Snakes on a Plane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Snakes on a Plane could honestly change the way movies are made today, and I'm not kidding. Early in pre-production of this movie they were going to try and give it a serious title (Pacific Flight 151) and make it a PG-13 movie. Then Samuel L. got his hands on the script which was tenatively titled "Snakes on a Plane". He refused to star if they changed the title. The studio agreed, and when word got to the internet that Samuel L. Jackson would be in a movie titled Snakes on a Plane it caught on like wildfire. T-shirts, blogs, websites, posters, catch phrases. These were all out before the general public had seen a single shot of the film. The producers of Snakes couldn't ignore the buzz, so they had no choice but to bow to their audiences demand and re shoot parts of the movie to make it rated R, and add in Sammy's key catch phrase. That kind of influence by the general public on a film in production was totally unheard of unti Snakes. You think George Lucas gave a crap what the fans wanted to see when he was making the new Star Wars trilogy, I doubt it.

As a movie Snakes on a Plane is every bit as fun and stupid as you would think. Plot holes aplenty, bad decision making aboud, but good times had by all. It's good to see a movie from time to time that reminds you not to take yourself too seriously, and that not all movies need a brain. It's also nice to see Samuel L. Jackson drop F bombs just because he feels like it. That helps too.

7.5/10

Pluto...I Lament thee

Today is a sad day for our solar system, for today we lost the runt of the litter. Pluto. As opposed to taking him to the vet and getting him a few shots. A panel of prestigious astronomers instead decided to toss Pluto in a burlap bag with all the other "dwarf planets" and throw them in the river. Today is a sad day.

More so sad because it shows the crippled state of our space program. Instead of discovering new planets, we are consolidating. The universe is infinite, yet somehow from our point of view it is shrinking. I understand the new qualifications for planets, and it's not that it doesn't make sense. It does. What doesn't make sense to me is why so many man hours were spent trying to determine it. The universe is shrinking in a figurative sense, not a literal one.

Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey the other night helped me to realize how far behind we really are. In 1969 we were walking on the moon. 2001 was made in 1968. At the rate we were moving back then with the space program it wasn't crazy to think that we would be making strides towards Jupiter (No matter how crazy Stanley Kubrick might be). We should have at least been walking on Mars by now.

Axing Jupiter only makes it more apparent that we're light years away from making important strides in space. Instead of spending time on making our Solar system smaller, we need to spend time on figuring out how to make it bigger. Figuratively.

Man. 5 years seems like so long ago.

What I've been Listening too.....all summer.

Angels and Airwaves- We Don't Need to Whisper
I really didn't like this album. Tom Delonge is an awesome guitarist, but his vocals and song writing pale in comparison. This Cd would have been a lot better if it had been an instrumental album, because the songs sound great until the singing begins. In the past Delonge's vocals haven't bothered me, mainly because with Blink he had Mark Hoppus to carry some of the load, and on the Box Car Racer album Delonge didn't take himself so seriously. I tried, but I really just couldn't get into this album.

Key tracks: The Adventure

The Format: Dog Problems
The Format are one of my favorite bands of the last five years. Their writing ability, talent and originality are light years ahead of a lot of today's new bands. If you are a fan of their past album and ep's then I think it would be safe to say that you would really enjoy Dog Problems. It's very different from Interventions and Lullabies, but not so different that it's unrecognizable. In Dog Problems, the Format try a lot of new sounds, while adding layers to their old. The title track "Dog Problems" uses an almost circus like beat, with crashing symbols and guitars all over the place to create a song that I haven't ever heard anything like before, and the song "If work permits" uses a drum machine then segways into a punkish type song. The Format could have easily rehashed Interventions and Lullabies but they didn't, and what came out is something really unique.

Key tracks:
She doesn't get it
Dog Problems
Time Bomb
If Work permits
Ocean
Dead End Song
The Compromise

Gatsby's American Dream- Gatsby's American Dream
I love this band. I bought their last cd "Volcano" on a whim last year, and to this day it's one of the best impulse purchases I've ever made. Gatsby's are lyrical geniuses, their guitarists are sick, and their lead singer has a sound that I have yet to hear duplicated. Many of their past albums and songs have been based on literature and film (they have songs about Animal Farm, Lord of the flies, the Great Gatsby). This cd is more introspective and is appropriately self titled. Throughout the album the lyrics touch on a lot of music industry politics and how much Gatsby's tries to avoid them. This album is a lot more raw than their others because they didn't add any effects to the vocals, so It sounds a lot like a live show would. Except with way better quality. This is with out a doubt one of the better albums I've heard this year.

Key Tracks:
The White mountains
Me and Ed Loyce
My Name is Ozymandis
Margaritas and Cock

Outkast: Idlewild
I have been a huge outkast fan since the 8th grade. I've seen them live, I've even been on a trip to Atlanta in High School that was almost single handedly inspired by them. Aquemini is one of my favorite albums of all time.I believe that Outkast are the great musical geniuses of our time. They are profound writers, musicians, and artists, and they never make the same album twice. Idlewild as everybody knows is the soundtrack to their movie of the same name. I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't completely put the Album into perspective, but from a musical standpoint, Idlewild is all over the place. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. The album itself blends so many different styles, jazz, blues, rap, rock, soul, gospel. Every track is something different which is a good thing and they break a lot of new ground. The bad part about this album in my eyes is the fact that Andre and Big Boi only appear together on a handful of songs together. So in a way Idlewild plays a lot like SBXXX/TLB because it's almost like two albums put together into one. So many people think that this will be Outkast's last album together, but I seriously doubt it. Those guys have a relationship that transcends music, "We will always make music in some form. Even if, say, if Big Boi goes and does a solo album, I'm still producing on that album," insists Andre. "I think we will always do OutKast in some kind of way.", and that's straight from the horses mouth right there.

Key Tracks:
Idlewild Blues
Chronomentrophobia
Hollywood Divorce
BuggFace
Call The Law
In Your Dreams

There you go, those are the albums that have been dominating my headphones as of late. There is a lot of good music on the horizon as well. In the next few months there's new albums from The Roots, Talib Kweli, Brand New, Incubus, and New Found Glory. So until then.....

I'm back, I'm back, Oh I am back.

I just got back in town about a week ago, and after enjoying a little bit of rest I'm getting back into the fun world of work, college, and bills. Hooray for the better things in life!! Serioulsy though, I'm back , and I'll be writing like a man possesed with a little writing demon, because that's what I do.

Until I write some things, check out my new links on the side. One is Stephen Colbert's site, and the other is a hilarious website where Kitten's battle it out for who is the cutest. It will provide you with hours of cute kitty carnage. Enjoy!


Vote for Wodan......if you are man enough.