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Content by E. A Solinas
Reviewer Rank: 9
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Reviews Written by
E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA)
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Waxing moon, 16 Oct 2009
The best thing you can say about any movie's soundtrack is that it can stand on its own, and that no matter what you think of the movie, the soundtrack is chock full of amazing music.
And the soundtrack to "New Moon" is one of those -- apparently the people behind it have gone completely indie in their tastes. Whether you love or hate the teen-vampire-infatuation flick, it's undeniable that the soundtrack is bursting with brilliant bands -- angular rock'n'roll and lush echoing pop, some of it well-known (Muse, Thom Yorke) and some relative obscure (Grizzly Bear, Lykke Li).
"Meet me on the equinox/Meet me halfway/The sun is perched at its highest peak/In the middle of the day... " Ben Gibbard sings distantly as the gentle guitars swirl around him. A storm of drums builds up every time he laments that "everything, everything ends," as his pronouncements about an unknown lover become eerier and more surreal ("A window/An open tomb/The sun crawls across your bedroom/A halo/A waning moon/Your last breath moving through you").
There's a pretty good showing of solid rock'n'roll following Death Cab For Cutie's memorable introduction -- Band of Skulls provides the buzzing, blunt-edged rocker "Friends," Hurricane Bells erupts in a buzzing storm of fuzzy bass and sharp beats with "Monsters," and Sea Wolf's "The Violet Hour" is a swirling little pop-rocker that seems to trickle down the reverberating guitar.
Then there's Thom Yorke, whose buzzy-edged electronic "Hearing Damage" is a furtive, dark little rush of sinister beauty. And of course, Muse is included in the stomping, mournful rocker "I Belong To You (New Moon Remix)."
Some of these bands are also going unexpectedly low-key to suit the mood, even if they're usually much louder. The Killers turn out the dramatic layered lament of "A White Demon Love Song," while Black Rebel Motorcycle unfurl a twangy lo-fi ballad "Done All Wrong." OK GO abandon their usual sound in favor of the trippy psychedelic-edged "Shooting The Moon," and the Editors dip into a dramatic, hauntingly sad piano-rock sound with "No Sound But The Wind" ("Help me to carry the fire/it will light our way forever..."
But some brilliant indie pop also makes the cut. Lykke Li's "Possibility" is a shimmering, icy little melody, while Anya Marina sticks to acoustic guitar riddled with organ in the whispery "Satellite Heart." The absolute highlights of the album: Bon Iver and St. Vincent collaborate on the otherworldly, hymnlike "Roslyn," and Grizzly Bear's exquisite "Slow Life" is a slow haunting build to a celestial climax.
For the record, I'm not a fan of "New Moon" or Stephenie Meyers' Twilight series in general. But I felt a prickle go down my spine when I saw the songs listed for the soundtrack -- they've crammed it with one brilliant band after another, ranging from hard rock'n'roll to soft, sweet ballads. In fact, the only one that failed to move me was Alexandre Desplat's outro -- frankly, it was four minutes of boredom for me.
Otherwise, the playlist sets a wonderful mood -- think a mingling of bittersweet romanticism and outright melancholy, with lots of slowly winding piano, buzzing guitar, acoustics and ghostly veils of electronica and organ. The singers' voices range from dramatic laments (Matt Bellamy) to quirky murmurs (Anya Marina), and their lyrics tend to reflect two themes: loss ("How much pain has cracked your soul?/How much love would make you whole?") and love ("Even though you're only one I see/I've got to set you free...").
Even those who are not (and probably never will be) fans of the Twilight phenomenon should immerse themselves in the "New Moon Soundtrack." Taken on its own merits, it's still a haunting string of beautiful songs.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
The wolf and the man, 25 Aug 2009
Imagine if the werewolves were considering coming out of the fur coat closet, and held a conference to debate it.
It's a rather boring-sounding idea. But since Patricia Briggs is a truly brilliant urban-fantasy author, she is somehow able to spin straw into gold in the second full-length novel about the Omega werewolf Anna and her Alpha mate Charles. "Hunting Ground" is a solid little bundle of subplots and warring supernaturals.
