The Greatness of Bully Beatdown.

Last week, some channel called Music Television produced and released a show that almost made up for the fact that this channel brought us The Hills, The Bay, Laguna Beach, The Seafoam Lodge, and whatever other shows have spawned from vapid people talking about vapid things. This show is simply called Bully Beatdown.

Bully Beatdown's an easy concept to grasp. You get a bully, in the case of episode one, this guy who just knocks out his older brother constantly and looks like a coyote with human features. He proclaims himself THE REAL BULLY at least once and brags about his ability to knock anyone out. So naturally, host Jason "Mayhem" Miller must put this man in his place.

The show's also got a simple idea. You put the bully in the ring for two rounds with a mixed martial arts-trained fighter and if he can survive without tapping out or without getting knocked out, he earns money. Each round has $5,000 on the line which when he taps out (worth $1,000 a tap) or gets knocked out (worth all $5,000), the person bullied gets the money.

Enough of pure explanation, here is why this show is great. First off, the two brothers here are amazingly goofy. The bullied older brother has the strangest and most amazingly stupid haircut in history. And the younger brother is described by Mayhem as "having the body of a meathead and the personality of a douchebag." The younger brother brags constantly, in more entertaining fashion, about how he will take down anything in his path, including the MMA fighter that he must fight at the show's end.

Another positive for this show is that they never spend too much on the small things and get right down to the fighting. They simply show why the bully is a bully and why the brother wants him to get beat down. And then they simply show the fight, complete in all of its MMA glory. And it totally works because it does both of these amazingly simple ideas in a way that's greatly entertaining.

The show is great because it is amazingly simple. It reminds me a lot of what made Pimp My Ride such an awesome show, because, you get what you want out of it. You want to stare at a car's interior with random TVs thrown in the trunk for whatever reason? Then, there you go. The same formula worked with Cribs and it's working in spades here. Mayhem Miller is a goofy guy much like Xzibit was a goofy guy on Pimp My Ride.

Simply put, you want simple greatness on television, you flip it to MTV for some Bully Beatdown. Nuff said.

A great find.

Former NBA player Paul Shirley reviews Animal Collective for ESPN.com - This really happened.

And this was very very very awesome. That is all the verbage that is necessary for such a piece.

Overhyped.

(Part of this was written three months ago. Part of this is awesome.)

You think I'm going to mention Chinese Democracy in this blog entry, don't you? Well...no, not really. I'm sort of in the middle about Chinese Democracy as an album, but an album like that would never match the hype of people thinking it would be the best record ever. (For the record, it's got all the good and bad parts about the Use Your Illusions with less Slash. You decide if that's a good thing.) And plus, this is a record that's not tailor-made for this topic at all, as its hype has been built since long before the internet.

No, this references the internet's effect on building an artist or band's profile in the world of popular music. And while more mainstream examples like Katy Perry were destined to be famous without the internet (and calling random guys gay for some whiny reason), this year produced a fair amount of new names that were solely built on good word of mouth and in turn, solely built to disappoint.

- Vampire Weekend

Early in 2008, the blogosphere gave a bunch of preppy kids from New York a bunch of insane hyperbolic praise about their band's self-titled record. Vampire Weekend went from guys who made reasonably catchy music to the apparent saviors of returning African sound into music, the same sort of thing done by groups like Talking Heads back in the late 1970s and 1980s. Their self-titled album was an album with a few good songs ("Oxford Comma", "Cap Cod Kwassa Kwassa", "A-Punk") and a bunch of meandering and mediocre songs squeezed into a brief piece of recording. The Talking Heads comparison is borderline ridiculous, as vocalist Ezra Koenig has none of the neurotic flair of a David Byrne, nor do their painfully clever lyrics match the nicely pinpoint ones from the Heads. That and preppy white kids apparently are so insanely crazy for African tribal rhythms, or they could have just listened to a post-punk record or two maybe for that musical inspiration? Again, they're not bad, but they're not anything special by any means.

