Trailer watch: Fast & Furious 6 (final trailer)

I am not sure what is more surprising, that there have been 6 Fast & Furious movies or that the last one, Fast Five, was really good. In fact, I’m pretty sure this next installment will be pretty great too.

Returning to the caper are cast members Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez (whose character, Letty, was presumed dead), joined by newbies Gina Carano and singer Rita Ora (ugh).

Fast & Furious 6 sees fugitive Dominic Toretta (Diesel) team up with security agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson) to take down a mercenary organization.

Fast 6 opens in the United States May 24th and in Australia June 6th.

 

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Trailer watch: Monsters University (final trailer)

12 years after the release of Monsters Inc., the film’s much anticipated follow-up (a prequel in this case) is set to hit cinemas later this year. Monsters University sets the audience back before Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) become professional scarers to the time they first met; at Monsters University. Pixar hijinks ensue.

The original was a box office smash, earning in excess of $550million, and time will tell if this fun-looking prequel has the fur and the scare to do the same. Monsters University is set for release June 21st.

 

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Film Review: Promised Land

What do you do with a problem like Gus Van Sant? His name is sometimes thrown in the ring with other great directors, however the glimpses of brilliance he occasionally shows with films like To Die For, Good Will Hunting and Milk always seem to be overshadowed with other low-budget indie flops like Elephant, Last Days and Paranoid Park. With Promised Land, a film that was originally to be directed by Matt Damon, Van Sant does his best with what must be considered an average script.

Corporate Salesman Steve Butler (Matt Damon) and his sales partner Sue Thomason (Francis McDormand) arrive in a country town in rural wherever, looking to acquire the rights to drill on the property of the local folk. They work for a company called Global Crosspower Solutions. They’re drilling for natural gas, and in their minds everyone has a price.

What starts out as an easy sell is soon compounded by antagonist, or protagonist forces (whichever way you look at it) who will do their best to sway the collective opinion of Cowboy County. This is championed by Dustin Noble (John Krasinski from TV’s The Office), a one-man crusade who has beef with Global.

The Danny Elfman score, the kind faces of the characters, and the good humour that accompany them all give this film a very homely feel. Van Sant does well at framing the sprawling country landscape, referring back to aerial views of the town throughout the story which gives us good scope of what’s really at stake here; an already decaying land about to become more desolate if Global wins the fight. It’s also quite easy to get lost in the momentum of the story as Van Sant paces each act at a comfortable rate. Before you know it you’ll be reading the names in the credits looking for one that might suit your unborn child (anyone else do that?). For better or worse, this is a very straightforward plot. One slight twist is thrown in to make it half interesting.

While Promised Land tackles an important and current social, political and environmental issue (fracking’s so hot right now), the film never really reaches its full potential or delivers a knock out blow. If Damon and Krasinski, who both co-wrote the screenplay, wanted to make a statement on the issue at play, then it should be a no-holds barred, bullshit free account of what the implications of fracking really are. For example, showing a couple of images of dead cows probably doesn’t pull on the heartstrings as much as a couple of kids who drank contaminated water and now have cancer. Why hold back here fella’s? The screenplay puts character ahead of story, which is usually what happens when actors write screenplays. The film focuses on relationships between the characters rather than the bigger issue, and this is where the film falters. The tone for such a serious subject is just a little too gentle here. If you’re after a more accurate account of what fracking is and its implications examined a little more in depth, look for a documentary from 2010 called Gasland. In a sense, this film feels like a sugar-coated version for the masses.

For all my negativity about ‘what could have been’, the audience will still receive a nicely packaged film. It’s not one of Gus Van Sant’s best, but one that still deserves a viewing. If you’ve got a couple of hours to kill…

PROMISED LAND
Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Written by: Matt Damon & John Krasinski
Cast: Matt Damon, Francis McDormand, John Krasinski
Released by: Focus Features

Kid Cudi – Indicud

Every nine months or so, I ask myself a question: just what is it Kid Cudi does? I mean, I know what he does. He’s a rapper, a singer, a musician, an actor and now a producer. But does he do any of those things with particular distinction? No. Is there an uncanny Bradford Cox-like creative chutzpah where he’s not proficient at any one thing but the talent is undeniable? Far from it. So maybe we need to look at Cudi’s less tangible, less aural qualities. Maybe he’s like the Sid Vicious of hip hop? You know, not spectacular musically but there’s a fascinating id and personality there than encapsulates something a lot of people feel they relate to? No, definitely not that either.

