http://www.timbalandmusic.com - $$
Review by - Angelica LeMinh
Dear dope producers, please do us a favour and JUST PRODUCE. Somebody had to say it, and lest I date myself here like a little old lady remember the days when teenagers held doors open for us, does anyone remember Puffy and Jermaine Dupri back when they didn’t scream their own names over everyone else’s tracks, date Janet Jackson, or design clothes/run marathons?!
http://www.gettingoutourdreams.com - $$$
Review by - Nin
After having secured both critical plaudits and street cred via the customary underground avenues, it appears as though Queens stalwart Consequence has finally managed to cobble together a full-length release. Indeed, one might cry foul about the inclusion of certain well-flogged standards- “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly” is resuscitated here after having made the mixtape rounds while “Grammy Family” and “Uptown” round out the host of phantasms given a new lease of life on this platter. I’m not entirely sure what prompted this puzzling decision, as the record has a hearty enough running time without such inclusions.
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
So, here we are with the new and (hopefully) weekly Nitpicker! I know I promised that I’d post on Friday or Monday; but I write this thing on my free time at work, and since I didn’t work on Friday, and Sunday was quite busy, it ended up being today, just in time for new comics! As I said last week, I’m going to start posting weekly, with fewer nits, to have a more active schedule.
Each week I’ll have at least 10 nits, and if I can’t find that many in that week’s comics, I’ll use my vast backlog reserve to get to that amount. This week, for example, we have more, just with this week’s comics we got up to 17 nits (thanks to Superman/Batman and Star Trek: Klingons: Blood Will Tell that contributed with ten of them).
While not a nit, this is not totally off-topic, so I thought I’d mention it. Am I the only one who finds funny that MAD Magazine rewards readers whose letters are published in the magazine with a set of notebooks featuring “The Art Of Vintage Marvel”; when MAD is published by DC Comics? Whatever, let’s get on with this week’s nits!
With just one round, the “face of MMA” changed.
I joked before the fight with the crew of fighters and friends that I sat at a sports bar with that Chuck was going to lose because he had been on the cover of ESPN the Magazine. Everyone else at the table agreed that Rampage was going to win it, people more knowledgeable than I. The only Liddell stalwart, besides the rest of the crowd at the bar that had never heard of Quinton Jackson, was a college wrestler who had just lost $20 betting against Karo Parisyan and was now lamenting that Chuck was going to lose because he had bet on him.
www.masslinemedia.com - $$$(1/2)
Review by Nin
If one were to assess the value of rap by taking stock of its cosmetic demerits, it would be easy to dismiss it as a creatively stagnant medium for self-aggrandizement and gangster theatrics, bereft of any enduring artistic or moral worth. It’s true that the spiritual bankruptcy of overground hip-hop has never been more grave, a grievous state of affairs exacerbated by continued corporate exploitation and widespread artistic irresponsibility.
http://www.stylesp.ne - $$$
Review by Nin
Obdurately po-faced and uncompromisingly grim, Styles P’s unassuming demeanor has always concealed one of the most pithy yet poignant wordsmiths in the rap game. True, he has never flaunted the adroitness or lexical playfulness of Jadakiss, the precocious fluidity of Cassidy or the brazen braggadocio of Sheek, but there is scarce doubt in my mind that Styles P’s quiet, unobtrusive genius is on an entirely different plateau.
You know what I’m talking about.
And now . . . genius.
Saturday May 26 is the 100th anniversary of John Wayne’s birth. We can be sure that many pundits on the Duke Centennial, having consulted their handbooks on politically correct sound bytes about dead conservative movie stars, will repeat the accepted wisdom that his disturbing (and uneven) performance in John Ford’s The Searchers is his greatest moment, precisely because it is so out-of-character with his usual persona.
Well, I say nuts to that. The John Wayne persona loved by millions was a virile, dependable action hero who was hard on the bad guy and kind to abandoned women, kidnapped children, gimpy old men and stray dogs. And take all that hype about John Ford in small amounts, too: Raoul Walsh gave John Wayne his first break, ten years before Ford deigned to cast him in a movie, while no one did more to bring out his best side than the great Howard Hawks:
Rio Bravo (1959)
running time: 2 hr., 21 m. / original studio: Warner Brothers
directed & produced by Howard Hawks; screenplay by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, from story by B.H. McCampbell; director of photography, Russell Harlan; edited by Folmar Blangsted; music by Dimitri Tiomkin
with: John Wayne (John T. Chance), Dean Martin (Dude), Ricky Nelson (Colorado), Angie Dickinson (Feathers), Walter Brennan (Stumpy)
Like many films that are now regarded as masterworks by critics and film buffs, Rio Bravo was once considered no big deal, written off for decades as just another entertaining Howard Hawks Western. But in the last ten years or so, the stakes have gone down sufficiently for opinion-mongers to see past their own biases — against the star system, and films that are “only” meant to entertain, and particularly against Westerns — and declare Rio Bravo one of the best American films ever made. An agreeable character study with a finely tuned funny bone, it’s the quintessential Hawks movie, an ensemble piece that closely follows the director’s favorite adventure formula, and the culminating panel in a triptych on the subject of grace under pressure.
