Halloween Horror Movie Marathon, Night Three

On this final night of my marathon, Army of Darkness and Re-Animator were on the slate. Each was a disappointment in its own right, sadly.

Army of Darkness:

I am really quite conflicted about this film. On one hand, the midway part of the film, the meat of it, surpasses anything Raimi did in the first two films. On the other hand, the beginning and ending fall unbelievably short. Why I sat through the final thirty-or-so minutes of the film was out of respect for Raimi and hope that he would turn it around yet. But it never returned to form in those waning minutes.

Even so, I cannot ignore the unadulterated cinematic brilliance contained within this film. Flawed, it is. That I can say without a doubt. Yet, blemishes and all, it stands as my favorite of the trilogy.

Re-Animator:

Deadpan humor this film is, but only to a point. As in one moment in the film. One involving, ironically, a severed head and a pan. A scene I nearly avoided, too. 45 minutes in, I'd had enough and decided I'd be better off skimming the remaining 40 minutes to see if my decision might be premature. Felt those 40 minutes looked promising enough and pushed on. Only for a couple more minutes, though. Couldn't even hold out long enough for the infamous cunnilingus scene.

Oh, and if it came out that the sounds of the re-animated cat were done by one of the filmmaker's little kids, I'd not be surprised in the least.

And I'll leave it there.

Halloween Horror Movie Marathon, Night Two

The Evil Dead:

Having watched Drag Me to Hell prior to this, I had become worried that Raimi's brand of horror was not for me. Such worries proved to be unfounded.

Raimi takes staples of standard horror fare and warps them to great effect, the low budget nature of the film working in his favor.

Dead by Dawn:

More over-the-top than its predecessor, drowning in blood (of all colors), Dead by Dawn manages to build on what made The Evil Dead what it was.

To put it succintly.

Little tops Bruce Campbell with a chainsaw as a hand.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978):

Following the first two entries in the Evil Dead trilogy, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Goldblum, Nimoy and Sutherland do not disappoint, yet the film does little to build around their performances. For much of the film, its plot only manages to meander. It is not until the reveal of the Body Snatchers that the film shifts out of park. Even then, it manages only a leisurely pace until the film begins to draw near its conclusion. And its closing scenes, though superbly done, felt like payoff without one iota of the necessary buildup.

Oh, the wasted potential.

On tomorrow's docket are Re-Animator and Army of Darkness.

Halloween Horror Movie Marathon, Night One

With no classes today, Halloween tomorrow, and a half dozen or so horror films begging to be watched, a two night horror movie marathon seemed in keeping with the spirit of the holiday.

Kicking things off was a zombie double header. Dawn of the Dead (Remake) followed by 28 Days Later.

Dawn of the Dead:

Where Snyder lost me was his treatment of the zombies themselves. Them not being of the shambling sort ups the ante to a point. Compared to 28 Days Later's zombies, however, Snyder's seem cartoonish.

And it doesn't feel so much like a Dawn of the Dead remake as it does a Snyder film that just so happened to have that particular film as source material. From his signature montage to his use of slow motion which can often border on abuse, that personal flair is undoubtedly there.

All that said, its humor is its redeeming factor. Without it, I fear it'd be another throwaway zombie flick.

28 Days Later:

Here is a film that transcends the zombie sub-genre. It is a sharply written satire that happens to have a zombie apocalypse backdrop.

Bolstered by a strong cast, 28 Days Later is nothing if not sincere. Never anything less than heartfelt, it runs the gamut of human emotion. Nothing can squelch the human spirit. 28 Days Later is a testament to that.

The Fly:

A film quite applicably named. Goldblum, The Fly, is the film. His performance carries the film to respectability and beyond it. It is not until Goldblum is let loose that the film stops meandering and hits its stride. And it is not until the final transformation that the film lets up.

Everything else, I could have done without, admittedly. Nevertheless, The Fly is a movie that knows what it is and doesn't waste time trying to be something it's not. And a classic of the Monster Film sub-genre is what it is.

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date

Got too caught up in other things to get around to Cinema's Worst. Will have it up by Friday, at the very latest.

And, speaking of being late, I often wonder why people'll be in such a hurry that they'll press the button to close the elevator doors a millisecond faster or not stop to hold the door open for someone behind them, yet they'll mosey along to wherever it is they have to be. Shaving that millisecond off your time allows you to go for a good stroll? Baffles me, really.

Cinema's Best

Without further ado, I present to you my rankings (as of October 17th, 2009).

#1

12th grade had begun and our AP English teacher handed us each a sheet of paper with the standard questions, one being what our favorite film was. Said it'd show us how, by years end, we'd changed. What didn't change, however, was my answer to the aforementioned question: Donnie Darko.

Having only seen the film once, I'd become worried that its hold on the top spot in my rankings on Flickchart could be attributed to mere nostalgia. But those worrisome thoughts were silenced by my second viewing. Because, see, Donnie Darko is a film that does not so much do one thing extremely well, but rather has many things going for it, not the least of which is its cast. And I mean the entire cast when I say that. Few films feel as authentic and sincere as Donnie Darko and its cast plays a major role in that.

#2

How I regret all that time I avoided Pan's Labyrinth, now. It is a film without par. Never has a film so seamlessly blended reality and fantasy.

However, my ignorance was a blessing, you could say. Expectations? I had none. Especially not the unrealistic expectation that it'd be pure fantasy, as trailers lead some to believe. Pan's Labyrinth is a film that cannot be watered down for the purpose of any sort of advertisement.

Even my initial thought as the credits rolled - "Best fairy-tale/fantasy film of all time" - could be misleading to the uninitiated and, at the same time, do not do the film justice.

#3

Misled by the media? Can't be. But it is. How the media glanced over the numerous star-turns of the sober RDJ prior to Iron Man could not be more beyond me. And how Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, in particular, flew relatively under the radar is simply confounding.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang only disappoints when you discover it to be Shane Black's directorial debut and he seems perfectly content with letting his directorial career also end there.

And here, RDJ shames his own performance in Iron Man, his comedic timing on even better display.

Fans of RDJ and/or film noirs, here is a film for you.

#4

Without an Aussie named Steve, I wouldn't've understood the draw of Joseph Gordon Levitt prior to seeing this film.

That said, (500) Days of Summer shamed every romcom that had the misfortune of coming before it. And that is no senseless hyperbole, nor is it merely the result of an obsession with Zooey Deschanel (and Steve's catching JGL obsession).

What sets (500) Days of Summer apart is that it is not, as is explicitly stated in the trailers, a love story and its quirky, non-linear manner of telling this non-love-story.

Feel as if I've said so little, but that if what I did say hasn't sold you on the film, you're not going to be.

#5

Gave into the hype machine, not even having seen Batman Begins or being all too familiar with Nolan, and was not the least bit disappointed.

Put it this way. If The Dark Knight had nothing outside of The Joker, as so many seem to adamantly argue, it'd rank similarly high on my list. Ledger's Joker not only heads my list of movie villains, but my list of individual performances as well. With the role, Ledger took method acting to such heights that sensationalist stories of it sending him teetering over the brink could be seen as having shreds of credence.

And some of the other issues the detractors bring up, I find to be non-issues. Take the occasional disorienting action sequence, for example. How I see it is that the manner in which these sequences were shot quite reflect how disorienting they'd be, in all reality.

All in all, The Dark Knight stands as the best superhero film of all time and a memorial to one of the best actors of our generation.

#6

Wall-E is only an animated film by classification. Comparisons were not drawn to 2001: A Space Odyssey for shits and giggles.

No other Pixar film can boast the same amount of depth as Wall-E. Pixar's balancing act between children and adults has never been on greater display, as well. Wall-E has the Pixar charm in spades and, as a counterbalance, it stands as a particularly relevant satire with a surprisingly broad focus.

More impressive yet is the fact that Pixar managed all of this with a film relatively absent of dialogue. Wall-E says all of three words in the span of the film: Wall-E, Eve, and directive. Leave it to Pixar to make a, more or less, mute robot into the most lovable of all of its characters.

#7

Above all else, let this sink in: Sharlto Copley is said to have improvised all of his lines. Not that District 9 took this spot based entirely on that. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

Call it too explicit if you want, but District 9 is a dazzling commentary on apartheid told through the unlikeliest of means. Anymore, it's refreshing to see a film in the science fiction genre - overrun by middling, shallow films - tackling such themes.