Seemingly, he’s just a moody, romantically-minded kid with something to prove. What that is, I’m not sure, but I also can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to him than that. There has to be, right? He’s a Yeezy discovery. And while Ye has made mis-steps in the past, his creative acumen rarely falters. Perhaps Indicud is the key to the Kid Cudi kingdom that everyone but me seems to have free passage to.

The idea behind experimentation is that you start off without an idea or formula, relying on your chops to find something you or someone else would not have otherwise found. Mescudi on the other hand sees experimentation as a genre in and of itself. To him it means layers upon layers of 80s synths and warbling atmospherics, instrumental breaks that meander into their own asses, bad vocals punctuated by corny effects and attempts at genre-bending that see cohesion on the horizon and then promptly run in the other fucking direction.

Mescudi makes multiple attempts at blending disparate indie-rock and folk samples with hip-hop beats and new wave synths. The synths are a very tired trick and the beats, frankly, are boring. When combined with the various samples such as the likes of Father John Misty (“Young Lady”) and the contribution from the Haim girls (“Red Eye”), the result is a very muddied and awkward cacophony.

“New York City Rage Fest” might be the single most annoying thing I’ve ever heard. Or at least I thought that, until I heard the hook on “Brothers”. It sounds like someone drunkenly singing into a pedestal fan but hey, the hook on “Cold Blooded” is just embarrassing. See for yourself: “Cold, bitch you know I’m cold / I’m one cold blooded nigga / Oh, so cold.” The beat is quality and the rapping is solid, flow and all, but I had a hard time getting past that hook, well-sung though it may be.

The masters of cold, digital soundscapes like Kraftwerk and Afrika Bambaataa divested themselves of warmth and humanity and as a result, made music intrinsically warm and human. Mescudi on the other hand, attempts to combine all of these elements outright. The result is an awkward mixture of sloppy, detached beats, meandering sentimentality, monotonous (and often off-key) vocals, so-so rapping and delusions of grandeur that remain delusions.

And it’s the deluded grandeur that I guess people find charming? I don’t know. The opening track “The Resurrection of Scott Mescudi” is a mishmash of tinny anvil clanging and saw synths. Picture the montage scene in Iron Man where Tony Stark is building the suit in the cave. The hubristic title and bloated atmospherics are very telling. Mescudi envisions himself as a deceased vigilante who is resurrected with robotic implants to help him fight crime. He is RoboStoner. And he’s not very interesting, even for a bonafide superhero.

The few bright spots on the album mostly occur when the guests are given a chance to shine. Kendrick Lamar, RZA and A$AP Rocky all take a stab at keeping this album afloat, like people running around with tentpoles as a canvas collapses on top of them. For the most part, they succeed. RZA’s contribution on “Beez” is excellent and the beat is one of the more interesting on the album. “There’s holes inside your sweatshirt / Through your apparel, through your blood, through your bone marrow.” Brutal.

Indicud is a strange record. And not in a good way. It doesn’t intrigue or inveigle, it’s strange in a way that is off-putting. More than once I found myself scrunching my face and furrowing my brow like someone had left a sarcastic note under my car’s windscreen wiper. And Jesus, why is it so long? 18 tracks? You could halve the tracklist and still have only a semi-decent album. Did Indicud provide an answer to my question? Well, on Indicud Scott Mescudi, rapper, singer, musician, actor and now producer definitively proves that he has something to prove, but not much more. 

(Wicked Awesome / GOOD / Republic)

Trailer watch: Thor – The Dark World

The first trailer for the upcoming Thor sequel The Dark World has now hit the web. Following on the events of The Avengers, the mighty locks of Thor battles an evil older than the universe, in hopes of saving the Nine Realms.

