’ll develop a fever of some sort.”

“We can escape through that nasal capillary!”  “Strange, usually you don’t know anything about human anatomy.”  “I heard it in a decongestant commercial, ‘Soothing action action action…’”

“Oh, a lesson in Not-Changing-History from Mr. I’m My Own Grandpa!”

“But you’re not like other monkeys, you’ve got the hat.”

“I am the man with no name, Zapp Brannigan.”

“Computer dating, it’s like pimping, but you rarely have to use the phrase ‘Upside your head.’”

“I find the most erotic part of a woman to be the boobies.”

“You still have Zoidberg, YOU ALL STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG!”

“The big brain am winning again!  I am the greetest!  Now I will leave Earth for no raisin!”

“Somebody fat get in my waaaaaay!!!”

“I had it all, several friends, a low-paying job, a bed in a robot’s closet!  I envied no man.”

“I’m still in grave peril, you clods!  With my final breath… I curse Zoidberg!”

“I was God once.”  “Yes, I saw, it was going well until everybody died.”

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

You know what, Pixar?  Stop it!  Just stop it!  All your fancy-pants… jaw-dropping animation and arbitrary… heartfelt stories that make you cry?  Knock it off!  There are people who want to contribute to this world and you are setting the bar way too high!  You just… oh forget it!  I can’t stay mad at you, Pixar.  Not when you make movies this amazing.  Not to mention the fact that it’s a sequel (a second sequel, even!) and you had me on the verge of tears.

Toy Story 3 as I’m sure you’re aware of, is the final installment of the ongoing saga of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, their toy compatriots, and their owner, Andy.  The plot has advanced in real time, so Andy is now 17 and headed off to college.  He’s grown up, and as such he’s gotten rid of a lot of toys over the years.  As the film starts, it’s revealed that it’s down to Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye, Rex, Slinky, Hamm, and the Potato-Heads, and Andy has to figure out what he’s going to do with the few that are left.  He decides that Woody’s going with him to school, the rest are going to the attic.  The only problem: the method of transportation he chooses is a trash bag, which he leaves in the hallway and his mother mistakes for trash.

Woody watches all this happen and attempts a daring rescue.  The other toys manage to escape, but rather than return to Andy (who they think threw them away), they jump in a donations box headed to Sunnyside Daycare, a place that toys’ dreams are made of.  Where there will always be children to play with and their every whim will be catered to.  Or so they think.  It turns out that the daycare is run (off-hours naturally) by Lots-O-Huggin Bear (Lotso for short), who is not as amiable as he leads them to believe.

Lotso used to belong to a girl who lost and replaced him, leading him to believe that no toy is ever truly loved.  The new arrivals represent a much different viewpoint, and as such are led to the Caterpillar Room, populated by toddlers whose idea of playtime is considerably rougher than Andy’s.  Cue the escape attempt.  Buzz takes charge to negotiate a transfer to the Butterfly Room with the older kids.  It’s here that he finds out that there’s more to Lotso than he has let on.  But before Buzz can get back and warn the other toys, Lotso has his crew (Ken doll, sticky octopus, creepy babydoll) strap Buzz down and reset him to Demo mode.

With Buzz back to thinking he’s a Space Ranger and that the other toys are minions of Emperor Zurg, Lotso uses him to make sure they stay in line.  Woody finds his way to them and helms another daring rescue.  They manage to reset Buzz, although they hold the button too long and he winds up in Spanish mode (which, of course, comes complete with a swarthy, Latin charm).  Their escape is thwarted and they wind up at the garbage dump.  I won’t reveal anything further, but in this scene there is a moment that is more chilling than anything you would expect from a traditional kids’ movie (in a good way).

After every Pixar movie, I’m always left wondering how long they can possibly keep this up.  Wall-E was a true masterpiece which few thought they could overcome, especially since their next film was just a movie about an old man and some balloons.  But Up, dare I say, topped Wall-E, due largely to just the first five minutes.  But to follow that up with a sequel?  Surely there will be some diminished returns now, right?  Wrong?!  At the risk of sounding cliched, Pixar has indeed done it again.  Toy Story 3 is exciting, joyful, touching, heartbreaking, and in a word, magnificent.  And a perfect way to wrap up the saga of Woody and Buzz.  Why did I even need to write a review of this?

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

“Overkill is underrated.”  So says Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith in The A-Team.  It would seem he’s speaking to the other character in that scene, but actually he’s talking directly to the audience members, specifically those that will decry the sheer overabundance of outlandish action scenes in this flick.  He’s stealing their thunder by acknowledging that, yes, this movie is ridiculous, but that was also precisely the point.