Neil Blomkamp's directorial debut boasts a strong cast, social commentary, dazzling special effects, and there's even some humor interspersed throughout.

Blomkamp, I eagerly await your next project.

#8

The Shawshank Redemption straddles the line between human emotions like so few movies. It is, all at once, somber, inspiring and humorous, and that is no small feat.

From Tim Robbins to James Whitmore, the cast is without fault. Morgan Freeman provides his quintessential narration. And memorable scenes, The Shawshank Redemption is not lacking in.

#9

The Green Mile is no less of a film for being beaten out by The Shawshank Redemption. Quite the contrary, in fact. No matter what movie just so happened to win this particular match-up, it did so by a margin that is the slimmest of slim.

One area that The Green Mile does have a clear edge in is its cast. Tom Hanks, David Morse, Michael Clark Duncan, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Doug Hutchison, Sam Rockwell, and Patricia Clarkson, to name a few. Of all the movies I've seen, I've not come across a better ensemble cast.

And the fact that the decision between these two films is so hotly contested says as much about the partnership of Frank Darabont and Stephen King as it does about the quality of the two films.

#10

In terms of pure comedies, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is as without peer as Pan's Labyrinth is in terms of fantasy films.

I'd be hard pressed to name a film that is in the same stratosphere as Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the area of quotable scenes or laughs per minute.

More could be said, but I sincerely doubt this happens to be a film I need to sell to anyone.

#11. Fight Club

#12. 12 Monkeys

#13. Being John Malkovich

#14. Serenity

#15. Shaun of the Dead

#16. Juno

#17. 3:10 to Yuma

#18. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

#19. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

#20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

#21. Amelie

#22. Trick ‘r Treat

#23. The Brothers Bloom

#24. MirrorMask

#25. In the Loop

#26. Toy Story

#27. The Prestige

#28. Iron Man

#29. Toy Story 2

#30. Shrek 2

#31. Stardust

#32. Hot Fuzz

#33. Zombieland

#34. The King of Comedy

#35. A Beautiful Mind

#36. Seven

#37. Children of Men

#38. The Wrestler

#39. Man on Wire

#40. Slumdog Millionaire

#41. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

#42. A Clockwork Orange

#43. The Shining

#44. Watchmen

#45. Robin Hood: Men in Tights

#46. Memento

#47. Batman Begins

#48. A Christmas Story

#49. The Simpsons Movie

#50. Princess Mononoke

#51. Shrek

#52. Sin City

#53. Finding Nemo

#54. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

#55. American History X

#56. 21 Grams

#57. Sweeney Todd

#58. The Departed

#59. Dark City

#60. The Usual Suspects

#61. The Proposition

#62. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

#63. American Beauty

#64. Doubt

#65. Brokeback Mountain

#66. The Priness Bride

#67. Knocked Up

#68. Stranger than Fiction

#69. This Is Spinal Tap

#70. The Hangover

#70. Up

#72. The Machinist

#73. Requiem for a Dream

#74. Monty Python and the Life of Brian

#75. Punch-Drunk Love

#76. The Fountain

#77. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

#78. Office Space

#79. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

#80. Spaceballs

#81. The Truamn Show

#82. Back to the Future Part II

#83. Grizzly Man

#84. In Bruges

#85. Candy

#86. Cashback

#87. Stand By Me

#88. Spirited Away

#89. Men in Black

#90. Ratatouille

#91. Spider-Man

#92. The Pianist

#93. Frost/Nixon

#94. Milk

#95. The Godfather

#96. The Lookout

#97. One Hour Photo

#98. The Hurt Locker

#99. Rachel Getting Married

#100. Adaptation

Cinema's Worst will come tomorrow.

It's been a while...

But, what with school, writing, reading, fall television and movies to devote time to, what time does that leave for more trivial things such as blog posts? Little time, that's for certain.

Coming up next week, likely Wednesday at the earliest, is my labor of love: my Top Movies of All Time rankings. Have Flickchart to thank for getting the ball rolling on my list.

For those unaware of what this Flickchart is, here's the short rundown. Flickchart pulls two films from its ever-growing database. Assuming you've seen both, you choose the victor of the Flickfight. Not seen one or both? Click, "Haven't seen it," and you won't see it again (not until you tell Flickchart you've seen it, that is). Flickchart'll then dredge up another film. And the process repeats itself until rankings begin to form based on your choices. At first, they'll be rough. Let Flickchart become an obsession of yours, however, and your rankings'll find themselves sorted out soon enough.

All I did was go about and accelerate the process, using my Flickchart rankings as a launching point. Took them, threw them into a Word document, and set about cutting and pasting movies around, tidying up the list. Tidied up the Top 50 the first day. Top 100 the next. And this process'll go on till my Top 400+, containing every film I've seen as of the date of its completion, vaguely resembles some form of accurate, personal rankings. The results, I'll post here for you all to view, debate, what have you.

Might simplify by limiting it to the Top 100 and Bottom 100; can imagine the reactions'd be the strongest in that case. Oh, I can imagine the backlash the ranking of some films, namely a couple in my Bottom 100, might cause.

He's My Dad; At Least That's What My Birth Certificate Says

My dad clearly is a self absorbed piece of crap that cares only about himself and what little attention he shows to others is to demean them or to paint himself to be some sort of great father because I am regretfully dependent upon him to cosign for my student loans and drive me to college.

Time and time again, I've made it perfectly clear that his cigarette smoke brings about headaches and nausea, that it smells of burned popcorn and ass. His response is a complete disregard for me.

Not only me, but my mom also. Recently, she had to start using an inhaler daily due to having some form of asthma. It took such an issue for my dad to go so far as to only smoke upstairs, because my mom sleeps (and more or less lives) downstairs, and outside. Glad to see that, so I was. Now all his smoke is confined to a room a couple feet from my own. Confined isn't the correct term, either, because I can close the door, shove something under it (towel, throw, anything'll do), point the fan at the door full blast to blow away any smoke that seeps through, spray air freshener, and hold my shirt up over my nose and mouth and still smell that pungent farking aroma. What's worse is that that acrid smoke clings to my clothes, so even putting my shirt up over my nose and mouth doesn't separate me from that smell.

This smell not only comes from his cigarettes, but from him. Often, when he returns home, I can smell that odor that follows him around like dirt followed Pigpen of Peanuts fame around, before he even lights up for the first time. He's one big putrescent ball of stank, is what he is. Cannot go to the bathroom without leaving it reeking. Never restrains his flatulence, instead unleashing it on us basically purposefully and chuckling heartily about it like a child.

But it's not only the smell. The computer room is a collection of beer cans on the floor and everywhere else in sight as well as a disgusting mess all over everything in sight from his cigarettes. Ashes litter the floor, keyboard, mouse, computer desk. His smoke undoubtedly clogged his computer's fans enough to kill it, as I see no other reason for it to die so soon. A yellow film from that same smoke covers multiple rooms, but the bathroom and computer room more than any others.

Oh, and, to make these cigarettes of his, he has a machine with some sort of crank with some sort of spring inside that sounds ready to break. What I hear every 10 seconds or so is a crank followed by the tapping of his cigarette off the machine. This'll go on for hours at a time. Every other day, because of the chain-smoker he is, filling up one of those large cigarette boxes each time, and going through the whole thing in a couple days.

Also, while he might have showed a modicum of care for my mother by keeping his smoke out of the downstairs, that was all the care I've seen him show in years upon years upon years. What does he do when he comes home but make for the upstairs and the computer room where he sits the rest of the night playing games with sounds that'd irk anyone off ("Jackpot spin," or a low rumbling that sounds like distant thunder every 10 seconds or so, for example), only coming down long enough to eat supper. Lately, he's been gone more often, devoting most of his time off to helping my sister fix up the home she'll be moving into before school starts up for her son if all goes according to plan. Going there and only ever giving us a vague idea of when he'll be back if my mom demands he be home by a certain time, leaving us without a clue about what we'll do about supper, among other things, due to it being uncertain when he'll be back around. For me, him being away so often is a blessing, but it still enrages me how little regard he shows my mother. Nowadays, seeing him rub her back or kiss her is so foreign and rare to me that I'm taken aback by it. While I've dealt with his crap all my life, my mom's dealt with it longer, and that pains me, because I love her, no matter how much we might disagree.

