Blog: Sho 'Nuff Audioblog

And now, way after everyone else... the top 50 of 2009! 50. Dangermouse & Sparklehorse Present - Dark Night of the Soul 49. Franz Ferdinand - Tonight 48. DJ Vadim - U Can't Learn Imaginashun 47. Bon [...]

Matthew Vaughn has helmed 3 quite disparate films in his short career to date. British mobsters, a fantasy land with celestial princesses and now a superhero yarn. What ties these together is the sublime combination of violence, comedy and genre knowledge that make his films some of the most watchable pieces of deconstructionist pop to come along in the last 10 years. Teaming up for the second time with writing partner Jane Goldman, Vaughn once again plays with genre hallmarks to craft something that is both reassuringly familiar and refreshing new. The [...]

So the screening I saw of Green Zone was spliced out of order… I'm not sure that the audience noticed. Such is the frantic chaos of Greengrass ' latest handheld actioner. The film star ts in the middle of the first bombings of Baghdad in 2003. The camera tightly frames a collection of nameless but official looking Iraqis as they scurry about a house grabbing documents and being rushed into get-away cars. The subtitled dialogue [...]

His name is Blake and he is biking across the US to raise money for an AIDS orphanage in Honduras. Check out the great photos and live diary of the journey right here . Apparently he's really into showering. I guess the road is dirty.

4 posts in 6 months? That is completely lame. I'd promise to do better but it would mostly be a lie.

Terminator Salvation has all the action you'd expect from the franchise. The film is filled with high-octane sequences of humans and robots and robo-men and hu-bots all shooting the crap out of a beautifully designed and filmed ( Shane is a FUCKING PROFESSIONAL! ) post-apocalyptic California. But still the film leaves you unsatisfied. McG can certainly handle the BOOM! but it's the script and story that make this the least interesting or enjoyable entry in this long running series. The plot is pretty simple – humanity's [...]

I've never gotten the effusive gush that comes over normally sane people when the subject of Pixar comes up. The "everything they've ever done is a masterpiece! (well except Cars )" just gets irritating after the 82nd time. I've never hated any of the Pixar flix I've seen but found only two worthy of some of the extraordinary praise that is trumpeted (or syndicated) from the pages of the entertainment section of America's newspapers. Take Up (please!... sorry) [...]

(500) Days of Summer With his first feature film (500) Days of Summer , Marc Webb quickly launches himself into the New Quirk cannon. Stirring indie rock soundtrack? Check. Brief flirtations with animation? Check. Intertitles as storytelling device? Check. Humor that is both wry and charming? Check. Idiosyncratic characters including a young person way too wise for her age? Check. Show stopping dance sequence from outta left field? Check. Its all here [...]

Sorry loyal reader, I've been busy catching up on all the sights and sounds of 2008. Also playing with a new PS3 and watching awesomely awesome Blu-Ray. Anyway, it is the time of year that everyone who thinks they have a valid opinion for some reason or another puts out their best of lists. Not being one to upset the apple cart... here... we... go! Top 50 Albums of the Year 50. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer [...]

In what might be the biggest week ever for the illicit file sharing side of the nets another of next week's new set drops... er... drops. Guns N' Roses, 808s N' Heartbreak & Day N' Age all debut in the next week, just in time to be the last CDs Circuit City will ever sell and most of those 3 are all out & about. The big question is, who takes #1 on the charts (and where is the magazine cover detailing it)? Actually it will likely be Tom Jones, his fanbase still buys albums. [...]

Skipping the title track, we've all heard it by now... - "Shackler's Revenge" (METAL! and TECHNO! - meh) - "Better" (Second Single - better than the first, is that a 303? and whats with the Linkin Park sound?) - "Street of Dreams" (Power Ballad!) - "If the World" (Flamenco & Funk?!? YES! - best track on the set) - "There Was a Time" (This one was leaked last year and its a big improvement, the rerecorded vocals are a huge [...]

More of a Greek tragedy than anything to grace the silver screen in a while, The Boy In the Striped Pajamas is a poignant look inside the emotionally tumultuous lives of the family of an SS officer during WWII as viewed through the eyes of an 8 year old boy. visit videodetective.com for more info The film opens on a group of young kids playing at an aerial dog fight in the streets of Berlin. One of them is Bruno ( [...]

Kevin Smith loves three things – profanity, schmaltzy love stories and a naked Jason Mews . It really shouldn't surprise anyone that all three are on… er… display in his latest film Zach & Miri Make a Porno . (Using the actual title of the film thank you very much.) The film gets off to a bit of a shaky start as Smith's first act is just littered with unclever and over abundant uses of various expletives. Smith has a tendency to layer it on thick when he can't find any pop [...]

The final season of the EZ1 boxoffice game starts soon - follow the link to sign up and play. The winter game is run not by Eddie but by Jana and has several unique aspects including the presence of Limited Release titles and poetry based "hints" to each price change. Sign up at http://www.ez1productions.com/ .

Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. I just want to know what Jerry Bruckheimer did to piss Spielberg off so badly as to assure his virtual banishment from the action spectacular producers' club? This is something that JB's name would have been all over 3 years ago – hell, so was his boy Bay's Transformers – but instead the Exec credit on both of these (as well as the last D.J. Caruso / Shia Labeouf pairing Dis turbia [...]

Let me get this out of the way first. Choke is my favorite Chuck Palahniuk novel. There was no way a rookie actor-turn-director was gonna take the material and do anything interesting with it the way Fincher did with Fight Club . The best I was hoping for was that it would be a serviceable adaptation that got the source material right without leaving too much of the dark comedy on the floor. Surprisingly Clark Gregg (also playing Lord High Charlie) went slightly beyond not ruining the film in heightening the emotional tone [...]

Glamorous indie rock and roll, New York is thy name. This aspirational film for hipster kids everywhere paints a portrait of overly talented and highly connected high school kids with fake IDs running amuck in NYC over one shimmering night of comically tumultuous coming of age set to some of the finest music the kid down the street insists is the best thing ever (on his blog). Welcome to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist . Starting out in North Jersey (as all nights in Manhattan do) we are introduced to Norah – a [...]

So uh... yeah Only By the Night seemed to pop up last night whilst scanning the 'sphere. I know, I couldn't believe it either! Rest assured the kids will begin rapidly sharing tracks post haste. The actual release date is 9/23 and the iTunes pre-order comes with a CSS remix of The Bucket which I'm anxious to hear. They've been trotting out a few of the tracks on the road recently and I'm totally boutabout 'em. Peep the first ever live performances of "Sex on Fire" & "Manhattan" from the [...]

• Kings Of Leon - Crawl

Congratulations Guillermo del Toro , you are the most frustrating filmmaker working today. I used to be able to write you off as an overrated and untalented filmmaker – no more. Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a technical marvel. This film is beautiful in a way that surpasses everything that del Toro had done to date… combined… including Pan! Unfortunately, like every film he has made, the story is flat, the pacing is poor and many of the emotional moments just seem to hit the wrong note. The film opens with a flashback of John [...]

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME NANCY GRACE MAKES AN APPEARANCE AS THE VILLAN!!! Ok, now that that's out of the way… Shoehornin' is the word I'd use to describe Hancock. Peter Berg's film wants to critique the superhero genre while at the same time giving that big summer-blockbuster superhero-event widest-possible-audience feel. It wants to fit in an American allegory. It wants to have good actors actually acting instead of being superhero cutesy. It wants to play with our expectations but also [...]