AC/DC's Back In Black (1980)

Vocal Artist: Brian Johnson

Lead Guitar: Angus Young

Bass Guitar: Cliff Williams

Rhythm Guitar: Malcolm Young

Drums: Phil Rudd

Label Company: Epic, Albert Productions

Release Date:  February 18, 2003 (Re-Issue) {1980 Original Release Date}

 Tracks: 10

Number of Discs 1

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Discussion

After the passing of Vocalist Bon Scott, The future of AC/DC seemed over, without a vocalist the group was pretty much finished.  But after a short retirement, the young brothers went in search of the next Lead Vocalist for the band. Many went for rehearsals, to see if they could compete with what Scott had put up..The only one that made it was Brian Johnson; a former vocalist for a 70’s glam rock band named Geordie. Scott himself had heard Johnson play live, and was impressed with the magnitude of his voice. So technically, Scott approved of the decision, even if he had passed away.

                                                                                                                                                                                              

Back in black was released just 6 months after Scott had passed, and as a tribute and honor to him, they returned in black in expression of sorrow and lost of not just a great vocalist, but a charismatic front man.  With no disrespect to Scott, this is by far not only the best AC/DC album, but one of the best Old School Rock Albums of the 80’s. It’s just sad that Scott wasn’t there to see, nor perform it.  

The title track, which I admit has been overplayed to the point of annoyance, is still once the best songs to rock to. But to me, the best track in this album has to the intro song: Hells Bells. As soon as the sound of the bells starts hitting, you know that what is coming afterwards is pure glory.  Every track of Back in Black has the now signature riffs of Angus Young and the powerful blaring voice of Brian Johnson. This is just one album i never, ever get tired of. I think I play this one almost every other day.  Did i mention this is actually the highest selling album? Second only to Michael Jackson’s Thriller!  To conclude, this is an album that needs to be in everyone’s library, no joke, you want real old school rock, this the definition of it.

Track List

1)      Hells Bells

2)      Shoot to Thrill

3)      What Do You Do For Money

4)      Givin The Dog a Bone

5)      Let Me Put My Love Into You

6)      Back In Black

7)      You Shook Me All Night Long

8)      Have A Drink On Me

9)      Shake A Leg

10)   Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution

Beastly (2011)-Alex pettyfer

Director: Daniel Barnz

Stars: Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudghens & Mary Kate Olsen

Genre: Drama/Fantasy/Romance

Rating: PG-13 ( Language including some crude comments, Drug Reference & Brief Violence)

Running Time: 86min

Tagline: Love is Never Ugly







Discussion


I will admit I wasn't going to see this movie...but I heard about how bad it was and that means that my inner

"bad movie junkie" wanted to actually watch it.  So I did, and I wasn't disappointed, in terms of badness of

course. To begin, I actually thought the dude looked cooler with the razor cuts and fancy tattoos; it wasn't as

if he was hideous. He actually could pull of here a new version of I am number 4… just saying.

Now into the movie: meet Kyle, a self absorbed/egotistical teenager, who so happens to be running for school president. Right in the first 3 min we see him give a little speech about how good looks makes it all work in life; without them, there is no success (according to Kyle).  But, Mr. Kyle will be given a lesson by a bad little witch (Olsen) Transforming Kyle into how ugly he really is inside..Personally, like i said, he looks cooler with the razor cuts and gelly roll tats. Anyhow, Kyle has one year to find someone to accept him for how “ugly” he is and say the magic word "I Love You" and ee, and convert him back into his former normal self.  How original, no? I was texting, fiddling trough my other movies while watching this turkey. The whole cast, specifically Hudghens, gavean utter bad performance. The only good performance in this movie was Neil Patrick Harris as a blind private professor. He actually brings some humor to this tepid love story. Talking about love story, the chemistry between Pettyfer and Hudghens was none existent; the two knew this was going to turn into a clunker, just kept aboard for the check. Oh and before i forget, I find it so funny how Mary Kate plays a "Witch" yet we never see her do any real magic, just a really creepy glare. she also pulls out a request for Kyle at the end, which made me go "que?" arent they suposed to be enemies?

