You've been Rambowned!!!

"That's for shooting my boat up!"

Eastwood's J. Edgar

Movie Poster Wednesday

New Release Tuesday

It is a barren Tuesday but the one worthy release is a big one.  The late great Chuck Heston leads the way in this epic movie that set a record for Oscars at the time by winning eleven of its fourteen Academy Award nominations.  I cannot wait to check out the Chariot Race in high def.  There is no CGI here, only great movie making.  Directors spends tons of money trying to replicate big action sequences like this one but just cannot do today what they were able to do fifty years ago.  I wonder why that is?

Watching Sons of Anarchy season 4 and Dexter season 3.  SOA is fantastic and the club keeps getting in a deeper hole with a Mexican drug cartel.  I have watched Fox's new show New Girl with Zooey Deschanel.  The show is off to a good start critically and ratings wise and Deshanel is quite and very funny.

The Rangers are finishing up the season and are playing for the #2 seed to at least open the playoffs at home to take on the Rays or the Red Sox.  Bring on the Sox since they have floundered with only seven wins this month and may have given away the wild card with a ten game lead. 

Nirvana's Nevermind: 20 Years Later

I have turned this into a music blog this week.  Today is a landmark in music history when Nirvana released their second album and changed the scene of rock music.  Out were bands with leather and big perfect hair, in now was flannel and messy hair.  This trio had a unique sound that captured the youth of America and were propelled to stardom by MTV by playing 'Smells like Teen Spirit' it seemed every hour.  But I watched every time it came on and rocked it out on cassette in my light blue Chevy S-10.   Remember when when MTV played music videos?  Nevermind is regarded as one of the best rock albums of all-time and lead the way for the likes of Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots.  Good stuff, I am going to find this CD and rock out in my silver Ford F-150 today.

Rangers: Welcome Back to the Playoffs!!!

Friday Night Videos

R.E.M.- The End of an Era

The music world was shocked today by hearing that the rock-alternative group R.E.M. announced it was done as a band.  Wow.  I always liked music as a kid but in high school I took more of an appreciation of it and began to concentrate on musical artists and bands I liked and began to collect their music.  The Doors was the first to fall into this category but next in line were the boys from Athens, Georgia.  Bill Berry, Mike Mills, Peter Buck, and Michael Stipe formed in 1980 and gained early attention because of Buck's unique guitar play.  I remember 1988's Green was the first tape of theirs I purchased.  I loved "Stand", "World Leader Pretend", and 'Orange Crush".  I practically wore that tape out, I am so thankful  that CDs came around shortly after that.  Once I started buying CDs I started looking for older albums from the group at every record store I went to look at.  Remember record stores?  I did not have the internet to look up albums to see what I was looking for so every time I found something new I was in music heaven.  By the time I was going to college I had over 30 R.E.M. studio, import, and bootleg CDs in the collection and I love them all.

Their early days were under the IRS Record label and under them the band received more college and underground play time then mainstream radio stations but in 1985 the band's fourth album' Life's Rich Pageant' had some singles that started to the crack the charts. The band started to have great success and eventually signed with Warner Brother Records in 1988 and started selling out arenas instead of the local pubs.  The band changed their sound up a bit and endured their most critical and commercial success with 1991's 'Out of Time' and 1992's 'Automatic for the People'.

In 1994 the band returned to their roots in a way and churned out 'Monster' and toured for the first time in a while and three of the four band members suffered injuries during the tour.  Bass Guitarist Mike Mills had stomach surgery, singer Michael Stipe hand hernia surgery, and drummer Bill Berry suffered a brain aneurysm and all missed time during the tour at some point.  I remember when they rolled thru Dallas all band members were present but Stipe practically stood in place the whole concert and I learned about why in the paper the next morning.   In 1996 the band released one of my favorite albums 'New Adventures in Hi-Fi'.  The album did not have a big hit but is loved by the critics but only sold about half of what the previous albums sold.  The next year drummer Bill Berry decided to leave the band for health reasons as long as the band agreed not to disband just because of his departure.  The now trio agreed and carried on and the band's somewhat slide down began.