Sent to the Seattle conference, Charles and Anna encounter lycanthropes from across Europe -- Russians, Italians, the British lord Arthur, and he savage Beast of Gévaudan, Jean Chastel. Warring opinions and old grudges (plus Chastel's general savagery) cause plenty of tension between the various groups, and Charles finds that while Anna's Omeganess eases some of the conflict, she's freaked out by all the dominant males.
But Anna is attacked while shopping with her new friend Moira -- by a gang of vampires using werewolf magic and tactics. And then Arthur's wife is brutally killed by the same gang, and someone murders Chastel. Now the fragile peace between alphas starts to unravel and fae magic starts to manipulate them -- and to save his beloved Anna, Charles must uncover who is mad enough to do all this.
The previous "Alpha and Omega" stories have been about the world of werewolves almost exclusively, and "Hunting Ground" expands its focus -- we've got the cruel fae Dana, and a cruel gang of vampires. But the focus is still mainly on werewolves -- their subculture, their leaders, and the place of the Omegas when surrounded by a bunch of grumpy Alphas.
The biggest flaw is that the book is a loosely woven affair without much central plot until the last few chapters. But Briggs smoothly juggles the various subplots that run through the book, with vivid, powerful prose ("A creek full of fat trout trickled under a thin layer of misty ice") and slightly tongue-in-cheek dialogue ("Way to kill a defenseless net"). Not to mention some unique quirks, like a werewolf who genuinely believes he is King Arthur reborn.
And she strikes a solid balance between the darkness and violence (bloody killings, werewolf hunts, and some brutal human killings) and the more quiet, soothing moments that Anna brings. One particularly lovely scene has her soothing frazzled alphas through a mellow piano performance, and Briggs' smooth writing carries the effect through to the reader.
Anna and Charles may be mates and spouses now, but they're clearly still getting used to each other. Anna is now strong enough to stand up to the Beast and recovered enough to show her love for her new hubby, but Charles is struggling with his tough-guy image and his "Brother Wolf." And there are plenty of other interesting characters -- the unassuming Angus, the bloodthirsty psychopathic Jean, a cute Austrian Omega, and the charming, loopy Arthur. There's even a pair from one of Briggs' short stories: the werewolf Tom and his blind witch mate Moira.
"Hunting Ground" has a rather loosely woven plot, but Patricia Briggs' lovely writing and vivid characters keep it from losings its way. Definitely one of the better werewolfcentic urban fantasies.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Coming home, 25 Aug 2009
Every time I turn around, another fantasy series is being adapted into graphic novel form. Some good, some bad, and some that just aren't ugly enough.
The newest addition to this genre: "Mercy Thompson: Homecoming," a prequel that explores what happened upon Mercy's arrival in the Tri-Cities area. It's a tightly-written, fast-moving little graphic novel a likably feisty heroine, solid character introductions and some intriguing twists and turns, although the ever-shifting art is a bit offputting.
As the story opens, Mercy is going out for a run, when she is attacked by a pack of werewolves. Just in the nick of time, ANOTHER pack comes to save her, but her car is wrecked in the fight. After a disastrous job interview ("It's more important that a history teacher can coach track than explain the Bill of Rights!"), Mercy heads to the local garage to get her car fixed -- and it turns out the person running the place is is a nine-year-old boy with a fae daddy -- and he quickly runs afoul of a vampire's human "sheep."
Mercy intervenes and offers to help fix it, since she knows how to replace a clutch. The kid even offers her a job, which Mercy finds herself seriously considering. But in the meantime, the savage rogue werewolves are still hunting Mercy, intending to force her to help them. While a friendly local vampire named Stefan helps her a few times, it's only a matter of time before she becomes entangled in a bloody pack war.
Patricia Briggs is something of a rarity in urban fantasy, since her Mercy Thompson series focuses on a small rural town full of "ordinary" (read: nonglamorous) vampires, fae and werecreatures, and its heroine is a shapeshifting mechanic.
