I think I was a little too hard on Scorcese's latest. While I stand by my earlier comments - I do want to point out that I think most people will really like this flick. Especially if they haven't seen the original HK movie. The plot twists are surprising if you don't already know them.
Also - the acting is way better than most action/crime flicks out there today. DiCaprio is friggin great in this movie. It might be his best performance. Nicholson is a maniac in this and eats up the movie. His mere presence on screen raises the quality of the flick - he looks like a washed-up psycho - he talks like a friggin' poet - awesome. Alec Baldwin even gets in on the act with an awesome flip out scene. And Damon does a pretty creepy, reptilian performance as the mole.
The violence is pretty good too.
Originally posted on October 12, 2006 on Myspace.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
"The Departed" (2006)
Power went out tonight - so yipee an excuse to go to the movies!
I went and saw Scorcese's latest "The Departed". A lot of folks having been calling this movie his best since the 70's - better than "Goodfellas" - yadda yadda.
Well I disagree with those people. The movie is pretty good. The script is awesome and the performances seriously rock. However this movie is nowhere near the level of "Aviator", "Gangs of NY", "Goodfellas" , "Cape Fear", or "Casino" and anyone who thinks it is - well they are on crack. Also the folks who equate this movie to "Taxi Driver" and "Mean Streets" - well they make me sick.
"The Departed" has some big problems. The last 20 minutes are very weak - handled way better in the Hong Kong version. Also the editing is pretty gawd awful in enough parts to be really annoying - especially in a complex plot like this one. Also the music editing - blows. They interrupt songs just as they are beginning to kick ass! (including The Dropkick Murphy's) This technique is used about 10 times and really only lent itself to the drama once - just once - all the other times it was just jerking the audience around.
The end of this movie just let down the rest of it really. Which is ashame. I think with a better editor and a re-written ending the movie has the stuff to be one of Scorcese's best - but as it stands it is an average movie with some great performances. Oh yeah and four dialouge scenes that rule the earth. (Nicholson is god).
Take it from me, this one is a rental.
Originally posted on October 9, 2006 on Myspace.
I've come to enjoy this movie more and more over the years. However I still don't think this is the flick that should have nabbed Marty the Oscar.
I went and saw Scorcese's latest "The Departed". A lot of folks having been calling this movie his best since the 70's - better than "Goodfellas" - yadda yadda.
Well I disagree with those people. The movie is pretty good. The script is awesome and the performances seriously rock. However this movie is nowhere near the level of "Aviator", "Gangs of NY", "Goodfellas" , "Cape Fear", or "Casino" and anyone who thinks it is - well they are on crack. Also the folks who equate this movie to "Taxi Driver" and "Mean Streets" - well they make me sick.
"The Departed" has some big problems. The last 20 minutes are very weak - handled way better in the Hong Kong version. Also the editing is pretty gawd awful in enough parts to be really annoying - especially in a complex plot like this one. Also the music editing - blows. They interrupt songs just as they are beginning to kick ass! (including The Dropkick Murphy's) This technique is used about 10 times and really only lent itself to the drama once - just once - all the other times it was just jerking the audience around.
The end of this movie just let down the rest of it really. Which is ashame. I think with a better editor and a re-written ending the movie has the stuff to be one of Scorcese's best - but as it stands it is an average movie with some great performances. Oh yeah and four dialouge scenes that rule the earth. (Nicholson is god).
Take it from me, this one is a rental.
Originally posted on October 9, 2006 on Myspace.
I've come to enjoy this movie more and more over the years. However I still don't think this is the flick that should have nabbed Marty the Oscar.
"Cool Drain" by: MHD
The cool is slow blue steam settling slow motion across empty asphalt split by yellow cabs in the night. Spreading warmth from the hands of a cop touching frail iced up veins in the pale arms of her tragedy. A white line broken in places, reflecting street-lamps, looks like tracers shooting up the street. Her angle is crooked and blurred with the haze of daze on this cool effect. Wrapped up in needles broken under foot as an ambulance parts steam clouds like a ship born from glacier. Like salvation on wheels but not for her. Blue lips part with cool inspiration as her last breath mingles with steam and floats above the scrambled scene on the curb below.
