The Grey - Film Review.

The Grey, 9/10, 2012. Liam Neeson the gritty action hero. How unbelievable that at nearly 60 years old, an actor can redefine his career and become more bankable. Neeson has somehow re-channeled the seriousness he brought to dramatic roles into creating utterly convincing heroes in decent (at best) thrillers. But that's not "The Grey." "The Grey" earns marks far above decent, and Neeson's performance makes it better. I know, the calendar clearly reads January, but that's a matter of maximizing box-office potential in this case. Writer/director Joe Carnahan ("The A-Team") has turned a new leaf in this harrowing wilderness survival thriller, a film as dedicated to exploring the true extent of the human will to live as much as shocking its audience with menacing wolf attacks. Neeson leads the pack in all manner of ways. Paid to protect oil workers from nature's dangers (especially wolves), Neeson's character Ottway turns out to be a group of drillers' best chance for survival when their plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness near a wolf den. He's far from a boy scout, however, and he's emotionally wounded by the fact that his wife has left him. Most of the early indicators in the film give you the sense that Neeson will do his usual solemn-faced hero routine that he executes to perfection, but the way the film unfolds (not in terms of plot, but in terms of the quality of the storytelling) asks him to go beyond that. He definitely responds. When looked at in its most fundamental form, "The Grey" could be considered just another film in which a group of imperiled people die one at a time en route to finding safety. Carnahan, however, slows down that pace so that we can absorb the extent of the danger and imagine ourselves in it. When death does occur, it's visually striking, jaw-dropping and/or thought-provoking as compared to standard efforts at the genre that involve only jump-scare deaths or death by character stupidity. It's also not just a film about people being hunted by wolves in the wilderness. There's no bloody man vs. wolf climactic battle, unlike what the trailers would have you believe, so film fans prone to take misleading marketing out on the film itself, be prepared. "The Grey" is much more of a suspenseful drama with high-adrenaline scenes lurking around every corner. The action is also more frenetic and gripping. Rather than shooting the action scenes in a traditional sense, he wants the viewer to feel as if they are experiencing them along with the characters. If a character falls from a tree top and hits 20 branches on the way down, that's exactly what the camera's doing. This maximizes the intensity of every major sequence. As for the wolves, they're horrifying, yet never painted as the bad guys. They're just part of nature. "The Grey" gives its audience the rare gift of genre-film entertainment with some serious food for thought and an ample dose of emotion. Carnahan's choices on how to tell the story, along with an ending not typical of genre films, only make it all the stronger. Both he and Neeson display the true nature of their strengths. Hopefully we've seen only the beginning of Carnahan's potential, and that nature is kind enough to Neeson to let him continue challenging the norm for the standard heroic performance.

The Experiment: Film Review

The Experiment (2010) Film Review, 3/10 I haven't seen Das Experiment, the original German film, but I'd read up on the Stanford Prison Experiment and was very intrigued as to how that premise could be transfered to the screen. This film, unfortunately, is surprisingly badly executed. The first few minutes aren't all that bad, and Scheuring presents an interesting basis: exploring the darker side of human nature and just how high up the evolutionary chain we are. The idea is to pit some people into a barely controlled prison simulation where one group takes the role of guards and the other one plays the prisoners. In the actual experiment, the first day was more or less uneventful and then the situation spiraled out of control. The guards, either taking on their roles stereotypically or for some other reason, started to abuse their power, and the experiment had to be cancelled before the planned end date. However, what this film does is turn what was potentially a great storyline into a clash between the overwhelmed prisoners and the almost cartoonishly cruel guards. The whole purpose of the film is lost when the "guards" are written out as intrinsically violent and mostly flat-out insane. The characters are unrealistic and, perhaps in an attempt to simplify the plot, mind- numbingly clichéd. In fact, the amount of sane people involved in this "experiment" is five at most... out of twenty-six. The film goes downhill from the moment the filmmakers decide to try to amp up the suspense, and the ending is almost incredibly stupid. The film doesn't even achieve the "so-bad-it's-entertaining" status because, despite the fact that it tries to put forth a serious issue, it is so overly simplified that it ends up insulting the viewer's intelligence. The only reason this has a three instead of a one is because the camerawork is quite good at times and both Brody and Whitaker do the best they can with their crappy characters in this badly written plot. unfortunately, it's not nearly enough to save it.

