“It’s a mystery what happened in the few days prior to Poe being found near death on a park bench.”  Oh really, movie!?  I’m pretty sure had Edgar Allan Poe been a part of a pretty notorious crime spree there would be record of that.  PREMISE BLOWN!

Phew, got that out of my system.  Let’s just say that if you want to start a film with a line like that, how about adding: “therefore we are going to make something completely ridiculous up that actually makes no sense with what we just said if you use your brain.”  I am all for mixing fiction with history, and adapting a real individual from history to a completely made up premise is fine by me (I am excited for Abraham Lincoln to fight vampires soon, just as an example), but let’s not set it up as if this story could have possibly been his unknown days.  Just let it be a pretend factoid from his life. (more…)

Lauren:  Having the tagline “from the producer of Bridesmaids” splashed all over the TV spots and poster is quite the stamp on a project.  Well, maybe not the producer part, but definitely the word Bridesmaids.  But don’t let the name-drop fool you; The Five-Year Engagement is quite a different beast from that non-stop laugh fest of comedic poo jokes and pre-wedding hijinks.  Sure, there are pre-wedding problems here as well, but don’t go in ready to compare the two as this is more about the couple confronting life as their ride to the alter constantly finds more bumps to bottom out on.

Zac: Agreed, I was expecting this to be much more of a comedy, but it is actually almost a drama first/comedy second.  Not that this is a bad thing; my expectations were just askew after the director’s, Nicholas Stoller, previous films; Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek.  The film works, and is sometimes even strong as a dramatic piece, and the messages the film is sending about marriage/relationships are real and genuine.  It doesn’t hurt to have such a great actress like Emily Blunt as your female lead either, and she and Jason Segel have a terrific amount of chemistry through out the film. (more…)

Damon Albarn is a legend. If you don’t know who he is, then I suggest you take a seat. Albarn was the frontman to the great 90′s band Blur, then went on to be immortalized as 2D in the alternative tour de force known as Gorillaz. When he’s not doing both of those things, he can be found doing side project after side project, spreading his musical genius through other acts like The Good, The Bad, and The Queen, and Rocket Juice & The Moon. He has sold hundreds of thousands of albums in his career, soundtracking the past two decades to perfection. And although I will probably not get another Blur or Gorillaz album anytime soon (if ever…[sigh]), it doesn’t mean Albarn will stop making music.

Case in point, his first solo album Dr. Dee; an alternative opera concept album that will get you listening to what is being played more than grooving.

Yes, you read that right. (more…)

Just over a year ago, The White Stripes informed the world that they were no longer making music together. As sad as it was then, I’ve come to a place of understanding and fulfillment. They didn’t leave us with a bad album (or any bad albums in general), and became one of the most loved duos of our time. Not to mention both Jack and Meg leaving us on a rather high note, with their live CD/DVD Under Great White Northern Lights. If you’re a White Stripes fan and haven’t seen Northern Lights, then I highly recommend that you find it somewhere.

But alas, good things come to an end. Not for Jack White though, as he still plays music with his side projects The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, as well as producing songs for Electric Six and Insane Clown Posse (not kidding). But now, he is set to release his first solo album, Blunderbuss, which is sure to make fans of all his material happy. (more…)

Remember watching Dawson’s Creek back in the day and thinking, what 16 year old honestly talks like that?  Armed with prodigious vocabularies (I am allowed to use the word prodigious as I am 26 and not 16), they philosophized about the metaphysical, the meaning of life, and so forth as casually as if they were discussing what they had for breakfast.  Those were definitely not the type of people I went to high school with, and from what I can tell from the Facebook statuses of current high schoolers (spackled with lolz, omfg, and I “heart” this and that), they are typically not known for being profound conversationalists.  Which is one of the only problems I have with The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – that is, the two 16 year old main characters speak as though they are a couple of wizened, enlightened ancients going through an existential crisis.

