With the first month of January 2013 almost coming to an end I thought it was high time to introduce a new feature to the site. This one shall be called “Guilty Pleasure” and it will encompass all sorts of entertainment examples that I and those who on the site who wish to participate that they consider a personal guilty pleasure. It could be any film, music, book or games that one considers a personal favorite despite not being highly accepted by critics and the general population, at large.
The first entry to “Guilty Pleasure” is a stoner comedy that I always end up stopping whatever activity I’m doing at the moment to watch. I have it on DVD, will watch it on cable whenever it’s on and if a Blu-Ray version ever gets released I probably would buy it just to have it. This guilty pleasure film is 1998’s Half Baked starring Dave Chappelle and…well let’s just say all one needs to know is that it stars Dave Chappelle. It’s a mary jane flick that’s reached the levels of the Cheech and Chong flicks of the 70’s and 80’s.
My brother and I have seen this film so many times that we could quote scenes from it almost perfectly. I may not be quite the pothead that the characters in this film end up being, but anyone who has seen Half Baked knows at least one or two who fit the different type of stoners we find in it.
In the immortal words of Sampson Simpson: “YES! Cuban B!”
“Only one thing fighting for order in the chaos: The men and women of the Hall of Justice. Juries… Executioners… Judges.” — Judge Dredd
In 1995 there was a little sci-fi/action film called Judge Dredd that was one very anticipated film by fans of the title character. Judge Dredd was one of those comic book characters who was beloved by the hardcore comic book fans (and British readers worldwide). When news broke that the character was going to get his own film adaptation there was rejoicing but then the first shoe dropped. Sylvester Stallone will play the title character and worse yet he will have a sidekick in the form of one Rob Schneider. Even with this casting news there was still hope the film will at least do the property justice. I mean how can one fuck up an ultra-violent comic book that was tailor-made to become an action film. Well, let’s just say that the filmmakers involved and everyone from Stallone to Schneider all the way to the veteran Max Von Sydow failed to deliver a bloodsoak look into a dystopian future with a no, nonsense lawman to police the streets of Mega-City One.
So, it was a surprise when there was an announcement that the character will get another film but a reboot instead of a sequel. It seems everyone who had a stake in the Judge Dredd property wanted to forget the 1995 Stallone version. I couldn’t blame them for this decision. Out goes Stallone in the title role and in his place is Eomer himself, Karl Urban to don the iconic Judge helm. He would have a partner in the form of Judge Anderson (who’s a rookie in this reboot and it’s through her eyes that we get to learn the rules of the Dredd world) as played by Olivia Thirlby. The reboot was to be helmed by British filmmaker Pete Travis using a screenplay by Alex Garland (28 Days Later and Sunshine) and was simply titled Dreddand would be filmed in 3-D.
There was trepidation about the film and rumored on-the-set differences between Pete Travis and Alex Garland marked the reboot as a troubled film at best and a dead-on-arrival at it’s worst. When the film finally made it’s premiere at San Diego Comic-Con 2012 the reaction from attendees who saw the film was a near-unanimous praise for it. The same could be said for the reaction of those who saw it two months later at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was being called a film that was a throwback and homage to the violent action films of the 80’s and early 90’s. This was high praie and one reason I decided to go see it.
I was very glad that I made the decision to see it when it made it’s worldwide release. Dredd 3-D was exactly as those who praised it turned out to be.
The film opens up with a fly-over of Mega-City One (looking like the location shoot of Johannesburg expanded to a 1000x through the judicious use of CGI and matte backgrounds effects) and the world which created the massive hive city of 800 million whose borders stretched from Boston in the north to Washington, D.C. in the south. It’s Karl Urban’s voice as Judge Dredd who we learn all this from right before the film segues into a fast-paced and violent action scene. One that shows just how violent Mega-City One is (people in malls and on the streets who get gunned down by stray fire get collected by automated garbage droids who also clean the pools of blood) and just how good Judge Dredd really is at his job.
