Another Underground Rap Clip And Some Ranting

Pill killing an old Big Pun classic. I just recently found out Big Pun was a wife-beating asshole, I try to separate politics from entertainment as much as possible... it's not like I care about the background of the people who sell me snacks at a 7-11 or make my burgers at a fast food joint; I am actually happy to see ex-cons taking a stab at the straight life and glad somebody isn't too high up on their horse to provide these people jobs, even if it is a notoriously terrible corporation like mcdonald's. So why should I concern myself with the personal lives of the people who prepare my entertainment. That being said, sometimes there is an unavoidable effect...For instance, when the last Chris Brown song Transformer came out with Lil Wayne on it I thought it was clever and catchy as all hell and played it a lot. This doesn't mean I respect Brown as a person, but denying myself the entertainment value of what little he does have to offer the earth isn't going to change shit. So fuck it. But it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I feel similarly about James Brown and Miles Davis. They were pricks. I wouldn't have liked them as people. But their musical legacy cannot be reduced by their social misanthropies. They just leave behind a terrible history for the gossip and biography crowds to mull over. I swear some people who claim to be so shocked by this stuff get off on reading about it all the time, it's pretty stupid. The guy made records, and sucked as a person, are you really that intense that you have to justify the kind of entertainment that makes you happy by investigating the purity of the source? Probably a lot of the people you listen to and think are probably really good people because they really seem like they are on record...some of these people most likely have a more passive aggressive history of emotional abuse to their spouse or any other number of fucked up things that haven't become public knowledge. It's not worth driving yourself crazy about it. People suck in general. We surround ourselves with ridiculous pop entertainment so we don't have to think about shit like that, that's the whole point.

It's all about the budget, man

I have recently stepped into the realm of blu ray. I don't own a player or an HD TV (like probably a slight-to-decent majority of media-buying americans at this point in time), but never the less, I have began picking the cheap ones up. Well, the cheap GOOD ones. And they are weirdly easy to find gems at say, your local target. I first picked up Robocop for $12, which is a steal for an incredible sci-fi/action movie... one of the best ever, even. Granted, that movie looks pretty shoddy in any form because of the type of film used, but as an owner of the OOP criterion that many so called film geeks claim to prefer (bullshit, you're just trying to justify your purchase of $35 now that a superior version is available for under $15) I can say without a doubt this is the best looking version available for purchase. Today I got a similar deal on Commando, the 1985 Schwarzenegger action movie with a weirdly high 71% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (and Out For Justice only gets 26%?). Perhaps it is not weirdly though, as it is an early script by genius comic book writer/tv executive Jeph Loeb (Smallville, Heroes, LOST). He had just come off of writing Teen Wolf, so before I even knew who this dude was he had provided me with some pretty good childhood memories. Commando rules, though. Straight up. You only consider this pleasure a guilty one if you have your head up your own ass. People need to learn to admit that a good action movie has some pretty awesome logistics within certain action segments, and an addictive over-the-top low brow aesthetic that certainly breeds cult fandom as much as any old blaxploitation flick or sci-fi or western genre films. The cheese is inherent, but in its own way this genre tends to deliver the goods (as far as the movies that are actually on point.)

That's all.

Young Dudes Holding It Down

Some dudes putting out underground mixtapes that are straight killing it:

SparkDawg:


Whiz Khalifa:

Just saw somebody post under the funniest handle on an Ain't It Cool News talkback... RosemarysBabyDaddy. I always loved Before & After on Wheel Of Fortune and find myself always coming up with these things in my head.

David Fincher takes on Jules Vern

Fuck yeah!!!! He's doing 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and the script is done by the dude who wrote Bourne Identity. I'm board like a motherfucker. Pun intended. And Disney is backing it. So I'm expecting a Pirates-level quality production. It's goin' down, it's goin down like there's a whale in the boat

I know Drake is a good artist and everything...

I know he's got pop culture game. But I prefer my rap a little more autentic... as in not teenie bopper actors from Toronoto, Canada. Yet, I find his tracks with Birdman to be the perfect combination of street and pop. Play Ball and Money To Blow are 2010 radio rap perfection.

3D Judge Dredd Movie

Scriped by the guy who wrote 28 Days Later and Sunshine (who I believe had far more to do with those movies being cool than Danny Boyle, who I find to be not a "bad" director at all, but more mediocre than people would care to admit. Sure, I love Train Spotting, but who doesn't. The source material, meaning the novel, was the groundwork for great drug cinema. I give you, on the other hand, The Island... A Life Less Ordinary... Millions... Shallow Grave... *YAWN*. I don't believe we've given enough credit to Boyle's 28 Days/Sunshine writer, because he hasn't pulled any of this less intersting material out from the cinematic abyss. And those movies I just named make up over HALF of his filmography.)

Anyway, back on topic, this new Judge Dredd movie is supposed to stick close to the source materia (the concept art is being drawn up by people at 2000 AD), the writer is more than credible, and hell... anything would be better than that terrible Stallone version.

Rideback

I just now started watching a Japanese show from last season called Rideback, and the first episode was incredible. Do not watch this in anything less than 720p if you can help it, MADHOUSE has done a fantastic job with the animation. They are the only anime I really follow recently, keeping me in the game with Casshern Sins and Hajime No Ippo: New Challenger. Just when I think I'm out...