- Girl Talk

Hipsters love liking music because it's "different" or a "new style" of music. Girl Talk's entire reliance is on generic rap lyrics mixed to a variety of sounds, mostly bands like Yo La Tengo and Radiohead for indie kids to go "Hey, I know that song." It's funny, indie kids will take the piss out of the jukebox culture of your regular bar where every other song is a familiar track from a bygone era. Whether it's Quiet Riot or Eagle Eye Cherry, it's perceived as crap. And yet, Girl Talk's entire appeal comes from indie kids who hate rap music and yet loooooooooove when rapping is set to "15 Step" for some crazed reason.

- Dan Deacon

No square reason, really. His brand of electronic music's just kind of annoying, though. And really? Two 8-level records in a row, Pitchfork? Crazy men.

- all of those British bands that got a modicum of attention over here in between the breakout of Coldplay and the breakout of Arctic Monkeys

Franz Ferdinand has all but proven that they won't ever have a good album ever again, quite honestly, with how weak Tonight was and the fact that I can roughly remember two good songs on the first record. Keane went from sucky dreary rock to sucky dreary U2 clone to sucky crappy disco band...which, yeah, bad progression. Kaiser Chiefs only made awesome on "Ruby." The Futureheads are a good singles band, but that's not really a valid substantiation for hype. And easily the most interesting is The Bravery...which I'm told isn't from England at all, but rather New York City. Bleh. Britrock in the 2000s has had a horrible go.

Chris Cornell makes me not want to listen to music ever again.

Trent Reznor's Twitter:

"You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus."

For over twenty years, Chris Cornell has been a part of music in one way or another. His band, Soundgarden, was one of the penultimate Seattle grunge bands that gained massive mainstream acceptance and their albums weren't half bad, either. Cornell then joined with three former members of Rage Against The Machine to form Audioslave, which had nothing of the quality of Rage, but wasn't a bad band, either. Their music was fine diversions that worked on rock radio, and their first album was even pretty great, as mentioned before in this blog.

Squashed in between that time was two solo records that showed Cornell's evolution (or devolution) as a creative artist. He did a record that became an underground classic in 1999's Euphoria Morning and then did a mostly mediocre record in 2007 with Carry On.

Now this all brings us to this point, to 2009's Scream and to where everything has went wrong at a quick rate. Stifled by creativity, Cornell's best move is to apparently do the same songwriting style, only replacing his rock roots with the sounds...of Timbaland.

I will say this, I have liked a lot of Timbaland's past stuff. Timbaland's evolution of Justin Timberlake from boy band bopper to the modern-day Michael Jackson was amazing and he produced two fine albums out of a guy that seemed doomed to go the Nick Carter route. Timbaland's production on Nelly Furtado's record didn't create an amazing record by any means, but Loose was decent for what it was. Of course, Timbaland lost his way with critics on Shock Value, a disastrous solo record that, among other things, forced the horror of OneRepublic on the world.

So, Timbo's been licking his wounds and Cornell's been directionless since the aforementioned “other three from Rage” left him to his devices. So what do both men do? Cornell lets himself be the backdrop to another Timbaland record where nothing changes. Of course, the project is referred to as a Chris Cornell solo album, despite the fact that this could be any person letting the hitmaker producing his samey beats over the music. Here's a sample of the...failure in store.

Now, I feel going on about the music or its sheer terribility is a little bit redundant. So, I will pose a question...would Kurt Cobain have ever done this? Has Eddie Vedder thought that the last thing his songs needed was a punch of electro? I haven't heard Scott Weiland's last solo record – laughably entitled Happy in Galoshes – but did Weiland think that the big thing missing from his songs was Just Blaze or Scott Storch? Did the lady from Veruca Salt want Lady GaGa's production team? I suspect the answer to all of these questions is no.

Again, I don't hate Timbaland, I just hate Cornell forgetting that being a patriarch of grunge should avert him from embarrassing himself for top 40 play, and especially in such a horrid fashion that completely doesn't fit his voice or style in any way shape or form. I also hope that a bunch of 90s acts aren't up next. I don't need to hear the vocalist from New Radicals being a backup vocalist for Christina Aguilera.

