Posted in Music, NYC with tags Gossip on May 17, 2009 by illdielaughing
I’m very much into Gossip these days and not the bad kind. Gossip is an alternative rock band originating in Arkansas but finding most of it’s success in Europe. Ever since watching “Skins” this past winter, whose 1st series theme was Gossip’s “Standing in the Way of Control”, I’ve been interested in Gossip’s releases. They’re next album, “Music for Men” is set for digital release in the United States on June 23rd. I’ll definitely be buying it but for now I’ve made do with the great single off of the upcoming album, “Heavy Cross”.
And the first single off of their last album, “Standing in the Way of Control”
May it live long and prosper. I’m not a Trekkie. My mom is and I make fun of her for it, well that is until I watched Star Trek, the latest film, something of a reboot of the franchise, by J.J Abrams. First, I love J.J. Abrams, he takes sci-fi and situates into the realm of reality flawlessly (for the most part) and he never fails in creating emotional attachment between the viewer and the characters. Chris Pine as the new Captain Kirk is smexy and rugged, Zachary Quinto as Spock is awesome, Zoe Saldana as Uhura is gorgeous, John Cho as Sulu is the bomb and everyone Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana…GOLD. J.J as director makes my life worth living. Haha, an overstatement but this movie has restored my faith in the Hollywood blockbuster. (My faith had left completely after seeing the mess that was Wolverine).
Great acting, great direction, great music (though a tad overused), great special effects, great sound design, greats use of lens flares, of all things. Great movie. I’ll write a proper review when I’m not fangirling.
For now here’s a HILARIOUS interview with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and an uber Star Trek fan.
Posted in Music, NYC with tags Lupe Fiasco on February 17, 2009 by illdielaughing
So, I really wanted to write a post about Lupe Fiasco’s latest Grammy nominated album The Cool but then I read that it’s his birthday so I’ll kill two birds with one stone.
For those who don’t know Lupe Fiasco he is a rapper and a pretty darn good one at that. The Cool is a great album and one of the best ones from 2008. He’s a great writer, he has great collabs with Matthew Santos, his beats are solid. Songs like Gold Watch, Gotta Eat, The Coolest and Hip-Hop Saved My Life (featuring Nikki Jean) speak to the social critic in all of us. Songs like Paris, Tokyo and Go Baby (featuring Gemstones) are sweet talking mostly about love. He tells stories with his music, it’s not just a masturbatory album full of dance tracks with no substance. All I can say is, give this album a listen, even if you don’t like rap or hip-hop.
Fave tracks, hard to choose but I love Superstar, Go Baby, Go Go Gadget Flow, The Coolest and Paris, Tokyo. I really can’t choose one.
“Hug A Korean” Day was on February 6th. I hadn’t heard about this until 2 minutes ago and the first thing I did was think, “I must alert the world” AKA the 15 people who read my blog and so here I am.
Posted in Auditions, NYC, Seoul with tags JYP on February 11, 2009 by illdielaughing
JYP is holding auditions yet again.
Once again, they do everything in Korean which makes little sense to me as they’re holding auditions in the United States. Why don’t they do it in English and Korean? Are they showing off to Koreans that they can have auditions in the United States? Are they limiting applicants to those only of Korean-American descent and/or to those that can speak Korean? I’m sure they have an excellent reason for that.
Los Angeles – March 7th
9am to 3pm
2975Wilshire Blvd. 5th floor
New York – March 14th
10am to 6pm
JYP USA Center
110th east 31st
Shrek is on TNT at the moment, and I must say: that movie is comedic genius. The Gingerbread Man interrogation scene is pure win and it’s one of many great scenes from the movie.
I love the Teriyaki Boyz and this is a very, very, very recent love after watching their music videos for “Zock On!” (Featuring Pharell Williams and Busta Rhymes) and (the painfully low-budget) “I Still Love H.E.R” (featuring a confused Kanye West). They’re a hip-hop rap group on crack. Meaning, they’re campy, high-energy and tons of fun to watch with good music to boot.
M-flo’s frontman, Verbal, is a member of Teriyaki Boyz along with Ilmari and Ryo-Z (Rip Slyme), WISE and Nigo, the DJ and the man who brought them together. The group has always had high profile artists producing tracks on their albums, including Kanye West, Daft Punk and the Neptunes (to name a few). They’re latest album “Serious Japanese” dropped in Japan at the end of January and last Monday in the States. I want it! Hopefully a track-by-track review will be coming up.
“Zock On! (Featuring Pharell Williams and Busta Rhymes)” music video:
“Work That! (Featuring Pharell Williams and Chris Brown)” music video (beware, copious amounts of female ass below):
(I think embedding of this mv is disabled so you’ll you to double click it to watch. Once again, I’m serious, most of the above video is just butt.)
Taking a cue from Amy (whose other blog you should read!), I decided to compile my favorite albums and songs of 2008. Now the songs or albums didn’t all come out in 2008 but I discovered them in that year.
With albums: • Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black (2006) Beautiful, intelligent, infectious, addictive, tragic, cohesive. This was one of the best albums of 2006 and maybe my favorite album of 2008. It made me so sad that Amy Winehouse was at the butt of every joke and it also made me understand why she is who she is, to a limited extent. It was a raw and honest album and it had mass market appeal to boot. Songs like Rehab aren’t my favorites anymore but I still enjoy them. Favorite song off of this album, hard to choose, but would have to say Wake Up Alone. Biggest surprise on this album, Some Unholy War, the lyrics are golden.Read more »
Beyonce acts as something other than a singer (thank god), Nicolas Cage is still trying to be an action hero (but still hasn’t changed his hair) and Madea goes to jail.