I've been diggin' Stan Lee and studio Bones' new anime Heroman a lot, too, but it is not adult material. So not for Disney and Nintendo haters. Wasn't a Bones fan before this. Tried too watch Soul Eater and found it a little too Final Fantasy 7+ emo/goth tween-ish.

Iron Man 2

Saw it today and loved every minute. Jon Favreau has my number when it comes to how to make an Iron Man movie.

Drake - Find Your Love (Produced by Kanye West)

I love this song. I hated 808's & Heartbreak, not because of the idea, but because of how poorly the vocals were executed and how sub-par the production was considering this was supposed to be the new K-West album. I also had issues with some of the writing, but that is a different matter. This new Drake joint is what 808's could have been if it had been done right. How can this rapper's voice sound so sweet singing a melody? It's unprecedented. Kanye has managed to turn in the kind of crossover pop single for Drake that he wasn't able to attain for himself. He was emotionally in a bad spot when he crafted his own non-rap crossover material so that accounts for the production. He'll never sing well, though. His work with Drake is the best we'll get out of this. Kanye's new album sounds like it's shaping up to be a 90's hip-hop nostalgia record...yawn. I want more Graduation/Put On/Go Hard/Swagger Like Us/Forever Kanye. 808's into a 90's sounding record will put Kanye into a slump of irrelevance that is way beneath his talent. Make what the people want, god dammit. This retro vinyl-scratching bullshit isn't going to bring you back, man.

Did I mention

Steven Seagal is in the Machete trailer! And Lindsay Lohan is a hot nun licking the end of a fucking COLT MAGNUM!

MACHETE! is the greatest movie trailer of all time. There. I said it. Again. And I mean it. I got the 720p version downloaded from a link near the bottom of the AICN article. It is my prized virtual possession. I could watch it on a 115 minute loop and be more entertained than if I had seen MOST movies.

Look The Fuck Out You Fucken Arizonian Bigots, IT'S FUCKING MACHETE!!!!

Finally, a non-2007 trailer for MACHETE!: www.aintitcool.com/node/44943

Suprise appearances? DeNiro and Lindsay Lohan come to mind. Can't fucking wait. Please defer to my immigration rant from the Eminem post, and then my love of Rodriguez from the Predators post, and you have a pretty good idea how much I am anticipating this move.

Out!

Eminem & J.J. Abrams

Eminem's first single off of the upcoming 'Recovery' album leaked, and I like it. It's not for everybody...or actually, it is, and that will be the problem the more hardcore Em fans will have with it. Much like Lose Yourself, it is kind of a blatant pandering to a larger, untapped Eminem audience in popular culture. And that's where I prefer his career to go. I like to imagine a world in which Enimen's cleverness, craft, and uncensored/uncompromised honesty are focused for a greater good, with no trace of homophobia or irrational hatred. Of course, I'm ok if he still wants to bash stupid ass celebrities. I think this is the reason that Encore has grown on me over the last year or two, and I now really prefer it to the larger portion of his work, although I still think that Mosh single is the corniest thing of all time. I heard an unreleased track where he said something like "Every CD the critics gave it a 3/and 3 years later they went back and re-rate it/and call The Slim Shady LP the greatest/Marshall Mathers was a classic/Eminem Show was fantastic/but Encore just didn't have the calibur to match it/I guess enough time just ain't passed yet/a couple more years and that shit'll be Illmatic." I was happy to hear little-to-no homophobia on the pharmeceutical tongue twister Relapse (aside from Dr. Dre predictibly dropping the f-bomb), but he then made a sideways comment at Clay Aiken and Adam Lambert on an unreleased track (whose music may be terrible, but this obviously has nothing to do with their sexual orientation.) Maybe this is a sign that he has second-guessed himself on those type of bigotries. I have begun to think of the Eminem/Dr. Dre homophobia situation the same as my own grandmother. They come from a different social world than I do, and although it is regrettable and shameful that they have been shaped by these ignorant social forces, it is still import to appreciate what they DO have to offer society. Remember how white people in america had to learn to stop hating black people and women before they got to gays? Well, black people are still in the learning-to-stop-hating-white-people phase. They are at a different stage in social evolution due to the gentrification of America by white people post-slavery (aka the purposeful isolation of black people into ghettos.) And when will mexican/latin-american people get their equality in america, with no "illegal alien" stigma or any other cultural stigmas? Who here isn't an immigrant? Europeans straight up slaughtered the native american and stole the land, everyone is an immigrant. Or as Jack White said, "Why don't you kick yourself out? You're an immigrant, too."

Also, J.J. Abrams' new show 'Undercovers' sounds very cute and relationship-py yet exciting and Alias-esque in terms of Genre material. I'm on board!

MGM HD

If you've got an expanded movie package for FiOS then you might get this glorious channel, and if you do then there is no reason you should have any kind of life outside of your living room. Non-stop vintage-to-modern obscurites in glorious 720p. Right now I'm watching Gator with Burt Reynolds, which I had looked over on DVD at the store a couple times but never seriously considered picking up. It is actually pretty fun, Burt has got some real swag in this one - there's a great bit where the main female lead offers to buy him a dream and he begins teasing her "Of course you can. Women's lib, I love it. But just because you buy me a drink doesn't mean you own me. I know how you women are - you're all animals."

I may just marathon this channel all day, their line up until my work starts at 9:00PM:
Crusoe (1989)
The Tenth Man (1988)
Ulee's Gold (1997)
The Usual Suspects (1995)