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Eminem-Relapse: Refill-Review

Eminem - Relapse Refill, 8.5/10, December 21, 2009, Aftermath, Interscope Eminem. He's baaaaaaack. While Relapse itself (which I will review separately sometime soon) received mixed reviews from fans and critics alike, I loved it. I found it to be better than Encore and The Eminem Show, and one of his strongest albums yet. There were original plans to release a relapse 2, but instead we got 8 new tracks in the form of Relapse: Refill. And it rocks. First track is Forever, a 6 minute supergroup song featuring Drake, Kanye West and Lil Wayne. Eminem also delivers the strongest verse on this track. We move on to Hell Breaks Loose, a fast paced duet with Dr Dre. You can tell they enjoy working with each other, finishing each others lines and jumping into the middle of verses, it\'s not the strongest track on the album but good all the same. Next we have Buffalo Bill, an intriguing song I\'m not even sure how to describe. Not what you\'d always expect from Eminem, but he raps in his trademark accent and talks about cutting up bodies. We move on to Elevator, with Eminem talking about how he never expected to become so famous. This is probably the most accessible song on the album, and one of my favourites. Taking My Ball is Eminem rapping in a very strong accent, sometimes it feels slightly excessive but this song is very good. Music Box is a strange song with Em talking about a music box playing his favourite song while he puts his daughter to sleep. Final song is Drop The Bomb On Em, a song with a catchy, very Dr Dre-ish beat. This album is very good, and a step up from the already good relapse.

Tyler, The Creator - Yonkers: Single - Review

9.7/10. Tyler, The Creator. Loved by many, hated by an equal amount. I personally love the man, and OFWGKTA as a whole. I figured the first Odd Future review I write should be the big hit of the group, Tylers Yonkers. If you haven't seen the video I recommend you stop reading and watch it right now, it's pretty amazing. The song begins with an eerie beat as Tyler's trademark deepened voice growls 'Um, Wolf Haley, Golf Wang', and Tyler begins with 'I'm a f-ckin' walking paradox, no I'm not', a line that sets the tone for the whole song, unbelievably complex lyrics full of hidden meanings and paradoxes contradicting each other. That's pretty impressive. Yonkers has no chorus, just the so called Wolf Haley repeating 'Um, Wolf Haley, Um, Golf Wang' a few times. Second verse begins with Tyler making stabs at Jesus ('Jesus called he said he's sick of the disses, I told him to quit bitch this isn't a f-cking hotline'), referencing the Virginia Tech and Columbine massacres in the same line as rapping about going home to watch cartoon Adventure Time. The song then takes a turn for the eerie-er (is that a word?) when his voice gets deeper, the beat changes, and he talks about crashing that airplane that B.o.B is in (A reference to his hit 'Airplanes' featuring Hayley Williams, who is mentioned in the previous line) and stabbing Bruno Mars in his 'Goddamn Oesophagus' and not stopping 'till the cops come in'. At 3 minutes 5 seconds long your left wanting more, but thankfully the album version has an extra verse. In my opinion, video of the year, in the running for song of the year. Monumental, yet unbelievably chilling. Odd Future are going to take over the world.

The Script-The Script-Review

The Script-The Script, 7/10, August 8 2008, Photogenic Records.
The Script, gotta show em love when they\'re from my country! But this album is actually very good. It shows promising things for The Script, and leaves people intrigued. They aren\'t your average boy band, but not the first of their kind either. This album has some real stand out moments, songs like Breakeven and Rusty Halo are fantastic, while one or two songs feel slightly recycled. This album has some potentially great singles, but at the same time a few forgetful tracks. It\'s one of those albums where you will probably like all of the songs, or none at all. Its a very accessible album, and easy to listen to, nothing extremely complex or anything, just a genuinely good pop rock album. This is a great debut for The Script and a sign of greater things to come.

Red Hot Chili Peppers-Stadium Arcadium-Review.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium 8.7/10 Released May 9, 2006. Warner Bros Records Stadium Arcadium. Stadium Arcadium. One more time, Stadium Arcadium. I love this album, a lot. It's also the last RHCP album to feature John Frusciante. When I first heard it would be a double album, I was nervous because they tend to be full of filler, but fortunately this isn't the case with Stadium Arcadium. Anthony Kiedis sounds more evolved than ever, and the chemistry between the band hasn't been better since Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Standout tracks for me include Charlie, one of my all time favourite RHCP songs, Slow Cheetah, an acoustic song with possibly the best performance from Anthony on this album, Dani California, a track where you can really tell the band is making music the way they want, and Storm In A Teacup, my favourite song from the second CD. This album is definitely one of the best of the Chili Peppers career, and leaves people excited for things ahead.

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