She settled on this cool drain into nothing. She dies by choice.
Giving birth to nothing but a sad soul ejected by mouth and floating in spirals over the wrong side of town.
Even here the lights are beautiful.
Originally posted on October 5, 2006 on Myspace.
This poem was eventually published in Volition Magazine.
She settled on this cool drain into nothing. She dies by choice.
Giving birth to nothing but a sad soul ejected by mouth and floating in spirals over the wrong side of town.
Even here the lights are beautiful.
Originally posted on October 5, 2006 on Myspace.
This poem was eventually published in Volition Magazine.
“Hey! Sweden!” – “They’re Norwegian, Mac.”
Remember that movie John Carpenter’s The Thing? I used those quotes from it for my headline because it’s my favorite exchange in that movie and writing a review of the Norwegian band Serena-Maneesh has given me an excuse to.
A comparison to The Thing is fitting in regards to Serena-Maneesh in another way too though. In The Thing the alien was an ever-expanding, all-encompassing creature that wrapped up and absorbed any organisim it could get its tentacles on. You could say that the experience of seeing Serena-Maneesh live is exactly like that.
Their music envelopes you, crushes you, devours your soul. The main difference between being eaten by The Thing and seeing a Serena-Maneesh show is that while the first experience is awful, the second is nothing but pure bliss.
I have these old My Bloody Valentine bootlegs that might just be my favorite music posession of all time. There are about six of them and when I listen to them I think to myself, “this is how a live show is supposed to be!” On these bootlegs MBV destroy all preconception of what a live show should be. They destroy the audience with a wall of beautiful and powerful sound, they hammer so hard and long on their instruments that they go in and out of tune within the course of a song, and each song is EPIC. In short they shred like no one ever has before.
For years I’ve worshipped my MBV bootlegs and they left me with an impression of what the ‘classic’ heydey of live shoegazer was like that I never thought I would experience for myself.
That is until last night at the State Theater when I caught Serena-Maneesh (from Norway not Sweden).
Their show last night was one of the best sets of music I have ever experienced. Somehow these frail looking guys from Norway have recreated the MBV live feeling better than any other shoegazer band I have seen (and I’ve seen a bunch). But Serena-Maneesh went one better on me by playing an amazing set, that captured the spirit of my sacred MBV bootlegs, and still managed to be entirely original and true to their own identity as a band. An identity that I can see only getting bigger and better as word about their live performances spreads.
Sadly there were only about 40 (yes 40!) people there to enjoy the mind-blowing show last night. But if each one of us tells 10 people about Serena-Maneesh then maybe the next time the band flies all the way over from f-ing Norway there might be a few more of us in the crowd.
Last night was the best shoegazer show to come through DC that I have attended, probably ever. Serena-Maneesh sounded great in the State Theater’s giant, high-ceilinged room and they played for the few of us who cared enough to show up like they were playing Madison Square Garden. It was fucking awesome and I feel privileged to have been there. I can only hope they come back through the area so more folks can get a taste.
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
A comparison to The Thing is fitting in regards to Serena-Maneesh in another way too though. In The Thing the alien was an ever-expanding, all-encompassing creature that wrapped up and absorbed any organisim it could get its tentacles on. You could say that the experience of seeing Serena-Maneesh live is exactly like that.
Their music envelopes you, crushes you, devours your soul. The main difference between being eaten by The Thing and seeing a Serena-Maneesh show is that while the first experience is awful, the second is nothing but pure bliss.
I have these old My Bloody Valentine bootlegs that might just be my favorite music posession of all time. There are about six of them and when I listen to them I think to myself, “this is how a live show is supposed to be!” On these bootlegs MBV destroy all preconception of what a live show should be. They destroy the audience with a wall of beautiful and powerful sound, they hammer so hard and long on their instruments that they go in and out of tune within the course of a song, and each song is EPIC. In short they shred like no one ever has before.
