THE BEST MUSIC,
MOVIES, AND BOOKS OF 2013
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
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.