So how exactly does this movie work as a modern retelling of beauty and the beast? Well, it doesn't! It’s

merely a poor attempt at trying to do the same thing the twilight series did. That being: reinventing old

Mythos. Twilight tried it with the vampire mythology and failed, and so did this movie. Just like this movie

came and left cinemas quickly, i am predicting it will leave the market as soon it hits to BD and DVD. So

overall this is definetly one to just skip and forget. If somehow it is shown on TV, you know what to do.

 

theatrical trailer

Nightmare Asylum (1992)- Lori Hassel (0)

Director: Todd Sheets

Stars: Lori Hassel,Mathew Lewis, & J.T. Taube

Genre: Horror

MPAA Rating: Unrated

Running Time: 69 Mins

Tagline: None



Discussion

Let me start by saying, I have seen some shitty movies in my time, but this is by far the worst piece of mega crap I have seen. I will admit that i like cheesy/corny flicks to have some laughs. However, this excuse of a movie was excruciating to watch and finish; running at 69 min, it felt like 5 hours of torture and pain.  Believe me when i say this is bottom of the barrel of garbage, take my word and don’t attempt to watch this movie. I will only go over this movie once, afterwards, pretend I never spoke of it.

Movie starts with this girl running around some hallways; she is being chased by ghouls and zombies.  She gets saved by a guy named Spider; He takes the girl to a hideout, where his family is hiding from ghouls, zombies and shit.  I have no fucking clue what happened, whether the world went to shit, or if this girl fell into a demented version of Alice in Wonderland. Which reminds me, every character in this movie is so god damn annoying and retarted…ugh, I am truly having a hard time going over this one, and I will probably get a hernia from going over this fucker. Anyway, as far as I was paying attention, the whole thing is just a bunch of demented mofos torturing and killing people for pleasure. Now, you might ask: Where do the Zombies and ghouls fit in? They don’t, that simple. 

This movie was directed by Todd Sheets, who proclaims himself as “The Master of Splatter” well, I wish I could agree, but this guy is just a master of making painful movies to watch. This is the second sheets movie I sit through, the first being Zombie Rampage (another turd) Why would I endure such shit? Like I’ve said before, I’m a masochist when it comes to shitty movies.  Anyhow, the budget of this movie, which Sheets “says” was in the thousands, to me it was more like 5 dollars. The freaking film was shot on a VHS tape, at least that’s what it looks like to me. I’m not referring to actual transfer, which also looks horrendous; I mean the actual camera was a VHS camera. It felt as if the whole movie was a twisted project from a couple of teenagers. Talking about twisted, this movie is fucking sick, I mean like fucked up sick. There’s a scene where they stick a piece of large wood up a guys ass and out through his mouth, gushing out blood and gore…however, the gore looks like play dough. To wrap up, please do yourself a favor...avoid this movie. I only saw it because it came in a box set of 50 Horror Movies in 12 DVD's.

Driven To Kill (2009)- Steven Seagal (1 ½ )

Director: Jeff King


Stars: Steven Seagal, Mike Dopud & Igor Jijikine


Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller


MPAA Rating: R (Strong Violence Throughout, Language and Some Sexuality/Nudity)


Running Time: 98 Mins


Tagline: "They Took His Daughter...So He's Taking Them Down"





Discussion

Remember when I said I wouldn’t buy another Steven Seagal movie…Well, I guess I lied. The movie was on sale for 10 bucks, hadn’t seen any of his DTV flicks in blu-ray...Hey, I was curious, what can I say. As we know, curiosity killed the cat, and it is very evident here. Like all the bad DTV flicks Seagal has done in the past, this one is no different; has all the same recipes for atrocity: Segal patty caking his victims (more so than before) placing a skinny double from behind when it’s not needed. And for the first time instead of dubbing Seagal’s voice, they enhance it, to make his voice sound more like a Russian..And believe me his Russian accent is as believable as his fighting (yes that is sarcasm)

