Author: Mosh

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Dragged against my will to see a kids’ film (with two nine year old girls), the only minor victory in my favour was managing to schedule a 2D viewing…

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“This place just gets weirder and weirder!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: precocious children return to mystical land where they’re apparently royalty, kick some monster butt and meet Jesus a lion.

It’s not usual for me to jump into a trilogy without seeing the first two, but I was effectively bullied by two little girls. And you don’t argue with women no matter how small they are. I’m familiar with the first tale in the series (of which there are seven books by C.S.Lewis – whether they’ll all make it to the screen is to be seen), but only from TV adaptations many years ago.

It’s still an easy story to get into if you have the very basic background – some children find a magical land via a wardrobe in part one, something else happens in part two and in part three they go back again via a painting on a wall. They also drag a very annoying relative with them. The scene is quickly set at this point, and I wasn’t left wondering too many things about the back-story as the plot kicked off.

The characters are easy to get to grips with, the story starts well and the action sequences are fantastical and exciting. This really is a children’s film, but is perfectly enjoyable by adults. Sure, the younger cast are a little gushy and the plot fairly thin (find seven swords and pop them on a table) but the settings are fantastic. It’s a real work of imagination and today’s special effects really do it justice.

There genuinely isn’t a dull moment. When the plot isn’t moving forward, there are some nice sequences about the characters. The annoying relative, of course, proves his worth and becomes a part of the team. Evil men give way to strange creatures which progress onto huge monsters as the challenges faced get bigger and more perilous.

I honestly can’t see the film being improved by 3D – very few films at all can be – so save your cash and catch this version. But do catch it, especially if you’ve seen the first two. I enjoyed it far more than I expected despite spending half the film on the lookout for the well known Christian allegory. Which, incidentally, is not very hard to spot towards the end of the movie.

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Why I love heavy metal. By Mosh, aged 37 (just)

I got dragged out to Ivory Black’s in Glasgow after the Taste of Chaos tour on Saturday night. I gather it’s cheaper than the Classic Grand and full of less kiddies than the Cathouse. It was also flipping near empty! A shame as the music was excellent.

The point of this post, though. As I sat, helping drink the bar dry of tequila (why? I hate the stuff) there were two TVs on the wall in front of me. One was showing Penelope Spheeris‘ The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. The other had last year’s Sonisphere “Big 4” video recorded in Sophia, Bulgaria.

The girls in our group seemed focussed on what Poison looked like in 1988. I was wishing the sound was up so I could hear Anthrax’ set.

However, as the older film approached its end, the final band featured playing live was Megadeth – featuring a very baby-faced and sneary Dave Mustaine. The band were on a small stage with no security. Fans were clambering up and launching themselves off with wild abandon – I can’t remember the last time I saw a stagediver at a gig. Seriously.

At the exact same moment on the other screen, Megadeth were finishing their set (in the lashing rain) in an arena or football ground in Bulgaria. A huge pit in front of them keeping them maybe 10m from the nearest fan. A huge sound setup. A crowd of maybe 50,000 or more.

It was just one of those coincidental moments, and it made me wonder… back in that first video did Mustaine have even the slightest inkling he’d be playing such a different environment around twenty years later? And who else would have believed that such a niche band would go on to such things.

Not just them, obviously. Metallica were also featured in both films. It just so happened that both Megadeths finished their songs/sets at the same time in front of me.

I can’t recall who, but apparently some tosspot on Radio 1 recently said that rock and metal is dead. Again. People like that obviously have no clue what they’re talking about and live in an little world of their own. All it takes is one glance at the gig listings in a magazine, or a check online to find the countless tours and festivals taking place.

The Download festival has arisen from the ashes of the old Donington Monsters of Rock. It now runs for four days. Sonisphere has appeared from nowhere and is adding new countries to its touring festival each year. Bloodstock. Hard Rock Hell. Damnation. High Voltage. That’s just the tip of the iceberg – and that’s only the UK.

Bands that didn’t even hit the heights of the likes of Metallica are still touring. Some are making comebacks, some never went away. In the last few weeks I’ve seen Annihilator and Exodus, to name but two.