That doesn’t seem to have stopped the detractors, however.  It sits at a 52% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which really just leads me to ask, what were they expecting from The A-Team?!  I was expecting an enjoyable action movie that had enough sense to not take itself too seriously and to keep the action coming, and that was exactly what I got.

The four main stars all played well off each other, and played their parts well (okay, Quintan “Rampage” Jackson gives roughly the performance you would expect from somebody named Quintan “Rampage” Jackson, but everybody else was good).  Liam Neeson is clearly having a ball, and at a certain point you want to offer him some dental floss for all the scenery he chews.  As the character Face, Bradley Cooper practically drips with charm, the bastard, and he, too, is having as much fun as he possibly can.

The standout, though, is Sharlto Copley of District 9 fame, who plays the mildly-deranged pilot Murdoch with such reckless abandon that the film brightens up everytime he’s allowed to do anything.  Patrick Wilson, as well, is superb as a too-cocky CIA Agent.  He’s unique because his character basically coasts through the movie.  Not that he’s not invested in what happens, but he has a kind of detached personality that is really fun to watch.

The movie does have problems, don’t get me wrong.  Basically every action scene goes over the top, and several sequences are edited with an almost Michael Bay level of ineptitude, not to mention that several times there is so much happening on screen with things blowing up and characters trying to talk to one another, that it is extremely difficult to make heads or tails of just what the heck is going on.  That would be a much bigger problem in a more plot-based movie, but since this is essentially a delivery vehicle for gunfights and ‘splosions, you can’t really hold a few overly hectic sequences against them.

One peculiar issue I took with the movie lies with the character of B.A. Baracus.  While I appreciate that “Rampage” wasn’t just doing a Mr. T impression the whole time, I still am left wondering if it was that important to mimic his hairstyle that much.  A mohawk, sure, but did he really need the funky facial hair, too?  He’s supposed to be this bad ass (hence the initials), but he just looks silly.

So, what then?  Well, what we have is a movie that manages to all at once be bad, good, fun, exciting, stupid, and awesome.  And really, what else were you expecting from The A-Team?

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

I’m gonna mix things up a little bit today.  I’m going to start with my complaints about the movie, because I really only have one and it’s so trivial I’d rather just get it out of the way.  As you probably are aware, Get Him To The Greek stars Russell Brand as Aldous Snow, the frontman for fictional rock band, Infant Sorrow.  My one big issue lies in the fact that the filmmakers have no idea what kind of band Infant Sorrow is supposed to be.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall they were posited as a slightly edgier U2, and that continues into GHTTG in the form of bloated, misguided anthem, African Child, but then they get to the Today Show and they play a different song (called The Clap, which, whatever) and sudddenly they’re The Buzzcocks.  Then later, once they (spoiler) get to the Greek, they turn into My Chemical Romance.  Does this ruin the movie?  Not at all, but I found it distracting enough to warrant a mention.  It is my blog, after all.

Musical inconsistencies aside, Get Him To The Greek is actually an enjoyable (if inconsequential) followup to Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  Outside of a quick appearance from Sarah Marshall herself (who is still stuck doing ridiculous television), Aldous Snow is the only returning character, and he’s back in fine form.  Rather than being the holier-than-thou lothario that he was in FSM, now he’s a re-debauched lothario, but with a backstory that brings it into focus; whether or not that was necessary, I’ll leave up to you.  All I know is, Russell Brand was clearly having a ball revisiting this character (even though it seems to basically just be the way he naturally is).

Jonah Hill stars along with Brand, playing a different character than the one he played in Sarah Marshall (I thought they would make some meta joke about that, but no dice).  He’s an intern at a record company that needs big ideas because of the poor economy (something tells me they would have needed big ideas regardless, the economy just happened to present itself as a viable excuse).  Hill suggests posing a comeback for Snow who’s been rather unheard-from since the disastrous African Child.  Record executive Sergio (Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, which is quite fun to type) loves the idea and sends Hill to London to pick up Brand and from there it’s just a series of escalating hijinx.

None of those hijinx are terribly crucial to the plot, at least not in a way that they couldn’t be swapped out for something else.  Just like how The Hangover can be boiled down to “Guys lose groom, must find him,” Greek boils down to “Hill and Brand must get to LA, Brand makes things tricky.”  There is an attempt at pathos and a redemption for Snow, which is necessary to ground the story a little bit, and fortunately it doesn’t get in the way of what we came for, the shenanigans (also fun to type).

The movie has a happy ending (shocker) and despite being 109 minutes long, it has the sense to keep moving, and as such it breezes by effortlessly.  There’s nothing terribly surprising about  Get Him To The Greek, but that doesn’t stop it from being some nice, frothy entertainment.  If you enjoyed Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you’ll probably enjoy him here as well.

P.S. The soundtrack is pretty awesome, too.