Dredd 3-D is a simple story of a veteran cop who must evaluate a rookie whose psychic abilities would make her an invaluable member of the law enforcement group known as the Judges. The story brings these two disparate individuals into a massive apartment complex called The Peach Trees to investigate a triple homicide which brings them into conflict with the film’s villain in the form of Lena Headey as the brutal head of the gang called the Ma-Ma Clan. The film moves from one violent set-piece action to the next as Dredd and Anderson must find a way to escape the lockdowned Peach Trees and take out the Ma-Ma Clan in the process.
Yes, Dredd 3-D was a very good film and despite the story being so barebones that at times it resembled a video game with the way each sequence was a way to move from one floor to the next with the danger getting worst by the floor. It was the simplicity of the story that was also it’s major advantage. We got to know Dredd and Anderson (more of the latter than the former) and their actions throughout the film made for some very good character development. Even the tough, nigh-indestructible Dredd gained a semblance of sympathy for those he was very used to executing on-sight if the law deems it not whether it’s true justice.
Even the use of 3-D in the film was one of the better uses for what many still call a gimmick and a way for theater-owners to charge a higher ticket price for. The film was done in native 3-D and when it was paired with the super slo-mo sequences when characters where under the effects of the reality-altering drug Slo-Mo it literally created scenes of art. I suspect that we might see more films which uses this 3-D slo-mo effect in years to come. It was just that well done.
Now the big question is whether Karl Urban has erased the abomination that was Stallone’s performance in the same role 17 years past. The answer to that question would be a resounding yes. Urban never once takes off the iconic Judge helm and must act through his body language, dialogue delivery and, literally, the lower half of his exposed face. He made for a convincing Judge Dredd and not once did he go against character with one-liners and witty quips to punctuate an action scene. Not to be outdone would be Lena Headey as Madeleine Madrigal (hence Ma-Ma Clan) as the clan boss who was a mixture of reined in violence and psychopathy who was also going through a level of ennui that she made for a great villain. This was a woman who was so feared by the vicious and violent men in her command yet we never doubt that she was still the scariest of the whole bunch. There’s also Olivia Thirlby as the rookie Judge Anderson who brings a semblance of compassion and sympathy to the proceedings yet still able to kickass and take names not just with her psychic abilities but also with the Lawgiver (as the Judge’s firearms were called).
Dredd 3-D doesn’t try to explore the nature of violence that’s inherent in man or some other philosophical bullshit some filmmakers nowadays try to put into their action films. This film just decided to tell the proper Judge Dredd story and knew that ultra-violence would be a necessary component if the story was to remain true to the source material. In the end, the film did it’s job well and, even though it was by accident, it was still able to lend a level of thought-provoking themes and ideas about violence and its use.
Well, I might as well get on the Jessica Chastain bandwagon. She’s the latest pick for “Hottie of the Day” and also another addition to the redhead selections that’s growing (but still not the number 1 redhead on the site).
Jessica Chastain seemed to have come out of nowhere in the last two years. While she has been acting for many years before 2010 it wasn’t until 2011’s release of Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life which finally got her noticed. Since then she has been such films as Corialanus, Take Shelter, The Help, The Debt and Lawless. In each and every film she has been singled out as one of the highlight performances and from what I’ve seen she’s definitely deserving of the praise she’s been receiving.
Yet, it’s in 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty that Chastain may have finally gone from ingenue stage to full-blown star. She carries Kathryn Bigelow’s film from start to finish and all the accolades and acclaim she has been receiving for that performance may just snag her a Best Actress Oscar award next month. Even the box-office is not immune to the redhead’s growing star power as the top two films in North America for the weekend of Jan. 18-20 has her in the starring role with Zero Dark Thirty and the horror film Mama.
Born near my neck of the woods of Sonoma, California, Jessica Chastain is a graduate of the famed Julliard School in New York City and worked her way through the Hollywood system by getting supporting roles in tv series after tv series before her breakout role as the mother in The Tree of Life.