The band began preparations for the 1998 album 'Up' and could not get things going with all the drummers they were auditioning and some say came pretty close to ending the band then.  Cooler heads prevailed and some drummers were found and the album was released and it could be considered their worst release.  The band rebounded about the very next year and tried something different by doing the score for the Andy Kaufman biopic 'Man on the Moon' and the single 'The Great Beyond' was a hit.  I always thought they were robbed at Golden Globe and Oscar time, it is a fantastic song.

 

In 2001 the Band released 'Reveal' and it contained the hit 'Imitation of Life' and in 2003 Warner Brothers released their greatest hits of 1988-2003 and had the new singles 'Animal' and Bad Day'.  In 2006 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and released their first official live album, 'R.E.M. Live'.  Their best album of the decade 'Accelerate' came out in 2008 and was their best selling one in quite some time.  I cannot name any singles form the album but as a whole it plays great and really sounds like the old stuff and plays at a quick sixty something minutes.  

I read over the years that Mills and Buck had their own side bands and the group always hosted festivals in Athens, Georgia the bands hometown.  I was not shocked but sad when I read this yesterday on the bands fan page on Facebook: R.E.M announced that they officially conclude their career as R.E.M and call it quits after 31 years. "It was the right thing to do, we hope our fans never die and listen to us forever and they understand." Michael said "Things don't last forever, it was a hard decision to make for us but it just was the right thing to do."  Bravo gentlemen and I will listen to you forever.

From 'Losing My Religion':

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought I saw you try

But that was just a dream

Try, cry, why try

That was just a dream

Just a dream

Just a dream, dream

Movie Poster Wednesday

New Release Tuesday

One of the surprise hits of the summer bows to blu ray today.  SNL alum Kristen Wiig stars and co-wrote this Hangover kinda be for women.  Wiig stars as a woman with a bad job and a bad relationship and her longtime best friend is getting married.  Her financial situation causes her to make her way thru all the functions leading to the wedding the best she can and she meets Mr. Right along the way.  Melissa McCarthy steals the show in the ladies gross out movie.  Recommended, give it a spin.

Watching Sons of Anarchy season 4 and Dexter season 4 right now.  Network TV looks bad again this year but I will give Fox's New Girl a watch tonight before SAMCRO.

The Rangers have a five game lead with nine left to play and look to hold off the Anaheim Los Angeles Angels.  Starting pitching, the offense, and the team's health is all looking good for the playoffs.

New Release Friday

The ultimate blu ray set finally comes out and it is not without controversy.  George Lucas has once again tinkered with his films and this has upset quite a few fans.  I  really don't care if there are new changes or not, some are kind of cool but what  I don't care for is that Lucas does not make the original cuts available.  He has even went as far as saying the original prints do not exist anymore but I find that hard to believe.  I am sure there are plenty of private collectors that would lend or sale their film prints for a proper high def remaster.  Any way the jewel of this set is the deleted scenes from the original trilogy and they look pretty cool.  So Lucas has squeezed more money out of me.  From my calculations I have bought 2 VHS sets, a laser disc set, the DVD set, and now this set.  And when the original trilogy unaltered comes out, and it will one of these days, I will but that too.  Give it a spin and may the force be with you.

 

Chuck is Expendable

Sly just keeps adding to the Expendables 2 cast as it was announced that Chuck Norris has signed on for this action sequel.  It was also confirmed that Jon-Claude Van Damme will be in and Sly said that he and the Muscles from Brussels will be facing off.  Filming begins next month in Bulgaria, China, and New Orleans.

New Release Tuesday

My favorite movie of the summer is now out.  Aussie Chris Hemsworth stars as the title character in this great comic book movie from director Kenneth Brannaugh.  It has been a difficult job bringing this God from another world to Earth but Brannaugh pulls it off well with just the right balance of action and a little humor.  Nice supporting actors in Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Marvel regular Ray Stevenson, and the always incredible Rene Russo.  Grab your hammer.