The film stars Chris Hemsworth in the title role alongside Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Stellen Skarsgard and Idris Elba.  The Dark World is directed by Alan Taylor (taking over from Kenneth Branagh) and is set for release this November.

 

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Major Lazer – Free the Universe

I don’t know where we made a wrong turn or who the pipe-wielding asshole who led us astray was, but something went wrong somewhere. Maybe it was when Pitchfork started giving albums 0′s out of 10 or when we as a society decided that taking pop music seriously and blaming it for society’s ills was a worthwhile thing to do but at some point we took music, something that gave us pleasure, and distorted it into a segregative earmarking. What’s worse, we stopped having fun, or rather, we stopped letting ourselves have fun, which is far more dire. We lost our sense of abandon.

Occasionally we are reminded of what we once were, like a housewife looking over shoebox photos of herself with feathered hair, smoking cigarettes in a leather jacket. Major Lazer’s new album Free the Universe is that kind of token. Listening to this 14-track dubsploitation, I’m struggling to remember the last time I had so much fun listening to a record. Maybe the last Major Lazer record?

It’s rife with cameos and collaborations and punctuated with every favela-informed trick in Diplo’s arsenal. And while Diplo never ditches his vain desire for integrity, he doesn’t take himself too seriously either. Sure, “Wind Up” goes nowhere and “Jah No Partial” is an ugly composite of all the worst excesses of dubstep, but they’re not enough to significantly detract from what is otherwise a smooth and very enjoyable ride.

The dynamic of Major Lazer has carried over from 2009′s Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do—the album is a mixtape with a budget. This is despite creative differences seeing “the other MIA collaborator” Switch make his egress, to be replaced by Jillionaire and Walshy Fire. Holding the fort in the vocal booth is a roster of dancehall dignitaries and indie darlings. Santigold, Vybz Kartel, Danielle Haim and Yasmin all make appearances and that’s just on the opening track—”You’re No Good”, a groove more than a song, and a joyous one at that.

Long-time philanderer of roots music Ezra Koenig swings sweetly on “Jessica”. A dub ballad that sounds like a child singing to himself in the playground after listening to an hour of Babylon Burning on PBS. Amber Coffman of Dirty Projectors (ugh) wins even me over on “Get Free”, last year’s single that was made to be a crossover before the click-track had even been laid down.

Major Lazer is lauded for the eclecticism of its output, which is bullshit. There’s really only two songs here: the slowed, catchy groove replete with hooks and the dance floor banger with one hook. Entirely fitting for artists who operate in a genre whose detractors most common complaint is that “it all sounds the same” and whose aficionados tout the subtle variations held within each individual track. But the merit of Major Lazer is that it exists in its own sphere, removed far enough from the pontificating of either end of that spectrum. If you forsake your aesthetic sensibilities and your need for an iPod airtight with credibility, you might actually have a good time. 

(Secretly Canadian)

Phoenix – Bankrupt!

In high-school, I befriended a French exchange student. My other friends didn’t particularly take to him because he was incredibly naïve and quick to laugh at the most benign occurrences. I forced him on my social circle because, quite frankly, he reminded me of my grandmother. A foreigner in a strange place trying his best to get by with his sensibilities under constant assault. That said, I agreed with my friends. The guy not only laughed about a mate of mine falling on his ass after being hit in the face with a soccer ball, he laughed about it for 15 minutes. He turned it into an awkward and bizarre Buster Keaton routine, recreating the fall with flamboyant exaggeration. And without a hint of malice or ill-spirit. That’s just what he was into. Fast-forward a few months and some of his friends from Paris flew over to visit him. He invited me to hang out with them at their hotel room. Watching him – let’s just call him Pierre – command the attention of his friends, driving them to maniacal laughter with every nasally syllable, outdrinking them and beating them in arm-wrestles: Pierre was the fucking man.

Phoenix are like that. Removed from their warm little nest and they seem naïve, even saccharine, expending equal energy doing their own thing and trying to fit in. They need to be appreciated in the proper context, then it all makes sense. As it happens, the context was consciously obliterated with the release of 2009′s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and the ineffable force-field between Phoenix and the mainstream world was part of the collateral damage. Phoenix were showing everyone that they were the shit, what they and their comfortable niche of fans had known for a while.

