I don’t like having to do short reviews, but that’s all I have time for at the moment. So here’s an update of the music and films that have been filling my ears and eyes for the last busy month or so…
Source Code (REVIEW)
Duncan Jones follows up his intelligent and surprisingly emotional sci-fi ‘Moon’ with this…intelligent and surprisngly emotional sci-fi ‘Source Code’. Jake Gyllenhaal is great as the lead, a man who is placed on a train and must relive the same traumatic scenario over and over until he finds a bomber. It’s an odd mix of high budget set-pieces and televisual effects and the ending is a little overly sentimental but its strengths more than outweigh its weaknesses.
8/10
Limitless (REVIEW)
The ridiculously overrated ‘The Hangover’s Bradley Cooper stars in this wannabe ‘Fight Club’ thriller about a struggling, lethargic writer who takes a miracle pill that allows him to unlock 100% of his brain and do things that…any old intelligent person could do. It was a cool concept to begin with but the huge problem I had with the film was how the concept was yawn-a-riffically worked into the plot which is that he worked for someone else played by Sir One-note DeNiro (Just look at his face in that picture! It’s as if he knows that everyone is gradually losing respect for him). Why on earth would the most intelligent man on the planet feel the need to work for someone else?! Still it, wasn’t all bad but I would have honestly preferred him be a mastermind for the entirety of the film than to have him flung into a cliched drug-mob story.
6/10
Thor (REVIEW)
I actually had a lot of fun with this new Marvel adaptation. It knew exactly what it was and relished in being exactly that. The world that was created looked astonishing, the script was genuinely funny and the big baddy Destroyer was legitimately threatening. It’s a shame that halfway through it started to lose its sense of direction and desperately tried to tie up its baggy loose ends once it realised it was getting overly long and tiresome.
6.5/10
The Antlers - Burst Apart (ALBUM REVIEW)
The Brooklyn trio follow up their heartbreaking ‘Hospice’ with a much more concise and accessible record. Everything about the album oozes a wistful sense of beauty with outstanding songs such as ‘I Don’t Want Love’, ‘Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out’ and ‘Putting the Dog to Sleep’ which are catchier than anything from ‘Hospice’ but equally as emotionally resonant. Easily one of my albums of 2011.
9/10
Tyler, The Creator - GOBLIN (ALBUM REVIEW)
Controversial rap outfit Odd Future’s leader Tyler sticks a finger up to modern music yet again with his second album and first major release ‘GOBLIN’. It’s equally as anarchic and chaotic as anything the group have released (for free on their Tumblr) with lyrics such as: ‘kill people, burn shit, fuck school’ but with bigger beats and higher (although far from perfect) production values. Like Tyler’s debut ‘BASTARD’ it isn’t perfect by a long shot with several moments that sag and tracks that feel like filler. But on the whole it’s a riotously enjoyable and typically hilarious album and worth spending the money on, especially for the deluxe with three extra tracks, two of which are two of the best things OF have released.
Standard Edition - 7.5/10
Deluxe Edition - 8/10