So "Mercy Thompson: Homecoming" is not written to be glamorous or sexy, which is part of its rough-hewn appeal -- especially since Briggs dodges many of the cliches. She and David Lawrence spin up a solid little story explaining how the scrappy "walker" came to the town, how she met the vampire Stefan (who looks an awful lot like Vincent Valentine), her boss Zee, and how she got her job.
After the confusing introduction, the taut, quiet plot smooths out into a stream of snappy dialogue ("Adel... bert... smiter? So you smite Adelberts?"), blood-spraying action, and I-need-a-job stress (Mercy's brief stint in a fast food restaurant). In fact, it adds to the supernatural goings-on that Mercy's personal woes are so down-to-earth, though black-and-white flashbacks show her experiences as the Marrok's ward.
And Mercy is a likable heroine -- she's strong enough to stand up for herself, while still being vulnerable enough to stumble. And despite being quickly established as a coyote walker, she seems very much like an "ordinary" woman -- she needs a job, needs an apartment, hopes to be a teacher, and can rearrange the internal parts of a car with no stress.
Francis Tsai's artwork is quite good, albeit kind of uneven -- a shadowy, murky experience filled with grimy walls, blue Washington nights, glitzy fae bars, big hairy werewolves and pallid befanged vampires. Mercy is rather harshly and exaggeratedly drawn initially, but Tsai's lines become more delicate and less cartoony by the midpoint. And with the arrival of the good-guy weres, the color palette shifts from the rainy night colors to burnt lighter ones.
"Mercy Thompson: Homecoming" sets up this prequel nicely, and will leave readers wanting to see more of Mercy's move into this small town.
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Ellipse
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| Price: £8.98 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Echo game, 25 Aug 2009
Imogen Heap doesn't need any introduction anymore -- she's the vocal half of Frou Frou, and the pop genius behind "Speak For Yourself." And her third album "Ellipse" demonstrates why she's a permanent presence on my "must-buy" list -- Heap still has a strong husky voice, a knack for writing brilliant pop music ("Dead in the stare of a thousand miles"), and lush and quirky instrumentation.
"Bodies disengaged, our mouths are fleshing over/Is this an echo game?" Heap murmurs over a bed of gentle beats, subtle guitar and shimmering keyboard. The song swells into a sweet, slightly desperate melody, lamenting that "I want to run in fields, paint the kitchen, and love someone/And I can't do any of that here, can I?" and her desperation to take the "first train home."
Then Heap smoothly slides into the dreamlike softness of "Wait It Out," with its brief blazes of electric guitar, and the playfully angular warmth of "Earth" ("Act like you own the place/when really you've only just arrived"). Among the songs that follow: soft electronica-tinged ballads, flickering piano pop, mournful xylophone pop, and funky and/or angular electronica with a sly edge.
The highlight is "Aha!", which is also the most sinisterly pretty song on the album -- lotsa cascading crystalline pop and swathes of dark strings. And Heap gets downright weird in a couple of the songs -- "2-1" is a weirdly uneven, clattery epic that sweeps through empty musical space, while the loopy rambling style of "Bad Body Double" is both engaging and bizarre.
"Ellipse" is the sound of an artist who has found her unique musical niche, and is now polishing it to gemlike brilliance -- it has much the same sound as "Speak For Yourself," but it's a little darker and more wistful. The music washes you away like the nighttime sea, as the lyrics sow stories of melancholy and love in your brain.
Heap's instrumentation has definitely become more polished with time -- she relies a lot on her piano and the satiny violin solos; but there are little shreds of harp, xylophone, and flickers of electric guitar here and there. And the whole album is draped in synth -- her synth is usually smooth and swirling, but sometimes it becomes spiky, tinkly or dancy. All together, it's nothing short of exquisite.
The downsides of this album? "The Fire" feels like so much tinkly filler, and I can't quite make up my mind whether "2-1" is a brilliantly daring ant atmospheric song, or an uneven mess.