In 2008 a young Argentine filmmaker made a 3-minute short film that caught the eye of one Guillermo Del Toro. The short film was titled Mama and it’s simple premise of ghostly mother chasing after two young girls in a darkened home was so well-received by Del Toro that he decided to produce a feature-length adaptation of the short film. He could’ve easily put himself in the director’s chair for the adaptation, but liking the work done by the short film’s original director the Mexican filmmaker gave the job to the original director, Andres Muschietti, and allowed him the freedom to make Mama the way it was meant to be made.
The feature-length version of the film works off of the screenplay written by the filmmaker Andres Muschietti and his sister Barbara Muschietti (with some help from Neil Cross) and expands on the brief sequence from the short film. We get a backstory as to the origins of the titular character and how she came to be throughout the film. We even get a much more detailed work up of the two young sisters who have become the obsession of the ghostly “Mama” and how they had gotten involved with her.
Mama opens up with a disturbing sequence where a father has murdered his partners in his company and his wife then taking his two young daughters out into the country where his grief at what he’s done leads him in an attempt to complete the cycle of becoming a family annihilator through the killing of his children then his own suicide. It’s only through the intervention of a shadowy figure in the abandoned cabin they’ve come across in the forest that this father’s plan fails. It’s a truly disturbing scene to see a father comforting his 3-year old daughter and at the same time hold a gun to her head. It’s almost a wonder that the audience feels both a sense of relief and horror at seeing “Mama” protect the young girls by killing the father.
We skip five years later as we find out that the father has a twin brother named Lucas (played by Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who has spent the intervening years using whatever money the dead brother had left in an attempt to find the two young girls. Victoria and Lilly do get found by the scouts sent out by Lucas in the very same cabin where their father had taken them earlier in the film, but what the scouts find look more like feral animals than children.
One would think that the film would be about “Mama” wreaking havoc on Lucas to try and get her young girls back, but this film is not about mother versus father but mother versus mother. We’ve already met “Mama” briefly in the start of the film. The other mama in this fight for the girls’ love and soul is Lucas’ rocker girlfriend whose attitude in the beginning doesn’t shout maternal at all. Annabelle (played by Jessica Chastain) doesn’t think it’s her job to have to raise the two girls. It’s her love for Lucas that keeps her from bolting and trying to find a common ground with the two young girls. As the film moves forward Annabelle begins to feel protective of the two young girls and begins to believe that “Mama” is real and that she has followed Victoria and Lilly back from the cabin.
To say that this film is a horror film would be understating things. While it does have some jump scare moments and some creepy and disturbing images the story itself plays out more like a dark fairy tale set in a modern setting. just like another Del Toro produced horror film from the last couple years in The Orphanage, this film uses a fairy tale template to tell the story of the maternal love mothers have for their children. It’s interesting to note that the two mothers vying for Victoria and Lilly are not their biological mother, but surrogates who have come to love and care for the two girls in their own way.
Mama doesn’t break new grounds in the field of horror. It’s liberal use of gothic horror cliches and tropes by the Andres and Barbara Muschietti detracts from some darkly beautiful visuals and imagery that the filmmaker seemed very adept in creating to build that very sense of the fairy tale. What could’ve been a “been there and done that” and “paint-by-the-numbers” ghost story gets elevated by the performances by Jessica Chastain and the two young girls (Megan Charpentier as the elder sister Victoria and Isabelle Nélisse as the younger Lilly). Chastain in particular shines in the role of Annabelle as we believe her growth from reluctant caretaker to loving mother figure to protective mama bear by the time film ends on a very un-Hollywood ending.
Mama will definitely lose some fans of the horror genre who expect gore (which the film doesn’t have a drop of) and tons of scary moments (the film has jump scares but not much). This film will attract audiences looking for something familiar but at the same time with the added visual flair of a young filmmaker who looks to have a future in the genre, if not the industry, as a new creative eye who can work with something unoriginal and give it his own spin.