Universal has finally righted a wrong and has released a a proper edition of this horror classic sequel and word is the picture quality is good and there are some nice special features here too.  Michael Myers picks up where he left off in the original and continues to terrorize Haddonfield and chase Jamie Lee Curtis from a reason revealed here.  Director John Carpenter gave up directorial duties on this but produced, co-wrote, and did the music here.  Word has always been the studio was not quite satisfied with the final product so Carpenter went out and did some additional shots to make the movie more scary and gory.  Special features include deleted scenes, the TV version alternative ending (the one I grew up with), and the movie Terror in the Aisles which was a set of horror clips hosted by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen.

Arnold and Bruce are Expendable Again!

It came down this week that Arnold and Bruce have signed on for the Expendables 2 and will have more substantial roles than the cameos in the last pic.  Sly just wrapped Bullet to the Head and will commence to filming the Expendables sequel in October.  Locations for the sequel so far are New Orleans and China.  Sly lost some weight for the Bullet role but has been spotted in the gym bulking up for this all star blockbuster sequel.  The Expendables 2 is due in theaters August 2012.

John Carpenter's The Ward

I'm a huge John Carpenter fan.  This guy had a run of great movies from 1976's Assault on Precinct 13 to 1988's They Live like no other director.  He has not done anything since 2001's Ghost of Mars which was like a remake of Escape from New York, Assault, and The Thing all wrapped in one movie.  So I was quite excited he was getting behind the camera again with The Ward.  This movie has been waiting for a distributor for a little while, never a good sign especially when you have a known director behind it.  So it was finally picked up and got the dreaded straight to video release.  Now don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against DTV's, there are plenty of good movies that come out that way but seeing one of your favorite directors getting that treatment is a bit disheartening.  So I get this on release day, pop it in and I like the nice, John Carpenter like black screen and white letter credits but after that I could not tell who directed this.  A very bland story of some young women in a Psychiatric Hospital which is haunted by a ghost.  A real disappointment with no signature of Carpenter any where on the film.  Carpenter traditionally does his own music but skipped out on that for this as well.  Carpenter has no new projects on the horizon so maybe he will just stick to cashing checks for all the remakes from his old movies but I hope he makes a return to form soon.


 

Friday Night Videos- 2011's The Thing

New Release Friday

One of the summer's best movies come out on the rare Friday release.  Fox keeps the series going with this prequel on how the X-men got their start.  A really nice cast with Kevin Bacon leading the way as the baddie in this big summer comic movie.  Dr. X and Magneto come together to lead the X-Men against other mutants who are trying to start World War 3 via the Cuban missile crisis.  This flick has great action sequences and some nice cameos and looks to continue some other adventures in the future.  Nice job by director Matthew Vaughn{Kick Ass) on this.

The Force makes its Blu debut next Friday.

Grumpy Old Tough Guys

Rocky III - Go for it!

I love these new posters people come up with.

From India with Love

It was announced this week that Bond 23 will be filming in India.  007 has not filmed there since Roger Moore's Octopussy in 1983.  Negotiations have going on for awhile but India was against letting producers do an elaborate stunt using their train system but finally caved in and word is Daniel Craig has been asked to be a ‘brand ambassador’ for the Indian train company in return.  Bond 23 is scheduled for release in November 2012.

New Release Tuesday

This movie makes its blu ray debut and it is a new director's cut from one of my favorite directors Guillermo del Toro.  This movie has been out of print for awhile so it has been quite some time since I have seen this but I remember a scientist makes a breed of bug to destroy roaches but things change and it wants to destroy people instead.  A very nice little horror flick.

Also making its blu debut today is this classic.  Al Pacino plays Tony Montana a Cuban refugee who gets to Miami via the Banana boat.  Tony works his way thru the ranks and builds a drug empire.  "Come and say hello to my little friend!"

Watching Dexter season 3 and and Sons of Anarchy season 4 starts tonight.

Rambo goes to Mexico

Cerveza!  Nowo!!!