What's worse is that he deflects all negativity directed toward him. If it's coming from me, he harps on that, "Who's driving you to Pitt and cosigning for your loans and'll have to pay them off if you don't," refrain, which only serves as a constant reminder of the fact that, outside of supporting our household, and doing his part to get me through college, he has rarely acted like a father to me. Nearest I've come to a father-son moment was when he would take me to the driving range and buy me a Butterfinger afterwards. Sure, he drove me to midget league football and Tae Kwon Do practice, and took me to get Burger King after those nighttime Tae Kwon Do practices, but that's been about the extent of him being fatherly. And if the negativity is coming from my mother, he, more often than not, tries to make a joke out of it. Laugh it off and away.

Which brings me to another point. In terms of his personality, my dad is stubborn, condescending, egotistical, slightly racist, ignorant, lazy and quick to anger. Often, he'll make a pointed remark about one of us, and play it off as a joke, acting as if he's ignorant to the fact that saying such things could be hurtful. He's too set in his ways to let any outside input change the way he acts, too. No matter how many times you tell him you cannot turn right on red at that turn, he'll do it anyway, saying there's nothing wrong with it as long as no cops're watching. He makes a living out of chewing people out for bad service when the opportunity presents itself, yet when it comes to computer related matters, in which he is particularly ignorant, he stands the worst and least reliable internet service, or service altogether, that I have ever encountered for years too long before doing something about it, used AOL for far too long, and, back when we used the same computer, often blamed me for any issues with the computer because I, "was the last one on it." Any story concerning a black man has race emphasized. While a normal person might say, "There was this guy that . . .," he says, "There was this black guy that . . .," when if it were a white man he wouldn't say, "There was this white guy that . . ." Anyone that drives something other than a GMC or Jeep vehicle is an imbecile, in his view, and if you ask him, he's surrounded by imbeciles, while he's the model of intelligence. All in all, he acts like a child. We're lucky if he puts his own clothes in the washer; if he does, he expects us to bother putting them in the dryer, then folding or hanging them up. I'm always the one tasked with cleaning up the filth he leaves in the computer room when it comes that time again. I've taken to putting my own air conditioner in the past couple years because I'd be waiting the entire summer for him to put it in if I didn't. He's even lazy in terms of food. Mom'll buy him something he asked specifically for, such as an ice cream novelty, and it'll sit until it nearly becomes freezer burnt. My mom and I, not wanting them to go to waste, eat them, and, as a result, start the complaining from him about eating his stuff. Mom bought him French Toast to eat for breakfast about a week ago, and he had yet to open the box when I went to have some because I was out of cereal this morning.

And these feelings are not new. As a child, he was my inspiration for promising to myself that I would abstain from drugs and alcohol entirely. No matter the fact that he drinks alcohol as if he cannot function if he's not imbibing it, and shows no ill effects unless he really goes overboard, I remember being deathly afraid that he'd run us off the road, or something of that nature, or that he'd be pulled over for a DUI, or at one of those random checkpoints. But the random checkpoints you hear so much about seem to be a scare tactic, because neither he, nor anyone in my family, has come upon one at any point in time. Again, when I was a kid, I had a dream where he was pulling up the driveway and my sister, mom and I hid around the side of the house and behind the bushes as he pulled up. Then, when the door opened, there was a robot driving and he lied slumped over, dead, on the passenger side. Recently I had another dream, and in this one I took his head off with a large blade. Sadly, such dreams make more sense in the grand scheme of things than I'd like them to. Maybe it's because I've been a momma's boy since I was a kid, when I'd spend my time in her room, on her bed with her, head often in her lap. But, even so, I cannot find myself ever referring to my dad in a more positive maner than, "He's my dad."

[/Rant]

The Last Judgment For the X Games Judges

Since Travis Pastrana took the world by storm with the spectacle that was his Double Backflip in Moto X Best Trick back in 2006, my vested interest in the X Games has waned. Like Tony Hawk before him, Travis Pastrana, the new X Games golden boy, snuck out the back of the X Games after that Double Backflip. To be fair, FMX has always been Pastrana's self-proclaimed hobby, and Pastrana got the chance to breach new ground in recent years, namely with his new focus, Rally Car, without which the idea he tried to make a reality likely never would've been so much as imagined, but more on that later.

Last year, the behind-the-scenes actions by the people behind the X Games (apologize for that redundancy) made an affront to action sports fans everywhere by making moves to phase out some of the events that made the X Games what it is today, skateboard vert most notably. Without skateboard vert and it's related events (skateboard vert best trick and skateboard doubles), the Birdman would have been another lowly pigeon in the crowd, pecking at scraps, hoping to be noticed enough for people to keep feeding him those scraps. Shaun White's quest for a 1080, which is now, sadly, postponed at the very least due to the absence of skateboard vert best trick this year, would likely not have been as spirited as it was. They seem to quickly forget who the faces of the X Games were for the longest time: Tony Hawk, Matt Hoffman, Dave Mirra, Bucky Lasek, Bob Burnquist, etc. All but Dave Mirra have tunnel vision on vert.

And looking back at those initial couple years of the X Games that birthed my avid interest in extreme sports, Hawk's miraculous 900 being what got it all started for me, I can't help but mourn the death of those events that weren't the media darlings that others were. Skateboard vert doubles, with the duos of Tony Hawk & Andy McDonald and Bob Burnquist & Bucky Lasek, was exactly what the X Games is trying to push anymore: events that breed innovation, or are innovations themselves. Namely, there are the Big Air events and its sister event, the Railway Jam. Inline skating was always the unappreciated stepbrother of the other sports showcased at the X Games, but memories of the double backflip I witnessed all those years ago are still as fresh in my mind as any other watershed moment, such as Hawk's 900, Hoffman's 900, Metzger's Back-to-Back Backflips, Pastrana's 360 and Double Backflip, etc. Technicality seems to have been sacrificed in favor of watered-down disciplines that seem to, in most cases, take away the very essence of the sport.

Returning to the past couple X Games for a moment, at least Scott Murray was around to give me some hope, promising Double Backflips both years. His act has since grown stale, with him failing all three years, but he helped me bide my time, keeping me interested in the phenomenon that is the X Games. Though I've given up on you and was only pulling for you this year due to the drought of actual tricks being landed in the Moto X Best Trick event, my thanks to you for keeping me watching, guy-from-somewhere-out-in-the-boondocks. You, along with Shaun White and his pursuit for the 1080, were enough to satiate me.

But this year I was looking for something more, and promises were plentiful for just that. In the Skateboard Big Air event there were rumblings of Jake Brown trying a 900 on the quarterpipe, but each attempt at that failed, and we had a victory for Jake Brown that should have been sweet redemption but was terribly anti-climactic due to the first example of judging gone wrong with that ludicrous tie between him and Bob Burnquist that he ended up being on the better end of with the second tie-breaker. Burnquist was noticeably frustrated, and for good reason, because his run was much heavier on technicality than Brown's. However, it seems that the judges are giving the sentimental favorites brownie points this year.

No matter, tonight simply could not not deliver. BMX Big Air, Skateboard Railway Jam, Moto X Best Trick and a BMX Street event, the exact name of which I do not recall. What could go wrong?

BMX Big Air saw Dave Mirra robbed of a proper score with his wondrous No-Handed Corkscrew 720 Backflip because of something as pedantic as going off the 50 foot ramp instead of the 70. Robinson, the sentimental favorite due to his injury and his wife making it in just in time to see him in the event, won with a relatively underwhelming run, in comparison to Mirra's. Chad Kagy put it all on the line there at the end going for a double tailwhip on the quarterpipe, but failed, yet that is more than I can say for Robinson, no matter how much I respect him. These sorts of goings on would become commonplace tonight.

Skateboard Railway Jam was a collection of pretty bails, and an exciting couple minutes at the end with some truly impressive makes. Adam Taylor, a great young gun that fell just short of medal contention in Big Air, was shorted for some beautiful flip tricks. Way was Iron Man again, which was cool and all, but the sole run he managed to post without bailing was nothing spectacular, in my humble opinion. He gets points for calling out the judges on handing Brown the gold over Burnquist the previous night, on the other hand. All in all, a second straight disappointment, and the event that made me think things really were on a downward spiral that was inevitably going to get worse.