While the film is not on the same creative and storytelling level as Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Orphanage it is much better than Troy Nixey’s remake of the 1973 horror film Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. The film does continue Guillermo Del Toro’s streak of finding new and upcoming young filmmakers in the horror genre and giving them a chance to break into the industry with him mentoring them through the process. Mama might not be a perfect film but Andres Muschietti’s work as a director shows that he has repaid Del Toro’s faith in him. I, for one, can’t wait to see what this filmmaker has up next.
This weekend sees the release of the Guillermo Del Toro produced horror film Mama. It’s the full feature length film from a short film of the same name by Argentinean filmmaker Andres Muschietti who also directs the full film.
I’m pretty jaded when it comes to horror films purporting to scare the hell out of people, but after seeing this short I could easily believe why Guillermo Del Toro jumped at the chance to produce the feature length adaptation and put the short film’s director back in the chair to the the adaptation. It’s a short film that’s barely 3-minutes long and it’s a wonderful exercise in setting the appropriate mood and atmosphere before the money shot when we finally see the titular character of “Mama”.
Anyone who lives in a home with a second floor and stairs leading up it will definitely need to see this short film to get an idea of what to expect when they finally see Mama in the theaters.
News that the sequel to Eastern Promises was one of the few pieces of news that really bummed me out when it made the rounds late 2012. The first film was one of my top ten for 2007 and consider it one of the better films about organized crime in the 21st century. A sequel to this film wasn’t needed, but most fans of the film wanted one just to see a furthering of the storyline between Viggo Mortensen’s character and that of Vincent Cassel’s character.
While the sequel may not be happening there’s still hope that it will get resuscitated in the future. Until that happens let’s take a look at what has to be one of the most realistic fight scenes on film. It’s the infamous (or famous depending on how you feel about the scene) Russian bath house scene near the end of the film. The scene sees Viggo Mortensen’s character of Nikolai Luzhin set upon by a couple of Chechen hitmen in the bath house where he proceeds to fight for his life in the most vulnerable fashion anyone can ever find themselves in.
Cronenberg has always been one of my favorite filmmakers and I continue to believe that his work body of work throughout his career puts him in the upper echelon, if not the elite level, of filmmakers living and working today. This fight scene has nothing glamorous about it. The cool factor that some attribute to the scene just emphasizes Cronenberg’s recent observation about the hypocrisy of those who denounce violence yet look at the violence he creates on film and call it art.
I consider this a scene I love just for the base simplicity of the scene itself. It’s primal and almost Darwinian in the lengths a person will go through to keep themselves alive for one second more. The scene also reminds me why Viggo Mortensen remains one of this era’s most underrated and greatest actors. Yes, it’s just a fight scene, but he gives so much into making it authentic that one could almost believe that his life was in danger and he did the fight for real (in fact Mortensen did injure himself so much during the several takes of the scene that his bruises afterwards became a problem for the make-up department who had to apply his vory v zakone tattoos every day).
Tom Hooper’s film adaptation of the stage musical Les Misérablesis now out in the theaters and people seem to really be enjoying the production. Even site co-founder Lisa Marie wrote a review of the film which she really enjoyed despite it’s flaws. Even those who love the film version will have to admit that some of the actors cast in the film were not up to the task vocally once it was time for them to sing their signature songs. One such person who seem to have gotten the brunt of this would be Russell Crowe in the role of Inspector Javert. To say his rendition of Javert’s first major song as being somewhat lacking would be an understatement. This is why I chose what I think is the best rendition of the song “Stars” as the latest Song of the Day.
This version was from the Original Broadway Cast production and had singer and actor Terrence Mann in the role of the dogged and zealous inspector. This was the very first version I ever heard and was fortunate enough to see live and continues to be my favorite version. Mann’s baritone voice is not so deep and overwhelming that we lose much of the emotions in the song as they’re sung. There’s still a strong sense of duty and zealous tone in Mann’s voice but also a hint of the character’s religious conviction by way of awe for having been given the opportunity to chase down one who has sinned.
While some prefer Phillip Quast from the London production of the musical I will always believe that Mann’s version of “Stars” is the best version out there.