Despite a continued lack of radio support (come on, Radio 1 – one show a week… at midnight?) heavy metal has continued to live and breathe for decades. It’s constantly being written off, but it has the most dedicated fans of any genre of music.

The internet has definitely helped – as it has with other types of music – allowing new bands a cheap outlet for their demos. This has without a doubt made a huge difference, especially around the late 90’s when thing were a little sparce in the metal field.

But now we have bands like Poison selling out arenas in the US. Lawnmower Deth, at the other end of the scale, are playing a couple of gigs a year after 15 years or so in retirement. Judas Priest are still going despite the band being old enough to have grandfathered a huge proportion of their fans.

You can have your own opinions about the music, but there’s no denying it. Heavy metal is here to stay.

Just deal with it.

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Taste of Chaos 2010

Disturbed
Disturbed’s excellent light show

[Full gallery within this Flickr set]

Saturday was a belter with a 4-band show at the Glasgow SECC. Wendi and I missed Halestorm due to public transport issues, but they were the only band we knew nothing about so it’s not the end of the world. Heard good things about them afterwards though.

Our opening band were therefore Buckcherry, who were allotted a dinky 6 tracks or so. They were fun, the sound was good and I would definitely like to see them do a full set sometime. Of course, they ended with Crazy Bitch.

Next up were Papa Roach who played a blinding set. Again, squished into a small time slot they managed to entertain a very enthusiastic crowd and crammed in pretty much everything you could want to hear from first album Infest right up to current single “Burn”. A simple light show behind the band added some nice touches to the affair and they left, sans encore, with a crowd baying for more.

Headlining were Disturbed, who took Papa Roach’s light show, multiplied it by about 20 and absolutely tore the place apart. I’m not a Disturbed “fan” as such, but I do like them and have to say I really enjoyed the set. There was a decent variety in the tracks, chief of which was their cover of Genesis’ “Land of Confusion“. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone slamming to a Phil Collins number before. First time for everything.

The sound was very good, light show staggering, crowd awesome (except for two dicks who got into a fight in the pit during Disturbed) and the security friendly and helpful. If I had a complaint it was the lack of free drinking water. £1.50 a bottle is ridiculous. If much smaller venues such as the O2 and Garage can manage it, you’d think the SECC could.

Certainly a great “taste” of the bands featured, and excellent value for money for fans of three or four of them.

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Monsters / The Tourist

Gill and I popped over for our hopefully-now-regular two-film shift in Glasgow on Friday night. The timings of the performances gave us the following as out best choices for the evening:

Monsters

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Boy meets girl and must travel through alien-infested jungle to get her safely home to dad. Only without many aliens.

Just to clarify something – Monsters is not actually a monster film as such. It’s a film that sets itself around an environment where monsters are present, but is very much a road movie – a film about the two main characters making a journey from A-B. So for those you you disappointed with the lack of disembowellings and big jumpy shocks, don’t say you weren’t warned.

This is cheap film-making at its best. Written and directed by Gareth Edwards, he made the entire thing for around £500,000. This is tiny compared to most Hollywood efforts, despite having a solid (if small) cast and excellent special effects. Every set used is a real building. Every outdoor scene is really outdoors. No special builds were used. The majority of people in the film are just locals who were kicking about. The film crew consisted of two people, as does the central cast.

Best of all, it a) works and b) doesn’t look like it cost so little.

Scoot McNairy and Whitley Able play Andrew and Samantha, thrown together when Andrew’s boss demand that he get his daughter back to the U.S. They’re both in Mexico, and the land between the two countries is classed as an “Infected Zone”, harbouring aliens brought back to earth by a crashed space probe.

On the way they encounter corrupt officials, thieves, friendly locals, guns for hire and – yes – some monsters/aliens. Rather than going for the “big jumpy out” type of creatures, Edwards has instead opted for a sense of “what’s happening next?” which is far better. Most people haven’t seen these aliens except on television, so the characters are torn between fear and curiosity in places.

