I guess I’m going on a white rapper kick, but Mac Miller does indeed have some great songs. I really like his flow and beats in his songs. Everything is very chill and the stuff that is good is very easy to listen to. I can’t stop listening to Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza and Nikes On My Feet. I will say, he would really do better to rap more about life then smoking weed all the time because it gets old (But he is only 19). There are only a handful of songs that I actually like. Which for me, is the exact opposite of Hoodie Allen’s stuff, which all seems to flow nicely in album form.

I guess I have to check out Chris Webby now haha.

Hoodie Allen is amazing.

I don’t really care about Tron but this looks pretty cool. If I can’t grab this I might look at the Blue one.

The Movielife are going to play a reunion show this April during the Bamboozle festival in New Jersey! First time the original line-up is together since 2003! This is the best news I’ve heard in a long time. One of my favorite bands.

Right after finishing a movie on DVD or Blu Ray have you ever went right for the special features or director’s commentary? Usually when that happens it’s because you enjoyed the movie and want see if there are any cool behind the scenes features or commentary.

When I finished watching my Netflix rental of Green Zone with Matt Damon, the first thing I wanted to do was…well, actually I wanted to go to sleep because it was 2am. But I couldn’t! I wanted more. Now the movie is not the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, but I found it to have great action (especially the opening sequence) and a decent enough story. And sometimes that’s all that a movie needs to be enjoyable.

The story revolves around Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) on missions during the Iraq War to find WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in the Green Zone (an area of Baghdad with international authority). After completing multiple missions without success, Miller starts to question the source of the information, “Magellan” and the orders he is given to continue the hunt for WMD. During one such mission, a civilian tip brings Miller and is team to a meeting between former military leaders of Sadadm Hussein. A high value target escapes and the rest of the film involves Miller searching for this man.

While the story is pretty good, this is still a movie and is fiction. Even though the film is loosely based off the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, this is not an accurate account of what happened back in 2003. It’s just a film.

That aside and speaking of fiction, there is a point in the film when Miller decides he is going to go rogue and basically do whatever he feels necessary to reach his goal with no repercussion once so ever for his actions. I know a Chief Officer is high ranking (I think anyways), but he still has superiors and this wasn’t explained at all. Movies are far-fetched sometimes, but the first half is more based in reality while the second half turns into Bourne in Iraq, which is a little confusing.

But, as a fan of action and war movies, I’ve got to say I really enjoyed this one. It took a lot of criticism for its liberal view of the war (as a Republican I honestly could care less) and overuse of shaky cam (which I really didn’t notice). Maybe I’m crazy, but I like this Action-thriller.

Blu Ray/DVD Side Notes:

• The quality is very grainy at times, especially at night time.
• One of the features is a 10 or so minute behind the scenes with Damon and the crew. What was extremely interesting is that all the “actors” playing the soldiers under Damon’s command are not actors at all. They are actual Iraq War veterans, and some even had to go back on tours after filming!
• This little feature talks about how the soldiers had to accept Damon as their commander so that they wouldn’t be rolling their eyes and such when he barked orders at them, since they were really in battle at one point.
• Great commentary between Damon and Greengrass (director), in which Damon talks more about the soldiers on the film.
• Blu Ray’s are still expensive so I keep my collection limited to action and war films/shows. This one will definitely be added to that collection.

Although I don’t really like zombie movies or scary movies in general, I immensely enjoyed the first season of AMC’s The Walking Dead. While looking up reviews and reactions on that show, I came across a recommendation of Dead Set and decided to give it a try.

Dead Set’s premise is; what happens when the cast of the British version of “Big Brother” is filming during a zombie apocalypse? The cast members, after just going through a live eviction, are oblivious to the outside world and the chaos that has ensued.

The zombies we get here are of the 28 Days Later variety. They are the “runners” and are referred to as the “dead”. While dumb (no Walking Dead, climbing over fences here), they are a problem when in groups as their strength can overwhelm doors and windows. They are equally as deadly at close range because all it takes is one bite for infection and transformation to begin.

This 5 episode miniseries focuses around 4 groups of survivors. First off is the oblivious Big Brother cast. Second is the main character Kelly (Jaime Winstone), a runner working for the station who survives and makes her way to the currently safe Big Brother house.   We also see Patrick (Andy Nyman), the producer of the show held up in a room with the evicted cast member with the “dead” outside. Finally, Kelly’s boyfriend Riq and his new companion Alex are trying to make their way to safety since they are on the outside with the dead everywhere.

The acting really is superb, although some of the cliché cast members are a little too cliché. But I guess that’s what these reality shows really look like anyways, so it works out. Also, a bit of a pet peeve but I will say I did catch a character putting a bullet in the chamber of a handgun that was already loaded for dramatic effect. I really hate when films do this as it makes no sense. THE GUN IS ALREADY LOADED! All that would have done is make you lose a bullet. Anyway I’m going off on a tangent…that aside, Winstone does a great job as Kelly. In the 5 episodes you really feel like you care about her and want her to survive. On the opposite end, I found Patrick the producer to be comical and a huge asshole, but it works. By the end I really hated him and for good reason.

Overall I loved this show. This isn’t a fun filled B movie with cheesy jump scares and silly kills, but a dark show about survival with a little comedy sprinkled in to lighten the mood. I should also mention the gore scale is surprisingly high for a television show, as we would never get some of these scene’s here in America. Strong acting, a great plot and a bit of a surprise ending makes Dead Set highly recommended to any zombie fan or anyone who enjoyed The Walking Dead. My only complaint being (and a minor one), I couldn’t understand some of the dialog (damn Brits), which didn’t hinder the experience at all. Watch it. (Episodes on iTunes or other forms of download as the DVD set has not been released in America). 5 out of 5

Caught up and finished The Walking Dead this week. Great season, great cast, great writers….well not so much anymore. Ha!

After I finished the season finale, I started looking up info on the comics (since I clearly need more zombies) and wound up picking up The Walking Dead Compendium One off Amazon. I also wound up finding a cool series on youtube that discusses each episode.

“This Week in Walking Dead” recaps each episode and gives a nice discussion between 4 “geeks” (see what I did there?), that includes a “Zombie Kill of the Week”, theories, opinions and questions.

From one of the episodes, I found out about a little British series called “Dead Set” that seems pretty awesome. The premise is what happens when a “Big Brother” show’s cast is filming during the zombie apocalypse? Since they’re shut off from the outside world they don’t know whats going on! I just downloaded the episodes and will give it a watch and review in the coming days, so stay tuned!

Also, in the spirit of Anime Vice’s “Watch & Learn” series, where Tom Pinchuk watches a whole series and gives his response and thoughts after every episode, I thought I should do something similar with Yu Yu Hakusho since I plan on watching the entire series. But more on that tomorrow, it’s 3am!

where this goes.