Beginning with the brilliant Only Angels Have Wings (1939), a movie about barnstorming aviators defying death and love (!) in a remote South American outpost, Hawks discovered a way to romanticize the trait that he valued most in other people, professional competence, and to turn its obstacles (any personal relationship) and problems (staying alive) into an intoxicating mixture of thrills and camaraderie. He turned around and did it again with To Have and Have Not (1944), changing the setting to the Caribbean, switching out movie stars, and adjusting the emphasis he placed on certain subplots. Though its wartime intrigue was packed with stirring human emotions, most of those emotions fell under the category of Major Fun; the ultimate effect of To Have and Have Not was that of a party attended by some of your favorite people, which you don’t really want to leave. This is not unlike the agenda of most Hollywood movies, even yet. (more…)
Why I can’t get with this movie:
#3 Reason: Keira Knightley. Not only do I think she’s a terrible actress and should take her own advice and leave Hollywood forever, but they practically made her the principal character in the movie. It starts out with a Return of the Jedi-type feel when they rescue Jack Sparrow. By the end, the movie turns into a 1600s version of Norma Rae. I thought Johnny Depp was supposed to be the start. He ends up being her tagalong instead.
#2 Reason: People move from place to place for no apparent reason. People show up on each other’s boats without explaining if they got captured or how they got there. People have ulterior motives that are poorly explained, so you don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. People with accents mumble through their lines so poorly that you can’t understand what they’re saying. People have to perform actions arbitrarily just because another character says they’re supposed to. In other words, this movie is a directionless 3-hour mess that looks like they made up as they went along. I almost expected people to start bursting through doors yelling, “Thank God You’re Here!”
#1 Reason: Chow Yun-Fat dies by the end of the third reel and misses the big sword and gun fight at the end. Of course, if you’ve seen any of Chow’s other movies, you know that he is terrible and uncoordinated at fighting with swords and guns. I mean, I would have loved this movie 1,000 times better if Chow had survived to at least get a chance to go all Crouching Tiger/Better Tomorrow on Davy Jones’ ass. Instead, he got treated like a bit player who only serves to feed the ego of Knightley’s character even more when he dies.
The only thing I liked about the movie is that we saw it at a drive-in. I think I’m going to start a campaign about supporting your local drive-in.
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
Well… I know, I usually start my posts with “well”; but… well, what am I gonna do? In this case, I was just considering the fact that I’m going to do something I said I wouldn’t do anymore. What’s that? Well, shorter posts. I like to have a big amount of nits in each column, but I’ve realized that the more time between posts, the less attention I get. Now, I know that I’ve gotten better, and that instead of posting every two months, I now post at least once a month, if not twice; but weekly is the way to go.
Not just for having a better frequency in posting, but because shorter posts make for easier reading, I guess. So what I’m gonna from now on (starting at the end of this week) is that each week, between Friday and Monday, I will post the nits I “harvested” from the books that came out on Wednesday. Not all of the books for that week, because some books I get later, but I’ll do the best I can. Each posting will have at least 10 nits, and if that week I found less than ten nits, then I’ll pad the column out with some of the older nits I have stashed away. Of course, some weeks, things can be so awful, that I find more than 10 nits; in that case, the column will have more nits.
Now, on with the nits for these past three weeks of May!
(more…)
Recently I threw down the gauntlet on behalf of Chicago baseball fans as to who would take the low road more often with the Cubs and the White Sox respectively featuring two of the game’s most volatile managers.
Right now my money is going on the White Sox. From the owner and the general manager, down to the skipper and the players, this is a team that has issues on every level.
Results from Gerweck.net.
In a word… anticlimactic.
Ric Flair defeated Carlito. The match was a solid opener, but the finish was questionable. Carlito tapped out cleanly to Flair’s figure-four leglock. Dude must really be in the doghouse if they let the old man go over him.
Bobby Lashley defeated Shane McMahon, Umaga and ECW Champion Vince McMahon in a 3-on-1 Handicap Match. This was over quickly, but Vince announced after the match that he was still champion because he wasn’t pinned. After the match, Umaga took out Lashley with the Samoan Spike. Yawn.
Why is Kane on the poster for a PPV when he’s not on the card? Anyway, regardless, you know the cast of characters: me, Birdsong who owns Hulk Hogan underoos, Eks the Southerner, and Corey the even more Southerner. How y’all doin’?
Here’s the long, drawn-out opening question: Ken Kennedy lost his Money in the Bank shot due to injury, but after they turned it over to Edge (who subsequently was given the World Championship after Undertaker’s injury), they found out that Kennedy’s injury was not so severe, and even if it was, he would have returned in plenty of time for the build to Wrestlemania 24.
So… did WWE jump the gun by switching the Money in the Bank from Kennedy to Edge or did they do the right thing to get the right guy in there?
The answers were a lot more controversial from our panel than I expected.
Today, the CW announced that Veronica Mars will not be coming back next season. This is a very sad day in my life. Veronica Mars is/was one of the best written, funniest, engrossing, intelligent hours of television out there today. This season has been different from the Veronica we know and love, but still a good Veronica, and it’s really sad to see it go out like this. I only hope they had a chance to wrap things up in some kind of a way that will be satisfactory for me. Meaning, I want some LoVe action, but who knows if that will happen!
Next Tuesday is the two hour season finale. You can find me curled on my couch sobbing like a baby from the hours of 7pm until 11pm.
Also, how did Veronica Mars get only 3 seasons when Dawson’s Creek (which I loved as a teenager, to be fair), got 5? Honestly, there’s something wrong with the world today.