Ya Throw a Party...

I know I shouldn't be taking this personally or anything. But man, for the 9/10 times my workplace can be awesome, sometimes it's just a downer. The real problem is I barely share interests with the rest of the folks here (due mainly to sizable age difference), and thus, events that I may try to get off the ground fall flat on their face.

Today's case-in-point is a Halloween Party I'm throwing. I promised movies via projector, candy, and horror makeup... and unfortunately, the folks interested in attending aren't here, and they were few. So, essentially, I'm throwing a party for me to watch movies and eat candy.

Which isn't so bad, now that I think about it. Toss in some alcohol, and things will be awesome...

Take that, depression.

Show Review: Van Helsing's Curse

What the heck is Van Helsing's Curse?

It's a project headlined and conceptualized by Dee Snider (formerly of Twisted Sister), but bears little resemblance to his earlier work. Apparantly, they only play around Halloween (wonder why...). In concept, it's a horror story told by music borrowed and added to by a small orchestra and rock band (lead violin, grand piano, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, 4x violinists, 5x chanters w/ lead vocalist). With the combination orchestral/rock sound (which is very well done), they cover and build upon classic horror themes such as The Exorcist, Black Sabbath, and such. Almost devoid of lyrics, the main story is sold on CD. The encore, however, is more than worth sticking around for. They cover some more major themes (Friday the 13th, and an awesome version of 'The Munsters' theme song), and Snider actually sings a song.

Snider mainly narrates the story, with one occasion where he lends vocals. The story concerns an old man and boy who fight a monster at the source of a terrible plague (with the much-borrowed name of Van Helsing). The music backs the concept well, and contains plenty of oppotunity for highlighting between both lead guitar and violin (a member of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra- The bastard is great).

If you like Halloween or spooky stuff atall, it's an awesome stage show. I can't really recommend the recording of the show, as it's not nearly as cool as the entire live show, and missing the encore.

Movie Review: The Departed

No time for lame introductions, friends. This is the good stuff. A film of Oscar-worthy proportions.

RANT AT THE SCREEN

The Departed. Set in Boston, the story chronicles the conflict set by two men: one (Dicaprio) from a family of crime who enrolls to become a state trooper, only to be sent undercover in the Irish mob. The other (Damon) is from a crimeless family who is planted in the state troopers. Life becomes dangerous as each side becomes suspicious, and try to have the two moles discover each other.

This is one of the darkest comedies I've seen in a while, but the humor isn't really the point. It's second to the incredible tension of the plot, which in many ways the juxtaposition of the two characters, showing how similar and frightening their lives are.

The acting is incredible. Jack comes out swinging as a complete psychopath, and possibly the living embodiment of evil. Leo and Matt follow right behind him, with Matt playing a charismatic con-man trying to keep his head above water, and Leo is forced to increasingly deal with the angst of being in contact with a group of people to whom violence is the ultimate answer. Also worth mentioning are Mark Wahlberg (who delivers some spectacularly filthy lines as a police lt.) and Alec Baldwin (as a doofish sarge). The only person who doesn't catch complete traction is the almost unused psychotherapist, who helps show the differences between our featured characters.

The plot is rife, RIFE, with story, developments, dramatic moments, and cutting bits of dialogue, with a few surprises for everybody before the end. The ending itself is almost mentally damaging.

I give this movie six stolen guidance chips out of five. MUST SEE.

Spur of the Moment

And so it was that Martin made an actual plan for Friday night! In under a day!

I'll be attending the "Van Helsing's Curse" show at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel. I've got a seat in the fourth row, which will hopefully be awesome. From what I've heard, it's a Halloween themed event, which is my bag. With any luck, this will be highly entertaining!

So, expect something Friday or Saturday talking about how awesome/lame the entire thing was.

Music!

o/' To life, to life we'll bring it
A marraige, for better or worse
And if that life lacks quality
Still, there's the quantity
We do bring it... to life!o/'

Excerpt from "To Life", from "A Shoggoth on the Roof"

Video Game Demo: Guitar Hero 2

I am a sucker. I like playing a game where I not only don't play Guitar, I will absolutely not become famous because of it. Well, that's just fine by me, because I had a darn good time getting through Guitar Hero 1, and paid no mind to fellows who might have thought me daft or silly.

In impending release next month is Guitar Hero 2, which will, no doubt, continue the wonderful spiral towards fictional awesomeness. In preperation, a demo with four songs was released in PSX Magazine, and I bought the magazine specifically for the demo, which made it into the PS2 as soon as I got home, and began rocking out.

There are four songs: "Shout At The Devil" by Motley Crue (insert umlauts), "You Really Got Me" by Van Halen (originally by the Kinks), "Strutter" by KISS, and "YYZ" by Rush (an instrumental!).

The demo supports two-player interaction, with a change from the original. Now, one person plays the lead, while the other plays an additional part (rhythm on Strutter, bass on everything else). The players share rock meter, points, and special ability. The songs are superb, and have been tweaked somewhat to allow a little bit easier work with hammer ons and pull offs. The songs sound awesome, and play very well.

I'm definately looking forward (and dreading!) to the madness that is GH2.

Movie Review: The Science of Sleep

I don't know why I'm still going to theaters. Oh yeah, sometimes I don't have to pay to...

RANT AT THE SCREEN: HOLY INDEPENDANT PICTURES, BATMAN

Today's film is from the freakin' madman that previously brought us "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" called "The Science of Sleep". The title's a bit of a misnomer, as there's very little science involved (at least, real science... there's all sorts of fake science), but sleep weighs in heavily enough to be counted twice. Honestly, though "The Sleep of Sleep" would be a pretty redundant title.

The Science of Sleep (dropping quotes now) is freaking insane. The film is mostly conducted in French (France being the location most of the story takes place), with brief asides into Spanish and English. This leads to me reading a lot of subtitles, which I don't actually mind that much. Stephane has moved to France at the request of his mother, occupying his childhood room following the death of his father by cancer in Mexico. She has lied to get him here, gaining him a job setting text for a calendar company while promising him a job in graphic design. In his dreams, Stephane hosts a television show (which treats us as the audience), and he explains early that dreams are a bit of memory, anxiety, musical remembrance, and fantasy.

Stephane's life is heightened when a new girl moves in accross the hall - Stephanie. He quickly exchanges a series of misunderstandings with them, and becomes more and more intrinsically involved, eventually setting his sights on Stephanie as his dream girl. However, things between his work and social life become more and more complex.

Things build in this film logically... there are solid, but passable cuts between Stephane's real life and his dream world (in all its surrealness). A tide of excitement over the possibility of relationship with Stephanie, and themes progress... The story becomes a sort of meditation on current problems, such as relationships vs sex, the role of the romantic in modern society, and the consequence of dream and expectation vs reality. There are moments of awesome clarity, and feels like things could build to something awesome, however...

At the beginning of act three, the whole thing falls apart. Stephane gets lost between awake and asleep scenes on a drinking night, leaving the audience unclear as to what is occuring at all (and where!). All we come to know is Stephane has royally messed things up, and may in fact be a big jerk, a sentiment the movie actually ends on. The resolution, such as it is, is entirely bittersweet, and almost seems forced.

That said... if you like talky, surreal, foreign films, and dream-study is a past time of yours, you could do a lot worse than this. Many scenes are actually downright hilarious and tragic in execution, lending a lot to Stephane's little world. Just don't expect things to fit together nicely, as you may have to make a few leaps to get near the end (which left me going "WHAT?!"),

All in all, I give this flick 3 days missed of work because I was sleeping out of 5.