Hulu Watching Experience: Species III

There are obviously a lot of awesome franchises in history. None of those revolve around a third installment that goes directly to video. However, the Species franchise is a perplexing series of films that start from mediocre to bad to worse, as is the case with Species III. Species III is in itself almost symbolic of the franchise in its three acts.

Act One is an installment with a decent bit of gore and a lot of random sci-fi mumbo jumbo that's ultimately insignificant, but there's nothing especially bad in these scenes. Plus, there's nudity.

Act Two is stiflingly boring, with a ridiculous amount of half-breed suited strangeness and ridiculous amounts of gore for the sake of itself.

Act Three is hilarious and then crappy and then a hilariously stupid cop-out makes it hilariously crappy.

Might as well earn my nonexistent keep and explain further. Species III opens with a lovely sequence involving the military and Natasha Henstridge's (apparent) dead body. Henstridge is still portraying Eve from Species II, and that creature comes back to life, has a weird baby and then some fat kid is involved. This all would've been so awesome if an arty guy took hold of this and just added more random abstract screwed up things, but instead, we're left to our own devices as far as good filmmaking goes. Anyways, a scientist takes the baby home, and that baby quickly grows up to be a girl and then through some more weird circumstances, a naked woman appears. A couple of deaths happen, but only because, as we all know, men are pigs.

That particular message is one thing the Species franchise has attempted to do from the beginning in that they establish that man's desire for sex is so so irrational that nearly all of them would violate such a right when graced by the beauty of some odd half breed alien who looks like your average GAP model. In a way, it's objectifying to both males and females. The females' only purpose in this film is to have sex and create life, and even when Sunny Mabrey's blonde Sara learns about chess apparently from just touching a book, this information is irrelevant to her. Her whole "purpose" is sex. But she also has the excuse of being a half-breed, where apparently, reproduction is the only thing that matters. The males in this movie not only don't have that excuse, but barring three characters, the male race is treated as if sex is their only goal. Rape is pretty much an action on everyone's mind. Even the half breed attempts to rape her in a sequence where both I and the goofy Dean (played by Robin Dunne) both yelled that he was trying to rape her.

This isn't even bringing up the fact that the blonde Sara is viewed as perfection whereas the suddenly introduced brunette Amelia is the film's villain for whatever reason. That might be a bit of a poor comment on America's love for blondes.

And now I realize I'm overthinking one of the more dumb but entertaining movies I've seen in a while. Though, it's just dumb. You can't describe it any other way.

Rating: REALLY BAD

Next time, I'll cleanse the palette of horrible direct to video movies and review one of the most beloved sequels of all time...ROCKY III!

The Fork Looks Different.

For indie music geeks everywhere, Pitchfork.com has become the main source for opinions and being introduced to obscure names that are suddenly thrusted into the spotlight by how good they are, at least according to the site's writers. The ratings are debated all the time, acts like Arcade Fire, Spoon, Battles, and Vampire Weekend have all benefited from the site christening them with the tag of "Best New Music." And this week, the site finally overhauled its traditional interface for a more modern, crisp look. And it looks amazing, though, all of the kinks aren't sorted out by any means. There's a great deal of problems with links and the sort, but overall, Pitchfork continues to be a great resource for music lovers, especially the Forkcast feature with a ton of free songs. Check. It. Out.

(My Note: The Hulu Watching Experience will continue at some point. Maybe. Not right now, though.)

(Something About) Watching The Watchmen.

Around 25 hours ago as I write this, I went to go see Watchmen in the theaters. And while I had a big long spiel about the idea of this world being parallel to our own, similarities to the age of terror, the cute jokes about Nixon's fifth term and Ronny Reagan being taken not seriously as a presidential candidate and such, but it would be rather fruitless.

I will say this, though. You have to really be into the material from the start to truly enjoy it at its finest level. This doesn't mean that you have to read the novels or anything to get it, but if you think this will be a typical action movie, then you're going to be shaken. This isn't even anything like director Zack Snyder's last comic adaptation 300, whose entire purpose was to be a generic action movie with fun video game-like Spartan violence. This, however, hits more than a basic good vs. evil dynamic and does it in pretty stunning fashion. Everyone here is given something that they are truly responsible for as far as a bad decision or a decision that puts their human value to the test. And yet, everyone is given a steady reason to do what they do (barring Ozymandius, but his storyline's chopping probably helped destroy the more nuanced elements of his character).

