My Amazon Reviews: Electric Light Orchestra "Mr Blue Sky; The Very Best Of"

Crashing the Starship
1 Out Of 5 Stars


I don't know which makes me feel worse; that Jeff Lynne decided he needed to do note-for-note recreations of some of ELO's best known songs or that I was sucker enough to drop my hard earned cash on this doggy-doo. I first heard that Lynne wanted to make "Mr Blue Sky" because he wanted to make the songs sound like they did in his head, and with modern technology. OKAY, I'm intrigued. My imagination gets an expectation that maybe Lynne's going to revisit these songs and do some major overhauls, like different orchestrations of arrangements. Silly me.

Like Kiss, Foreigner, Journey and a handful of other classic rock bands, Lynne pulls a George Lucas on us and decides the real thing would be so much cooler if he just made them a second time, without any help from the rest of those pesky original Electric Light Orchestra bandmates. Which should give everyone a terrific lesson in what is commonly referred to as "Band Chemistry." As technically proficient as he is, and as much as he was the driving force behind ELO's multiple line-ups (except for the awful ELO II from the late 80's/early 90's), he alone does not an ELO make.

So you end up with some various minor changes, like the much dryer version of "Do Ya" or the less disco-fied version of "Turning to Stone." For the most part though, this is like chocolate pudding when you could have chocolate mousse. They have some similarities, but they just aren't the same thing. Jeff Lynne has every right in the world to remake his own songs in whatever format he desires. I also have the right to call them doody. Don't make the same mistake I did. Stick to your copies of All Over the World: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra (Original Recording Remastered). Key word here? Original.

    

My Amazon Reviews: Kris Kristofferson "Closer to The Bone"

Too Close for Comfort
2 Out Of 5 Stars

Let's not mince words here. Kris Kristofferson's voice is shot. 'Closer To The Bone" still exhibits his ace songwriting chops and Don Was produced it as stripped down as possible, but you can't escape the fact that Kris' voice has lost its range, enunciation and - sadly - the gruff, whiskey soaked potency of his golden years. I'd love to hear someone pluck the better songs (the title track, "Let The Walls Come Down," "Love Don't Live Here Anymore") and cover them with the melody intact from how they were intended. The songwriting is what keeps "Closer to The Bone" from dipping below two stars.

However, not every elder statesman gets to do what Johnny Cash managed to do (or even Glen Campbell). This album just makes me more sad than anything else, because the man who wrote "Me and Bobby McGee" and sang "Sunday Morning Coming Down" should be left with his legend intact. "Closer to The Bone" diminishes a major, historic talent. Were this anyone but Kris Kristofferson, I have a feeling the ecstatic 5 star reviews on Amazon wouldn't be so glowing.

     

My Amazon DVD Reviews: Apollo 18

This Moon is Made Of Cheese
2 Out of 5 Stars

"Apollo 18" takes the 'found footage' horror methodology (think "Blair Witch" or "Paranormal Activity") and takes it off world. You thought Apollo 17 was our last lunar mission? You think the Russians never landed on the moon? Got news for you conspiracy minded types out there; neither of these is true. Sent up under the guise of a National Security/Department of Defense kind of Top Secret mission, our three astronauts board the Liberty and Freedom vehicles for one more investigation of what's really up there. It ain't the Sea of Tranquility, that's for sure.

Before you know it, something is making creepy noises outside the Lunar Module. Samples are suddenly not where the explorers originally left them. And them dastardly things ripped up the USA flag! Not only are these critters scary, they're downright UnAmerican! Then again, they weren't too nice to the Ruskie that landed there before Apollo 18, and the unlucky astronauts realize that their government may not have told them everything about their journey or its intended mission. The handheld cameras soon begin jerking and spinning, the automatic cameras are going static, and the humans just might be losing their minds.

"Apollo 18" mixes just enough "now-you-see-it" spookiness to add some real scare jolts, but mostly, it's dopey space B-Movie fun. The Metal Munching Moon Mice from the old Bullwinkle cartoons were about as believable as the space bug monsters wreaking havoc on our helpless heroes, and some of the effects are laughably bad. There's plenty of stock footage in use to help make the original bits work chronologically, however, as a horror movie is concerned, the green cheese that is "Apollo 18"? It certainly isn't rocket science.

   

Mitt Romney for Keeping America Stupid: Corporations are People!

My Amazon DVD Reviews: "Splice"

Splice B Movies With Big Budgets  
3 Out of 5 Stars

This movie is such a super-collided atomic mess that it us hard to rate "Splice" with just a single star for how endearingly awful it is; and for that reason, it's almost tempting to give it five stars for being such a stunning screw-up. Obviously, someone had high-hopes for "Splice;" by casting Oscar winner Adrian Brody and handing it to up and coming director Vincenzo Natali (best known for cult science-fiction classic "The Cube"), "Splice" had a high concept and old fashioned B-Movie science fiction plot going for it. Brody and co-star Sarah Polley are the scientists who decide to ignore all the rules and go against those stuffy conventions that they get the scientific breakthrough they wanted. The bad news is: they get the scientific breakthrough they wanted.

