Green Eyed Love
Maybe So, Maybe

Buy ‘A Strange Arrangement on iTunes

I guess I was late on the Brother Ali bandwagon because I didn’t really check for him until his last album “The Undisputed Truth” but this guy really brings some fire. Even when he’s kickin an unconventional style he’s still better than most. The production is heavily influenced by DJ Quik. It’s that West Coast playful funk and yet Ali sounds right at home. This track really caught me off guard. Ali’s previous records have always had positive spins on terrible situations but here you can tell he’s definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Check out his story on Wikipedia. Brother Ali is not your average emcee.Brother Ali:fresh air

I’m a fan of good ol’ fashioned ass kickin East Coast rap. Hardcore shit.. I grew up on that. Wu-Tang has long held a special place in my playlists. Every time they come out with something I’m guaranteed to listen to a least one track. After a long, long, long wait, Raekwon has finally realeased “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II” What I’ve always found funny about Raekwon releases is that his guest spots are always more of a treat than his verses. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate Rae on his own but when you have Ghostface and Method Man coming off each other like this track here… Forget it. Meth really shines on this track. If I was still reading the Source I would hope this verse got Hip Hop Quotable of the month. The patterns are just perfect and the voice…well Meth is a beast.Raekwon:house of flying daggers

Remember it’s all in the name of music and really.. It ain’t all that serious!

I must admit, when Cartoon Network launched an animated Star Wars season last year, set in the time of the Clone Wars and in between episodes 2 and 3 of the prequels, I was HIGHLY skeptical. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am beyond a Star Wars fanatical geek. When the prequels came out I barfed. They suck, plain and simple, and I that’s all I will say on the topic. With that being said, I gave season 1 of the TV series a shot, and I must say that overall I was really impressed, and highly entertained…..plus I’m 30 years old.
Now, the 1/2 hour episodes, do follow a storyline which span 2-3 episodes at a time. Some of these scenarios are light and ‘kiddy’, but others are very dark, and very adult. Not to mention out of 24 episodes, 20 are devoid entirely of Jar Jar Binks.
The first season ended on a very awesome note, and introduced us to a very sinister bounty hunter named: Cad Bane. If you are a Star Wars fan, you must rent, borrow, or buy this series tomorrow. Yes, there will be episodes within the season that will seem kind of lame, but the majority are very, very well done. The animation is SUPERB on the series, and the trailer for season two which is below, looks even more incredible.
This series is no half assed after school cartoon. The action is top notch, the show sounds amazing when heard blasting through a theater quality surround sound system, and the voice acting is solid. Here is the newest trailer for season 2, which premiers Friday Oct. 2, 8pm on Cartoon Network.

There was a time in the past when I owned a PS3, a Wii, and had a super computer capable of playing games. I even worked at a video game store when I was 20, which was one of the funnest day jobs I ever had. I was once a hard core ‘gamer’. I am known for staying up nearly 48 hours playing Final Fantasy 7 for the Playstation. However these days, I’m not so much a gamer. All of my gaming systems have been sold, my future wife despises video games, and my career is keeping me busy. However, on my downtime I have found a fun and casual online game that is worth blogging about.
Battlefield Heroes is a free online only game that is only available for PC gamers. You do not need a super computer to run it, and it looks and plays good. It’s set in a fictional WW2 like environment, and you create and customize a player. Players can choose to be on the side of The Royals (which is basically the British Army), or The Nationals (Nazis). You can pick from three classes: Gunner, Soldier, or Commando. Each class has it’s own perks and abilities. Once you have created you character, you are then able to play on servers. The object of the game is simple, yet fun and addictive. You and your team play on 1 of 4 maps, where the objective is to take various flags and control them. Each side has a 50 life cap, and once those lives are depleted, the round ends. You as a player, also earn points each round, and those points help you level up. As you level up new weapons and abilities become available, which really allows you to customize the look and play of your character. What’s great is that the game is 100% free. However, in order to get better weapons or a truly customized look, you have to pay. $20 via PayPal is enough.
The players cap their levels at 30, however it will take you quite a long time to reach this goal. On your journey there are also a lot of fun side missions that you can do, which can earn you experience and points to help you by items, which are visible on your character, and also makes you stand out from all the ‘nublets’.
The animation is great. It’s cell animated, so you feel like you are playing in a fun Disney like theme, and the violence is laughable and not intense. I think that is why I like it. It’s too easy to become highly competitive and aggravated in photo-realistic shooters like Call Of Duty. All in all, it’s a fun game, and I have researched and found a lot of the community playing are older gamers, in the late twenties and even 30’s, who seem to be drawn by the casual element. If you are a hardcore gamer, or a casual enthusiast, it’s worth a play. Here is the link to the official website:BattleField Heroes

In a summer filled with shitty popcorn flicks whose budgets could buy small countries, District 9 is a breath of fresh air. I must admit that after leaving the theater District 9 was completely different than what I portrayed it to be based on the information and trailers I had seen, but it’s not entirely all bad.
The film is very fast paced, and Neil Blomkamp does a great job of getting you hooked very early on, and then with expert editing refuses to let you get bored, let alone think. This is a film where the only emotions you will feel are: shock, anxiety and quite possibly nausea. What was most surprising to me is how action intensive D9 is. When the second trailer was released, we caught glimpses of some very cool alien weapons in action, and the feature film does not let viewers down. Before I elaborate on the action, let me discuss the films synopsis, without spoiling anything for potential viewers that may be on the fence about paying to see this movie.
The movie takes place in 2009 in Africa. Aliens arrived in a huge mothership 20 years earlier. Their ship ‘broke down’ and they were stuck inside the ship. So we ‘rescued’ them because they were literally dying of illness and disease inside their ship. This is a story about a private organization called the M.N.U. who goes into where the aliens (or Prawns as they are referred to in the film) live which is District 9, and move them outside of the city to District 10.
All I can say is things go horribly wrong, and that’s all the plot details that I will release.
This movie had a budget of roughly 40 million according to the releases, and it looks way better than almost any CG heavy film I have ever seen, including Star Trek. It is also very, very gory. I’m talking mutilations, decapitations, and flesh covered walls galore!
Everything visually about this movie is top notch, and believable. The acting is good enough, the film score is adequate however, I was wanting a film with no score like Cloverfield because of the documentary style of filming. The sound effects are amazing. The Prawns sound great and original, and their weapons sound completely bizarre and original.
The film does suffer with one major flaw in my opinion. Neil Blomkamp never commits to a true documentary style film, and I think it really disconnects and confuses the viewer. The film is constantly shifting from docu style handheld, the to overhead security cam, to 1st person videogame style cam, then to classic cinema style, and I did not like that at all.
On top of that, the ‘big but’ I mention in the title is this: we learn nothing. Walking out of the theater, I have no idea who these aliens are, why they are truly here, what their culture is like, and why the hell they didn’t just whip those weapons out in the beginning and annihilate us. Now it should be noted, that the film shows humanity hating the aliens, and treating them like cockroaches. In one scene our lead actor is shown flamethrowing a nest of baby aliens, and laughing about the sound they make while they are burning. But yet these Prawns live in pure squalor and allow us to treat them like shit, even sometimes shooting them on sight. But for whatever reason they also have mechanized fighting suits that are as big as tanks, and have a slew of weaponry, yet we don’t even see one in action until the climatic finish to the film.
Alas, I will let it slide for this film, and why you may ask? One word: sequel. There is definitely a sequel coming, and maybe even a trilogy. All in all, I praise it highly for being so fucking original in an era of reboots and remakes, and movies based off of childhood toys from the 1980’s (Ballzac movie anyone?). This movie is like nothing you have ever seen, I promise that. It is wonderfully entertaining, and will assuredly be the topic of conversations in the weeks to come. Just go see it. This is one that needs to be seen on the big screen.