But Heap's vocals haven't lost any of their beauty -- husky, strong and powerful -- and she uses more vocorder to add extra drama to her songs. And her songs have become more oblique in their writing ("The gardens wearing haute couture" -- really?), but she can still infuse simple sentiments with power ("The more you lose the less you see/so close your eyes and start to breathe/Oh you said yourself/ this wasn't easy...").
"Ellipse" is an album full of different shapes, different sounds, and different feelings -- and it shows the further evolution of Imogen Heap's exquisite music. If you don't hear this, you'll regret it.
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28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
Aliens among us, 20 Aug 2009
It's rare at the moment to see a science fiction movie that isn't a remake, a cash-in, an adaptation, or a spinoff of another big success.
But "District 9" is not that kind of movie. Instead, the rarest kind of film -- a unique and original idea, handled in an intelligent manner, with no big name actors or flashy special effects. Director Neill Blomkamp instead creates a truly captivating sci-fi movie -- and by inverting the whole alien-invasion trope, Blomkamp also forces his audience to think. Hard.
Almost thirty years ago, an alien ship appeared over South Africa -- but it brought neither global destruction or salvation. When soldiers cut their way in, they found starving refugees who are now nicknamed "prawns."
Currently the aliens live as outcasts in District 9 while nations argue over them, and the company Multi-National United is selected to make their weapons work... which is not possible, because only alien DNA can activate them. Then during forced evictions of District 9, a typically callous MNU field operative named Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) accidently sprays himself with a black alien fluid in a little lab. Unfortunately, it starts turning him into one of the aliens.
Unsurprisingly, the MNU wants the secrets of Wikus' changing body, and the corporation is not terribly picky about how they get it. He manages to escape into the only place where he has a chance of surviving -- the very alien slum that he was trying to empty, District 9. And his only chance of surviving and becoming human again lies with an alien scientist who is trying to reactive the hovering "prawn" mothership.
Segregation. Blatant discrimination (including a racist nickname). Poverty. Shanty towns. Large companies and countries who care nothing for the despised minority population. It's painfully clear what would probably happen if spooky insectile aliens were to land on humanity's doorstep -- and Neill Blomkamp pulls no punches in his allegorical examination of apartheid, alien-style -- with the poor "prawns" as the universal victims. It's a hard, gruesome story with painfully graphic violence (Wikus gleefully bombs alien eggs) but it really needs to be that way.
Blomkamp also presents his story in a unique way -- much of it is filmed like a documentary, though thankfully it has none of the sickmaking shakiness of movies like "Cloverfield" or "The Blair Witch Project." There are plenty of spliced interviews, documentaries and news footage, which are cloaked in a feeling of gritty, dusty realism -- the dark industrial mothership with its slimy interior, the dusty slum, and the poor aliens who basically scavenge through garbage to survive.
But the last quarter of the movie also evolves it into a slam-bang explosion-riddled action flick, without losing its focus -- there are some brilliantly gruesome scenes where the aliens turn against some human attackers, and Wikus even gets to kick butt anime-style in an alien battle-suit. If there's a flaw with this movie, it's the whole idea that humans wouldn't be at all afraid of aliens who are clearly technologically superior to us -- they have a freaking SPACESHIP that's been sitting over Johannesburg for thirty years!
It also has the virtue of the most alien aliens seen in ages -- they move, look, speak (click click!) and think nothing like humans, and they're slimy and kinda creepy looking. They have no grandiose plans or pretty sparkly technology. Yet Blomkamp infuses them with a sense of nobility and strength, and despite their insectile faces he makes you feel what they do after awhile.
It's hard to believe that this is Sharlto Copley's first acting role, because his performance is so strong: Wikus is a pretty despicable human being, who has fun killing aliens and ejecting them from their homes. It takes a physical transformation into an "other" to change his spirit as well. And Blomkamp lets us see the pain of his transition even when we don't like him (including a heartrending phone call to his wife). The supporting actors also provide excellent lesser performances, but Copley rules this one.
"District 9" is a brilliantly original, hard-hitting movie that wraps a timeless human failing in an alien skin. It's one of the best movies of the year thus far, and certainly a classic in the making.