Stars
There, out in the darkness A fugitive running Fallen from Grace Fallen from grace God be my witness I never shall yield Till we come face to face Till we come face to face
He knows his way in the dark But mine is the way of the Lord And those who follow the path of the righteous Shall have their reward And if they fall As Lucifer fell The flame The sword!
Stars In your multitudes Scarce to be counted Filling the darkness With order and light You are the sentinels Silent and sure Keeping watch in the night Keeping watch in the night
You know your place in the sky You hold your course and your aim And each in your season Returns and returns And is always the same And if you fall as Lucifer fell You fall in vain!
And so it must be And so it is written On the doorway to paradise That those who falter and those who fall Must pay the price!
Lord let me find him That I may see him Safe behind bars I will never rest Till then, this I swear This I swear by the stars!
For the first AMV entry for 2013 and the latest in a long series I’ve decided to go for nostalgia to dictate my choice instead of quality (though I will say the video does it’s job well in matching the song used). Anyone who grew up during the late 90’s and early 2000’s have heard, seen and/or obsessed over the Japanese pop-culture phenomenon simply called Pokemon.
I was already an adult and I was caught up in the hurricane that was Pokemon when it swept through the West in the late 1990’s. Hell, I pretty much played most of the different color editions of the game on the Game Boy and it’s subsequent handhelds. I’m even proud to say that my two favorite Pokemons were Pikachu and Togepi. But that’s a different matter altogether. Today it’s all about the AMV titled “Ash vs. Gary”.
The video uses the very fight-like song “Remember the Name” by Ft. Minor to highlight the Pokemon battle match between the two rivals. As we can see in the video the two use many different Pokemons in their collection to battle it out. Their battle lasts until they each just have one Pokemon left and it’s a sudden death match that many fans of the show fondly remembers. In one corner is Gary’s fully evolved Blastoise (which is the final evolved version of the starter Pokemon Squirtle) and in the other corner is Ash’s tempermental Charizard (the final evolved form of the starter Pokemon Charmander).
Really, there’s nothing left to say other than enjoy the video and take a glimpse into a nostalgic trip down my own memory lanes.
Anime: Pokemon
Song: “Remember the Name” by Ft. Minor feat. Styles of Beyond
With each passing year my TV viewing habits have begun to change. I used to watch mostly network shows with the occasional premium cable channel series here and there. In the last couple years it’s been more of the opposite. I watch less and less of whatever the top networks are showing and instead have taken most of my TV viewing pleasure from basic and premium cable channels. Only one show from the big networks makes my Top Ten TV shows of 2012.
The ten shows I’ve picked as best of 2012 arrive on this list in no particular order. They’re just numbered to keep things organized…
Community – This show is the only network series to make my list and it’s well-deserving. The show has garnered such a huge cult following that seems to confuzzle those who still haven’t jumped on the Community bandwgaon. The show’s hilarious and full of pop-culture and geek culture references that each new episode we see something crazy and new from showrunner Dan Harmon and his crazy crew of writers and and, even moreso, talented ensemble cast. The fact that despite low ratings each season it’s been on the air since it premiered just show’s the power of it’s fans to tell the NBC network to keep the show for another season (maybe another more after this upcoming 4th). Plus, the show has Annie’s Boobs.
Justified – This was the series that premiered three years ago with a pedigree that most networks would kill to have on it’s show. You had acclaimed tv screenwriter Graham Yost as series creator and showrunner. The show was adapated from a series of Elmore Leonard novels featuring the character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (who also had critics favorite Timothy Olyphant in the role). The first two season’s were major hits for the series. This past year’s third season couldn’t match up to the great season 2 that earned Margo Martindale an Emmy for her role as the devious and cold-blooded matriarch of the Bennett Clan, but it did more than hold it’s own by introducing an outsider to the mix of Kentucky-grown characters in Neal McDonough’s Detroit mobster and deviant criminal mastermind Robert Quarles. the interaction between Olyphant’s Raylan Givens, McDonough’s Quarles and Walton Goggins’ Boyd Crowder was some of 2012’s best tv moments.