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

It’s shocking to me that for how much time I’ve devoted to watching television, I am so far behind on so many shows.  Most of it boils down to me not having had the resources (i.e. cable, internet) when these shows began, coupled with an aversion to starting in the middle.  But this past season I took a chance on some new programs, pretty much all of which have yielded positive results.

Modern Family quickly proved itself to be a unique kind of sitcom.  It has a certain freshness, while still utilizing a well-worn formula.  It has a wholesome, lived-in quality that keeps the show grounded, even when they veer off into some bizarre territory.  The episode Fizbo is the best example of this (and probably the best episode of the season) in that, ostensibly, it’s about a kid’s birthday party, but the wackiness present is unlike anything you’re likely to see anywhere else.

One of my (and many other’s) favorite new shows is Glee.  A musical television show is an interesting idea, albeit one without a history of success (hello Cop Rock), but this show managed to successfully strike the right tone between satire and sentimentality.  It was a little shaky at the beginning when it didn’t quite know if the musical numbers were real, fantasy, or both, but once that was resolved, Glee became one of the most reliably entertaining hours of television all year (although Home was a really boring episode, despite Kristen Chenoweth).

NBC added a new sitcom to its Thursday night lineup this year, and it’s called Community, and it’s brilliant.  Everything about this show is top-notch (despite what my mom says).  The cast plays well off each other (and it might be the only show where anybody can pair off with anybody else and there will be great chemistry), the writing is genius (seriously, Abed is one of the funniest characters on television right now), and the tone is wholly original.  I don’t know of any other shows that can be snarky, meta, and heartfelt all within the course of a single episode.

Cable saw the premieres of several new shows as well.  Archer debuted on FX in January, and while it is definitely not for everybody, it is one of the most pants-wettingly hilarious programs in recent memory.  It’s an animated show about the mundanities of office life at a second-rate spy agency with a definite Adult Swim mentality.  H. Jon Benjamin voices the title character, and he plays it perfectly (and it doesn’t hurt that he has one of the best voices ever).  Also providing voices are Judy Greer, Chris Parnell, and Jessica Walters.  It’s been picked up for a second season so here’s hoping it can maintain an audience and be around for awhile.

Also on the animated front, Comedy Central finally found a good show to run after South Park.  Ugly Americans is a show about New York, but not the one you’re familiar with.  This one is populated by werewolves, giant apes, vampires, and several other random freaks of nature.  It centers on Mark (who is a human), a social worker who helps these ‘others’ acclimate to normal life.  His girlfriend is a demon, his roommate is a zombie, and his coworker is a wizard.  This is a show that easily could have been terrible, but it envokes a matter-of-factness in response to all of the strangeness which enables the visuals to be funny on their own.

Historically I have not been one to watch dramatic television on its first airing (which is another reason I’m so far behind) instead opting for more comedic fare, but I was too fed up with that behavior and too intrigued by Justified to pass it up.  And boy am I glad I didn’t.  Justified just might be my favorite show right now.  Nevermind that Timothy Olyphant is one of the most reliable actors working today, the show has so much else going for it.  The dialogue crackles, the plots have unfolded beautifully, and it has a certain no-nonsense additude that keeps it 15 degrees off normal.  Last night, for instance, had a small moment that serves as a perfect example of why I love this show so much, when confronted with the fact that he slept with his ex-wife by his pseudo-girlfriend, Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) doesn’t concoct some excuse or try to lie his way out, he just deflates slightly and mutters the s-word.  It’s little things like that that make this show unusual in the best possible way.  Season finale next week, and it looks really good!

In the world of already established shows, How I Met Your Mother rebounded from a less-than-stellar-although-not-that-bad fourth season with some serious forward momentum that petered out slightly in the back 9, but still made for another great season of one of the best shows on TV.  The Big Bang Theory spun its wheels a little bit in trying to figure out how to make Penny and Leonard work as a couple.  Sheldon remains a great character, but some cracks are starting to show (they really need to figure out a way for Raj to talk to women, I suggest having him come out of the closet, although I don’t think Chuck Lorre could handle that with class).

Scrubs came to an end after an unneccesary spinoff that nobody really thought would be a good idea.  If nothing else, at least they more or less embraced it as season 1 of a new show and not season 9 of Scrubs so as not to diminish the heart-wrenching finale from last year.  In other not surprising news, Better Off Ted was also cancelled after failing to find an audience.  Despite being sharply-written and hilarious, at the end of the day it was born to be a cult show and that is what it was.  It should do well on DVD.

As mentioned there are a lot of shows I don’t watch so I can’t comment on the likes of The Office, 30 Rock, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Lost, or countless others, but I will make an effort to rectify that soon.  The season’s not quite over, and although new shows have fared better than older ones, that won’t stop me from saying that this has been a phenomenal year on the small screen.

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture