Best & Worst of 2013

THE BEST MUSIC, MOVIES, AND BOOKS OF 2013

     Once again I feel the need to remind you (you the reader I mean) that this isn't merely a list of media released in 2013 that I did or didn't enjoy but a list of all the media both past and present that I was exposed to this year that I did or did not enjoy this year.

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations

     I don't know how Intronaut was able to top their last album but somehow they did.  I'm not one of those people who sings along with my music but this album has me doing just that.  I can't say I know exactly what the lyrics mean but sometimes it's not what they are singing about but how they're singing them.  Habitual Levitations isn't just one of my favorite heavy metal albums but one of my favorite albums period.  I'd have to say my favorite thing about this band is they're not of those bands that hop on stage and bang their heads for 40 minutes. Intronaut are professionals who take the time to play their instruments and play them right.  They're mature musicians who make music for a mature audience.

     Last year I claimed "Valley of Smoke" was a concept album I just didn't know what the concept was. While I'm still in the dark as far as the lyrics go I can only assume "Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words With Tones)" has a more personal meaning.  The opening track is "Killing Birds with Stones" which I believe might be a reference to the old phrase killing two birds with one stone.  "Does the day keep you up at night" is sung a few times throughout the song and while I can't say I'm very good at deciphering lyrics I believe it might have something to do with the passage of time.  The next song is called "The Welding" and it quickly reminded me of some of the songs off their last album and because of that it became a favorite of mine.  With a few exceptions the music on this album isn't nearly aggressive as is predecessor but "The Welding" is one of those exceptions.  "Steps" is another departure from the overall gloom and angst the rest of the album.  "A Sore Sight for Eyes" continues the philosophical (and another reference to an old saying) angle by stating "we're always afraid we're never alone".  Once again I'm not exactly sure what the lyrics are alluding to (if you're upset I got something wrong you can always post in the comments to correct me) but the title and that one line seem to suggest that an Orwellian paranoia but the rest of the lyrics almost sound post apocalyptic.  I guess Intronaut is counting on hiding secrets in their lyrics that their fans can't possibly decode.

     Without going much further I'd just like to say I really enjoy this album and of all the things I review on this best of list I recommend this the most especially if you've never heard of the band.  This is a great introduction.  The music is dreamy and almost psychedelic.  It reminds me a lot of early 90's sludge and doom acts like Anathema, Acid Bath, and Juicifer.

Meshuggah - Koloss

     This is the first Meshuggah album I've been able to listen to from start to finish.  They're not a bad band but their music can be extremely repetitive.  There are some Meshuggah songs that I swear they wrote an 8 second song and just looped it.  Where I think just about anybody can enjoy Intronaut's latest album "Koloss" is not an album someone who's not into metal could listen to.  It's loud, aggressive, angry, and fast which isn't a departure from Meshuggah's earlier efforts.  It just seems to me like the band are getting better and more coherent with each album.  Other than that I don't have as much to say about this album, just that if you're Meshuggah fan you'll like it, if not just avoid it.

 Sara Bareilles - Brave

     I wouldn't say this is typically my kind of music so I'm not sure how to categorize it.  I'm most comfortable with the term pop.  I'd say a large chunk of the music I listen to is angry, loud, sad, slow, and often deals with themes of inner turmoil, paranoia, confusion, suicide, drugs, unrequited love, death, mourning, loss, religion, satanism, violence, sex, and medieval fantasy.  Let me tell ya the world ain't a pretty place and my musical interests reflect that.  But every now and then I enjoy a good tune with a positive message.  I even like the music video that has a bunch of people dancing around in public.  I've never heard of this artist and while I think its a good song with a great message I'm not likely to follow her career beyond this one song... or at least I'm not planning on it but if she releases more singles that are as catchy as this one you might see her name on this list next year.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz - Thrift Shop

     I don't listen to rap or hip-hop, at least not anymore.  The genre used to be about the struggles of the lower class and cautionary tales of gang life and crime, now it seems to be dominated by personalities rather than subjects.  I can't say I'm all that interested in some untalented doof going on about the latest dance craze or his expensive clothes or cars or his sexual prowess.  Hopefully rap is moving away from these trends but I won't hold my breath.  Instead we have Macklemore rising to fame in a song about buying secondhand clothes and merchandise.  Throughout the song he merely states this as a preference rather than criticizing others fashion sense except in a few lines where he states: " $50 for a t-shirt that just some ignorant bitch shit.  I call that getting swindled and pimped.  I call that getting tricked by a bizniss."  I can't say the music does much for me but sometimes it's not how a song sounds but what it represents.

Lorde - Royals

     I don't typically like teen acts because well... we have Britney Spears, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, and Jessica Simpson.  Aside from sucking hard all these acts have something in common; at the time they were introduced their music revolved around lyrics that had absolutely no depth or artistic direction.  There are five of these shallow overblown manufactured acts for every Jewel or in this case Lorde. Hopefully Lorde doesn't burn out like these other acts or in some cases go completely insane or use sex appeal to a bombastic degree.  The song is similar to Macklemore's in theme but while he simply states its his preference to wear old tattered clothes he unearthed at a goodwill Lorde goes on about how popular songs are defined by morons bragging about their expensive cars and the excessive lifestyles their fame and fortune has afforded them.  The music itself is just okay.  Lorde seems to be doing that smoky lounge thing that's becoming more popular.  The video is a little hard to follow.  It looks like a couple of buddies starting a fight club while Lorde sings in an empty room.

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey

     A long time ago  I had a girlfriend who was wrong about a great many things, the one thing she may have been right about was saying the movie based off this book was really good.  Since then I've been meaning to pick up a copy of the book but I always seemed to be blowing my book budget on something else.  While I was reading this I described it to someone as the best book I had ever read.  I enjoyed every moment reading this book from page one to the very last page.  My opinion has not swayed at all in the months since finishing it.  "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is an amazing book and I highly recommend it.

Endymion by Dan Simmons

     Now that I've had some time to reflect on it I can say that this series previous entry"The Fall of Hyperion" was a disappointment, a minor one but a disappointing read nonetheless.   I'd say the biggest improvement is how little this book relies on John Keats fanfare.  The title character is charged with murder and sentenced to execution but is rescued and given a choice to embark on a mission to save a young girl and help her fulfill a prophecy or resign himself to capture and execution.  "Endymion" uses less of the sci fi prose found in the last two books and is more of an action adventure novel.  The book tends to drag a little towards the end but I find it difficult to complain about a book's length when I enjoy as much as I did this one. 

Pitch Perfect - 2012

     I almost don't want to admit I loved this movie.  In fact I wouldn't have seen it at all if not for my brother (who also unwilling admits that this is a guilty pleasure for him) after his 10th viewing of the movie urged me to see it.  So what's the problem with it?  Well the movie follows a young woman enrolling at a college where all her classmates are obsessed with a copella singing, there's a romantic subplot, and the climax revolves around a national collegiate singing competition.  This is obviously the plot description of what is common referred to as the "chick flick".  There's nothing particularly wrong with this genre, its just one I tend to avoid.  I'd say this movie doesn't easily fit into that mold.  Most chick flicks tend to focus on the romance or dissolve of romance between the two romantic leads but the romance in "Pitch Perfect" takes a backseat to the rest of the things happening.  As far as chick flicks go this reminds me more of movies like "Bring It On" or "Drop Dead Gorgeous" or "Step Up" or anything that revolves around a big contest during it climax.  Its a pretty good flick with a great soundtrack and is oddly entertaining.

The Wolverine - 2013

     You don't need to have seen any of the X-Men movies or "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" to enjoy this movie.  In fact it might be better just to disregard them entirely.  By the beginning credit this movie has it predecessor beat... and the credits are nothing special but then again so was the last Wolverine movie.  If you've ever wondered what Wolverine would be like if it were more like the 1960's Batman tv show then "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is the movie for you.  This movie takes a more serious look at Weapon X.  I'd say what impressed me the most is how far the action and fight scenes stretched the PG-13 rating.  I tend to avoid movies with this rating mostly because I'd rather get as much content as possible and most PG-13 films seem like they strive too hard to be a neutered R rated movie, but that really doesn't bother me as much in this movie. 

THE WORST MUSIC, MOVIES, AND BOOKS OF 2013

     Thankfully I wasn't exposed to as much bad media this year as I was last year but not for lack of trying I still experienced some losers.

Man of Steel - 2013

     How is it that a 35 year old movie can still be better than any modern day reboot?!  I'm starting to think the best thing to happen to the Last Son of Krypton in the last 20 years is dying.  "Man of Steel" is plodding, boring, has meaningless action sequences that go nowhere, and is filled with more flashbacks than the average episode of "Lost".  The last thing we needed from another super hero franchise is an origin story but the film makers thought they were being original and clever by changing up an established franchise and they couldn't have been more wrong.  While I did like the new twist on Superman's back story it just seemed like it took way to long getting to its point.  It had good ideas but executed them very poorly.  I can only imagine that Russel Crowe demanded that he have a certain amount of screen time when they casted him because the beginning sequence of the movie took way way too long.  I think in the original "Superman" it only took 10-15 minutes from Krypton to when Clark Kent is a man and fighting crime in Metropolis.  I'm also tired of super hero movies where the characters don't do anything heroic.  Isn't Superman supposed to be foiling bank robberies and swooping in to save children before they get run over by cars?  There are some instances of this but they are few and far between and sandwhiched between long scenes of padding.  And oh boy the action sequences.  God they're terrible!  A lot of the time they are just way too long and the wholesale destruction caused by these fights is insulting.  I suppose they thought their audience's needed a crumbling building or explosion every few minutes just to keep their attention.  This is one of the worst movies I've seen in the theater since "Sucker Punch".  Thanks Zack Snyder!

Its a disappointing movie at best but I think my hatred of this movie can be summed up with one line.

"What are you smiling about, captain?"
"Nothing sir... I just think he's kinda hot."

UGH!  It was stupid in the trailers and it was even worse in the movie.

A Good Day to Die Hard - 2013

     I have never seen a series fall so hard so fast as "Die Hard".  I didn't even take much issue with the last installment but this one is just plain terrible.   The action is so over the top I'm sure if you hadn't seen any of the other "Die Hard" films you'd probably think the series was adapted from a cartoon.

     This time John McClane takes a backseat in his own movie.  The plot really revolves around his son Jack McClane who's gone missing and John McClane senior (for those of you who don't know Jack is a variation of John... I don't know why either) runs off to Russia to find him.  As it turns out Jack is in the C.I.A. and is on a mission to obtain a cryptic file that has information on a local mob boss.  The plot is both crazy and stupid since the C.I.A. doesn't seem to know what's really on this file or whether or not it exists.  I'd say this movie is all style and no substance but it doesn't have either.  The dialogue is painfully bad as is all the banter between father and son.  The action is just boring.  Maybe its just me but I feel like you have to have some idea of what's going on rather than have a bunch of pointless explosions and car crashes.  Yes an action movie must at least have some sibilance of depth or otherwise its just stuff happening for an hour and a half.  This does for "Die Hard" what "Batman & Robin" did for Batman and I wouldn't be surprised if it killed off the franchise.  Unlike Batman I hope this one doesn't get revived because I can only see worse things coming.

Expendables 2 - 2012

I have one question, WHAT HAPPENED?!  Even with the cgi blood in the first one I loved it but hard pressed as I am I just can't say anything good about this movie.  So I had a movie night to catch up on some movies I really wanted to see but missed while they were in the theaters so I watched this back to back with "A Good Day to Die Hard".  I like to call this experiment Night of the Living McGuffins!(MacGuffin@Wiki MacGuffin@TVTropes).  The MacGuffin in our previous movie was obviously the file that no one felt like explaining until the end of the flick, in this one its a laptop in a crashed plain that Stallone and his buddies help recover.  Its been a while and I only saw it once but I don't think the information on this laptop is ever revealed.  Like "Die Hard" they have a bunch of bad guys running after it trying to get their hands on it.  What it is or why they want it is anybody's guess.  The movie is also jam packed with unnecessary cameos.  Chuck Norris comes in kills people, blows up stuff, and leaves.  Liam Hemsworth is in this movie just long enough to get killed making you wonder why he was in it in the first place.  Bruce Willis and Arnold Swarzenegger prove why their roles were so small in the first movie.  But I must say I was impressed by Jean-Claude Van Damme as the villain.  Same goes for Dolph Lundgren but I think he makes most bad movies at least passable.  Out of all the action veterans in this movie I've always been a big Lundgren and Van Damme fan but especially in "Universal Soldier".  Even with the great cast this is kind of a lame movie.  Hopefully they make improvements with the next film.

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

      While I've only read 3 out of the 4 Twilight books I'm hard pressed to choose which was my least favorite.  They're all bad but "Breaking Dawn" is not the worst.  I seemed to have the most trouble reading "Eclipse" which was boring as hell, and yeah this one's a little boring too but I didn't struggle as much reading it.  I don't have much else to say about it that I haven't already said.  If you want to see my extended review you can read it here: Breaking Dawn Review  and here's the condensed version: condensed version

World War Z 

     The best thing I can say about "World War Z" is its not the worst movie on this list.  Its not even one of the worst zombie movies I've seen but its still pretty bad.  It is one of the worst PG-13 zombie movies I've seen but that isn't exactly a very deep well to draw from.

     The movie starts out with the perfect 50's family.  Gerry (played by Brad Pitt) is pretty, has a pretty wife, and two pretty daughters.  The movie makes it clear that they are unimportant by not given any of them names.  I think this movie would be a little better if Gerry was just a bachelor since the family scenes tend to take you away from the more important things happening, plus his daughters are really freaking annoying.  They spend the first act running around, crying, and screaming.  His older daughter (I like to refer to her as lil big red, their mom big red, and the baby lil red) has asthma and is gasping for air in one scene and is running around in a supermarket in the next. Gerry dumps the wife and kids off on an aircraft carrier while he runs off to find out how this all started.  He goes to South Korea and then off to Israel and finally to Scotland.  Revelations are made and he comes up with a way to fool the zombies.

     There are so many ugly problems with this crappy zombie movie.  First and foremost is the PG-13 rating.  Every time something bloody or violent is about to happen the camera pans away from it.  It gets really distracting and takes you out of the movie.  The next biggest thing is the zombies themselves.  They are unlike any zombies you have ever seen or read about and its not a good thing. These zombies don't make sense.  I realize that zombies in general don't make sense but from a fictional standpoint these make even less.  For reasons that are unclear the zombies avoid sick people... well they explain it but its not a very good reason.  They're attracted to noise so I can only assume they still have their senses but how the hell are they able to tell if someone is sick or not?  Besides aren't we all sick anyway?  Human beings are incubators for dormant viruses.  They also just run up to people, bite, then leave.  They don't chew or feed or anything.  These are the whimpiest zombies I've ever seen on film.  If you can call these zombies you can all the sensitive, effeminate, moral authorities from "Twilight" vampires.  I think the biggest problem with this movie is the time and setting.  In every good zombie flick I've ever seen the monsters just show up.  I can't honestly say I care why the zombie apocalypse happened so much as everyone's reaction to it.  I think that's why I like the original "Dawn of the Dead" so much.  And since this is a zombie apocalypse I can't imagine why everyone is so helpful to Brad Pitt and his family.  There's a druggie thug in a hoodie with a handgun in a pharmacy that locates and gives Pitt exactly what he needs for his daughter and later they break into an apartment building and a helpful latino family welcomes them into their home and gives Pitt and his family food and drinks. And ya wanna know what happens right after this lovely immigrant family takes in Brad Pitt?  All but the little boy get devoured by zombies.  In fact beside his family and an Israeli soldier everyone who comes in contact with guy dies a nasty death.  Lastly its hard to get excited about this blockbuster when the cast are underacting and wooden.  It seems like a small nit pick but I hated the score too.  The score utilizes what I like to refer to as dub step fart sounds which seem to get more and more popular in movies.

Taylor Swift - 22

     If you've been watching this blog then you might agree that I have a way with words.  If I don't like something, if it rubs me the wrong way, or I disagree with it, I often find something constructive to say about why I don't like it or what I felt was wrong with it.  The only thing I can come up with for Taylor Swift's 22 is... I think its tremendously stupid and it is the worst pop song I have ever heard.  Taylor Swift was born on December 13, 1989.  Why I'm telling you this should be painfully obvious.  It means for most of 2013 she was 23 years old.  The chorus of the song goes "I don't know about you but I'm feeling 22".  I don't suppose its hard to feel like you're 22 when it was only a year ago.  Wonder if she's still going to feel 22 when she's 50.  I dunno know about you but I feel like I'm 32 and ya know why?  Because that's exactly how freakin old I am!  Sometimes I feel rundown, drunk, tired, hungover, bloated, and depressed... come to think of it that was mostly how I felt 10 years ago.  I light a candle each year on my birthday for my wasted youth.  But here's another exert from these brilliant lyrics:

It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters
And make fun of our exes
It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight
To fall in love with strangers

We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time
It's miserable and magical.
Tonight's the night when we forget about the deadlines
It's time

     Let's add insult to injury here, this song is not only stupid but dull as hell.  This is what Taylor Swift is doing at 22?!  I'd hate to say but I pity Taylor Swift especially when I think about what I was up to at 22, getting drunk, going to concerts every week, and occasionally having sex or a one night stand.  "22" would probably be more interesting as a song and a theme if it featured the average American college student who's just trying to make ends meet and stay awake in class after having to pull a double shift so he/she can afford tuition and expenses and will no doubt drop out and spend a lifetime in irredeemable debt from his/her college loans.  Holy shit I think I just wrote a better song than Taylor Swift... and it wasn't even that hard... and it had absolutely nothing to with my EXES!

Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble

     Last year I spent my early morning hours watching music videos on MTV or VH1 while I read or relaxed.  So I saw this video plenty of times.  To be perfectly clear I don't hate this song but I do really hate the video. I think its too ambitious which isn't necessarily a bad thing in most cases but in "I Knew You Were Trouble's" case the video was trying very hard to be more poetic and have deeper meaning than a song where Taylor Swift yet again disses an ex-boyfriend.  The story the video tries to tell (sell) is difficult to believe.  I don't know who's at fault for her failed relationships.  It seems like we only ever get Swift's point of view but here is a list of Taylor Swifts ex-lovers: Joe Jonus, Taylor Lautner, John Mayer, Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor Kennedy, and Harry Styles, none of these men sound like the kind of guy who gets into drunken barroom brawls.  Two of them are in boy bands and one of them is an adult contemporary pussy.  I'd say my least favorite part of the video besides being presented in widescreen to make it look more like a short movie is the 2 minutes and 5 seconds of spoken word monologue that Swift goes on about before the music starts.  With lines like, "the worst part of it all wasn't losing him, it was losing me." the monologue seems to suggest that Taylor Swift is solely defined by her shallow relationships with men.  Is it possible for a young girl to be a male chauvinist?

Fallout Boy - My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up)

     Taylor Swift sucks but this song, this one song somehow managed to be worse and more annoying (but at least less stupid) than anything Swift released this year.  I'm not a person who listens to the radio very often but every time EVERY FUCKING TIME I turned on the radio I heard this song and guess what?  It sucked the first time and got progressively worse each time.  I'm not sure I could adequately describe the bile that fills in my throat every time I hear that obnoxious pitch shift in the vocals during the hook.

Evil Dead - 2013

     FUCK!  I want to say this was the worst movie I saw last year but I can't lie like that.  It wasn't the worst but even the movies I had high hopes for didn't piss me off as much as this one did.  There are two kinds of remakes, the ones that are exactly like the original, and the ones that aren't and just make shit up as they go along.  Guess which category this remake falls under?  I wasn't expecting the same exact movie but I wasn't expecting this either.  Rationally I didn't think "Evil Dead" was going to be any good but I was hoping I was wrong.  For my full review on "Evil Dead" go here: Evil Dead 2013

Any Verizon commercial this year... OR ANY YEAR!

    Let me state right here and now I own a tracfone.  My primary phone is a disposable phone.  I do not nor have I ever owned a cell phone or smart phone and you wanna know why?  Well many reasons really the biggest being my unwillingness to sign a contract.   The only people I think should sign contracts are lawyers, business people, and anyone getting a prenuptial agreement.  The other reason is just not being important enough to need to use a cell phone.  I have no friends and the only people I talk to or text message on a regular basis is my family, and if I lose a call or one is dropped who cares, I'll talk to them again eventually and crappy service or a dying, unreliable battery gives me an excuse to get off the phone with them.  In the unlikely event that one of my family members is reading this right now I would like to take this time to apologize for using that excuse in the past but uhhhh don't expect me to stop using it.

     I'm starting to come to the revelation that as far as their commercials go Verizon is the GEICO of cell phone companies.  Every ad, every mother fucking ad, is obnoxious, irritating, annoying, and downright insulting, and its often aimed at their target consumer in affect calling you a moron for not indulging them.  Oh yeah and they brought back that stupid coverage map campaign.  Look at our maps, look at the pretty colors, look how much they differ from our competitors.  You know that company?  The one you've been perfectly content with up until now?  These commercials feature a group of people looking at cell phone coverage maps and deciding which is better.  They claim these are real people and not actors.  Forgive me for being cynical here but I'm not buying it, literally and figuratively.  Any time you're being showed a commercial you are being lied to.  Advertising is at its core deceptive and if you don't believe me let me know if that big mac or whopper you saw on tv or on a billboard was the one you ordered.  It seems like a perfect motive to lie right?  To get your money.  I'd lie if you paid me enough and I'm sure I'd get really good at it in time.  So you probably shouldn't believe it when a commercial says these are real people not actors.  Let's not forget the fact that they were probably offered something to be in the commercial so they might as well be.  Just like actors they're being paid to endorse a product but somehow this is a lot more dishonest.  Oh and you probably shouldn't take their coverage maps too seriously either.  Ya wanna know why?  Who do ya think did the research for that?  I'll give you a hint it was the same people who made this commercial and wants your business.

Best & Worst of 2012

Before you read this I’d like to point out some anachronisms.  First, yes I realize it’s a little late for a best and worst of 2012 list.  For better or worse this list was composed at a more appropriate time but I just haven’t been able to post it because I’ve been far too busy.  Since this is a blog I could have cheated and posted the date for this entry as 1-1-13 but that feels dishonest to me.  You may also notice while a lot of material on these lists were released in 2012 some of these items have been around for a great long time.  Since this has been the first year of my blog I decided to list all the things I’ve been exposed to this year rather than just the short list of new things I had experienced.  So in no particular order here is

THE BEST MUSIC, MOVIES, BOOKS, AND COMMERCIALS OF 2012

Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale

If anything can be said about 2012 it was the year of Lansdale.  For me at least.  I read 6 different Joe R. Lansdale books last year and they ranged from great to bad.  “Savage Season” being the best.  This book introduces the characters of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine.  Hap being a straight white middle aged former hippie and Leonard being a gay black Vietnam veteran.  An unlikely pair the reader can only imagine how these two became best friends in the first place.  Not to delve too far into the plot of the book, but the characters (particularly Hap and Leonard) and how they interact with each other is far more engaging than what brought them together.

Who Fears the Devil? By Manly Wade Wellman

I’ve read a Wellman story here and there in my anthology collections but I never put serious thought into reading any more than the casual story.  I have found since then that was a big mistake.  Who Fears the Devil is a collection of short stories featuring Wellman’s popular Silver John character.  In the introduction Mike Resnick suggests you read the stories little by little rather than all at once to make it last and get a better understanding of Silver John and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.  I’ve found I enjoy these stories so much I don’t want the book to end.  The stories involve a traveling minstrel by the name of John.  Why he’s wandering around and how he got his silver strung guitar is not nearly as important as you’d think as you just get lost in the stories.  

Where the Summer Ends by Karl Edward Wagner

Friends and family are probably getting tired of me mentioning this author and how much I adore him and how proud I am that I was able to snag two volumes of his collected short stories this year.  I can’t say I blame them but I just feel like I should get the word out so more people can enjoy this unique author.  Last year Centipede Press released two gorgeous volumes of Wagner’s short stories collecting almost everything the man ever wrote.  “Where the Summer Ends” is without doubt the better of the two but that’s not to say that “A Walk on the Wild Side” is bad but it just can’t compete against the weight of this one.  I’ve found even if I don’t like a particular story I’m drawn in by the vivid characters.  In this volume I didn’t much care for or understand the story “More Brute Than Human” but if it was anything that kept me reading this longer story it was the interesting characters.  I think if you can say anything to describe Wagner’s work it’s that right there.  His characters feel organic and you care what happens to them especially if they meet an unfortunate end.  I was hoping that if I had any regular readers on this blog they would read my Wagner entry in time to pick up a copy of at least one of these books while they still had time.  If you’re reading this now you missed your chance.  By now both books have sold out and your only chance of picking up a copy is buying one from an unscrupulous internet seller who will no doubt jack up the price to an unreasonable degree.

Baroness – Blue and Red

There is a specific reason I don’t review music here more often.  The long and short of it is it’s too hard and I don’t really give a crap.  Music reviews are specialized niche filled with buzz words and what I like to call horseshit industry terms both used to confuse the reader and make the review(er) sound fancier or smarter than it is.  There’s another reason I rarely review music on here and that’s because I don’t normally consider something good enough to write about unless I like the entire album.  For example Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures is a great album from start to finish, same goes for Slayer’s Reign In Blood, Depeche Mode’s Violator, Alice in Chains self-titled album, Cocteau Twins Garlands, Days of the New Green, Front 242’s Official Version, Godflesh’s Streetcleaner, and Pantera’s Cowboys From Hell.  I’m just about the biggest Tool fan you can find but their bad habit of padding albums with interludes and uneven songwriting keeps them from making a truly great album.  I could say the same about Satyricon.  They’re a great band that’s released a lot of fine albums over the years but every now and then you’ll get an intro or ambient track.  As far as I’m concerned the one thing that holds an album back from being truly great is the occasional interlude.  Baroness’ “Blue Record” and “Red Album” suffer these same defects.  The music is great and these are the two best albums I’ve heard in hard rock/heavy metal in years.  Unfortunately there’s an intro on “Blue” along with a few instrumental interludes on both which prohibit me from listening to the album as a whole.

Intronaut – Valley of Smoke

Most people agree that a concept album explores certain ideas, moods, or themes often expressed through the lyrics.  A great example of this is Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  During the length of the album its theme explored the lifecycle from birth to death.  Lyrically I’m not sure exactly what concept “Valley of Smoke” has but from a musical standpoint one song blends seamlessly to the next.  Not that any one song sounds the same but played from start to finish it feels like one long song keeping a consistent mood throughout the album.  I’m sure most reviewers would describe Intronaut as Avant Guard but it’s such a broad generalized title that can apply to just about anything that I’m remiss to label anything by it.  I suppose you could also call it experimental but I find that entirely incorrect.  To deem them experimental would be like saying they’re experimenting with a certain sound but Inronaut know what they’re doing and they’ve found their sound it’s just simply different from everything else.  While it’s hard to describe exactly what genre Intronaut falls into I can say for sure if you’re not a fan of hard rock or heavy metal you probably won’t like them.

Paradise Lost – Tragic Idol

It’s difficult to describe doom metal to someone who’s not in the know.  I could play them some Candlemass or Solitude Aeturnus or My Dying Bride or Anathema but I doubt they could differentiate these bands from any other sub-genre of heavy metal.  What makes things harder is a lot of these bands reach an apex and branch out so far they don’t even remotely resemble the musical style they became known for.  Paradise Lost fits perfectly in this mold.  So for the longest time I just completely lost interest in their newer releases.  For whatever reason my curiosity got the better of me one day and I looked them up on Amazon.  I figured what the hell and gave their newest release a preview.  Needless to say I was impressed enough to buy the album and I’m glad I did.  It’s been a long time since Paradise Lost released “Gothic” and “Tragic Idol” is a return to that album.  There are songs I like more than others but on the whole this is a great album and even with the weaker songs I can listen to it from start to finish easily.  I think it also serves as a great introduction to people unfamiliar with their music.

Sears Appliance Commercial

I’m sure the few people who read my blog regularly wonder what’s wrong with me.  How come you don’t like commercials?  Are there any commercials you do like?  Well for the most part no.  Most years I don’t even like the super bowl ads and I especially don’t like the people who watch the super bowl just for the ads.  For the last 20 years television advertising has ran rampant.  The sheer volume of commercials takes up a third of programming every hour.  It just doesn’t seem fair to me.  I tune in to watch tv shows not commercials.  Ten minutes every hour seems reasonable to me, eighteen on the other hand is excessive and out of control.  However once in a blue moon there’s a commercial that comes along that’s so good I can’t wait to see it again.  Sears must have foreseen the influx of romantic comedies and cheesy holiday movies that come out every Christmas season.  Seizing that opportunity they made a commercial parodying some of the worst clichés of those movies.  The commercial was so affective the first few times I saw it I didn’t realize it wasn’t a trailer for a new movie.

Fallout 3

This game has been out for a long time and I remember people raving about it but I just never got the chance to play it.  When I finally did it reminded me of how much fun I had playing “The Elderscrolls III: Marrowind”.  My ass was glued to my chair, I rarely slept, and I ignored most of my bodily functions and cursed them when they took me away from the game for just a minute.  I only had a few small problems with the game.  With this game they created a vast world but instead of exploring the surface you spend most of your time wandering around in buildings, caves, and underground bomb shelters.  Without a game add on there’s a really short level cap that I wish I had been aware of at the time.  If you’re like me and want to complete every little side mission you’ll be disappointed to find out you’ll hit your peak level before you’ve finished half of the game and once you’ve picked certain perks and stats you can’t go back and change them.  Lastly the game’s main quest is very short and if you’re more driven to do that you’ll find yourself beating the game in 2 or 3 hours.

Deadspace

I had actually seen the full length animated feature before I got a chance to play this game.  I’m not as hardcore a gamer as I used to be and since game prices have reached an insane apex I haven’t been playing or buying them as often.  I usually purchase games online and at gamestop by the time everyone and their mother has beaten them and used copies are only 20 or so bucks.  I really don’t feel the need to play games when they’re new and 20-30 dollars is my cutoff limit for games.  Anyway I became an instant fan of this game once I finally did buy it.  The gameplay is similar to the early Resident Evil survival horror games.  Since those games have degenerated into action/combat games I’m glad that something came along to fill the gap.  There are a few problems with the game(like a part where you’re supposed to blast away asteroids but you’re not given a wide margin for error) but on the whole it’s pretty good.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

As I’m branching out in what I read I notice I’ve read more and more sci fi this year and this is the best sci fi book I’ve ever read.  It’s just one of those books that I was so taken with I didn’t notice how fast I was reading it and then all of a sudden I’m ¾ into it.  I was going to do a review for “Hyperion” but I couldn’t think of an adequate way to express just how much I enjoyed this book.  However it is not without fault.  Hyperion is Dan Simmons love letter to John Keats but since I don’t bother with poetry and I didn’t know who Keats was this element of the book left me behind.  Also there was at least one character I didn’t at all care for.  Each time he had a line a dialogue   and I found myself dreading his story.  There was also a story here or there I didn’t really like.  Otherwise it was a highly enjoyable book.

Skyfall

I can’t say I’m a James Bond fan in the same way I can’t say I’m a Star Wars fan.  Yes I have seen all the movies but I don’t own any and I can’t say I’m ever sitting around bored to tears and the mood strikes me to watch some Bond.  I also can’t say I have a favorite Bond film.  In fact I think this is the only Bond movie I’ve ever seen in the theaters.  I wasn’t as taken with Daniel Craig as everyone else seemed to be.  I thought “Casino Royale” was just okay and I flat out hated “Quantum of Solace” so I didn’t hold out that much faith that this one was going to be much better.  Anybody who has been paying attention knows a Bond era will begin with a good or great movie and then slowly (or in some cases quickly) slip into mediocrity until they hire the next Bond.  The one exception might be “Her Majesty’s Secret Service” which may have been so poorly received they just replaced that Bond after only one movie.  As skeptical as I was going in I was pleasantly surprised by “Skyfall” and I can say without doubt this is my favorite Bond movie.  I think it has a lot to do with stripping everything down and making everything more simple.  Instead of a bunch of gadgets this time around all Bond has is a gun and a mission.  The plot unlike most Bond flicks is easy enough for child to understand.  At its very heart it’s a revenge movie with an original and charismatic villain.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and IV by Chuck Klosterman

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs takes things as trivial as pop culture and puts them under a microscope and dissects them.  It might not sound that interesting but it forced me to reexamine things I hadn’t thought about in years and some things I had no prior interest in.  There’s a chapter devoted to MTV’s Real World that reminded me why I enjoyed the show when I was a kid and eventually why I stopped watching it.  There’s another chapter on basketball and how it relates to race and politics.  I don’t know anything nor do I care about basket but I read it regardless because I enjoyed the prose.  It reminds me of watching those parts in Tarantino or Kevin Smith movies where the characters are just standing around talking about their favorite movies and posing hypothetical questions about them.  In other words it takes things we take for granted and puts a new and unusual spin on them.  We watch these movies, tv shows, listen to this music, and wear these fashions, but we rarely put serious thought into them.  The chapters are short and have little in common making it the perfect bathroom or light reading book.

“IV” is similar to Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, but instead of reexamining pop culture most of the book is devoted to various interviews of celebrities Klosterman has interviewed over the years for magazines and newspapers.  During the course of these interviews he tells his opinions of these people and their work making some interesting stories. 

The reason I haven’t added these books to my best of list is because I haven’t finished them.  Most of the time I pick them up here and there when I don’t want to get too involved and spend an entire night with a book.  I highly recommend “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs” but “IV” isn’t for everybody.

Prometheus

I was dazzled by this movie and it was my favorite theater experience this year (aside from my post “Dark Knight” massacre viewing where everyone warned me against going to the theater and then nothing happened) but I had a hard time expressing how I felt about it.  Yeah it has problems but those problems weren’t big enough to keep me from enjoying the movie.

The Wizard

I don’t know if I’d consider The Wizard a good or bad movie what I can is it was fun taking a trip down memory lane by watching this relic again.  It is a bad movie and unlike so many bad movies it is not a timeless bad movie (like say Troll 2 or Plan 9 From Outer Space).  I feel like a person watching it would have to have lived around the time it was released to appreciate it.  I’m sure the games, arcades, and the unrestrained product placement featured in this movie would seem archaic to younger viewers born in the early to late nineties.

THE WORST MUSIC, MOVIES, BOOKS, TV SHOWS, AND COMMERCIALS OF 2012

Katie

Correct me if I’m wrong here but aren’t talk show hosts supposed to have personality?  I don’t know whose idea it was to give Katie Couric her own talk show but they need to be fired and that goes double if it was Katie herself.  I haven’t seen a talk show host this fake and insincere since Tyra Banks, although Wendy Williams was pretty annoying as well.  Unfortunately both Wendy Williams and Tyra’s show lasted for several seasons so that doesn’t hold out much hope that this one will be quickly dropped.  On the few occasions I’ve seen this show she asks irrelevant and inappropriate questions, panders to her widely female audience, retreads previous questions or comments sometimes mere minutes after she last asked them(ie on the Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez episode she mentions her(Lo’s) divorce numerous times and focused on J.Lo undressing in front of Statham in the movie they were promoting several times).  I think the difference from her old job to her new job is she used to interview important people asking relevant questions that the audience needed to hear, she now interviews her guests asking questions her shallow audience wants to hear in order to illicit a response from them.  One is honest the other is a fucking sideshow.  Given that I really don’t see any difference from Katie Couric and Jerry Springer, Geraldo Rivara, Maury Povich, or Morton Downey Jr.

Stupid Geico Pig and that damn bestiality commercial

Geico’s decision to use that stupid pig as an alternate mascot is nearly as confusing as Team Mobile’s decision to keep using that cute girl in the slinky dress after they reformatted their ads and she no longer talks or is in that dress.  Well that to me is more confusing but the pig is still baffling.  But for whatever reason Geico started using a pig from a previous commercial that everyone who watches commercials unanimously agreed was annoying from the very beginning.  It’s kinda like dipping your frostbitten toes in a bucket of ice cold water.  But they took an annoying approach to something deeply creepy and disgusting when they made a commercial where an anthropomorphic pig goes on a date… with a human woman.

But I guess it’s okay since the girl is pressuring the pig for sex and not the other way around.

Why would a pig that’s too short to reach the pedals and has no thumbs to grab the steering wheel need car insurance in the first place?  Not to mention anyone can see this thing is clearly a pig so why the hell would the flight attendant make such a blatantly hateful remark that almost no one uses anymore?  It probably has something to do with the marketing department at Geico being out of ideas.  They might as well say it’s so easy a stupid little pig can use it.

Fuck it I’m declaring a war on Geico.  I’ve never seen product placement inside a commercial.  That’s a new one for me.  Plus more bestiality.(I couldn't find the video on youtube but please enjoy this equally stupid and obvious commercial)

The Script – Hall of Fame

There are certain themes that I avoid throughout every medium.  I really don’t appreciate anything with a positive message and especially hate anything with too positive a message.  I don’t find it reasonable or even logical telling someone they can be anything or do anything they set their mind to and I find it even more damaging telling that to a child.  I don’t believe that true love conquers all (because it doesn’t... not to mention that there’s no such thing as true love) or in hookers with hearts of gold (because there aren’t any) and of course the rags to riches story(it’s true that it happens but it’s also very rare).  The saccharine sweet sentiment in this song is enough to give you diabetes.  The video is one of the most annoying I’ve seen since Papa Roach’s Last Resort and Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful and they’re exactly the same.  They feature a cast of characters that all suffer and somehow overcome their adversity.  It’s appropriate for the song but its just way too excessive.  The lyrics are pretty fuckin stupid too.  They consist of “You could be this” “You could be that” line after line until it gets to the chorus.

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

“Hyperion” wasn’t just the best sci fi book I read last year but the best book period.  It successfully blended different genres like romance, horror, tragedy, mystery, and eroticism.  The only problem I had with the book was John Keats had a big influence on it.  It was easy to dismiss because large parts of the book didn’t feature Keats or his work and the parts that did was still thrilling and interesting.  The book has six pilgrims tell the stories of how they found themselves on Hyperion on their way to the time tombs.  By the book’s end they’ve reached their destination but it ends on cliffhanger.  We don’t know what’s going to happen to the pilgrims or if they’re going to get what they want.  I was hoping Fall of Hyperion was going to tie up these loose ends but instead John Keats took a bigger role than any of the pilgrims and eventually became the tragic hero of the book.  I don’t particularly like poetry and I don’t know or care to know anything about John Keats.  At times it was like reading about a subject I had no knowledge of and no interest in.  Better yet it was like someone who didn’t give a damn about Keats reading Keats fan fiction.  In other words there were parts where I was totally lost and disinterested.  Still it wasn’t a terrible book and I don’t regret reading it.  Every now and then when the focus of the book goes back to the pilgrims it’s really good and the loose ends tie up nicely.  Fall of Hyperion is the 2^nd book in a 4 book series and this book ends the pilgrims’ story.  Hopefully the other two books will leave out the Keats plotlines.

Baroness – Yellow and Green

Earlier this year I was introduced to heavy metal band Baroness.  The last time I discovered a band and was this pleasantly surprised was when I heard Mastodon’s Hunter last year and since then Baroness has overtaken Mastodon as the top played band on my itunes.  I was so sure I would love their latest album that I went to best buy to get a copy.  Pretty much all I can say about this double album is the artwork is really good.  There is nothing worse than having high expectations for something and having those hopes crushed by a product that just isn’t up to par.  I can’t hate it because it doesn’t suck but it’s just not very good either.  To add insult to injury the total runtime of all 18 tracks on both discs of this “double” album is 75 minutes meaning if you had the inclination you could fit both albums on a single CDR.  The music itself is just boring and doesn’t match up with previous two albums.  It almost sounds like a totally different band or at best a compilation of b sides.  One thing can be said for it though, even at their worst Baroness is still better than most of the music out there and I’m hoping their next effort is a little more passionate.

Pitbull – Don’t Stop the Party

Lately I’ve been watching MTV and VH1 in the mornings when ya know they actually play freakin music videos.  I’m starting to realize that I’ve become that snobby old man that listens to nothing but the music of his youth and complains about how everything nowadays sucks.  Unfortunately this stereotype tends to turn out true when ya know everything does suck.  I had heard the name Pitbull thrown around here and there but I’d never actually heard any of music and after seeing the video for Pittbull’s “Don’t Stop the Party” I miss my naivety.  Originally I started watching these channels to have something to listen to while I read late at night or early in the morning but it defeated the purpose when I heard something that sounded awful and I just muted the damn tv and read in silence.  When I heard the chorus for the first time I closed my book and started watching the video in awe.  I knew the music industry was in trouble but I never realized it was this bad.  This shallow song is just about the most tone deaf thing I’ve ever heard.  Actually I thought it was a joke at first because this is just the kind of generic crap you seeing in TV shows and movies when they’re trying to emulate current trends in rap and hip hop.  The video is no better.  Every time since the first time I watched it I’ve muted the TV and its typical of every single hip hop and rap video since the beginning of music videos.  Lots of women in bathing suits, Pitbull dancing and uhhh singing I guess, and extras having a pseudo good time and partying.  If this song had taught me anything it’s that for every tone deaf or inept musician there’s an audience big enough to make sure they continue to make mediocre music.  ICP and Kid Rock should have taught me that lesson by now but oh well.

Nicki Minaj – Freedom

Copy and paste everything I just said about Pitbull.  This song may even be worse.  What’s worse is both are untalented novelty acts but Nicki tries to feign sincerity after so many vain and self-indulgent songs.   The sentiment falls on deaf ears.  Human beings are complex creatures.  We can give with one hand and beg with the other.  I’m not saying it can’t be done but you also can’t talk about being rich, doing drugs, being slutty, and being smarter/cooler/more talented/better than everyone else and then start talking about Jesus and the problems of the world.  It’s like trying to take a preaching clown in a bikini seriously.

Empire State by Adam Christopher

I was planning on writing a review about this book but it was so bland I had a difficult time describing my feelings for better or worse.  It was like trying to describe what the color gray tastes like.  The book wasn’t good(and certainly wasn’t great) but it wasn’t completely terrible either.  In other words it wasn’t “Infected” and it was a far cry from “Mission Earth”. I had no positive or negative feelings towards it and that made it hard to write a review.  Besides I can’t say I was too disappointed because I picked the book up on a whim.  I had never heard of the author and I likewise had no previous impression of the book other than the synopsis on the back cover.  The plot didn’t make sense and was overly complicated, there were too many characters and subplots, and I just felt on the whole the book was longer than it needed to be.  It eventually went nowhere and took a long time to get there.

Infected by Scott Sigler

I’ve learned a lot in 2012 but I think one of the most important lessons is any asshole with a blog can publish book(except for this asshole… so far).  Infected and 50 Shades of Gray are both great examples of that.  I think we should leave the writing up to writers and the blogging up to bloggers.  Aside from that I have nothing new to say about it other than if I were you I’d avoid this book like the plague.  To read my full review go here: Infected review

The Drive-in 3 The Bus Tour

The first drive-in novel was great and while the second book wasn’t nearly as great it was still at least good.  The third and final book was terrible.  To summarize for the uninitiated “The Drive-In” involves a group of friends going to a drive-in and getting trapped there by powers beyond their control.  The drive-in in then turns into the setting of chaos and power struggles and the breeding ground for mutants.  The second book “The Drive-In: Not Just Another of Them Sequels” takes the surviors of the first novel out of the drive-in and into a new and bizarre world.  In the middle of the book they rescue another survivor and help her recover her sister from a kidnapper.  The third book attempts to explain this new world and how these characters fit in it.  It’s about as successful at tying the events of this trilogy up as the Matrix Revolutions and it’s equally as disappointing.  It’s a shame because I admire Joe R. Lansdale and I enjoyed the other two installments.  I’d hate to give too much away but I enjoyed the book right up until the end where it really jumped the rails.  Needless to say as poor as the explanation was for the drive-in and how it came to be I was better off not knowing,  Regardless I don’t regret reading the book and I can’t say that about some books.

Salem’s Lot – 2004

I was going to write a review for this but once again I didn’t feel passionately enough about the material to write anything about it.  Well I guess that’s not entirely true.  I hated this miniseries and it pissed me off but I just couldn’t think of anything constructive enough to write about.  The book was great and what’s mystifying is this miniseries doesn’t stray far from it but the small differences are confusing.  The biggest difference is the characters and their relationship to one another.  To give you a good idea the issues I had with this adaptation; after reading the book it was a lot like watching the same events unfold only with strangers.  This adaptation also suffers from the same Bush era politics that dated and ruined a lot of the media at the time.  Don’t get me wrong I hated the Bush years but because of them they changed the main character from a fiction novelist to a whistle blowing political journalist.  I wouldn’t say it’s a really bad movie but like I said it keeps true to the book so if it you’ve read it the miniseries is just going to piss you off.  Rob Lowe delivery is just plain weird.  His voice is monotonous as a he spews out lines at the frequency of a meth head while he’s tweaking. 

Mission Earth The Invaders Plan by L. Ron Hubbard

This is the worst book I have ever read… nuff said

Amish Mafia

This is the only thing on this list I haven’t exposed myself to.  As of this date I still haven’t seen this show but when I saw the commercials for it I just couldn’t believe what I was watching.  I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in Indiana where there’s a huge population of amish.  I don’t frequently interact with them but from afar they seem like a polite and inoffensive people.  That’s why I find it hard to believe there’s such a thing as an amish mafia.  The very idea sounds fucking ridiculous.  Not to mention most people don’t know the first thing about the amish.  It seems to me a better show would document the real members of the amish community and expose us to a realistic view of their beliefs and culture not some violent Hollywood facsimile.  What’s worse is this is on the discovery channel.  I can remember when they used to have nothing but nature and science shows and not horseshit reality shows.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

I read a lot of different books this year, most of them good, some of them just okay, and some of them really really bad.  The good far outweighed the bad but when I read something bad it stayed with me for a long time.  Kinda like a fart in an elevator.  And I think that’s a perfect metaphor for “Eclipse”.  All the stinkers I read suffered from bad writing, juvenile dialogue, and uninteresting or poorly constructed characters or plot.  “Eclipse” suffers from all those things but to top it off it’s also incredibly boring.  The story unfolds slowly to build the romance and sexual tension between a vampire and nubile human female.  I think we all know the story by now but a bulk of the book is devoted entirely to that and since it’s the third in the series we no longer need to establish that.  The book is so needlessly bloated I felt like I was reading the same chapter over and over and had to take a month long break from it just 166 pages from its 629 pages.

Deathstalker

This is a really bad sword and sorcery movie from the 80’s.  When I saw it I was bothered by the misogyny in it.  The movie takes rape lightly as almost every female character gets raped.  The movie begins with a woman running from a man whose captured her and probably intends to rape her, he doesn’t get the chance as a group of what look like cavemen attack him(probably intent on doing worse things to her), and finally the “hero” of this epic comes along and kills them all then proceeds to rape her for his trouble.  Putting the misogyny aside, the movie has no plot, a generic evil sorcerer, an overused score, terrible dialogue, and bad structuring.  Obviously no one put much thought into this movie.  It’s like they said, “Hey!  Conan is popular let’s try to replicated that!”  Then when time came to write a script they said fuck it and got a buff guy, covered his hairless body in grease, and added all the TnA they could then fed them lines as they were filming.  I was going to write a review of it but without all the misogyny I realized I wasn’t passionate enough about the movie to write an honest review of it.