Moto X Best Trick nearly had a bronze medalist that knocked himself out of the competition on his first run. That right there is indicative of the debacle the event was this year. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named did two straight dead airs for his runs instead of pulling out this never-before-seen trick we were hearing whispers about. Travis Pastrana loses control of his TP Roll trick and, after some teases of him coming back, blury vision keeps him from another attempt. Scott Murray fails twice at his Double Backflip, with the last attempt being freakishly close and even more disappointing. Charles Pages, like Pastrana, borrowed from BMX and went for a Decade Air on a dirt bike, but knocked himself out of competition with a crash. Paris Rosen did the same with the fabled front flip, which Pages could likely have tried if he was able to come back. Todd Potter was robbed by a horrid instance of double standards, with the judges not wanting a repeat of last year when Kyle Loza's squirrely run into the wall cost him no points, deducting enough points from his score with that beautiful Coffin Backflip for his run into the wall to make him settle for a bronze. A decision made because of fear of controversy was counter productive, with Potter's innovation being downplayed because of a hypocritical choice based on a technicality. Bilco, for the second time, was robbed of everything, including his dignity (or so I believe), with an Indian Air 360 landing him a silver because of the judges simply not acknowledging the trick for what it was, another true innovation, due to some unreasonable hatred for the 360 itself. And that leaves us with Loza, who, instead of doing what put him on the map and being the forerunner in trick creation, alongside Pastrana, went with a been-there-done-that run, winning gold with the same trick he did last year. Between that and him wasting his first run, I have mixed feelings about him, and an unconditional hatred for all the judges at the X Games.

Sadly, the event I wasn't even planning on watching, but caught anyway, was what impressed me most because of the skill level seen and the consistency from the judges. I have never been huge on BMX street as it's been interpreted the past couple years, but those guys put on a show in all three sessions, and even their bails were more intriguing than most of the ones seen in the other events tonight.

To be honest, I am not even sure if I'll be subjecting myself to the judging again with the next two days of the X Games to see the other competitions that interest me, namely Skateboard Vert.

This is what passes for entertainment nowadays?

As I neared the end of the list of Emmy nominations, I saw the category for children's shows and three shows were nominated: Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place and iCarly. Are you sure you don't want to add other impeccable shows like Tru Jackson VP to that list? If you didn't recognize that was sarcasm, this blog is not for you. Run along now.

What are those three shows to me? The subjects of a fun little, "Guess the cliche plot of the episode," game I like to play when there's nothing else on television to watch while I eat my quick lunch. For example, it took me all of 10 seconds to guess how one episode of Wizards of Waverly Place would play out, in essence. Brother invents magical pants called Smarty Pants, sister ignores his mentioning of dire side effects. And what else could this be setting up other than her using them for her own ill gains, ignorant to the side effects and, as a result, she suffers those side effects before the episode comes to an end. I should make a living as a psychic.

Hannah Montana's big decision between the movie star and the (bad boy) rock star, played up in commercials, could be seen coming from a mile away by anyone that'd even seen the show in passing, especially given the unrealistic ideas childrens networks like Nickelodeon and Disney seem to peddle (in this case, it was a subtle way of urging girls to avoid the bad boys in favor of the kind ones; such a choice of the nice guy is far beyond reality, as any honest to goodness nice guy will tell you).

Even worse, the shows are borderline offensive at times. iCarly seems to, at times, send a message that violence against your elders is perfectly fine and farking dandy. Two devilish little girls terrorized Spencer in his attempt to win a little girl a bike. They overturned his table, ruined his merchandise, sent him rolling out on his skateboard into traffic, etc. At first I didn't believe that iCarly was really portraying such acts as okay, or at least that it was so obvious, but that episode changed my mind on that subject.

I am one of those people that hates people going on about the, "Good old days," and how things were in their day, but I will engage in a little of it myself now.

Often, certain shows from our childhood are painted up to be something they are not by a mixture of nostalgia and the fact that we were younger at the time and thus the shows seemed to be of a higher caliber than they were. Yet I have revisited shows of my childhood and time and time again found myself deriving no less enjoyment from them. Sure, to be honest, there were a couple duds I watched regularly, but there were more hits than misses by a large degree. Even recent shows that were obvious remakes of those hits (Drake & Josh being the white version of Kenan & Kel, to put it bluntly and honestly) stand atop the crap heap that childrens' television has become. Give me my Hey Arnold, Kenan & Kel, Gargoyles, etc. and keep your Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place and iCarly.

Seriously, give me Hey Arnold and Kenan & Kel. Release them on DVD in America already.

Hello, Goodbye

Here I descend into a mini rant.

What drives people to wave like madmen, or madwomen, at people from the confines of their vehicles as they drive past them? Do you honestly think a person can register your frantically shaking hand or jovial screams and catch your face in that split second it takes for you to move on past them and out of view?

For that matter, never have I been waved, honked or yelled at from a car and recognized the person doing it (if I caught glimpse of their faces). Yesterday, in fact, a girl, undoubtedly years younger than me, and just as undoubtedly no one I knew, given the fact that I have absolutely no friends younger than me, waved and yelled maniacally at me, hanging out the window. Did this when I was walking to the library with my earbuds in, drowning out whatever she might have said. Based on her facial expression, I like to believe that she went from jovial recognition of a familiar face with a wave to go with to waving the notion off, quite literally.

Oh, and on the subject, when two people stop and talk to each other from their vehicles, someone needs to drive their car up between them and start talking to the people in one car or the other. Maybe that'd give them the idea and they'd stop that idiocy.

Continuing further, while I engage in such pleasantries to fit in, I do not see the reasoning behind waving to someone in a hallway, or saying, "Hello," in passing. What are you doing, waving/saying hello and goodbye? Could a simple head bob, or something less active, not suffice? Why do we feel this need to acknowledge that we're passing by someone we know, whether it be in a car or walking somewhere? Are we just trying to reaffirm that, yes, we have friends, and we see them multiple times a day, even if most of those times only add up to a minute, if that, a day? Because what does it accomplish, other than comforting someone by presenting them with a familiar face and the fact that, yes, people care enough about them to say, "Hello."

Don't even get me started on people telling other people to tell other people that they said, "Hello." And why, may I ask? Do they sulk when they don't hear you told them, "Hello," second handedly? Are you not a proper friend if you don't think about them enough to get it in your head that you should tell the person to tell them hello?

Honestly, keep your empty nothings to yourself. If you're going to tell someone, "Hello," one way or the other in these situations, make sure to add a similarly jovial, "Goodbye," for my sake.

Rant over.

Cynical? Yes I Am

Yesterday, in my endless search through a variety of thrift stores for a computer desk, I saw/heard something that struck me as odd: a man randomly walked up to a kid in the store, said, "Here's a present for you," handed him a quarter, and walked away. What was my first reaction, you may wonder?

Anybody here have Chris Hansen's number?

Minutes went by before I even considered that it was something such as, say, a random act of kindness.

Today, I still feel there is a good chance that guy was trying to get the kid to come with him, but in a more clever manner, making it look as if he was leaving the kid alone and, all the while, waiting for the kid to go after him instead.

Thought at first that it might be the writer in me trying to make some odd scenario out of a perfectly harmless one, like I did that one time when I opened a door into a little Asian girl's face at Tree's Hall at Pitt when going to Tae Kwon Do. Mom was lagging behind her daughter, I apologized, and her mother said, "Thank you." My immediate reaction?

Golly, she sure hates her kid. Thanking me for knocking her daughter in the face with a metal door? Brat or not, that's cruel.

People had to suggest to me that her mother might have been thanking me for my apology to instill in her child the need to apologize in such situations before I even considered it.

At least being cynical allows for some entertaining thoughts.

The Running Man

What is it about my body that makes it decide to get minor aches and pains whenever I decide to go jogging? Today, my right knee started acting up as I walked to the park for the morning's jog. Maybe that was just a sign of things to come.

After letting myself travel back in time to the good old days of midget league football by doing the same drill we did (up the steep hill, back down, rinse, repeat), I was feeling surprisingly good. Nobody cares enough about that joke of a park to bother trimming the tree, so I got pine tree branches in the face once I got up to the top of the little, yet steep, hill whether I ducked or not.