Doomsday Preppers – This series has become a sort of guilty pleasure for me, but despite that label it’s also one of the best shows on TV. The premise of the show may sound ludicrous and hilarious at first glance. I mean it’s a series that details in each episode a couple of families who have taken to extremes their attempts to prepare for whatever doomsday will befall in world in the near future. See, it sounds like a reality tv show that’s tailor-made for what elitists would consider the redneck and uneducated section of America. The truth of the matter is that the show’s ludicrous premise also is it’s strength. We may laugh, at first, at the families who have gone to extremes to create survival shelters, home grown food stocks and other means to survive a catastrophe. While we laugh the show does point out that whether a disaster happens soon or later the very survival preparations and techniques these families make become learning tools for the viewing audience. We won’t need to go to such extremes, but the fact that we laugh at these people while we have no clue how to survive when catastrophe strikes means the joke is on us and not on the Doomsday Preppers.
The Walking Dead – Speaking of doomsday, this show on AMC seems to be the show that, like it’s zombified monsters, survives it’s own producers and writers attempts to kill it off. This year saw the second half of the show’s season 2 minus it’s original creator and showrunner as Frank Darabont was fired. The show continued to pull in great ratings despite being on basic cable and writing that tended to lean towards average with frustrating characters the audience would rather see die than survive the show’s zombie apocalypse. But something miraculous happened this year and that’s the show’s newest showrunner in Glen Mazzara simplified Darabont’s more deliberate and existential narrative style and tone for the show. Under Mazzara the show’s first haf of the 3rd season saw more action and characters actually becoming more complex and nuanced. There’s been less exposition dumps to tell the audience what’s going on. The show has also amped the danger towards the characters as we saw not one but many characters die before the season even hit the halfway mark. The show’s writing still has a ways to go, but no show on TV can match The Walking Dead in sheer tension and watercooler moments that fans (and even detractors) were left wanting more and more everytime a Sunday ended.
Sons of Anarchy – The show by showrunner Kurt Sutter that was original billed as “Hamlet meets Hell’s Angels” had one of it’s better season in 2012 as we saw the biker gang SAMCRO finally split into two camps. On one side is the former President of the club Clay Morrow (played by Ron Perlman) and newest club President Jax Teller (played by Charlie Hunnam), the son of the club’s original founder John Teller, standing on the opposite side. The show returned to it’s Shakespearean roots in 2012 as we saw Jax try to maneuver SAMCRO away from it’s illegal enterprises and away from the clutches of the not just the CIA, but the Mexican cartels, rival biker gangs and inner-city crime lords. The series saw the departure of a fan favorite character in one of the most brutal and vicious deaths on TV, but also one that was necessary to push Jax into becoming more ruthless and cold-blooded in dealing with his club’s enemies. Sons of Anarchy is also aired on the FX Channel which makes it such a powerful bookend to it’s fellow series in Justified for the basic cable network.
South Park – Matt Stone and Trey Parker continues to insult all and everyone. The show benefits from this and it hasn’t changed in 2012. The show looked to be slowing down after an uneven 2011, but came back strong in 2012. There’s nothing else to be said other than a show that can come up with an episode that has Honey Boo Boo and Michelle Obama in the same episode and make it all come off as hilarious and thought-provoking deserves to be on everyone’s top ten tv shows of 2012.
Deadliest Catch – Discovery Channel’s long-reality series about crab fishermen in the dangerous waters of the Bering Strait and the Arctic Circle continues to be one of the best reality series on TV. It’s simple premise of just showing the rigors, dangers and the toll the job of crab fishing in the Arctic Sea continues to lure fans old and new alike back to the series each new year. It’s definitely a show that puts down anyone who thinks they have a hard job. Nothing is harder than a job these men do where every moment can literally be the moment that something will happen that will take their life. It’s must-see TV (well except for Lisa Marie with the pitching ships and heavy seas and stormy waves).