Obsessed looks interesting, I really like the lead, Idris Elba, as does my mother, so I’m sure I’ll be seeing this with her. The film is about a businessman who starts getting stalked by a temp worker (Ali Larter) that is infatuated with him. Beyoncé plays his wife, Sharon, and I don’t think she’ll be doing any singing in this film, thankfully. Now, the girl can sing, but she doesn’t need to be a singer in every film she appears in and it’s good that she won’t be a singer in this. I just hope that she will be able to act. The film is somewhat reminiscent of Fatal Attraction as there is a showdown between Sharon and the temp in the film, the difference being that Idris’ character hasn’t actually done anything wrong (maybe). Jerry O’Connell also stars. [High Quality trailer here.]
Knowing, I’m sorry, Know1ng is a film starring Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne (a great actress who you may have seen in Troy as Achilles’ (Brad Pitt) love interest, Briseis). The film centers around a number code, hidden in a time capsule for 50 years, that seems to predict natural disasters and events that cause a large number of casualties. Nicolas Cage gets his hand on the number code because his son’s school was the one who had buried the time capsule 50 years ago and the son, intrigued, took it home. If you watch the teaser trailer it seems vaguely supernatural, maybe a human that can see into the future, maybe a boy got a vision. If you watch the full trailer, there are, what seem to be, aliens, Nicolas Cage saving babies and random floating objects. Very supernatural. [High Quality trailer here.]
Madea Goes to Jail is another one of Tyler Perry’s stage plays that he’s putting on the big screen. Tyler Perry is one of the best comedic actors because his ad-libbing is golden. I watched a few of his stage plays and his ad-libs are so funny that the rest of the cast is fighting like hell not to laugh. Now, on the big screen I find Tyler Perry’s direction a bit over the top, which is to be expected of someone that goes from directing for the stage and directing on film. On the stage you have to be obvious, everyone in the theatre has to see what you want them to see. In film you can be a lot more subtle. Actually, I went to see Doubt yesterday and Doubt is based on a stage play. The writer of the stage play wrote and directed the film version. Because of this the films direction was very obvious, almost annoyingly so. Back to Madea Goes to Jail it surrounds Madea…going to jail, and a man trying desperately to save a friend of his from prostitution. It will be funny, but it will be touching as well, in true Tyler Perry style. [High Quality trailer here.]
Other Stuff
Escape to Witch Moutain becomes Race to Witch Mountain in a third remake starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It actually looks good. They didn’t stick to the original idea of kids discovering that they’re aliens, in this remake they are trying to get to their spaceship or something. It’s a good idea to revamp the story because as much as I LOVED the first 2 Escape to Witch Mountain films, there is no reason to make another one with the same plot.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/racetowitchmountain/large.html
Steven Soderbergh directs the near 4 hour epic Che starring one of my favorite actors, Benicio Del Toro. The film centers around Che Guevara’s time in Cuba.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/che/
Good starring Viggo Mortenson tells the story of a man and his Jewish friend caught up in the beginnings of Nazi Germany. Looks really…good. No pun intended.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/good/
And Lil’ Kim looks as if she’s been stuffed into a ripped up trash bag. Why does she look like that? Se7en looks spiffy in his suit and then Lil’ Kim looks like a lost extra from The Matrix, one that’s still looking for the set.
This music video looks like a typical hip-hop, “hoes in da club” music video. Which disappoints me but I am just anxious to see it, so I won’t complain. But let it be on the record that I think Se7en should bring something new to the table. Though, if this is what he wants then I shouldn’t project my wants for Asians debuting here on him and assume that if he doesn’t do what I think he should that it’s some kind of failing. I think it’s lame that his video is typical ho-car-ho but, hey, I never really found him to be innovative in that respect anyway.
Moving on. They’re pictured here doing an interview for MTV which I’m anxious to see as well, if only to see Se7en on a normal channel (AKA not MTV Iggy). Things like this make me realize that maybe I should start looking for these crossover artists as a consumer of American music rather than as someone who will know everything thing they’re doing anyway because I blog about it. This way I can see just how effective implanting themselves into the American market is.
My Favorites of 2008
Posted in Music, NYC, Review, Seoul with tags Alex, Amy Winehouse, Big Bang, Clazziquai, DBSK, Emi Hinouchi, Gnarls Barkley, Joss Stone, Kanye West, Lee Hyori, Loveholic, MIA, N*E*R*D, Nouvelle Vague, Redd Holt Unlimited, Review, Shinee, Taeyang, Zhang Li Yin on January 4, 2009 by illdielaughingTaking a cue from Amy (whose other blog you should read!), I decided to compile my favorite albums and songs of 2008. Now the songs or albums didn’t all come out in 2008 but I discovered them in that year.
With albums:
• Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black (2006)
Beautiful, intelligent, infectious, addictive, tragic, cohesive. This was one of the best albums of 2006 and maybe my favorite album of 2008. It made me so sad that Amy Winehouse was at the butt of every joke and it also made me understand why she is who she is, to a limited extent. It was a raw and honest album and it had mass market appeal to boot. Songs like Rehab aren’t my favorites anymore but I still enjoy them. Favorite song off of this album, hard to choose, but would have to say Wake Up Alone. Biggest surprise on this album, Some Unholy War, the lyrics are golden. Read more »
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