Alice is a 1988 Czech film, done with a combination of a single girl actress and stop motion animation. Although loved by artsy fartsy folks, I have to stand against my people for this one. I hated it.
I’ve always loved the Alice in Wonderland theme, but this one falls short. It’s more like Alice in the ghetto. The whole movie is grimy. The place needs a bath, the sets look like they’re straight from a concentration camp, and there was nothing magical about the movie.
Credit does to to Kristyna Kohoutova though, for she did a fine performance as Alice. She was the only live person in the movie surrounded by stop motion animation and filthy sets. She carried herself believably, but the rest was like a really cheap imitation dream.
Ok, I know the Czechs were poor in ‘88. I’m aware of that, and should I guess cut them some slack. But not everything had to be covered in a layer of grime. We got the point.
I didn’t even mind the close up of the mouth that constantly said “and Alice thought,” “and Alice said,” “and the white rabbit exclaimed.” You got used to it. It was annoying at first.
Another plus, when the queen said “off with their heads,” they really got decapitated. And lovely twist at the end.
Besides being dirty, the movie never left the house. Surely in the beautiful Czechoslovakia (in case you don’t know your history, in ‘88, they were still together as one nation) they could have found somewhere to film Alice. It’s a big country, with beautiful parts and a medieval backdrop. Perfect for an Alice in Wonderland film. Instead, the film will leave you feeling claustrophobic. Get out of the house and explore, Svankmajer.
If you’re a wannabe pretentious critic, see it just to see it. You can one up your wannabe competition. Just, don’t get your hopes up. I won’t be seeing it again. It took me 3 days to suffer through it the first (and last) time. 3 dead zombies. 
I’ve had almost two weeks now to test the Epiphone Tony Iommi Signature G-400 electric guitar and I have mixed results.
Positives: The neck is wonderful. It’s a little thick for my taste, for after a few hours one’s hands tend to go numb, especially when doing a lot of rhythm playing. However, it’s very smooth for leads and I find myself doing less mistakes at 20+ notes per second than I was doing on my Ibanez.
The fretboard looks cool, with crosses at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 12th frets. I would have preferred ones at the 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st, and 24th as well, but I’d take the crosses regardless. They just look cool.
The sustain is a dream come true. Nothing like being able to hold a bend for what seems like forever without having to resort to a sustain pedal.
Negatives: Why in the world is the treble/rhythm switch down there where the volume knobs should be? It should be more like a Gibson Les Paul, making it easier to switch from rhythm to lead and back. The other thing is, because of the placement of the volume knobs, volume swells are out of the question. If you don’t do volume swells, well, then you won’t mind. But if you do, you’re S.O.L.
I don’t like the bridge humbucker’s rhythm sound. It’s too muddy. Grunge is dead and it needs to stay dead. Plus, there is no whammy bar. Gotta have a whammy bar. That’s the one thing that keeps me from investing in a Gibson Les Paul.
Overall: For the price, it’s a pretty fine guitar. With a graphic equalizer or something else to adjust the tone, you can compensate for the bridge pickup’s muddiness. If it only had a whammy bar, I’d consider it. But for me, it’s simply not the guitar I want to record with. Would make a good guitar for a punk rocker though. If I wanted to seriously consider this guitar, I’d have to swap out the bridge pickups.
6 dead zombies 
Ξ February 23rd, 2008 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Pedals |
I just picked up the Dunlop Cry Baby. Let me just tell you it’s an excellent pedal.
I’ve had a Morley Fuzz Wah/Volume before which unfortunately, they don’t make any more. I’d actually take the Morley Fuzz Wah Volume over the Dunlop Cry Baby. With the Morley, the Wah is more pronounced. The Dunlop is slightly more subdued.
The other thing with the Dunlop is there’s no way to turn it off. If you’re playing live, you’ll hear the noise it produces when you’re not playing. The only way around it is to route around the pedal with a switch, which is something you probably don’t want to do if you have a limited budget.
Strengths - it is a well-made pedal. Even though I’ve only had it for a week, I know my pedals and know that this will last me for years. It’s built of metal, and when the zombie plague comes, if you run out of bullets, you can smash a zombie’s brains out with your Dunlop Cry Baby.
Even though I mention the sound is more subdued than the Morley’s, it’s a rich sound. You really can get your guitar to cry with this pedal.