Continuing on my walk or, rather, jog down memory lane, I did two laps around the football field. Not long later, I felt I'd finish the trifecta by going up Suicide Hill, just like we did at the end of each practice. Feeling frisky, I wanted to see how far I could throw my water bottle. I'd done it before with disappointing results that made me feel like less of a man, so I wanted to best myself.

Terrible idea.

But it was good for a laugh.

As soon as I released the bottle, I knew it was a bad idea. In flight, it looked like the tab that holds the water in when you aren't drinking any came undone and water started pouring out before it made impact. Its impact, though, was the spectacle of the day. Down it came and burst like a frag grenade.

I kid you not.

Water sprayed out in a two foot radius and all that was left of the top of the bottle were teeny pieces of plastic. The bottom was mostly intact, but there was obviously no salvaging that bottle of water.

Tried the park's water fountain, but the water flow is depressingly low and the water tastes metallic. Gave up soon after because of lack of water, but not before finding another hill to climb (I wasn't tackling Suicide Hill without my water bottle, mind you).

Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks, I don't care if I ever go back

Tonight, watching Josh Hamilton at bat in the first round of the Home Run Derby, brought back memories of making a point to watch the Derby when the likes of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were involved; you know, before the steroid scandals, back when I had respect for the game and enjoyed it enough to collect baseball cards. Wonder how much my half dozen or so Mark McGwire cards would run for now that his legacy has been tarnished so heavily; maybe that could work in my favor and make my former favorite baseball player's cards even more valuable.

Hamilton nearly made the sport relevant to me again. His performance was a storybook one. Out of the game for 3 years, the exten tof his trainin being going to the batting cages here and there. Dealt with his fair share of demons, most notably drugs. Came back without really having gone up against major league pitching prior. Having a lovable 71 year old goof of a pitcher for batting practice that pitched to him at the Derby. Being an MVP candidate.

It's a good thing that those tattoos of his would be too much a pain (literally) to have removed. Hamilton will alway have that reminder of the demons he bested there on his arms; try going back to that way of life when you wear the regret of that period of your life on your sleeves, literally. And I doubt he wants another tattoo gotten when high.

But, as my dad put it in a surprising moment of brilliance, as he joined me halfway through Hamilton's 28 homerun first round performance, "If the Pirates got him, they'd trade him the next day." Sad thing is, that's true. Following the Pirates casually through what I catch on ESPN and FSN (when they regretably change the subject from the Penguins and Steelers to the Pirates; yes, regretably, even though the first two are currently in the off-season, they still dominate the airwaves and for good reason), it has become clear to me that any player I see that makes a name for himself on the Pirates, or does anything positive on the team is as good as gone before the trade deadline each and every year. When Stan Savran discussed this on-end on Sportsbeat because callers kept bringing it up, I was not the least bit surprised. The Pirates do their best to run the team like the Steelers run theirs, by letting the high profile names go, all the while getting a great, unsung return for that departure. Yet, as is evidenced by the Pirates inability to even go .500 in any recent season, this simply is not the case. Mayhaps they are struggling just above obscurity now, like the Steelers were in their early years, and poising themselves for a breakout, once again like the Steelers. Doubtful.

All things considered, here's to you Josh Hamilton, for forcing me to stop and watch when you stepped up to the plate at the Home Run Derby. Ever since I became disillusioned with the sport of baseball and, as a result, stopped looking forward to the Home Run Derby and watching it almost in its entirety, no player succeeded in pulling me back in for much longer than a minute. You distracted me from my day (well, night) for a solid ten minutes, at least, and for that I applaud you. Here's to there being more people like you in this world. Um, I don't mean more people into drugs and the like, I mean people strong enough to face their demons and come out the better for it.

Assorted ramblings on my sin of sloth

When summer began for me, absurdly early given my being used to it starting in early June, it seemed like a small fortune of time in which to catch up on a number of things. Watch the show proclaimed to be the best television has had to offer recently, The Wire. Read those novels that my bothersome floor-mates in my residence hall kept me from making much headway in, like Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian (author of No Country for Old Men, the novel on which the film was based, for the ignorant masses). Fully appreciate the wealth of music coming out in this year of years. Force myself to get a refresher course on Japanese via Rosetta Stone in preparation for Pitt's gruesome Japanese course.

Most importantly, get my nose, and bollocks, to the grind stone with an extensive rewrite of my novel, then called Everyman's Memory, but now called Autumn and The Fall (meanings galore and not bland, unlike most of my titles, or a study in what not to do when naming a work [From Eve Till Dawn: The Human Experiment . . . long enough for you?]). Gave myself far too much to chew with that alone.

Good thing I didn't decide to try and make a worthwhile story out of my first novel (the aforementioned one with the ludicrously long title); in that case, I would actually need to scrap the entirety of the novel, cherry picking some of my darlings, massacring the majority of the characters (including myself; got my narcissitic streak from Stephen King, I guess), wiping away the shit smears I called symbolism (it is wrought with my so-called symbolism, like my character's name being Mephistopheles spelled backwards: Selepotsihpem, or, as my friend Charlie Kane called him, Selling-Pots-And-Pans), etc.

Autumn and The Fall was not much less daunting a rebuilding project. Two characters became, essentially, figments of my main character's imaginations. Another character that had endeared himself to me dwindled into obscurity and disappeared, a dully named, but not dull, character, Bill Adams, taking his spot and then some. My genre changed for the second time (was a joke of a science-fiction frame story, then was a pseudo literary mainstream story, and now is on its way to becoming a horror story). So on. So forth. Distractions are all they've ended up being. I've become the author I never was, wasting time tinkering with character names, titles, endless edits of everything I write. My story has been in park, stalled inches outside the starting gate, for the longest time. I find I have an inability to force another sentence out unless I get the go-ahead from my fellow Absolute Write forumers. By that I mean I want a better response than, "You have a way with words, but I am not exactly sure what the hell those words are saying and if even half of them are needful ones."

What's worse is that I went from improving, incrementally, with my novel's opening to moving back to square one with a clusterfuck of a start that is confusing and off-putting to readers. Guess you could say that's to be expected with writing that is entirely new and without enough polish to at least hide the blemishes instead of removing them entirely, but it still irks me enough for me to not feel guilty about taking breaks from writing so often.

Yet even worse is that I justify all of this with bullshit like, "I need a solid foundation from which to build, or all will collapse and fall apart," and, "What's ahead is only hazy to me right now, so by pushing on I'd only be toiling in pages of nothing happening as I try to pry some sort of inspiration out of my ass."

Maybe all of this would be okay if I had anything to show for it, even an appropriately tidied up version of the opening scene of my my first chapter, it only approximately 500 words, or headway in any of those other things I planned to get at. My Japanese knowledge consists of the basics that kids in Japan barely out of the womb probably already know: the numbers, yes and no, how to say my name, a handful of words I looked up to replace profanity in my vocab, et-farking-cetera. Due to my desktop computer and our Embarq DSL being the picture of unreliability, resulting in endless computer reformats and ages spent recouping the media I lost in the process, I have little more than three episodes of The Wire and some films to show for my media viewing of the summer. After plowing through Stephen King's Dark Tower series, my reading pace petered out, Peter Straub's Ghost Story now over a week overdue, the library's new policy of forgetting all your fines if you return your books on Thursdays between 5-6 PM only enabling me just like owning books such as Blood Meridian did (no hurry, I have time . . . I have nothing but time). I am just now getting around to listening to more than the essential albums of this year that I noted in my first blog post and will likely get back to the essentials when bands such as Porcupine Tree, Muse, Nightwish, Between the Buried and Me, and so on release their albums that will likely worm their way onto that list of essentials.

Also, after gaining the infamous freshman-fifteen (exactly), I wanted to work out and lose those pounds once again over the summer. But, with my headphones malfunctioning, and my dad not wanting to mess with sending them to Sennheiser for repair because he'd have to list his credit card number on the form you send with, and my earbuds only staying in my ears when taped to them, and me being without tape for quite a while, and constantly forgetting to get tape when we were out, and not being in much of a hurry to get it subconsciously, I have only just now started to do that. Went jogging once all summer. Would've done it at least one more time if it weren't for the week-long (thereabouts) block of rainy days that followed. Being the moron that I am, I forgot to wear sunblock that time, too, and got a slight sunburn that was enough to make the back of my neck sore for days.