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The Law of Nines
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by Terry Goodkind
Edition: Hardcover |
| Availability: Currently unavailable |
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34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
From another world, 20 Aug 2009
"The Law of Nines" looks and sounds like a suspenseful thriller. In fact, it's a set-in-the-future sequel to Terry Goodkind's doorstopper "Sword of Truth" series -- and sadly it's anything but thrilling. Instead this fantasy/thriller is more like an endless and repetitive stretch of chases and fight scenes (how many times do we hear about throats being cut?), with a bland hero and a mustache-twirling villain.
On Alexander Rahl's twenty-seventh birthday, he almost gets run over saving a hot woman, a strange man buys and defaces a bunch of his paintings, and he inherits a vast expanse of virgin land in Maine.
The woman he rescued, whose name is Jax, adds to the weirdness by claiming to be from another world -- and unsurprisingly Alexander doesn't believe her, although he wants to. But then an ex-girlfriend of his appears one night with a couple of thugs, and Jax barely manages to save him. She reveals that the ex-girlfriend is only one of many enemies who has come from her other dimension. World. Thingy.
She also reveals that the bad guys are led by an evil overlord, Cain, who is eradicating magic from her world, and that somehow his plans involve Alex -- the last member of the House of Rahl. The two of them set out on a frantic search to discover what it is that Cain want, only to become enmeshed in an ancient conspiracy to reopen a gateway between two different worlds.
"The Law of Nines" is a book that sounds a lot more exciting than it is -- a Ludlumesque fantasy-thriller about the lost scion of a magical house. Even more so if it's the sequel to a bestselling fantasy series.
Too bad the actual plot is a seemingly endless series of very repetitive fights and chases, in which random people turn out to be evil minions of the bad guy (cue a staggeringly boring stint at a mental hospital). Even Goodkind seems to eventually realize that this is teeth-grindingly boring, so he throws in some random plot twists -- a contrived secret society, the evil overlord's secret hobby, and the most boring terrorist attack in the world.
And while Goodkind lavishes plenty of detail and foreshadowing in the first chapters, his style deteriorates quickly. His dialogue is plain at best and silly at worst ("It should have a taste to wake it from its long sleep to its purpose"), and Jax and Alex frequently launch into long, dull monologues about evil magic Communists, the wonders of technology (magic glue!) and the "Sword of Truth" world. Eventually you just want them to shut up.
Perhaps the biggest flaw in this book is that it feels like only half a story. Most of the important stuff is going on in the "Sword of Truth" world, but Goodkind never SHOWS readers any of this. All we get is Jax throwing out hints and half-sketched stories.
Even worse, Alex is a pretty boring hero who doesn't seem to feel anything other than spurts of rage, even when his ex-girlfriend tries to rape him. Jax is a more intriguing character (a butt-kicking woman stranded in a strange world) but Alex seems more interested in her sex appeal than her actual problems. As for Cain, he's a 2-D villain who wants to rule the world. Yawn.
"The Law of Nines" tries to mingle fantasy with "Bourne Identity"-style suspense, but the whole thing ends up being boring, repetitive and feeling like only half a story.
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The Winds of Dune
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by Kevin J. Anderson
Edition: Paperback |
| Price: £7.76 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Hot air of Dune, 5 Aug 2009
Apparently Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson aren't finished milking Frank Herbert's cash cow. First prequels, then sequels, and now a midquel.
In this case, "The Winds of Dune" explores the months after the blinded, grief-stricken Paul Atreides aka Muad'Dib wandered off into the desert. While Anderson and Herbert conjure some touching moments as the people in Paul's life deal with his loss, they don't manage to make the story come alive -- the prose and beloved characters are flat.
On Caladan, Jessica is shocked by the news of her son's apparent death, Chani's tragic loss, and the birth of her twin grandchildren. She rushes to Arrakis to assist Alia, now appointed Regent, and discovers that Dune has changed in many ways -- Paul's loss has only increased fanatical devotion (and equally fanatical division), and the ruthless Alia is determined to cement Paul's legacy.
Cue a novella-sized flashback about Paul's childhood, and how he and his friend Bronso of Ix ran away to join the circus... er, the Facedancer Jongleurs. No, seriously.