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I’ve had my share of rough times while abroad in Spain – tearfully attempting to explain my vivid yellow diarrhea to doctors who openly mocked me after spending a horrific night hallucinating on the toilet; being guilted into eating ham that was sliced off a pig leg in our pantry – a pig leg that that was still covered in a fine coating of PIG HAIR, mind you; eating what can I only assume what was a bowl of sea creatures and worms which my house-mom masqueraded as “pasta;”  I’ve even had to see my house-mom’s cleaning lady naked….and well, my house-mom parading about in her birthday suit too for that matter… and those are sights that I can NEVER unsee.  But at least I didn’t wake up in a hospital bed in Morocco after the typewriter salesman I fled Spain with disappeared with my fortune, leaving me high and dry with an unborn baby and an unpaid hotel bill  for thousands of dollars.  Of course my house-mom in not so many words banned me from visiting Morocco… so maybe she saved me some trouble.  Thanks for that María Jose.  But anyway, that is the situation we find our main character Sira in shortly after beginning The Time In Between  by María Dueñas.

And it only gets better from there (better from an entertainment perspective of course, it actually gets a little worse for Sira).  (more…)

Tyrion seems to slowly be shifting into the role of the main protagonist as this lengthy story unfolds.  It is somewhat ironic, or maybe not, that as he replaces Ned Stark’s role in Game of Thrones he has also taken his job as hand of the king.  This job is one of great importance and carries a great deal of authority but, as we already know, usually leaves the person of this position dead.  Tyrion is going out of his way to make sure this does not happen to him and has decided to use his superior intellect to keep not only his position but his life as well.  This week he demonstrates how, as Lord Varys says, even a small man can cast a rather large shadow by cleverly, and a little bit violently, taking care of his mole problem and now surrounding himself only by those he knows he can trust.  Meanwhile he protects his special lady friend by hiding her right under his sisters nose.  Little Finger and Lord Varys are on his side for now, but how long will that remain the case? (more…)

I don’t like backtracking as much as the next reviewer, but in the case of Neon Trees, I kind of have to. I stated in the music section of our Looking Forward To section earlier this month that their music would fill in the electric-alternative hole that The Killers left for us a couple of years ago. And yeah, their first single “Animal” still gets plenty of air time on some radio stations (and it had PLENTY when it was the commercial song for Las Vegas), but it didn’t catapult the band into the band that The Killers is – and technically still are.

But the biggest difference between The Killers and Neon Trees is the consistency of The Killers. After one song fizzled out, they had a song in their back pockets that they can throw out there and be as, if not more, accepted than the last. For Neon Trees, it wasn’t exactly public knowledge that “1983″ was released as the second single off of Habits. Instead, people just kept playing “Animal” until it got imprinted into our subconscious. Luckily, with their newest release Picture Show, they put out a single this year that should eclipse it’s predecessors. (more…)

If you are anything like me, you appreciate music that sounds different from what is being played by everyone. This can bring you into some fun and memorable territory, like the alternative trio Battles or the soulful throwback sound of Mayer Hawthorne. But other times, it takes you to a place that almost makes you scared for yourself and the people around you. That’s what Death Grips is for me; a scary, abrasive, and loud trip to your inner psyche. If you listened to their first mixtape, Exmilitary, then you would know what I mean by that.

However, what Death Grips brings to the table not only gets people shaking, but gets people talking. Mainly, if this project would be considered “hip-hop.” At the surface, the answer might be easy and would be no. But if you really clawed at Exmilitary, then you’d find a rather polarizing hip-hop album. And maybe because that WAS so polarizing, their latest effort The Money Store doesn’t really hold as much of power over me. I would go as far as saying that The Money Store is a rather tame rap album coming from Zach Hill and company. (more…)

Stop! If you have not seen The Cabin in the Woods and you are about to read this review; don’t.  Go see the movie, immediately if possible, and come back here so we can go over the film both knowingly aware of the greatness that this film is.