And I guess being the shit is a tiring and disheartening occupation, if the despondent self-reflective lyrics of Bankrupt! are any indication of what the last three years have been like for Phoenix. They’re weary from being a pop band that suddenly became popular: “What I once refused to be / Is everything they long together / I’d rather be alone,” sings Mars on lead single Entertainment. Who knew they were that popular?

“Cool / I’m just trying to be cool / It’s all because of you,” Mars ironically serenades show business as it looks down from its second-story bedroom window, giggling coyly. The track, “Trying To Be Cool”, is one of the scattered highlights of the album. The band has never been shy of synths but on Bankrupt! they become a crutch instead of a pleasant sonic element. The familiar textures – sparkling, soaring, gauzy, heavy, fuzzy – are overwrought and insulate the band from the cock-eyed shimmer they once displayed.

With Phoenix, every track is always a little too polished, the band is a little too slick. Mars’ heartbreak always seems like it played out exactly the way he wanted it to. His neurosis and awkwardness, a performance he deftly executes like a juggling trick. The guy has the blueprint to himself and that is, besides being a troubling prospect, the downfall of Bankrupt! Phoenix have rote knowledge of what they do. It’s ingrained in the very fabric of the band and it tethers their music to the same familiar nucleus. They’re yearning to experiment when they simply meander, they attempt melody when they should go for hooks. Musically they’re doing what M83, The Raveonettes and other bands have already been doing for a decade and those bands do it better than Phoenix.

“Bankrupt!” is analogous to Wolfgang’s “Love Like a Sunset”, “Drakkar Noir” harks back to “Too Young”, “Oblique City”, a little too similar to “1901″. They’re not rehashes, they’re uncanny acts of reflexivity. Phoenix is illustrating what it’s like for Phoenix to be Phoenix and unfortunately, the image depicted is not a work of art.

“It’s very experimental, it’s very minimal music,” said Mars of Bankrupt! I’ve always found both “experimental” and “minimal” to be highly dubious terms in any context. To classify something as being “experimental” is not only vague and pretentious, it’s also hubristic. Much like “progressive,” labelling a work as “experimental” should warrant a lot more than simply slinging shit at the proverbial wall. But to call the French pretentious, vague and hubristic is about as worthwhile as saying there are too many reality shows on television: everybody already knows and they don’t like it anymore than you do, so hey, what are you gonna do? “There’s something a little frustrating when you do pop music,” Mars continued. A little frustrating? You should try listening to it some time, it’ll make your baguette limp. 

(V2 / Glassnote)

Film Review: Warm Bodies

I love zombies. I love them more than cake. And it’s not just me. There is something about zombies that has become so universally appealing that investors and studios have no problem throwing their money behind the next creative story involving the walking dead. For me, I love their innocence. It’s almost childlike. Face eating aside, all they’re doing is playing the hand they’ve been dealt. I guess you could call me a ‘zombie sympathiser’. So when I heard about a film where the story is purely from a zombie’s point of view, it felt like someone had just made me a zombie shaped cake. 

Warm Bodies is the fourth feature from director Jonathan Levine. His previous films include the very underrated All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, the very overrated The Wackness, and 50/50 which like its title was very average. Adapted from the Isaac Marion novel of the same name, Warm Bodies provides us with a fresh take on the zombie genre, its marketers calling it a ‘Rom Com Zom’. Our protagonist and zombie in question simply goes by the name ‘R’. His voiceover narration from the opening doesn’t tell us how or why the world has turned to shit, why he forgets his name, or his past. He simply forgets. We accept all this because after all, he’s a zombie.  He resides at the airport where during the day he wonders around aimlessly, pondering life after death. The closest he gets to communicate with anyone involves staring and grunting with his friend ‘M’ at the airport bar. At night he finds solace in his home, the inside of a 747, where R’s collection of vinyl and other objects are memento’s substituted for memories. 