Overall - I thought the price was a misprint. It’s considerably cheaper than most other Wah pedals out there, yet the construction and sound are quite good. If you don’t mind buying used pedals, I’d suggest looking for a Morley Fuzz Wah, but if you absolutely have to have a new pedal, go ahead and grab the Dunlop. 7 dead zombies out of 10 
Ξ December 22nd, 2007 | → 13 Comments | ∇ Film |
Luck. Luck determines a lot in life. With any plague, there will be those who will have immunity to it, and those who don’t. The Native Americans who perished from smallpox were in better physical shape and had better diets than the Europeans who carried it over from the Old World. It’s just luck.
Wannabe pretentious critics can dismiss Will Smith’s Robert Neville character as the last survivor of an apocalyptic disease, who just happens to be a genius, a top scientist, and a military tough guy, but let’s just say it was luck and watch the movie. Or at least the movie hints that it was luck. I don’t see it as an implausible plot hole. There were other people immune to the virus. They just got eaten.
Francis Lawrence directs the 1954 novel I Am Legend, with a few modern day plot changes. This time around, a scientist “cures” cancer by using a genetically mutated virus. Good intentions. Bad results.
So Robert Neville and his dog Sam are the last survivors on Earth. By day, Neville and Sam are safe. By night, the monsters, half-zombie, half-vampire, come out with a super human fury, looking to feast on everything living.
Lawrence does a great job in portraying Neville’s loneliness. He talks to mannequins. He talks to Sam like Sam’s a human. And he watches a lot of t.v.
Neville’s also a classic “good guy.” Despite everything that has gone wrong, he still has hope that he can find a cure. One dimensional? Not at all. Smith does a fine job in fleshing out his Neville character.
Lawrence throws in his scares. I saw several people in the theater jump when Sam ran into a dark subway tunnel and Neville had to retrieve his only friend, knowing that they were there.
A great film? No. It doesn’t do enough to differentiate between the scores of other apocalyptic, other than knowing the virus was caused with good intentions. It did have an underlying point that we were too quick to play God. Or maybe I read that into it.
Smith does a fine job as Neville. Smith has matured into a decent actor, and once again, his son was casted as his son. But I think there was a slip in the film when they showed Neville had a daughter instead of a son. If anyone else caught that, by all means, let me know.
Is it worth seeing? Sure. But don’t expect to see something great because it’s just another Hollywood blockbuster that will generate big money, let you talk about it for a week, then forget it by the end of the year. 6 dead zombies for entertaining me for two hours.
Ξ December 9th, 2007 | → 8 Comments | ∇ Film |
Based off the children’s book Northern Lights, the Golden Compass was a film about an orphan girl named Lyra and her fantastic adventures. The Catholic League called this film offensive and called for a boycott. Although the book is supposedly anti-religion (I never read it), the movie itself isn’t that offensive, as the “bad guys” are a monolithic power hungry government body called the Magisterium.
In this parallel universe, humans stand side by side with their souls, which take animal form. Children’s souls, called daemons in the film, change shape for children still haven’t figured out who they really are yet. With adults however, their daemons remain one animal. A death to either is a death to both, and causing pain to one affects both.
Lyra is given a golden compass, which always tells the truth. The Magisterium was supposed to confiscate them all, but apparently she got a hold of one and only a select few people in the world, including her, can actually read the thing.
The Magisterium wants to dominate all thought, and suppress people’s concepts of magical “dust,” which I guess we’ll learn in the second film the relevance of. The movie ended prematurely without solving much. Usually with an obvious sequel, you at least have some resolution, but this one left it wide open. And yes, it’s a bad thing and dead zombies will be docked.
The other criticism I have of it is the flow. It flowed okay, but in some parts was rather choppy. There were too many main characters and only a few of them got developed, but of course, even those were one dimensional.
The special effects were quite good, but effects don’t impress me. Only dialog and good storytelling do. Both were mediocre at best.
I really wanted to like this film, for it’s a fantasy, but as usually happens in a fantasy film, too much is spent on awing the audience with neat-o special effects. That doesn’t fly to a pretentious critic. You must also have dialog, a storyline, and character development. Lyra, the evil Marisa Coulter, and everyone else were one dimensional and predictable. A few years from now, I’ll completely forget seeing this movie, as I have almost forgotten about the fantasy movie Eragon.
4 dead zombies 
Ξ December 5th, 2007 | → 19 Comments | ∇ Film |
OK. This post is for movie buffs.
These are my top ten memorable scenes. These scenes went deep into my psyche for some reason or another and stayed there.
01. Dr. Strangelove - Major Kong rides the nuclear bomb like a rodeo cowboy. One of the more surreal moments in film history.