I am someone who isn’t particularly fond of horror films, my knowledge of them isn’t terribly deep, and I think the genre as a whole is mostly full of a lot of crappy movies.  The Cabin in the Woods is not a crappy movie.  The creative forces behind the film, producer Joss Whedon and director Drew Goddard, co-wrote the film and they seem to be speaking to me directly with the voice behind this film.  The film is being called a deconstruction of the genre, but I think it might eviscerate it along the way.  It isn’t the first film to successfully play with the genre, Shaun of the Dead and Tucker and Dale pop to mind, but Cabin goes further than both of those films try to go.  (more…)

The Cabin in the Woods has had a while of waiting to get through before finally coming to the big screen.  Trust me, I know.  As an avid Joss Whedon fan (he co-wrote this one), I have been waiting for what seems like forever.  We’re talking The Sandlot’s reading of the world “FOR-EH-VER.”  And now, the wait is finally over.

Most people not obsessed with the man at least know Whedon from creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which Drew Goddard (the co-writer and director of Cabin) also had his hands in, so it’s safe to say that the comparisons to this series are warranted.  Which definitely is not a bad thing.  Like that cult classic, Cabin is full of what made that series great, from the effectiveness of the ensemble cast (full of individual characters that work just as well on their own as they do within the group), the music cues, the healthy dose of horror, mixed with an even healthier dose of humor, sarcasm, and self-awareness of the genre. (more…)

Before I get into Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully, I would like to state my own stance on the topic of “bullying.” When I was younger, I was the one being picked on because I was different, whether it was because of what I looked like or how I spoke. I’ve gone to the brink and back with my head held higher because of it. And as I sat and watched this documentary, my memories of everything that I’ve gone through came rushing back into as an emotional tidal wave. I wish a movie like this came around when I was younger, and maybe it could have spread around like it’s doing now bringing up the awareness of how some of our youth is being tortured by others for something as simple as “being different.”

But how can you stop a child from speaking out? The honest answer is that you can’t. If you think that a parent should discipline their kid because of the ways they act at your house, then I would imagine that they will take that hate and transfer it into their fellow students. You can always suspend someone for something that they’ve done, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come back and be worse. All we end up doing is stoking the flames of our youth’s hatred towards one another. And just like flames, it crackles, it pops, and it hurts. (more…)

So soon after the dust has settled on the battlefield between Lauren’s positive and Zac’s dissenting opinions of The Hunger Games, the line must once again be drawn for The Raid: Redemption, an Indonesian martial arts spectacular getting quite a lot of attention lately. So whose side will you join, Lauren or Zac?

Lauren:  I don’t mean to brag, but the other night I accidentally kneed myself in the face during the everyday, mundane activity of tucking my legs into my chest in the upright fetal position.  That’s right, I failed at a form of sitting down.  So obviously I know a thing or two about fighting (accidentally self-inflicted or not): 1- Avoid fighting. 2- Play dead.  Had The Raid: Redemption needed to fill a role of a bumbling manatee on stilts then they would need to look no further than past someone with my grace and skill, but there is no room for comedy here (except maniacal laughing at the pain of others, of course). (more…)

This week’s Game of Thrones continued to remain dark, and I mean really dark.  This season has so far featured baby killing in every episode.  Well, alright that might be taking it a bit to far.  We don’t really know for sure if there was baby killing going on in this episode but it sure seemed like that was happening out in the woods at the very end.  One of those blue eyed things from the first episode in season one took the baby the man who is housing the Nights Watch left in the woods.  My guess would be that perhaps this is how those evil blue people are made, so that baby won’t be killed but instead turned into one of them.  I guess that’s not death but it might be just as bad.  Anyway, Jon Snow witnesses this and is then quickly knocked unconscious and the credits begin to role.  What a great cliff hanger right?  That ending was intense and now I can’t stop thinking about what that guy is going to do with Jon Snow.   Whatever it is I’m sure it will be terrible. (more…)

Back when I was younger, I was brought up on whatever was playing in my family’s car radio. Normally, it was the “oldies.” These oldies, including The Beatles’ “Elanor Rigby,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Boston’s “More Than A Feeling,” contributed to not only my personal tastes in music, but some of my first memories of music period. This thought got me thinking; what does it actually take for a band or artist to be considered classic now? Music is an ever evolving form of art, and the standards to be classic back then don’t exactly bring a comparison to what it takes now. And even if we stayed at those standards, can anyone nowadays match them? (more…)