I will cut it here because I'm certain this would quickly dip into spoiler territory, but overall, barring a few decisions that could've been more chaste and my personal feeling that length does hurt a movie from time to time, this was a fine fine film. This is all I will dip into about watching the Watchmen at this time.

Hulu Watching Experience: St. Elmo's Fire

In around 1985, a cultural moment happened in modern American history. As Reagan ruled his second term and the youth of America was busy brooding and taking copious amounts of drugs, something represented those young men and women's idealism. That was the top 40 hit "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" by John Parr, in which Parr quips that he's gonna be your man in motion and all he need is a pair of wheels. He tells them to take him where his future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire. And apparently, a film was made out of this popular song, in which almost none of these upbeat traits were really brought up.

Instead, the 1985 film St. Elmo's Fire is a melodrama of the highest degree, pounding depression upon depression, never letting anyone figure out why this gang was so united in the first place and thus why we should care that their rash decisions are destroying each other's lives. Also, Demi Moore seems like a crappy person, so why is everyone suddenly concerned to help her? I guess there is a bit of truth to the one person who is friends with everyone but is grating, but then, well...they help her too much.

That said, one positive is that Ally Sheedy is gorgeous. I mean, for about five years between 1983 (with WarGames) and 1988 (with Short Circuit 2), she had to be the most demurely attractive woman on the big screen. And at 46, she hasn't aged terribly. But nonetheless, one positive is that Ally's just in it. Just that she's in it in general is awesome.

But there's too much unexplained. Judd Nelson works for a Republican despite being the Pres of the College Democrats Association, which is poorly explained, really. Emilio Estevez borders on pure obsession with his ninth-grade fantasy girl, to the point of throwing a party with entirely the purpose of her coming, and throwing it in the house that the man who gave him money (since the girl wanted a financially secure man) to keep it safe. Ally's uncertain, and nearly married to Judd. Andy McCartney is brooding and writerly, and not anything like say...me for instance. Not at all, in fact... Demi Moore's crazy, sounds about 40, and is by all means, sleeping with most everybody. And I forgot the others.

St. Elmo's in a modern context is probably poor, but films usually attempt to place a specific feeling of a time and a place. However, we merely get the idea that some of the guys from The Breakfast Club came together to make a movie that also tries to speak to a set of people, but really only spoke about how friendships are fleeting when people really fall in love, and I guess that love is a dangerous thing that fails. Oh, and that we make really big deals out of things that are nothing, as Rob Lowe must tell Demi and the audience in the last five minutes.

Sorry guy, not interesting enough.

Rating: MEDIOCRE

The next entry will be on a fine cinematic experience known as SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL. This will be very very interesting, followers.

Hulu Watching Experience: American Psycho 2

(This review contains a good bit of spoilers...but the title is kind of a spoiler anyway and let's be honest, I doubt you're going to watch this crap.)

I have never tried to make a film before nor have I ever been to Hollywood, but I'd imagine it's hard to get funding for a major feature film. You have to convince people that their idea is so worthwhile that they can throw away millions upon millions of dollars just to see whatever you wrote be put on celluloid. In fact, most of the films people bemoan as crappy Hollywood studio flicks are made to appeal to all demographics, so thus, they're naturally pretty impersonal.

I bring this up because American Psycho 2: All-American Girl was originally known as The Girl Who Wouldn't Die, and had nothing to do with the 2000 satire at all. Mind you, even as a "sequel" in its final form, it still has nothing to do with the original, and seems almost angry that you would ever compare such a film to it. And much like the great schoolwide tradition of Opposite Day, this "sequel" accomplishes the exact opposite of its original.

AP2 opens with a woman, a 12-year-old girl, and a man, introduced as Psycho's Patrick Bateman. After calling him creepy and such, the little girl kills Bateman easily. So basically, the awesome villain of the first film is buried in the first five minutes because a psycho broad just stabs him. This is only the beginning...