I would not say this is the best road movie or alien movie ever made. However, I would recommend watching it as it’s fantastic proof that an entertaining and gripping film doesn’t need a budget well into the millions.

The Tourist

“”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A case of mistaken identity leads an innocent tourist into being mistaken for an international fraudster. But he does get to snog Angelina Jolie, so that’s OK.

I wanted to see this for the humour in the trailer. Gill wanted to see it so she could drool over Johnny Depp. And Angelina Jolie. Strange girl. Anyway.

I saw enough of the trailer to think I wanted to see this, but I have a feeling a lot of the jokes and action are in there. However, it’s still a great ninety minutes or so of pure cinematic candy floss. Don’t take it too seriously and you’ll enjoy it.

Elise (Jolie) is the girlfriend of the accountant of a gangster who’s done a runner with a couple of billion dollars. She receives a note – jump on a train, find someone who kind of looks like me and make the police believe that is me. Said accountant has had $20m worth of plastic surgery so nobody knows what he looks like. The idea is to throw police (including Paul Bettany‘s tenacious Inspector) and gangsters (led by Reginald Shaw, played by Steven Berkoff) off the scent so that the two can meet properly and make their escape into obscurity.

But that would be too easy. Instead, Elise falls for Frank (the tourist) and worries about what could happen to him if the police or gangsters get hold of him. So we have Elise caught between trying to catch up with her man while trying to rescue the other chap she dragged into the situation.

It’s all very silly, but fun. Jolie is quite sexy (I’ll be honest – I’m not normally a huge fan), Depp is airheaded and panicky, Battany is tenacious and Berkoff is a bastard. With the lovely setting of Venice, it makes for an interesting little movie that’s a worthwhile way to spend part of your evening.

Don’t expect a classic, but do expect to enjoy it. The crowd in the cinema (a near sell-out) were laughing out loud at some of the dialogue. It’s not too often that happens these days.

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Hatebreed – Glasgow Garage

Hatebreed - Glasgow 2
Hatebreed

[More pics in this Flickr set]

The weather sucked, but I still managed to make it along the M8 to Glasgow for the Hatebreed gig. The motorway was like driving on unsurfaced back streets. Only slippy. This country really can’t handle a cold snap.

Due to the low turnout – weather related – the gig was shifted downstairs from the Garage to G2. A smaller venue, but far better suited to a small crowd. It also means the beer was only £2.80 a pint, though that could be because I got there so early. Glad I did as well, as there was an early curfew and Hatebreed were due on stage at 8:30. I’d normally have expected a headliner on at 9:30!

The band kicked off with three songs off the current album which suits me. The self-titled Hatebreed is, in my opinion, their strongest overall album to date. Older albums have some individually great songs, but this one’s damn good from start to finish.

Over the hour-and-a-quarter, the band hammered out a ton of material with very few breaks to draw breath. Songs from the first EP were thrown in, as was a Slayer cover and load of classics.

It’s great to see original guitarist Wayne Lozinak back with the band. I spent the majority of the gig pressed against the barrier right in front of him. Courtesy of a stinking cold I really wasn’t up for the pit (though it didn’t stop me on a couple of occasions!). Hopefully I didn’t shower him in snot when I was headbanging. Regardless, I managed to catch one of his picks afterwards. I’m sure I already have one somewhere from a previous concert – I think the Machine Head support slot they did a few months ago.

As ever, it was a good crowd and as Jamey Jasta said – well done to those who made it for braving the roads. I’m sure there would have been a lot more people there if they could have made it. The hour-long drive from Edinburgh was nearer two hours so I doubt anyone much further afield would have stood a chance of making it there safely.

As ever, the security at the Garage were superb. It’s encouraging when you see one of the bouncers stood at the front of the stage, nodding his head along to the music! Barrowlands could learn a thing or two from the staff here. Like how not to be an absolute bunch of egotistical, steroid-dependant *******, for instance.

Definitely a band worth seeing if you like the hardcore side of metal. If I had to pick a band with the best lyrics going these days, they’d be at the top of the pile. I’d love to see them in a larger setting again, maybe a festival over summer. I can only hope!

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