02. The City of Lost Children - “The Octopus,” two evil Siamese twins, are smoking. One inhales the smoke and the other exhales it. If you saw it, very bizarre and almost spooky, as was the entire movie. Terry Gilliam loved this flick, and yours truly’s a big fan of Gilliam, as you probably already know.
03. Mulholland Drive - David Lynch has a way of getting deep inside my psyche. I don’t know if it’s just me, but of all the scary movies I’ve seen, besides Ju-on 2, I find Lynch movies the scariest. I watched this one in the theatre and the dumpster scene made my heart skip a beat.
04. Lost Highway - David Lynch again. Fred Madison is in bed with his wife explaining a recurring nightmare. He says in the nightmare, he’s in bed with his wife and it’s her, but it’s not her. Suddenly, he looks over at her and it’s not her. If you saw the movie, you’ll remember what I’m referring to.
05. Pulp Fiction - Tarantino’s best moment by far. I don’t care what wannabe pretentious film buffs say. This movie’s head and shoulders above Resevoir Dogs. The fact that that dumb movie Forrest Gump won best picture above Pulp Fiction made me lose all respect for the morons who decide who gets Academy Awards. Anyways, I digress. Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace made one of the cutest screen couples ever, and I’ll never forget “Don’t be a Square.”
06. The Producers - “Your hats. Your jackets. Your swastikas.” I saw both versions and enjoyed the musical even more than the original. And I absolutely loathe musicals, so that’s really saying something. I laughed harder at that scene than any other in that movie.
07. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - The three-way shoot out. The best scene of perhaps the greatest American Western ever (even though it was an Italian movie shot in Spain).
08. Clerks - I don’t ever think I’ve laughed so hard in a movie when Dante and Randall are arguing about the morality of blowing up the Death Star, for there were every day workers on it. Imagine, you have to feed your family so you get offered a job on the Death Star to work on the plumbing. Do you deserve to die? The way they answer that question is classic.
09. Once Were Warriors - Grace’s suicide. Yeah, movie suicides are often melodramatic and almost stupid, but this one hit me.
10. Blue Velvet - David Lynch is not my favorite director. He’s just the guy who gets inside my psyche. I love Isabella Rosselini, but the scene I remember the most from this movie was without her. It was when Ben sings Roy Orbison and Frank listens, going from melancholy to rage halfway through the song.
Any film scene buried deep inside your psyche that pops out every now and then but you’ll remember it until the day you die? These are ten of mine.
Ξ November 24th, 2007 | → 8 Comments | ∇ Film |
Fellow pretentious critic Badman and I have a saying that you’ll either love or loathe a good movie. If you just say “eh, it was okay,” it’s not a good movie.
I saw this one in the theatre and the kids next to us cheered during parts, and a pair of hypersensitive yuppie “men” in back of us got all butt hurt and offended by it. That’s a good sign for Frank Darabont.
Stephen King is a storyteller. Darabont does his best to mimic King’s storytelling ability, focusing mainly on his head character, artist David Drayton. Following a nasty storm, Drayton takes his son and his asshole lawyer neighbor into town, leaving behind his wife.
They soon get stranded in a supermarket, learning that those who venture into the mist die horrible deaths. One by one, the survivors get plucked off by the things in the mist, and sometimes they die at faster rates when someone has the bright idea they can make it out there as a group.
Darabont’s characters are one dimensional and predictable. I was able to guess their time of deaths and even method of death more times than not. However, like I said, King is a storyteller and despite the lack of character depth, the story keeps the viewer wondering if Drayton and his son will survive.
Throw in a schizophrenic wannabe Biblical prophet, military experiments gone wrong, a state shooting champion, and a neat assortment of oversized bugs, the Mist is a fun movie. The ending has a nice twist that I won’t give away, but the moral of the story is clear. The twist alone makes the movie worth watching. 7 dead zombies for a fun to watch horror/thriller.
Ξ November 15th, 2007 | → 11 Comments | ∇ Music |
As you may already know, H.I.M. is one of my favorite bands. I got their newest CD Venus Doom the weekend it hit the stores, own all their CDs,
but missed seeing them at the Projeck: Revolution show. Luckily, the second time around this tour in San Francisco, I got a chance to see them with fellow pretentious critic Kate and two other beautiful friends of mine from the softer gender.