This 12-year-old girl grows up to be Mila Kunis, who all of six years later is a girl in college that is whip smart and as hot as Mila Kunis should be. She also says "That's what your mama said" to people. I guess this is what smart people do. Four minutes in, another man named WILLIAM SHATNER shows up. The Shat provides some wonderful merryment and has a creepy romance with one of his students, because obviously, professors sleep with their students, y'see. Kunis then says that she wants to be his teacher's assistant, because somehow, all of Shat's teacher's assistants make it to FBI training. We are introduced to the three hapless teens that aren't Mila Kunis including the weird awkward rich guy, the weird hot blonde, and the weird black guy with dreads. They all die, don't worry. But not before a whiny assistant dies (after making a Ricky Martin and Ricky Ricardo joke about a cat), and before a whacky date between Mila and awkward rich guy, who clearly notes "You have to eat. I have to eat. Let's eat together." I'm using that one next time. This leads to him being so concerned about the T.A. job that encycles the whole movie that he's willing to pay Mila SEVEN FIGURES to drop it. This job is clearly serious. So Mila takes him back to his room, and kills him and such.

These first 30 minutes begin a curious question of what this film's intent truly was. The violence is too implied for an R-rated horror flick. The script is too poorly written to be perceived as intentionally funny, and the acting is too straight-faced to be considered campy. The film is also not a satire in any sort of way, unless its attempts to mock the collegiate system of thinking, and obsessing over insignificant jobs is perceived to be clever. Which while, those elements are involved, they take a backseat to building up Jackie from That 70s Show as a killer mastermind. The music selections are poor, even when such acts as Rilo Kiley and Imogen Heap are among the soundtrack's offerings. They don't really fit the tone in any sort of way...that is, unless we were not supposed to gauge a tone from this movie.

Which, I guess is as good as anything. I'm too lazy to really write up everything that happens, but we essentially build up to Ms. Kunis being ONE IN A BILLION. Her cleverness is so much so that she kills 10 people, and only three of them have a missing persons report out for them, and the cops only come into play over an hour into the feature. Which again, is probably satire, which again, the film fails miserably at doing correctly. By the end of the feature, Kunis is revealed to be so clever that NO ONE BUT ONE PERSON notices that she has changed her identity twice, and that the second identity has taken her to a top FBI position. At least one of the guys is killed in the wide open in a library. Another of the dead bodies is seen by a janitor and a security guard, both later killed, and both never found out about again. By this film's conclusion, I had cackled at the logic mistakes, the poor writing, and the completely horrid attempts at actual humor.

What American Psycho succeeded in making an iconic character who in turn was a great satirizing of yuppie culture and the idea of certain "stereotypes" being safer than others, AP2 all but destroys at the seams. It does not help that Mila Kunis is not Christian Bale, and that American Psycho 2 is not American Psycho.

Rating: REALLY BAD (out of a scale of REALLY BAD, SLIGHTLY BAD, MEDIOCRE, PRETTY GOOD, and AWESOME)

(Writer's Note: Tomorrow might have a selection, and if it does, it'll be ST. ELMO'S FIRE. This will be better than American Psycho 2, I promise, but will it be as fun to write? Find out tomorrow/soon.)

The Hulu Watching Experience, Or Movie Sequels I Watch on Hulu and Will Review

If you are much like me these days, you are probably broke, out of money, and yet feel a need to watch a movie. Now, well, you're broke, so you're not going to suddenly rent a movie...but you don't prefer breaking the law. This means Hulu.com is the only option. And this left me with a wonderful idea. Over the next couple of weeks, I shall review any movie that I've haven't seen before. I will also add the caveat that they HAVE to be sequels. So any of these movies might be on the list to come:

American Psycho 2
Speed 2: Cruise Control
The Karate Kid III
Beethoven's 2nd
FX II
Revenge of the Pink Panther
St. Elmo's Fire (which isn't a sequel, but it has an awesome title song and is basically the sequel to Breakfast Club)
Amityville II: The Possession


Still, this will be exciting, rant-filled, and enjoyable for everyone. I will have something on American Psycho 2 tonight. I suspect this will not be boring.