Blu ray trailer

Now that I brought up Russia, Seagal plays Ruslan, native Russian (yeah right) also Ex Mobster turned crime novelist. He is to attend his daughter’s wedding, but little does he know that the guy she is going to marry is in fact the son of a big boss of the Russian Mafia. While the son isn’t involved in the mafia, his father is...And to bring his son into the mafia, the father puts in place some thugs to kill his fiancé and soon to be mother in law. Successfully, the thugs make it looks like a robbery and “so far” get away with it.  But, they weren’t counting on the guy who is “Hard to kill” and while he is now “Marked for Death” he will take his “Belly of The Beast” and go “Out for Justice” (those are in fact titles of his movies)

 

At least this one wasn’t so convoluted, it made a little more sense than his other string of DTV flicks. Yet, the movie is still pretty bad. Especially with the fighting, I know i have said that i prefer Seagal doing his stunts, even if it means just seeing him play around with his hands…I feel like I don’t even want to see that. It is a miracle if he went back to his glory days. Meaning, losing weight, getting in shape etc…But I find that difficult to take place. Anyway, concluding, this one was just as bad or worse than Into the sun or Belly of The Beast.  This guy is just getting slower and fatter by the minute, every fight sequence was painful to watch; the guy was out of breath in almost every other shot. Something as simple as running is a difficult task for the guy. To believe I used to love the guys older movies…oh well

final fight scene

The first Seagal movie I see in DVD come from FOX and its a pretty disappointing one to be honest. Even though the movie was shot digitally, the transfer failed to capture and HD power.

Video

Quality in terms of visual presentation, I must say is very disappointing. Especially for a movie that is relatively new (09) There probably only two or three scenes at the most were the colors actually pop in a three dimensional matter. But aside that, the colors are over saturated, flesh tones don’t look very realistic. For better or worse you do get to see every pore of grease and lard in Seagal’s bloated pancake face

Audio

Like the video, this 5.1. DTS HD Master Lossless Audio, even though a mouthful, has no difference to that of a regular surround mix. I have see real HD audio, and this really is not it. The gunfire sounded like firecrackers mostly. There was no real impact in the subwoofer at all. So much for “Master” Audio 

Bottom Line:

Skip it, neither worth the money nor time. The only thing I will leave you, aside the trailer, is a song played in the movie that I thought was pretty bad ass…and the embarrassing final fight scene, which is brutal, but still crappy in comparison to his early work.

Adele 21 (2011)

Vocal Artist: Adele Laurie Blue Adkins

Label Company: Columbia

Release Date:  February, 22, 2011

 Tracks: 11

Number of Discs 1

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Discussion

After being bombarded with flashy hip hop music on the radio 24/7, I was wondering if real music existed anymore. By that I mean, Music with soul, heart and emotion. I honestly thought all hope was lost; but suddenly a voice strikingly & powerful comes in. A new voice, to bring balance and make sense to the world of music. I will admit, I was not familiar with Adele’s previous work. I became familiar with Adele after going to FYE (For Your Entertainment) and listening to the album play. After listening to Rolling in the Deep I was instantly hooked. I recall going to YouTube and checking her previous work, which just gets better with every play.

The album has a total of 11 tracks, of the 11 tracks, I like them all!! It is that good!! This is an amazingly well arranged album; both lyrically and melodically. Adele’s voice is something that can only be described as Epic, it shakes you up as you here the songs play. By the way, each track transcends smoothly, with perfect timing, which is one of many reason why this Album works. Most of the tracks refer to broken heartedness, expressing deep emotions etc. Cleverly, the lyrics go well in balance with the rhythm of the music. The overall feel i have for the artist is a fusion of R&B, Soul and some lite pop in between..But not too much. I will admit I’m not much a music connoisseur, but I know how to differentiate between real and synthesized music… and this is real music. Quite frankly, I recommend this album to everyone, if you have yet not heard Adele, please do. I won’t be surprised if Adele becomes the new sensation, pushing out of the way Lady Gaga and Katy Perry (no disrespect to either) So with this I leave you her single, Rolling in The Deep, let me know if you agree or disagree with me about Adele’s Album:21.

Track List

1)      Rolling in the Deep

2)      Rumor Has It

3)      Turning Tables

4)      Don’t You Remember

5)      Set Fire To The Rain

6)      He Won’t Go

7)      Take it All

8)      I’ll be Waiting

9)      One and Only

10)   Love Song

11)   Someone Like You

Rolling in the deep