Unfortunately, Bronso of Ix has since become a sort of idealistic terrorist, disrupting Paul's "funeral" and spreading heretical pamphlets which seek to reveal Paul's flaws and atrocities. Jessica attempts to soften Alia's increasingly ruthless reign as her daughter prepares to marry Duncan Idaho -- but Bronso's determination to kill the legend of Muad'Dib leads to some very big new problems. But is all this Muad'Dib's will?
"The Winds of Dune" is one of those novels that might have been a decent sci-fi read if it had been based on its own universe. But as a Dune story, it seems like glorified fanfiction with a cool cover -- an attempt to fill in various plot points between "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune," such as Alia's marriage to the ghola Duncan Idaho and the water ceremonies.
There isn't actually much plot in "Winds of Dune" except for Alia's increasingly tyrannical actions, and Jessica's attempts to moderate her loopy attempts to deify Paul. There's a spattering of assassination plots, ceremonies (both official and Fremen), Bene Gesserit evilness, and lots of political wheeling and dealing. But without a pair of hefty flashbacks -- about a Bene Gesserit rebellion and running away to the circus -- it would be a very skinny book.
And sadly Herbert and Anderson don't bring much life to the narrative. There are some touching moments -- such as Stilgar's mystical moment with a sandworm -- but mostly it's an unexciting, flatly-written stretch, filled with weird plot twists that rarely work (guess what: Paul was adored because he used Jongleur hypnosis on EVERYBODY!). Seriously, how did they make explosive assassination attempts and hardcore spice hallucinations into half-page-long, emotionless borefests?
The characters are similarly undeveloped -- while the flashbacks temporarily resurrect beloved characters like Chani, Yueh and Duke Leto, none of them have much personality. Alia is suddenly a two-dimensional, crazy, fanatical brat, and gets engaged to Duncan with little evidence of actual romance. It's like, "Hey Mommy, I'm marrying Duncan! Surprise!"
Jessica is the one major exception, as we see her struggle with her losses, and try to keep the truth about Paul's virtues and flaws alive. Same with some minor supporting characters like the torn Stilgar and grieving Gurney Halleck (whose attraction to Jessica begins to flower).
"The Winds of Dune" is basically an official fanfiction, attempting to add plot in between Frank Herbert's original works -- babies, weddings, and collectible Muad'Dib souvenirs. It simply doesn't work.
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2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
I'm not here for those bottom-feeders, 3 Aug 2009
Currently movie vampires are beautiful, seductive, and opulent. Well, most of them, anyway.
Things are a bit different in "Blood: The Last Vampire," adapted from the gorgeously animated, plot-thin anime OAV. It's a fast-moving, gory flick with plenty of vampires and swords, but it also suffers from a cluttered storyline (what's the point of the Elder again?) and a predictable plot twist. Jeon Ji-hyun makes a brilliant dhampiric anti-heroine, though.
As the movie opens, we see a mysterious young girl, Saya (Jun), on a train. When the lights go out, she savagely attacks a man at the other end of the train with a sword. Turns out he's a "bloodsucker."
Turns out that Saya works for the mysterious Council, and a kindly man-in-black named Michael -- but only until they find the vampire overlord Onigen. When people start dying on an American army base, she has to go undercover at the base high school. Unfortunately the general's daughter Alice (Allison Miller) sees Saya slaughtering a couple of vampires in the school gym, and wanders into a vampire bar.
And even worse, some of the people working for the Council are determined to kill anyone who interferes in their work -- including Alice's father, General McKee. Alice ends up on a desperate road trip with Saya, trying to dodge the malevolent vampires that are tracking the mysterious sword-wielding girl. But Onigen is tracking them now, and it's becoming very personal. Cue a Big Reveal of epic clicheness about Onigen and Saya.
"Blood: The Last Vampire" is changed in many ways from the original OAV, such as Saya's background and her being a dhampir. The whole second half is basically invented by writer Chris Chow -- complete with a rosy-eyed look at Saya's youth -- while preserving the bleak, dimly-lit look that the anime had.