The International is hands down the best espionage thriller I have seen in a long time. It is better than both Daniel Craig Bond films, and better than all three Bourne films. Why? Because it is probably not that far from the truth, and I have a strong suspicion that is why it bombed at the Box Office. The film opened in February of this year, and only grossed 25 million domestically.
The film stars Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, as agents working together to uncover a corrupt super bank who funds wars so countries can destroy themselves and their economy. The banks purpose? To create a nation crippled by debt, thus enslaving them to the system. Sound a lot like our own Federal Reserve now doesn’t it? I would also like to point out that in one scene in New York, Clive Owens character is tailing a suspected assassin, and in three shots we see the assassin walking in front of a Chase Bank, and then a fourth shot shows him passing by a Citibank. I could not however, locate any data confirming if Chase Bank actually paid for advertising in this film. Hmmm….
The film is directed, written and composed by Tom Tyker, the German director who was responsible to the very original film, Run Lola Run. He does a fantastic job of pacing the movie, and effectively kept me highly intrigued through the duration. Tyker is keeping busy, as he also helped to co-write the highly anticipated Quentin Terrantino World War II film: Inglorious Basterds, which stars Brad Pitt and is slated for an August release.
The cinematography is gorgeous in this movie. There is one scene in particular shot inside the Guggenheim which can only be described as astonishing.
This is not a movie which is fueled by hardcore action, which I think misled a lot of people, and caused disappointment. This film is a highly intelligently written, complex story of espionage and capitalism. But don’t get me wrong, when the bullets fly they will satisfy even the most die hard (pun intended) action junkie.
Naomi Watts holds her own for the most part, however I felt despite her believable American accent, her lines were delivered ‘too’ perfectly, if that makes any sense. In other words, they sounded forced.
That is my only complaint about the film. Well that and the fact that this movie did not get a better release date, and that it bombed, and that hardly anyone gave it a good rating.
This is nearly a perfect film. I highly, highly recommend watching this. To sum it up: The International is a well written, well acted, beautifully shot thriller, and it is set up for a sequel. Please rent this movie.

Where did this movie come from?  I can honestly say, I heard absolutely nothing about this film which was released July 11th of 2008.  Outlander is a movie directed by Howard McCain (who? exactly).  It’s a film about a man who crashes to Earth from space in the year 790 AD.  He drops from the sky into a Viking riddled Norway, and he also brings a present. A Moorwen.  It’s a wicked dragon, griffin creature from another planet, and it likes to decapitate and rip guts out of humans.

Outlander is a pretty bad ass sci-fi film.  It runs nearly 2 hours, and the action is heavy and bloody.  Jim Cavaziel is the star (A Thin Red Line, The Count Of Monte Cristo, and Passion Of The Christ), and definitely holds his own as the lead.  I personally feel this dude is HIGHLY underused in Hollywood, as he is an extrememly talented actor.

There’s not much to analyse about this film.  It’s dark, well shot, well acted, great sound, good score, full of action, and straight ahead.  It’s a solid rental, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had no expectations going in, because honestly I had no idea what the hell this film was about.  If you are stuck on your choice for movie night, I highly recommend this, and I would probably watch it again, so it’s a decent addition to your film collection as well.  To further add to this, I’d like to state that the director, Howard McCain has also signed out to help write the new script for the upcoming Conan reboot.  Jim Cavaziel is rumored to be playing the role of William Tell.

