Drag Me To Hell

Drag Me To Hell Post

Since this film was released, I had heard a lot of good things about it. Being directed by Sam Raimi (Spiderman Series) I must admit, I enjoy his directorship (along with Tony Scott and M Night Shymalan as my favourite directors.) So I was looking forward to watching this horror film, with parts of it showing a touch of classic-ness with certain camera angles and the old school use of shadows, rather than ridiculous CGI.

Basically the film, is about a young Loan Advisor “Christine Brown”  who tries to impress her boss “Jim Jacks”, for the assistant managers position, by declining a loan for an old gypsy lady “Sylvia Ganush” to keep her home, however what she doesn’t realise is that she is about to be cursed by the gypsy because she has rejected her loan.

And so the horror starts, Christine is stalked by a powerful demon called the “Lamia” who will stalk her for 3 days, and then finally dragging her literally into hell, however Christine tries to stop the “Lamia” in many ways, but does she have enough time to stop him? Well you will have to see and find out.

Justin Long is plays the worried boyfriend, Clay Dalton, who is also a professor which adds to the depths of the story with his parents annoyed that he is going out with a farmer girl. Dileep Rao plays “Rham Jas” who tries to help with ways of getting rid of the demon from her life he is also a shoulder for Christine to lean on because he is the only one that understands the curse.

There are many good things about this film, and it certainly did its job in making me jump, it returns to the roots of horror, by having quick panning shots making the audience wonder what is going to happen in the next shot.

The soundtrack is extremely creepy and definitely adds to the scariness of the film. I don’t really have anything negative to say about the film but its not amazing or genre defining, its just a good ol’ horror, which will definitely make you, laugh, jump, be scared, and just ask WHY!

Its definitely worth a watch and one of the better horrors this decade, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and this helps it out. Its very cool and very slick. Go Watch It NOW!

Drive Angry

Drive Angry Poste

Recently I have signed up to “Netflix” which allows you (the audience) to watch a large database of movies over the internet for £5.99 (however I have the first month free, after noticing the advert on TV). So I took it upon myself to start with Drive Angry.

I saw the adverts plenty of times when going to the cinema in early 2011, however, the cheesy script and sub-par acting really put me off of going to see this at the cinema. It some ways I made a good decision but in others, I made a bad decision because its one “helluva” ride.

From my point of view, Nicholas Cage in recent years hasn’t made very many good films, a lot of people slated “Knowing” but I quite enjoyed it until the end. “Bangkok Dangerous” I heard was awful, I didn’t particularly like either National Treasure (Even though my other half absolutely adores them). “Next” and “Season of the Witch” were supposed to be awful, alongside “Ghost Rider” which was truly awful (and they are still making a sequel!)

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Anyway, as you can see from above, I did not have high expectations for “Drive Angry” what so ever, especially with the ridiculous title. So what’s it all about?? Well its basically about “Milton” (Nicholas Cage) who breaks out of hell, because a sadistic satanic cult have kidnapped her, and he has broken out of hell, to get her back safe and sound, along the road is Amber Heard’s character “Piper”, she is not your typical blonde girl. Although very pretty she is also a bit of a “hard nut”, she is “Milton” helping hand. There are a few peripheral characters such as “the accountant” played by William Fichtner and The cult’s leader “Jonah King” who is played by Billy Burke.

Story is a little on the weak side, it’s not original and it’s not fantastically portrayed, but I did have a bit of an epiphany while watching the film. I notice that the whole demeanour of the film is cheesy, so I came to the conclusion that the whole film is SUPPOSED to be cheesy.

The acting is sooooo cheesy that it is something you will find back in the 80’s in a B movie, it really is that terribly cheesy. However, it does redeem itself on the action factor, there is quite a bit of it and this makes up for some of the way in which the film is executed.

Nicholas Cage plays a typical “Bad-Ass” quite well; he always has played very good villains, such as “Face-Off” and “Con-Air”. He has some very cheesy one liners. Amber Heard, plays the part of a tortured girl quite well and also has some cheesy one liners, she supports Nic Cage very well.

The music is very old-school and very rock and roll especially the last song at the end of the film.

Overall it’s a good ride, but sub-par In many categories, very enjoyable, but wide of the mark. The best thing I can suggest is, rent it and see what you think, I certainly wouldn’t buy it.

Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln Poster

When seeing the trailer for this film I was extremely unsure as to whether or not I was going to see the film or not, I finally decided to go and to be honest I was extremely disappointed…………….with the person next to me. This gentleman, (gentleman isn’t really the right word to use for this man, annoyance is probably more like it) decided to talk all the way through it with his chavy loud mouthed girlfriend, while being on his phone, nose-breathing extremely loud and rustling on his extremely large box of popcorn.

As you can you can probably tell I didn’t have the best experience when I went to see this film, I was extremely close to causing some damage to the chair in front or the idiot sat next to me.

Anyway RANT OVER!

Back to the film, from the producers of “WANTED” they have brought a modern twist to Abraham Lincoln’s short life, that he is a vampire hunter (something tells me you already knew this by the title).

Abraham Lincoln is played by Benjamin Walker, who I personally think portrays him excellently; he gives a really good vibe to the role and has a good energy about him. The film shows Abrahams’s rise to fame for being outspoken against slavery, thus him studying to become a lawyer and eventually president, the film very cleverly blends the two elements of this man’s life together, by day he is a lawyer, by night he is a vampire hunter. The day part, I believe is historically accurate which is another rather interesting element to the film.

Like usual I don’t really want to say too much about the film because I think people should go and see it for themselves, it is a very good film of what I saw of it anyway due to the babbling idiot.

The film has a lot of CGI through out, but it isn’t of the rubbish standard which is a good feature.

There are bits of black comedy throughout the film which is a plus, it breaks up the seriousness of the film (yes a vampire film can be serious).

Overall the film is very good and I would recommend people to go and see it.

Linkin Park - Living Things

Linkin Park - Living Things

What seems like an age since “A Thousand Suns”, finally Linkin Park have released their much awaited fifth studio album which is once again produced by the brilliant Rick Rubin and the band’s very own lyrical genius that is Mike Shinoda.

I have been alongside Linkin Park since the very first days, when they created Hybrid Theory way back in 2000, when I was only 10 (WOW that seems a lifetime ago). I have enjoyed every single one of their albums, all in different ways, because they all contribute to music in different ways, this album is absolutely no different from the rest of them, it contributes...........a lot.

This morning I woke up to a complete an utter surprise, with their album being posted through my letter box 3 days earlier than it was supposed to be released, I suppose I have HMV to thank for that. It didn’t take me too long to put it in to my CD player to see what they had created, over the past couple of weeks they have given a good account of what was to come with the early releases of “Burn It Down” and “Lies, Greed, Misery” (on Radio 1 and the new Medal of Honor trailer), both of these songs are brilliant, and gave a good account of the bands diversity, but as the old saying goes, leave the best till last and in this case they left all the talking to do with the actual album.

The name of the tracks are quite different from the other albums, denoting a certain fragility that the other albums haven’t, songs names like “Castle of Glass”, “Powerless”, “Victimized”, “Lost In The Echo” and “Tinfoil”, certainly far away from the likes of “Papercut”, “Crawling”, “Easier to Run”, “Bleed it Out”, “The Catalyst” and “Burning in the Skies” (respectively from “Hybrid Theory”, “Meteora”, “Minutes to Midnight” and “A Thousand Suns”.)

So the album opens up with “Lost In The Echo” which is by far my most favourite song of this album (apart from “Victimized”) and what you will first realise is that Mike Shinoda is heavily involved in this song, with Chester Bennington just singing the chorus, Shinoda proves once again that he has some awesome lyrics in his arsenal (“Ya’ll go hard I’ll go smart”), and it certainly helps Chester out with the rest of the song, it gives it a real flow, which is why I really like this song, it also brings back Chester’s incredibly strong “screamy” voice, which I have personally missed on the last couple of albums.

Next up is “In My Remains”, this shows Chester’s impressive vocal range , getting half way through this song makes you realise that Linkin Park have done it again and they have created another excellent album, throughout this song Chester shows his soulful side with some beautiful vocals.

“Burn It Down” is the next song on the list and I am sure a lot of people have already heard this song, due to getting quite a bit of air play on various radio stations, this is a brilliant song and definitely shows fusion between their older and newer material, with heavy synths involved through, I am sure this is going to be a hit with a wider audience.