Unfortunately, the first half is messy -- there are too many characters (the Elder doesn't DO anything!) and plot elements (Vietnam war criticism from a VAMPIRE?) that feel randomly inserted. Fortunately director Chris Nahon chops away all the deadwood in the latter half of the movie, and gives the visuals a surreal beauty -- bleak rainy streets, misty forests, and a wuxia-style climax full of fire, water, blood and floating veils.
While the first action scene almost gave me a seizure (slow-mo! FAST! Slow-mo! FAST!), the splattery fight scenes become cooler later on, with Saya smashing through buildings, slicing enemies apart, and dueling with a flying vampire on a rickety bridge. And the vampires are wonderfully ghastly -- bat-winged, fanged, slimy-skinned monstrosities who splatter dark blobby blood. Also, two words: Vampire. NINJAS.
Jeon Ji-hyun/Gianna Jun is absolutely stunning in this role -- she jumps, kicks, spins, slashes, and infuses her character with a sense of hollow loneliness. And she plays a very different Saya in the flashbacks from four hundred years ago, when her innocence was shattered by her own vampiric nature. Miller does a decent performance as the whiny Alison, and the stunning Koyuki does a pretty good job as the malevolent Onigen.
"Blood: The Last Vampire" suffers from a ragged first half, but it tightens up into a much more beautiful and memorable movie in the second. If nothing else, watch it for Jeon Ji-hyun.
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Lungs
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| Price: £6.98 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father, 27 Jul 2009
"Happiness hit her like a train on a track/Coming towards her stuck still no turning back/She hid around corners and she hid under beds/She killed it with kisses and from it she fled..."
Florence and the Machine is one of those little bands that seeps in under the pop radar, and becomes a sensation based on pure talent. And Florence Welch and Co. produce a solid debut, "Lungs," that blends delicate polished instrumentals and different genres -- there's little splatters of pop, punk and soul woven together, and cemented in place by Welch's lovely voice.
It kicks off with the plucked intro of "Dog Days Are Over," with Welch's sweet voice singing about "Happiness hit her like a bullet in the head/Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that." While it starts off as soft, ethereal pop, the melody is swathed in eruptions of orchestral pop-rock -- it gets loud'n'catchy, with Welch yelling, "The doooog days are OVER-ER/the dooooog days are ALL DONE!"
She continues the high note with "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," a scintillatingly colorful melody that sounds like a thunderstorm in a flower garden. After that she unleashes a bunch of other great songs: the soulful "I'm Not Calling You A Liar," the urgent piano-pop of "Howl," the wandering twangy "Girl With One Eye," the bouncy wistful "Between Two Lungs," and the sweetly macabre "My Boy Builds Coffins." An especially fun one is "Kiss With A Fist," a blazing punky tune that celebrates rough'n'passionate relationships ("You hit me once, I hit you back/you gave a kick, I gave a slap/you crashed a plate over my head/and I set fire to our bed!").
But Welch and her revolving-door band really shine when the music overflows into a steady river of fiery rock'n'roll, wrapped in twisting gossamer synth and soaring rich vocals. "Howl," the hymnlike "Drumming" and the bleak "Hurricane Drunk" all fit into this category -- and these are absolutely stunning songs, if not as immediately accessible as the catchier tunes.
Florence and the Machine has a pretty unique sound -- there's a lot of punky rock'n'roll, a spattering of pop's catchiness, and some jazzy overtones woven into a few of the songs. As debut albums go, this is a pretty spectacular one, with a distinctive flavour that sounds like little else in modern music -- the closest comparison that comes to mind would be if Joanna Newsom formed a punk-rock band and went for pop stardom.
In particular, Welch has a very pretty voice -- it's a little wavery and girlish, but she sculpts it into a flickering, roaring presence in the louder songs. And she has a knack for dark, evocative lyrics ("Louder than sirens, louder than bells/sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell!") with a quirky edge ("He's made [a coffin] for himself/One for me too/One of these days he'll make one for you"). There are a few lines that need some smoothing out, but not badly enough to distract.