What's happened to the days where I churned out a novel (though admittedly crappy, at least I made something of my summer) and novella (again, at least I reached, "The end") during the summer? Or the times when I was so driven to be healthy that I'd go out and run in the snow, as it snowed, and the wind almost prevented me from making any movement forward? I'm struggling to even work my way up to doing simple tasks, like filling out my application for student loans from Sallie Mae for the upcoming fall semester at Pitt.

Even the desire to have something decent my sister could read, since she's been pestering me about my novel, Autumn and The Fall, and how she wants to read it, died out quickly and I got very little of note done.

Someone needs to come along and give me a swift kick in the butt, or perhaps point your blow between my cheeks at what dangles between. I think that would send me the message, unless I happen to be like that guy on Sports Science on Fox Sports Net that managed to take a kick to the bollocks that would likely rupture an average man's testicles without even flinching.

Stream of Passion, The Flame Within: Arjen Lucassen's Birthchild Surpasses Its Father

The internet has made of us consumers impatient dimwits that get this strange sense of entitlement, not wanting to wait long enough for bands to even master their albums. Promo copies always find their way out before an album's release, whether it be a couple days or a couple months prior, and that was the case with Stream of Passion's The Flame Within.

Color me shocked (I was more than surprised) when I came along this tidbit of information: Stream of Passion was not a one-off project of Arjen Lucassen and the luscious, in more ways than one, Marcela Bovio. Lucassen left Stream of Passion on their own. This I did not learn until after giving The Flame Within a quick run through; I was in such disbelief at this wondrous aural onslaught coming from an Arjen-less Stream of Passion that I double- and triple-checked the fact of his departure. Here was an album that had only hit the net in the form of a promo copy with that damned voice-over making an appearance. I would say it made an appearance during all the good parts but that would be a lie because, while the parts it spoke over were good, the album was all good. Sure, you could say I was irritated by this constant reminder of what the copy I had on my hard drive, rather than in my hands, was, but The Flame Within was of a high enough caliber to make up for such shortcomings.

Nightwish recently parted ways with the soaring, operatic frontwoman, Tarja Turunen in favor of the more mainstream, streamlined Anette Olzon. Fans of the band were ready to make a Shish Kabob of Olzon before she even took to the stage or studio with the band, feeling the departure of Nightwish's distinctive voice would leave too big a gaping hole for anyone to fill. Olzon's debut with Nightwish, Dark Passion Play, divided fans, yet brought new ones onboard, myself included. Tarja commanded your attention, criminally overshadowing Tuomas Holopainen's tight, dense and, in a word, epic compositions; Olzon gave Tuomas' a chance to slip out from under Tarja's shadow, Dark Passion Play having the sound of a Hollywood movie score. None of this is a jab at Tarja, as I respect her ability immensely, but rather an explanation of how that hole Olzon was hired to fill was, to put it bluntly, a black hole that sucked in all the arrangements that surrounded it.

Similarly, Stream of Passion is liberated by Arjen Lucassen's departure. Arjen, like Neal Morse, and many others, plays the same note in all his albums and projects, except with a certain amount of flair. Ayreon, for example, is only worthy as a sum of its parts, its cast of vocalists and other guesting musicians making it worth a listen if only for the prospect of hearing all these masters of their domains under one roof, sharing one domain.

Marcela Bovio was one of Arjen's hand picked guests for Ayreon's The Human Equation, making my ears perk up more than any other female vocalist on the album. Naturally, Stream of Passion claimed a spot on my listening list with her involvement, not so much Arjen's. Embrace the Storm, the band's first effort, struck a chord in me, but it was, as I said, Arjen's tired old chord. Bovio took it places it wouldn't have gone otherwise on the wings of her voice, but I felt it was essentially a vapid, under-developed Ayreon side-project, little more. It had its moments. There were songs I kept coming back to, yes. And, no matter how often I came back to it, it never grew on me, instead dropping far out of the race for my listening time, more the more I went through it.

The Flame Within benefits from Arjen not being at the helm, over-complicating things. Here we hear Bovio without all the unnecessary frills; in the case of Nightwish, the singer overpowered the other instrumentation, and with Stream of Passion that issue is flipped, with Arjen's ambition hiding Bovio's centerpiece of a voice behind extravagant, petty instrumentation. Stream of Passion stripped the meat off the bone, so to speak, leaving only the basic supports there, completely bare. Almost a pop metal approach.

Due entirely to this, each bandmember shines in his or her role. Jeffrey Revet accents the songs with tasteful, restrained playing on the keyboards and piano, no differently than Steven Wilson's piano contributions with Porcupine Tree or Jordan Rudess' guest appearance on Wilson's solo album, Insurgentes (one of many performances that decimates the argument that Rudess' is incapable of adding an atmospheric quality like the keyboardists that preceded him in Dream Theater were said to excel at). Eric Hazebroek and Stephan Schultz trade off, each playing both lead and rhythm guitar, the end result being appropriate, self-contained solos and rhythm guitar, neither ever playing above the rest of the song, but falling in line with it while making their mark on it at the same time. Bovio has the performance of her life, giving the album the same sort of sensibility as, say, Amy Lee of Evenescence, but without sacrificing anything, clearly outshining the likes of Lee and any others that may be nipping at her heels. Her voice is layered when appropriate for properly impactful moments, provides equally appropriate accents, and rises to great heights as the music peaks.

Listeners should not go into this album expecting a layered approach, nor should they have expectations of a straight-forward, meandering piece of music. The Flame Within settles in cozily between the two extremes, only ever experiencing the slightest of dips as the album draws to a close, that dip a minor one barely worth mentioning and only consisting of a couple songs. All in all, it is worth it, if only for hearing that rare woman who seems at home in the prog and/or metal arena and has such range and boisterous pipes.

Midyear Music Review [2009]

Preface:

For quite a while I sat back and watched as the art of communication was made more and more impersonal, starting with Facebook and ending (for now) with Twitter. Yes, I have a Facebook page, which was initially made with professional uses in mind, as it is said that many employers utilize Facebook in their searches for employees. And I introduced myself formally to Twitter a few days ago, moreso to say, "I tweet," so as not to feel left out and to avoid being shunned by my generation. Texting, on the other hand, is something I refuse to engage in, no matter my extreme dislike for talking on the phone; my lack of a cellphone goes a long way in keeping me from engaging in and becoming addicted to that nasty habit. If only I had a driver's license and a car, because it has been proven, undeniably, that simply talking on your cell phone can be just as bad, if not worse, than driving drunk; texting is another matter altogether: a deathwish. That would be more than enough of a deterrent for any member of the rational minded public that I consider myself a part of.

Yet, although I have no qualms with blogging, I made a Twitter account before starting up some sort of blog, oddly enough, driven by the need to express, in detail, my thoughts on what is turning out to be the greatest year for music in recent memory. Please keep the following in mind: I do not, nor have I ever, considered myself an authority on music, nor even the music I listen to; oftentimes I struggle putting what I think about a particular artist into words. But, if you have no issue with reading through my amateurish ramblings on the year in music (so far), then by all means read ahead.

Midyear Music Review [2009]

At the begining of the year I compiled a list of bands of note that were set on releasing a new album sometime during the year, rattling off my tried-and-true bands - Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Porcupine Tree, etc. - with few darkhorses and ending up with a list that made me giddier than I ever was as a kid during the holidays. These bands that I would have readily staked money on not disappointing, even though I am not a betting man, have delivered up to this point with quite a few still set to release their album or, in the case of Devin Townsend, more albums. And yet, this year has become the year of the dark horse for me, whether it be an unexpected solo release from a familiar artist (Jordan Rudess of Deam Theater) or a band so new to the fray that Last.FM does not list their latest album, as of this moment, on their artist page (Days Before Tomorrow).

Between old favorites, and new contenders threatening to overthrow them, I have found myself plagued with the genuinely wonderful problem of simply having too much music to listen to. Lately I've been stuck on one classic after another, listening to each album more in a couple months than I have most albums since I started using Last.FM. Devin Townsend's latest project, aptly named the Devin Townsend Project, has only released one of the planned four albums to date - Ki - but, miraculously, it only took a few months for DTP to find itself situated as the runner up to Opeth (8 albums, inc. one live) in play count on Last.FM. Ki was but the first of many albums that would skyrocket up Last.FM's leaderboard at record pace, one after another after another.