For years I’ve worshipped my MBV bootlegs and they left me with an impression of what the ‘classic’ heydey of live shoegazer was like that I never thought I would experience for myself.
That is until last night at the State Theater when I caught Serena-Maneesh (from Norway not Sweden).
Their show last night was one of the best sets of music I have ever experienced. Somehow these frail looking guys from Norway have recreated the MBV live feeling better than any other shoegazer band I have seen (and I’ve seen a bunch). But Serena-Maneesh went one better on me by playing an amazing set, that captured the spirit of my sacred MBV bootlegs, and still managed to be entirely original and true to their own identity as a band. An identity that I can see only getting bigger and better as word about their live performances spreads.
Sadly there were only about 40 (yes 40!) people there to enjoy the mind-blowing show last night. But if each one of us tells 10 people about Serena-Maneesh then maybe the next time the band flies all the way over from f-ing Norway there might be a few more of us in the crowd.
Last night was the best shoegazer show to come through DC that I have attended, probably ever. Serena-Maneesh sounded great in the State Theater’s giant, high-ceilinged room and they played for the few of us who cared enough to show up like they were playing Madison Square Garden. It was fucking awesome and I feel privileged to have been there. I can only hope they come back through the area so more folks can get a taste.
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
Adjust Your Schedule Accordingly
A few changes to up coming concert line-ups some of you may want to take note of.
1. Channels will not be playing the Black Cat on Friday night with Medications and Victory at Sea due to illness. The show is still on with Mass Movement of the Moth as the replacement.
2. Alcian Blue will not be playing with Secret Shine on Monday at the Warehouse Next Door due to their breaking up. The show will go on however with A Place To Bury Strangers filling in for AB.
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
1. Channels will not be playing the Black Cat on Friday night with Medications and Victory at Sea due to illness. The show is still on with Mass Movement of the Moth as the replacement.
2. Alcian Blue will not be playing with Secret Shine on Monday at the Warehouse Next Door due to their breaking up. The show will go on however with A Place To Bury Strangers filling in for AB.
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
You Just Disappear
I received word last night that DC’s local shoegazer heroes Alcian Blue, who I have touted, rooted for, DJ-ed with, and written about on DC Metroblogs since the beginning has called it quits as a group.
Apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back came when their set was cancelled due to curfew during the anti-climactic end of the second Wall of Sound Festival.
It’s a damn shame to see this band break-up – they’ve been working at it for a lot of years – and were definitely one of DC’s finest.
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
Jake is now the mastermind behind the excellent duo Screen Vinyl Image.
Apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back came when their set was cancelled due to curfew during the anti-climactic end of the second Wall of Sound Festival.
It’s a damn shame to see this band break-up – they’ve been working at it for a lot of years – and were definitely one of DC’s finest.
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
Jake is now the mastermind behind the excellent duo Screen Vinyl Image.
4 Serious Days of F*cked Up Music
Fans of experimental electronics, tone soundscapes, and noise will be in hog heaven this long weekend as DC hosts the Sonic Circuits 2006 festival at the Warehouse Next Door.
The festival runs from Thursday to Sunday night featuring a wide range of over 30 old masters and up-n-comers in the world of out-there sound. Highlights include Matterlink, Yellow Swans, Mouthus, Mikroknytes, Phill Nyblock, Harvey Bainbridge (of Hawkwind), Yellow Swans, and Wolf Eyes
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
The festival runs from Thursday to Sunday night featuring a wide range of over 30 old masters and up-n-comers in the world of out-there sound. Highlights include Matterlink, Yellow Swans, Mouthus, Mikroknytes, Phill Nyblock, Harvey Bainbridge (of Hawkwind), Yellow Swans, and Wolf Eyes
Originally published on October 5, 2006.
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