One day R encounters a human named Julie (Australia’s Teresa Palmer) while out on an eating frenzy with fellow zombies. It’s love at first sight. From here on out, we’re in for a love story with a very different pulse. Two very different people from very different worlds (You get the Shakespeare shout-out? R and Julie? Don’t worry, you will at the balcony scene). This strangely warm relationship starts to have an effect on R, where slowly but surely he starts regaining his humanity. Together they must convince other humans, in particular Julie’s father (the always impressive John Malkovich) who leads the human race’s battle against the dead, that they may have found a cure for the zombie nation. Along the way they must also do their best to avoid an even bigger threat known as ‘Bonies’ who are simply skeletal zombies who have just taken shit too far. 

Nicholas Hoult, best known for his Tony character on UK’s Skins really does an amazing job as lead character, R. Gifted a chance to take on a great role, he impresses from start to finish. A simple turn of the head or blink of an eye garners more laughs than the constant and maybe overused voiceover narration, where the jokes fall flat and get a little tiresome. In fact, the humour as a whole falls a little flat and that’s probably the films biggest downfall. Maybe the humour will resonate well with a younger audience, but it lacks bigger laughs and more consistent humour that zombie greats of the past decade such as Planet Terror, Shawn of the Dead and Zombieland all provided. 

Despite this, a zombie film should by and large be judged on originality. If you are a lover of this genre you’ll be pleasantly surprised at seeing a new take on an old convention. Even if that ‘new’ take has been borrowed from Shakespeare.

WARM BODIES
Directed by: Jonathan Levine
Written by: Jonathan Levine (screenplay), Isaac Marion (novel)
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich
Distributed by: Icon

Trailer watch: Star Trek Into Darkness (final trailer)

The final trailer for JJ Abrams‘ much anticipated sci-fi sequel Star Trek Into Darkness has hit the web. The trailer continues the themes of peril the crew faces in light of a new evil, played by Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch.

Shall we begin? Looks a little like the end. Star Trek Into Darkness hits cinemas in May.

 

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Wildcat General Strike – Codswallop EP

Wildcat General Strike is Melbourne man Paul Connor and Codswallop is the second EP. Self-produced and brimming with off-centre energy, Codswallop is an interesting document for an artist just beginning his career.

New single, “The Truth About Music”, works exceptionally well as an opener – kicking things off with momentum. The overarching guitar riff is given prominence throughout as Connor puts on a Northern England drawl to deglamourise the role of music in our lives. The song is propelled forward by layers of guitar and distortion which reappear regularly in later songs.

The first touch of Bowie eccentricity comes through on the very brief Schadenfraude. Despite its length, it features perhaps the best chorus on the EP and its wonder why Connor didn’t pursue it further. Having said that it does work exceedingly well as a lead into “High School Diploma”. This song has already got some love through triple j Unearthed and it’s not hard to see why. It’s spacious, bass-heavy verse gives way to a fuzzed-out chorus that is hard to resist. It is the standout track in terms of accessibility, even managing to incorporate some beneficial 80s-style guitar wankery in its final moments.

The constant use of the clean opening to guitar-overload becomes a little grating by fourth track, “Throw Me A Bone”. It would be nice to hear a further exploration of the strange-funk that underpins the track without being bombarded by guitar at some point. “Throw Me A Bone” does highlight the oddball lines that Connor drops into his lyrics and on repeated listens to the EP it becomes clear that there is more weight to this release than it would seem on surface level.

Codswallop closes with “The World Is An OK Place”; and if “The Truth About Music” was a great opener, well then this is a near-perfect final track. While Connor has been guardedly pessimistic for much of the EP, he cautiously opens up for a track that comes close to celebratory. The layers of instrumentation are still there but this time the guitar work settles back into the mix and allows Connor to deliver a very cool piece of retro glam.

It’s hard to pin down the intentions of the enigmatic Paul Connor. If his amateur but oddly-effective videos for “The Truth About Music” and “High School Diploma” are anything to go by, he will be happy to achieve local fame on an eccentric mix of rocking tunes and weirdo-wit. However for someone this talented there is room for him to break structure and further explore the musical and lyrical themes he touches on with Codswallop. 

(self released)