Sadly, as a result of being inundated with albums bordering on perfection, so many others fell by the wayside: Animals as Leader's self-titled debut, The Beneath's City of Light EP, The Dear Hunter's latest Act II: Life and Death, Gazpacho's Tick Tock, Isis' Wavering Radiant, Long Distance Calling's Avoid the Light, Mastodon's Crack the Skye, Nemo's Barbares, OSI's Blood, Stream of Passion's The Flame Within, and Umphrey McGee's Mantis. This line-up of 2009's veritable rejects shames the line-ups of recent years, with maybe an exception or two. Within time these albums will get their opportunity to introduce themselves to me properly, and I will review them year, but until then I will stick with reviewing the albums that I am as a familiar with as my own anatomy. Put no stock in the order these albums are in, as it means nothing; these are simply listed in the same order they happen to be in the iTunes playlist I made to mark this wonderful year in music.

Ben Folds
Ben Folds Presents: University Acapella!

Here is the first album that never graced my list, surprisingly enough considering it's Ben Folds or, more accurately, acapella covers of covers, including a couple by Folds himself. After one of the many reformats my computer has had to go through this year I was going about recouping my music and in my search for the Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five albums of note the album showed up and the title is the sort that catches your attention. I mean, it has an exclamation mark! The only punctuation that is more eye catching is the interrobang, the name of which alone is eye catching.

Naturally, I was skeptical of an album of university choirs singing acapella versions of Ben Folds hits. Part of me was worried this would be Van Canto all over again, except instead of covers of Metallica full of comical vocal versions of guitars ("Chugga chugga") the album would have more subdued hilarity due to the stripped down nature of most of Ben Folds music.

But, wouldn't you know it, this album takes Ben Folds songs and gives them that infectious brand of acapella heard in Lionel Richie's "Don't Worry, Be Happy." That is, minus the lyrics that make you want to send a drillbit through your ear canal, through your skull, and into your brain. Unlike with Van Canto, where the feeble attempts at vocal representations of guitar licks were painfully obvious (and altogether painful), the vocal representations of Ben Folds chaotic piano playing are not intrusive. It was not until I listened more attentively that I could separate the luscious acapella covers into their parts and discern which was meant to play the part of Ben Folds' driving piano melody. Each cover is beautifully layered, like Devin Townsend's music with his patented wall-of-sound technique; no layer takes center stage and/or drowns out the other layers, although listeners undoubtedly find themselves paying particular attention to the lyrics more than anything else (but that is to be expected).

Not a dull moment can be found on this album with each song representing a Ben Folds classic. Two songs from his latest album, Way to Normal, even snuck their way onto the album with Ben Folds being the one giving them the attention they deserve with his personal acapella renditions.

Admittedly, University Acapella! is a mood album of sorts. As with any album as unique as it there is the potential for it to wear on you because of its uniqueness. That said, the album still deserves a listen from any fan of acapella and/or Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five.

Days Before Tomorrow
The Sky is Falling

More often than not the bands that send the Mike Portnoy forum into a tizzy are not all they're made up to be. Even if the band lives up to the set expectations in the least they still fall short of being anything all that revolutionary. Last year, for example, Seventh Wonder's Mercy Falls was played up to be a unique prog album for the ages; however, while it cannot be denied that the vocalist has pipes, the concept of this particular concept album was dull, plagued by horrible voice actors, and the music does not strike me as anything new or extraordinary. If it were not for Mercy Falls' ballads, and the soaring performance of the vocalist, Tommy Karevik, I am almost certain I would have passed over it without a second listen.

Days Before Tomorrow, like Seventh Wonder, made noise on the forum with a concept album of its own, theirs being science fiction and, thus, more intriguing and unique, at least to me. Little did I know that it would be the first of two epic science fiction concept albums that I would encounter this year. But that I will get into later.

The overwhelming opinion was that Days Before Tomorrow sounded reminiscent of Styx. Not being familiar at all with the band, I cannot confirm or deny that. What I can say about Days Before Tomorrow's sound is that the album has shades of Rush, except with a notable Neo-Prog tinge to those shades.

No differently than with Seventh Wonder, upon first listening to Days Before Tomorrow you are first taken aback by the vocalist, Eric Klein, yet that is where the similarities end. Klein, unlike Karevik, does not simply fall in line with the usual suspects of prog metal frontmen - the general operatic type - but rather has a unique voice and style. He still posses an impressive range, but never breaks into the screachy upper register most prog metal singers like to utilize to varying effects. Though there is one instance where Klein belts it out, his voice still not losing its clear quality, as best he can and it instantly became my favorite moment on the album.

All in all, the album has an impeccably clean sound without sounding over-produced and I cannot say enough about it.

The Decemberists
The Hazards of Love

Odd to see a band I am so fond of performing on The Colbert Report. Sure, Rush has performed on the show, but Rush never clicked for me on that great a level. My interest is still as much a passing one as when I only knew and avidly listened to "Tom Sawyer." Also, every trip to Giant Eagle is not complete without hearing at least one song of theirs on the store radio. Rarely am I not perplexed by a band's popularity nowadays, but The Decemberists, like Muse and Dream Theater, have broken into the mainstream against all odds. For that alone I respect and admire them. Their tenacity is admirable.

Now The Hazards of Love was the first of what would be many concept albums that overtook my listening. Regrettably, it fell out of favor pretty quickly once albums began to stockpile, including my potential album of the year, Ki. No matter. Here is a concept album that feels cohesive without becoming samey. Instead of growing tiring as a result of repetition, the album's motifs are a welcome return to what has come before, serving to tie the album together seamlessly, often as wonderously utilized interludes.

On my first listen through I was underwhelmed by the album (or should we say whelmed as it means the same thing) but the more I listened to it the more it gripped me. Casual listeners likely won't gleam much from the album. As a result, my suggestion is to pay close attention to "The Rake's Song," most notably the lyrics. Either The Decemberists' penchant for making sensitive topics, infanticide in this case, nearly comic, or at least entertaining, will hook you, as it did me, or not. Ambition, as I noted when speaking of University Acapella!, can be a terrible crux, meaning this unique amalgam of influences (folk, mainly) with its quirky concept (the concept gets its start with a maiden being ravished by a shapeshifting demon) and remarkable cohesiveness could as easily strike a listener as brilliant as it could as something else entirely, possibly pretentious or overblown. Here's to (hopefully) seeing that the masses do have some sense now and again.

Devin Townsend Project
Ki

For those unfamiliar with Devin Townsend, he is a bipolar Canadian multi-instrumentalist that popularized the skullet. Look that up if you are blissfully unaware, no one's stopping you, though I would not specify Devin Townsend. Devin is not what we would call a man blessed with the looks to match his talent; artists in the rock genre usually are not blessed with the looks that sell so many records. If musicians had to vie for the public's attention in some sort of quasi-beauty contest, rock would become extinct in record time. However, Devin's image, at best, is exacerbated by his quirky looks. They become part of the package that includes an odd sense of humor, most prevelant in his album Ziltoid the Omniscient which is about an omniscient alien that comes to Earth in search of the finest cup of coffee, then raises Hell and enslaves the human race when the caffeinated beverage they give him is subpar. "Fetid, foul, how dare you present this to me, Ziltoid the Omniscient."

All of Devin's idiosyncrasies take a backseat to the music on Ki. Prior to starting up the Devin Townsend Project he disbanded The Devin Townsend Band and Strapping Young Lad, mostly to allow himself more time to spend with his new son, Reyner Illiam Townsend. Before being officially dissolved, Strapping Young Lad was, as Devin put it, contrived, fake. SYL came into being as an outlet for Devin's frustration. The depressive side of this manic depressive. To match the headspace he was in during the writing of the first two albums he went so far as to string himself out on drugs and alcohol; he simply was sans angst, having to fake it to fulfill the five album deal SYL had with the record company.