"Choke on your lies, swallow up your greed, Suffer all alone in your misery"

Like “Burn It Down”, “Lies, Greed, Misery” also shows the fusion. Mike once again takes the reins on this song with Chester singing the chorus and the end. I personally think that this is going to have a lot of people singing along to it, the lyrics are very catchy, very fast and, yes I’m going to say it, very furious. Without doubt one of the best songs they have created in recent years.

“I’ll Be Gone”, shows yet again that Chester has an extremely large vocal range and continues to be one of the best in the business for a rock and soulful voice, some great lyrics.

“Castle of Glass”, combines both Chester and Mike’s voice which suit each other’s very well, like I said earlier you certainly get the idea of fragility from this song, very powerful and very good lyrics,  by now I’m thinking that this could be my favourite album of the year maybe even of Linkin Park’s.

"Time has come for you............VICTIMIZED"

Up next is “Victimized”, and after listening to this song it certainly makes you feel like a victim, simply because Chester just uses his voice to barrage your ears with anger and awesomeness, the only let down on this album so far, at just 1min 47secs long it is rather short, but what it doesn’t do in time it certainly gets the point across which is why this is also one of my favourite songs on the album, it certainly shows that Chester is still as good as he used to be. Brutal.

From “Victimized” you are effortlessly glided into “Roads Untraveled” which is a very nice song with Mike singing the majority of the song. Very calm and collected quite the opposite of “Victimized” but it helps to keep the equilibrium of the album, part "screamy", part melodic.

"Ash to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Skin to Bone and Steel to Rust"

“Skin to Bone”, is lyrically very simple, with the same lyrics said over again, my least favourite song but still very catchy and a very good song, sets the album up for the finale with 3 songs to go.

 

“Until It Breaks”, mostly shows Mikes ability to rap very well, lyrics that could easily be used in a rap battle, extremely good song with a good beat, also one of my favourites as it shows the whole band singing together (saw the making of the album and saw them sing together), something maybe they should think about doing more as it adds a very nice touch to the album, however like they always say “too much of a good thing is bad for you”.

Linkin Park is one of those bands that enjoys embracing the whole bands talents not just their singing ability which I really applaud, the second to last song “Tinfoil” shows Joe Hahn’s ability to create his own canvas with his own song which is shown in his previous works such as “Session” which was released in “Meteora”, so this sets it up very nicely for the finale.

“Powerless” is the finale song on Living Things and is very good ending to what is a brilliant accomplishment for the band, very slow, and extremely powerful (excuse the wording considering the song name), brilliant lyrics and beautiful voices.

And there we have it, 2 years of waiting is over, was it worth wait.................Hell Yeah! This album is awesome to say the least, I have already listened to it 3 times through and I have had it 9 hours. Brilliant addition to their stupidly good discography, the thing I would change would be the length of the songs, however they wouldn’t be the correct songs if they were longer, so in another words I wouldn’t change anything, some people may complain at the fact there isn’t an awful lot of screaming or metal, however they are going to have to accept this as Linkin Park.

Chester, Mike, Rob, Brad, Dave , Joe you have yet again created a brilliant album, Well Done, I already I cannot wait for your next album, and I am definitely looking forward to the remixed version of this album.

One question I do want to ask, do you think Linkin Park could successfully do a dubstep album?

Food for thought......

So as you may have noticed, I haven’t been posting a hell of a lot over the past 6 months, reasons for this ranging from the silly to the serious, I wont delve into to many details of my personal life, because 1. I don’t want my life splashed all over the internet and 2. Because you clearly won’t be interested.

 All I wanted to tell you was that, I will be back very soon, I am trying to get some of my creativity back, I am slowly recovering from what the last 6 months has brought me. No, I haven’t been ill and no Im not dying, I just made decisions in my life that changed my perspective and what I should do with life, writing is definitely something I have missed. Something that I will definitely carry on doing in the near future.

In other words, I am basically apologising for my absence and telling you the reader (if there are any of you out there) that I will be starting to post very soon.

Im sure your probably thinking to yourself, why did he write all that rubbish at the top, well the answer is, I need to VENT! So thanks for listening

Speak Soon!