Boardwalk Empire – The show that details the rise and fall and rise again of Atlantic City’s man behind the scenes Nucky Thompson during the 1920’s continues to be one of TV’s best shows and continues HBO’s almost two decade of fine, quality original tv programming. We find Steve Buscemi in fine form as the corrupt city treasurer Nucky Thompson whose actions in season 2 creates major ripple effects for 2012’s season 3. While the latest season wasn’t on the same level as 2011’s season 2 it’s uneven slow burn for most of it’s season 3 run culminated in a bloody and tense-filled affair as Nucky’s penchant for surviving leads to an almost Michael Corleone-level of retribution by season’s end.
Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin. A Clash of Kings. Three baby dragons. Peter Dinklage. Arya and Stannis Lannister. Battle of Blackwater Bay. Neil Marshall. Sexposition. Ice zombies. Nothing else need to be said. One of the best shows of 2012, if not, the best show of 2012 period.
Archer – The most out there and down right funny show on TV in 2012 was the FX Channel’s animated series Archer. It’s a an animated series that spoofs the spy franchises like James Bond, Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the like, but also being one of the raunchiest shows on TV and making it all come off as hilarious. Whether it’s the title character’s child-like behavior despite being the show’s top spy or the pyromaniac and autoerotic-fixated agency secretary Cheryl, the show’s cast of characters are all so memorable that the show doesn’t even need to have celebrity guest stars to try and pull in viewers, but they do it anyway with one being Burt reynolds himself playing as himself and bringing back memories of why Burt was considered the “star’s star in his heyday””. The man is just smooth as velvet and cool as ice.
So, these were my Top Ten shows on 2012. The FX channel definitely made it’s mark by getting three shows into the list with HBO running second with two. I know there’s a major omission of Breaking Bad in this list, but I thought the new season (really just the first half of the final season with the second half due later in 2013) was a letdown after blockbuster of a season 4. It seemed more like a first half that was table-setting for what looks to be the show’s final 8-episode this year to put the show to bed on a blaze of glory.
Who would’ve thought that Ben Affleck, the same guy who was in one of the most ridiculous romantic scenes ever put on film (hint: animal crackers), would be turning out to be one of the brightest directors these last few years. He hasn’t missed yet with two directing gigs with Gone, Baby Gone and The Town. With Argo he makes it three solid hits in a row.
One thing that really struck me about the film Argo was Affleck’s use of licensed music to cue up particularly important scenes throughout the film. One such musical cue used one of my favorite rock and blues song ever. It’s Led Zeppelin’s cover of the Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy song of the same name. Most young people seem to know this song from it’s constant use to score scenes and sequences about the Katrina disaster, especially scenes of a flooded New Orleans when the levees broke during the hurricane. It was nice to hear the song used in a scene not dealing with the aftermath of Katrina but to highlight the mental situation of the characters in Argo. I won’t say which scene exactly, but for those who have seen the film will know what I mean and the lyrics to the song should become even more weighty once they put two and two together.
I really love this song. From the use of harmonicas by John Paul Jones (and probably another sessions player) to Robert Plant’s emotional wailing right up to one of the best drum work by the great John Bonham. You can almost literally feel those drum sticks drop heavy on those drums. One would almost think Bonham was using tree trunks to play this song.
When the Levee Breaks
If it keeps on rainin’ levee’s goin’ to break If it keeps on rainin’ levee’s goin’ to break When The Levee Breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan Lord, mean old levee taught me to weep and moan Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home Oh well oh well oh well.
Don’t it make you feel bad When you’re tryin’ to find your way home You don’t know which way to go? If you’re goin’ down South They go no work to do If you don’t know about Chicago.
Cryin’ won’t help you prayin’ won’t do you no good Now cryin’ won’t help you prayin won’t do you no good When the levee breaks mama you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned All last night sat on the levee and moaned Thinkin bout me baby and my happy home. Going go n to Chicago Go n to Chicago Sorry but I can’t take you. Going down going down now going down.
Through the Shattered Lens 