Bleeding Through opened for them, and they were mostly forgettable except for their keyboardist Marta, who looks like she just put some clothes on after a Penthouse photoshoot. Wow! She could also play. But their music was nothing spectacular. Kate told me she had already seen them this year when she went with fellow pretentious critic Badman to see Marilyn Manson and Slayer.
They played a short set, then left, leaving HIM’s six or seven roadies to design a strange set - rugs and stained glass lanterns, with weird lighting fixtures. I was thinking it looked tacky until the lights went off and it actually looked pretty good.
H.I.M came on and the crowd went wild. They played mostly songs from their newer two albums, neglecting entirely Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights, my favorite H.I.M album.
As a band, they were tight and hit all the right notes, but their sound engineer needs to be fired, ASAP! He was horrible, horrible. This was my fifth concert this year, and of the major acts, H.I.M had the worst sound. As big as they are (they’re all over the charts in Europe), they should have had bigger sound. The ladies who went with me agreed, so it wasn’t just me.
The Warfield is a good venue, so that’s not an excuse. I’ve seen Judas Priest there and they were perfect.
They did play Bleed Well, my favorite song from Venus Doom. H.I.M knew how hard-core their fans were, so they played a lot of more obscure stuff, non-singles. It’s always a pleasure to see a band do that. I get sick of seeing bands play only their singles, and it’s usually their singles I get sick of first anyways.
Besides the sound, ’twas a good show. Ville Valo has a gorgeous voice and Linde played some sick leads. Gas is one heck of a drummer as well. He did things live he doesn’t do in the albums. They all have wonderful stage presence, and you could tell they liked being there.
After the show, I was in the bathroom and some guy in his 60s (probably a Warfield veteran) asked who the singer was. I told him Ville Valo from Finland. He said he had a beautiful voice and that they’ll be around for awhile. Always a good thing to hear someone you could tell who’s been to hundreds of shows say something like that.
Reviews
I watched Stardust and was disappointed. Yes, it was enjoyable. No, it wasn’t memorable. Highlights - Michelle Pfeiffer is one hot witch and Robert De Niro added a humorous element to the movie. However, Hollywood once again failed to make a memorable fantasy film. You can read my full review here.
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I bought Venus Doom by H.I.M the first weekend of its release. If you like H.I.M, you can read my full review here. 
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Badman, Kate, and a few other friends went to see The Birthday Massacre last month. The three of us bloggers wrote a review here.
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A Plane Crash 10. You survive a plane crash in some remote area. They’re looking for you, and they’ll find you within a few months. In the meantime, you only have 10 CDs to listen to. What are those 10 CDs?
Now keep in mind, these aren’t necessarily your top 10 of all-time, but rather 10 that you’d want to hear for the next month or 10. This is different from a Desert Island 10, where you have to pick 10 CDs you’ll listen to for the rest of your life. In other words, pick 10 favorites you can’t live without right now, not all-time.
01. Nightwish - Dark Passion Play
02. HIM - Venus Doom
03. Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution
04. HIM - Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights
05. The Birthday Massacre - Nothing & Nowhere
06. Beautiful Creatures - Deuce
07. Cradle of Filth - Cruelty & the Beast
08. Nightwish - Once
09. Nightwish - Century Child
10. Leaves’ Eyes - Vinland Sega
Yes, I know. Ten out of ten are Metal. I’ll make no pretense about being musically open minded. I see it more as knowing what I like.
I tagged 7 people in my last tag, so I’ll let you decide or not if you want to do this tag.
Ξ September 3rd, 2007 | → 8 Comments | ∇ Books |
The Alchemist is a novel first published in ‘88 by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. It deals with a Spanish shepherd boy who encounters a King who convinces him to leave behind a life he is comfortable with in order to seek a treasure.
The boy leaves his flock and Spain altogether, crossing into Africa without speaking a word of Arabic, gets robbed, finds a job, learns Arabic, and has many more adventures, encountering strange people from strange parts of the world like England. I won’t give away more than that of the plot.
Paulo Coelho has a clear writing style and shares his philosophy of life throughout the short novel. We learn about the differences and similarities between Christians, Muslims, and others. We learn of the brutalities of the desert and the strange ways of desert people. We also learn that if anyone tries to sell you a camel, tell that person where he can stick his camel. Buy a horse instead.
Not enough humor and too simple, I think a lot of people got a lot more out of it than I did. Still worth a few hours of your life reading. Personally, for Southern American authors, I like Isabelle Allende much better. Since this was a best-seller though, go ahead and read it just so you can have a conversation with your friend about it. 6 dead zombies.
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