The end result of SYL's demise is seen most clearly on Ki, arguably Devin's most subdued (non-ambient) album. Devin doesn't let his vocal range go to waste, still showing he can scream and growl with the best of them, but, like Opeth's latest, Watershed, Ki is mostly mellow. Present as always is Devin's wall-of-sound (known to his fans as the wall-of-Devys), but in this instance it is not the onslaught on the senses that it was on previous albums. Every instrument is given a chance to breathe and resonate. Rather than enlisting either Ryan Van Poodren of the defunct DTB or Gene Hoglan of SYL fame, a master of the blast beat, Devin goes a surprising route: Duris Maxwell, an elderly gentleman with more groove than chops. Even considering all of this, Ki still has its moments of brilliance, be them reigned in or not. The title track builds up to a terribly satisfying crescendo. "Trainfire," a strange little song about what you'd least expect (porn obsession/addiction) works in spite of being jarring, out-of-touch with the album's overall sound. And Che Dorval's vocals provide the perfect counterbalance for Devin's, ranging anywhere from carrying on where Devin left off to being the antithesis of Devin's vocals, resulting in the vocals of both Devin and herself being set off from each other in a great way.

Ki is an album perfect for exposing the masses to the never ordinary Devin Townsend. Gone are all the usual distractions, enjoyable as they may be, resulting in an album that presents Devin not as the comedian or the manic depressive metal God, but as the consumate professional and musician. His singing and guitar playing shine, and he masterfully holds back, never quite giving in to the temptation to tip back into SYL range, and oftentimes, as is the case here, when a musician knows how to simplify without sacrificing quality it is the mark of a true musician.

Dream Theater
Black Clouds & Silver Linings

After hearing the album's first single, "A Rite of Passage," unedited, I must admit my unnaturally high (given the album that preceded it, Systematic Chaos) expectations for the album plumetted. What was most unnatural, I must say, is that the edited version of, "A Rite of Passage," outclassed the unedited version by a wide margin, remedying the one and only song I had any issue with.

Dream Theater albums are generally not without their faults, instrumental wanking being the worst and most common. Black Clouds & Silver Linings too has such faults, but those faults seem minor in this case.

"A Nightmare to Remember" has some of Mike Portnoy's best drumming and it took me little more than a couple listens to come to terms with his growls near the end of the song.

"A Rite of Passage" becomes a song once more with the exclusion of the unnecessary and gaudy solos.

"Wither," the lone non-epic on the album, is on par with Dream Theater's best ballads.

"The Shattered Fortress," the final song in the Alcoholics Anonymous Suite, rehashes the previous songs, all the while tweaking what it rehashes and sprinkling the song with new material. Even if it doesn't work all too well by itself, that was not its purpose.

"The Best of Times" is probably Dream Theater's most emotional song and the longest period of time the band has gone without trading solos and the like.

"The Count of Tuscany," though a bit disjointed, with two halves more or less separate slapped together, and the quality of its lyrics is questionable, and yet it more than makes up for it with the musical ground it covers. LaBrie takes subpar lyrics and makes them gleam, that voice of his sounding more like a fine tuned instrument than ever before.

With Dream Theater you know what you're going to get anymore. Quality is variable, but the essence of the music remains the same. Dream Theater is a band comfortable in their own skins doing what they do: record, release, tour in support of the release, jump back into the studio, wash, repeat. At their age, this dog won't do any new tricks or even ones it tried once: bring in a new set of ears to refine the album or let an album develop over the years, going through trial by fire during its development in concert ("A Change of Seasons"). All that said, while the package never changes its colors, what is found contained therein goes through enough change to at least continue listening and enjoying the band's output at the same time as you mourn the departure of the Dream Theater that used to be and still should be (Images & Words, Awake, Scenes from a Memory).

dredg
The Pariah, the Parrot, The Delusion

Here we encounter the loosest concept record of the group. PPD has no telltale thread that brings it all together under one obvious header. If that were the case then it would not be PPD. Variety rules it, through and through. Variety and the best lyrical output from the band yet.

"Oh, delusions
Are meant to justify the things we do

Oh, delusions
Never really qualified as an excuse"

Maybe, just maybe, I am a tad biased. PPD has become, in essence, the soundtrack for the novel I am hard at work on currently, Autumn and The Fall. If all goes according to plan snippets of dredg's poignant lyrical offerings will find themselves interspersed throughout the story, the one above prefacing the work and serving as a succinct summation of it. First I must finish the story, get the band's permission, find an agent, and get published, but that's all too far in the future to be concerned with at the moment.

What I am concerned with is this album. Like so many other albums this year, the first listen through did not leave me shocked and/or awed, simply complacent. Happy with the experience, but not about to go off on a tangent in which I scream my praises of the band to the hilltops and beyond. Singles previously released via the free Coachella concert download were just as much like musical crack as the first hundred times (approximation of how many times I listened to "Saviour" on my iPod; the playcount must have befuddled Last.FM because it never scrobbled any of the plays onto my profile). I gave it the good college try, running through it every now and again, but it wasn't until I immersed myself in the album, listening to it on my iPod, that it clicked. Or perhaps it was getting my hands on a lossless copy of the album, rather than a measly 192 kbps. No matter what did it, PPD successfully coupled Catch Without Arms' accessibility with El Cielo and Leitmotif's experimentation in the perfect package.

dredg is without a doubt a band that always seems to be balancing precariously on the brink of fame, but never falls onto that double edged sword. PPD should, in a perfect world, impale them on that blade.

Jordan Rudess
Notes on a Dream

Dream Theater fans and Dream Theater detractors lament the departures of former keyboardists Derek Sherinian and Kevin Moore to this day, wishing to have Kevin Moore's ear for emotion or Derek Sherinian's combination of Moore's emotion with Rudess' technical ability back. Seems Jordan took offense, because Notes on a Dream is made up largely of "covers" of songs from the Sherinian and Moore eras of Dream Theater with the flourishes Jordan is known for. Notes on a Dream oozes emotion, maintaining enough to keep the Dream Theater ballads recognizable while adding his own input, both showing what makes him unique and what puts him on the same level as the other two.

Jordan got his start as a piano prodigy, entering the hallowed halls of Juilliard at the age of nine. This Dream Theater fans often forget. He has taken pains to state that he feels a little out of his realm in Dream Theater's heavier material. Notes on a Dream is a piano album on which Jordan seems to channel the classical composers he learned his craft playing.

Be you a Dream Theater fan or a Jordan Rudess fan, Notes on a Dream is a gateway album for both.

Kalisia
Cybion

Eight years. Kalisia did not waste that time crafting this masterpiece of a sci-fi concept album. They went so far as to hire outside help to create a new language, albeit used very sparingly, for the album, lending further credence to the work. Future bands should take note of Cybion. Songs were released prior to Cybion, yes, that much is true, but they were more previews of things to come, Cybion in particular, than stand-alone tracks. Patience is said to be a virtue and it is one that is extremely beneficial in the music industry; no reviewer has had so much as one biting remark for Kalisia and what might as well be their debut album, Cybion.

Best described by me as the love child of Between the Buried and Me and Ayreon (ironically so given the guest performance of Arjen Lucassen, the mind behind Ayreon), Cybion is a diversified modern-day sci-fi epic on par with any other album of its kind. Guest artists galore aid Kalisia on their path to whatever constitutes stardom in France. Aside from Arjen, Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy and Paul Misvadal of Cynic lend their musical talents to the album, with Angela being most prevelant, heard on nearly every track. Andy Sneap, the acclaimed producer of Nevermore's This Godless Endeavor and Dead Heart in a Dead World cleans up any lasting imperfections in the guitar work.

Original music aside, the second disc of the limited edition is a masterpiece in its own right, covering songs of the bands that influenced them most, from Cynic to Dream Theater. Their cover of Dream Theater's "A Fortune in Lies" retains what made the original so popular while making it noticeably a Kalisia track. Moments from multiple Dream Theater songs are transitioned seamlessly through to begin Kalisia's interpretation, and what follows dances back and forth across the line between cover and interpretation, doing so as masterfully as Mikael Akerfeldt transitions between the two sides of Opeth. At times "A Fortune in Lies" sounds like the product of the mother of all Dream Theater cover bands. The rest of the time Kalisia flicks the switch effortlessly and makes "A Fortune in Lies" sound as if it were originally their song, complete with growling vocals, not operatic vocals, and all. It's not so often that the influences a band is most talkative about seem so in line with the band's idenity as Dream Theater was with Kalisia; there is a reason those previously released tracks had people calling them a "death metal version of Dream Theater."

Thus ends my midyear look into the music that has gotten eerily familiar to my ears. Whatever blog entries follow this one will, for your, my readers' sake be infinitely more pithy.

-TJ