This movie gets the Red Dwarf award: Bloody good

Growing up, I was a pretty big fan of Japanese animation films. I was always fascinated by the attention to detail in the art, as well as some really intelligent science fiction plots depicted in some works.
The director of The Sky Crawlers, is: Mamoru Oshii, who in the United States is most famous for directing the animation classic: Ghost In The Shell. That movie has a very complex plot, and it took me several views to truly grasp the meaning of the film. In my defense I was also much younger when I watched that movie.
The Sky Crawlers is a gorgeously animated movie. There is a fantastic display of traditional Japanese animation art, seamlessly fused together with utterly jaw dropping computer animation. The basic plot of the film is about an alternate time on Earth(year unknown), where two large corporations employ private Navy’s to battle for control of the sky’s. Although we the audience never know why. It is an ongoing war that has and possibly will never end. Enter our main character who mysteriously lands at a small naval base with no recollection of his past, and assumes the role as the bases ‘ace’ pilot, although he really doesn’t understand why he is so skilled in the cockpit.
The film is wonderfully put together, and does run a little over two hours, however I was thoroughly engrossed within the plot nearly every minute. Let me state that this movie is not action intensive, however, the dogfight scenes are some of the best direction I have ever seen in any film regardless of it being an animation. I do not easily got engrossed with action sequences but after each fight scene, my eyes were slightly burning because I knew I had not blinked. They are that good, and again, the attention to detail is baffling. There is one scene in particular where a dogfight is happening in the pouring rain and the drops are pounding on the planes canopy while in flight, and then the camera cuts to a shot away from the plane, showing it while slicing through the rain creating mist contrails.
The foley sounds are also noteworthy. Being that this is a completely animated film, the sound design team did a most excellent job of immersing me in this world. Everything from a machine gun erupting from a plane, down to the howl of wind sneaking in under a window, is masterfully done.
The vision for this film is brilliant. The plane design is slightly steam punk (google it if you don’t know the term), and I love how Mamoru Oshii created this futuristic setting, and then dressed it with architecture, clothing, weapons, and engineering straight out of the mid 1940’s.
The only flaws in this film, are some of the English dub work. The version I saw was in Japanese with English subtitles, (I’m hardcore like that). However, whenever there would be scenes of flying, they would break from speaking Japanese, and suddenly begin speaking horribly broken English on top of English subtitles! I have no idea why Mamoru Oshii did this, but I took it only as a slight grievance. Also the music is pretty poor for such a visually appealing movie. Kenji Kawai is credited for the score, and I recognized his ’sound’ as being the same composer on Ghost In The Shell. I was never moved by the music, and felt that the dogfight scenes should be exploding with riveting orchestration, but instead was treated with hollow sounding electronica music. I was very disappointed in the music.
All in all, I highly recommend seeing this movie. I do realize that it has been out for sometime, but I felt it necessary to write about it, because I feel few people in the States have seen it, and if you appreciate art, and a good plot, then this film is well worth two hours of your time.
I have no interest in any Dreamworks animation, but I do like most of Pixars films, and despite this being a much more adult themed film, certainly shadows nearly every project either of those two powerhouses have put out.
DIRECTING: 4.5 out of 5
ANIMATION/CINEMATOGRAPHY:5 out of 5
EDITING: 4 out of 5
PLOT: 3.5 out of 5
ACTING/VOICEOVER 2.5 out of 5
FILM SCORE: 2.0 out of 5

TOTAL: 21.5 out of 30

from my iTunes store film review-

“This is not Daniel Craigs career performance. His Russian accent is HORRIBLE! Liev Schreiber is the true lead in this film. He gives a great performance, and I cannot believe he did not get a single nom for this role.
This movie contains a decent plot, however the direction is what ruins it for me. It would of been so much better if it was shot like Che or Saving Private Ryan. It’s too glossy, and I was never immersed in the plot, nor the action. The cinematography is good, too good for a movie about a bunch of Jewish folk hiding in the mountains, guerilla fighting against the Nazi’s. The editing is choppy, as is the pacing. It starts off fast, slows way down, then picks up in a really predictable fashion. This is not a bad movie, there are a lot worse. But for me, if you going to do another WW2 film, Saving Private Ryan is the set standard, and this no where comes close.
Women will like this movie, men I don’t think you’re in for as much of a war-like fix as the trailer depicts.”

This movie get the B-Team award: Just Average

This is a new segment called ‘Rental rant’. I like to write quick reviews in the iTunes store after I rent a film, so I’m going to start posting them here as well, verbatim. So with that, his is my first: ‘Rental rant’.

“This movie is so completely contrived, it’s ridiculous. It’s utterly predictable from beginning to end. Rich white girls getting kidnapped in broad daylight in upscale Paris? Comon! a well aged Liam Neeson running around kicking everyone’s a*$, blowing crap up, and drawing no attention? Comon! Nothing about this movie is worth the money I spent on renting it. Do not believe the hype, this is no way holds a Walther PP7 to any Bond film, and there’s not one fight scene that made me a Bourne believer. In one scene he even infiltrates the enemies organization posing as a local Parisian inspector, and does not even questioned about his identity while never trying to mask that thick Irish accent.
This movie holds true to it’s name, because it kidnapped my money, and I want to kick 20th Century Foxes a*$ to get it back.
The directing is average, the editing is above average, the fight scenes are some what clever but never really impressed me. The music score is utterly terrible, and the acting is laughable at best. Liam is true to form (which is good), and that’s it. This movie should be shelved and forgotten.”

This movie gets the Jar Jar Binks rating: Damn Awful