Yes, that's right. These ever so hip scientists (Brody wanders the lab with ironic t-shirts, there's Anime artwork in the couple's apartment) are genius DNA specialists that somehow match human DNA with amphibians, scorpions, birds and who knows what else to create Dren, which happens to be Nerd spelled backward. Like most science fiction monsters, Dren grows at a ridiculously fast pace, has super-human intelligence, childlike behavior and not much by way of moral turpitude. Of course, Brody and Polley soon lose all scientific objectivity regarding Dren and fall in love with their little monster, and that's when things go horribly wrong.

While this might seem like boiler-plate science-fiction, "Splice" may be the first hipster Science Fiction movie. The best sci-fi/suspense/horror works when your monster somehow is an allegory for whatever the zeitgeist of the world is at the moment. "Splice" works that angle in that "Dren" begs us to consider what nasty creatures we may create if we start messing with Mother Nature, but soon starts going for new levels of irony. Before you know it, "Splice" is whipping questions of gender identity, circumcision, lust, love, parenting, rape and finally, the usual evil corporation profit mongers. With ever upping of the ante, as a viewer, you're left to wonder "did they really just go there?" The answer is yes, and the film just keeps on going. The final third of the movie is such a mess that you feel like you're watching the train wreck. It's not wretchedly bad (for that, you need "Alien Vs Predator" or "Battlefield Earth"), but "Splice" - which borrows so much from the likes of "Species," "Alien," "Prophecy" and even "Rosemary's Baby" that you may feel a bit of deja vu - will still leave you stunned.

 

My Amazon Reviews: Glee Cast "The Rocky Horror Glee Show"

Throw A Slushy On It
2 Out of 5 Stars

The first major disappointment in the Glee Cast CD series, for some reason they decided that "Rocky Horror" needed to be sanitized. For some reason, the suits at Columbia and/or Fox didn't like the word "Transsexual" in "Sweet Transvestite," so now Frankenfurter comes from "sensational Transylvania." Huh? And instead of playing it close to the vest, the normally stellar Amber Riley over-sings it, painfully.

Then, in "Toucha Touch Me," Jayma Mays is apparently to prim to be allowed to sing the phrase "heavy petting," so that lyric gets altered. For a show that is all about the pratfalls and pitfalls of high school, that expression is too much? Please.

At least the autotune is gone. They also had the good sense to not try and match Tim Curry's Frankenfurter performance. On the flipside of the coin, Chris Colfer totally nails Riff in "Time Warp," saving this EP from total disaster. I am hoping that maybe Glee's broadcast of the Rocky Horror episode will perhaps lead to a revival of interest in the original show, but this sanitized version is a dud.

    

My Amazon Movie Reviews: "Deliver Us From Evil"

Deliver Us From Weasels
4 out of 5 Stars

Director Amy Berg and Father Thomas Doyle deserve a lot of credit for their bravery. Even braver are the victims in this harrowing documentary of child abuse and rape by a California Catholic Priest and the ongoing cover-up. From the seventies and into the nineties, Father Oliver O'Grady was sexually molesting children of both sexes, including the rape of a nine month old infant. But each of the numerous times he was caught, his superiors would deny there was any problem, then promise the problem would be taken care of, then whisk O'Grady off to another location where the cycle would start over.

The difference between this and many of the other abuse scandals to strike the Catholic Church is that O'Grady genially admits he is a pedophile, forcing those in charge of the clean-up detail to whitewash the aftermath of the stated facts. Father Doyle is seemingly the only one in the hierarchy to exhibit any common sense in the matter, and his grilling of Bishop Roger Mahoney (now the Cardinal of Los Angeles) paints an evil picture of a man willing to throw his Christians to the Lions if they came in-between him and his ambitions to higher office. His frigid denials are enough to turn your stomach. Mahoney refuses, over and over, to acknowledge that O'Gardy's actions were criminal or even merited disciplinary action, even denying he recalls any problems with molestations at one point (by claiming it would be the obligation of the church's attorneys).

The pattern is maddening. O'Grady takes a Church, destroys lives, gets caught, gets a promotion to another location. When he finally gets into a scandal he can't wriggle out of, the church buys his silence with an annuity fund. After serving seven years, O'Grady is deported to Ireland, where his sex crimes are unknown and he is free to live out his life as he chooses. Basically, O'Grady is walking free among families (when the film catches up with him, he is living with a family and their children, they have no idea he's a convicted child molester) with the full blessing of the Church and on the Vatican's payroll.

In O'Grady's aftermath, you see a victim's father angry denounce God and religion as fake, a Pope granted immunity from prosecution from President Bush as the scandal creeps towards the top, and - again - O'Grady walking the streets of Ireland. In an interesting side note, the prosecutorial immunity that Bush gave Pope Hitler Youth Ratzinger from the scandal may not protect the Pope from the Irish abuse scandal that now swarms around Cardinal Sean Brady's repeated covering up of abuses. Or maybe, like the despicable laissez faire attitude the Vatican took over Boston's Cardinal Law, they'll just fly Brady in to head a basilica in Rome. As "Deliver Us From Evil" shows, it would just fit the pattern.