Sunday, 22 July 2012

The Dark Knight Rises Review



With the amount of hype going into Christopher Nolan's final Batman movie, it's easy to loose yourself or easy to think that there's absolutely no way the film can live up to expectation and that the benchmark has been set too high.

You also have to consider that, with The Dark Knight Rises being the third and final piece of a trilogy and that in many instances; it all goes to pot. Heck, as mentioned in the Toy Story 3 review; film trilogies very rarely work, that the time is prime for unusual plot developments, recycling previous themes and failing to increase the escalation of the film's before it.

Thursday, 19 July 2012

Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE Review



There was something intensely annoying regarding Frank Ocean’s mixtape nostalgia, ULTRA. The obvious answer was the pretty cheap move of Ocean simply singing over well established songs with lyrics that either didn’t suit them or the fact that singing over something like Hotel California without it being, you know, Hotel California was, well…annoying to the senses.

Needless to say, these instances are absent on Ocean’s channel ORANGE (complete with more stylised lower case-CAPS LOCK lettering) and the album is the perfect showcase of Ocean’s large repertoire of talents.

Friday, 13 July 2012

The View - Cheeky for a Reason Review



Oh, lad’s rock, you had such promise! Yet all you’ve done is throw bands atop the never decreasing pile on the Indie Landfill after the initial big bang.

Sunday, 8 July 2012

Second Opinion - The Amazing Spider-Man



What works with The Amazing Spider-Man (henceforth TASM) is Webb finally offers a more plausible and enticing film that asks the question of just why exactly such an introverted and socially awkward character like Peter Parker; chooses to go down the path to become a superhero like Spider-Man?

Thursday, 5 July 2012

The Amazing Spider-Man - Review




I wasn't really looking toward to this movie, something didn't quite click with me during the build up, maybe it's the very widespread opinion that’s it's too soon for a reboot?? Quite possibly. But with the new franchise brings a new story, I’ve read far too many comic books to poo-poo this movie so I saw it and golly did I enjoy it!

Prometheus - Review





Prometheus promised a hell of a lot just simply with its existence, a prequel to Alien? That’s big stuff especially with Ridley Scott at the helm. As much as Scott tried to convince us otherwise in the build up there is no way this film is not a prequel, there’s just far too much content that links it to Alien, some of it works and some of it falls short.

A few words on…. Chronicle



I noticed the other day that Chronicle has been release on DVD/Blu Ray and I remembered how much hype I had for that film before it was released and how bloody impressed I was after seeing it!

A few words on…. Men in Black 3



The third film in a franchise, only so few have been decent, is Men in Black 3 any good or is it another cash in from the now creative-less world that is Hollywood now?

Sunday, 1 July 2012

Linkin Park - Living Things Review



I hate the term "Guilty Pleasure" simply because of the implication that liking a certain something will ruin your social status, turn your friends into enemies or give you a one-to-one with a Consultant Psychiatrist who's willing to bring back the lobotomy, just for you.

On the plus side, the term is more than appropriate for anyone over the age of fourteen who listens to Linkin Park. Oh sure, you may look in shock that the Nu-Metal trendsetters of a decade gone are still rolling, but alas, they are.

They even had a bit of controversy with their fourth album A Thousand Suns. Well, controversy in the sense that daring to depart from the formula that had worked well for their first two near-identical albums and their stupidly successful, courtesy of Michael Bay third.

It was more electronically influenced, it was a concept album that made individual track plays almost useless, it utilised far more sampling and...well, that's about it. Credit has to be given that, despite the album being far, far too long and doing the whole "goin' electronic" thing a good decade after Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins and more did and using lyrics and themes that Public Enemy have been treading for thirty years, it was a fresh direction for the band and resulted that was overall; pretty good.