And the instrumentation from The Machine is a gorgeous accompaniment -- lots of rich, swirling instrumentals and straight-ahead rock'n'roll, usually depending on Robert Ackroyd's strong electric guitar and Christopher Lloyd Hayden's solid drumming. Isabella Summers wraps the album in gossamer-soft synth, and Tom Monger adds to the ethereal edge with a harp -- it also helps give it a more classical sound, rather than straight rock-pop.
Florence and the Machine's debut "Lungs" really shows why this band has been getting so much attention across the pond -- it's passionate, eclectic and a lovely piece of work. And it sounds like they'll only get better.
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7 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Worthy of survival, 11 Jul 2009
Fifty years ago, humanity's robotic servant Cylons suddenly turned on their masters. After a nasty war, the Cylons retreated into far space and a tense truce was maintained.
But of course the story doesn't stop -- and it turned out to be a rare case of a remake becoming spectacularly better than the source material. "Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Series" is a grimy, dark, violent and ultimately hopeful sci-fi adventure saga that isn't afraid to dip into philosophical and theological matters. And while it has its ups and downs like any series, it's a brilliant and powerful piece of work.
Forty years after the war's end, the Cylons unexpectedly return to the Twelve Colonies and start wiping out ships and cities. The Battlestar Galactica (an aging warship about to be turned into a museum) is forced to flee the world of Caprica with a collection of refugee-crammed ships, under the command of Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos) and Secretary of Education-turned-President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell).
Now the people of the Twelve Colonies must find a new home -- and their new goal is Earth, a legendary planet with other humans on it. Unfortunately, they have been infiltrated by the treacherous scientist Gaius Baltar (James Callis), and a group of Cylons who are almost indistinguishable from human beings -- they even have emotions and can interbreed with humans.
But the journey is the real test: sabotage, assassination attempts, betrayals, shortages of water, food and fuel, the introduction of cruel martial law, religious conflict, the discovery of another surviving Battlestar called the Pegasus, and the overhanging fear of infiltration by the humanoid Cylons. And though they find a habitable (but miserable) planet, soon the ragtag fleet is forced to flee again -- and eventually discover that their goal is not what they hoped...
Anyone expecting "Battlestar Galactica" to be a copy of its predecessor is going to be horribly disappointed. This is sci-fi at its most compelling and transcendent -- a gritty, bleak, dark story of war and desperate escapes, and there are plenty of moral dilemmas (Roslin ordering the death of a baby Cylon/human hybrid). And it explores the truly compelling questions about what it is to be human and alive -- and to deserve to be.
And the writers brilliantly wrap together hard SF with threads of mystical science fiction, and undertones of religion and philosophy. The writing is solid and snappy ("Old gods die hard") and even manages to pull off dramatic and powerful dialogue without being cheesy ("She chose me. Chose me over all men. Chosen to be seduced. Taken by the hand. Guided between the Light and the Dark").
And each character is given an intricate and complex journey to follow, filled with pain, death, sorrow and slowly moving beyond their own personal problems. Friendships are pulled apart, alliances are formed, and lots of horrible and morally questionable choices are made. Some of these people are redeemed, some are destroyed, and some discover that they are not even human.
Olmos and McDonnell are the powerful leaders in this story, and both actors do a brilliant job -- especially Mcdonnell with Roslin's breast cancer, and Olmos with his tragic past. Other standouts: Callis as the ever-changing Baltar, Michael Hogan as the unlikeable Saul Tigh, and Grace Park as a humanoid Cylon whose love changes her goals.
But the true standouts here are Katee Sackhoff as Kara Thrace (aka "Starbuck") and Tricia Helfer as the ethereal humanoid-Cylon Number Six. Both women's fates are intertwined with the search for Earth, and it's fascinating to see how they shape the show. Sackhoff's character in particular comes across as annoyingly more-macho-than-thou at first, but the slow evolution into "harbinger of death" and destiny makes her the most compelling of all.
"Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series" is a stunning and powerful story that transcends the sci-fi label, and deserves to be praised to the skies. Definitely a must-see.
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