Music and Movie Roundup

First off, The Amazing Race season 6 starts up this coming Tuesday. My advice is to watch it. I personally think this show is one of the best on television, and with NBC's The Apprentice one of the only good reality TV shows.

I've seen a few movies in the past week or so and here's what I think of them:

The Incredibles: Simply put, a fantastic movie. You need to see this movie. While probably more adult-oriented than any other Pixar movie I can recall, this one was one of the best - if not the best Pixar flicks. Much better than Finding Nemo (which I thought was good but very overrated) this movie will be one I can't wait to get into my DVD library. But a must see, without a doubt.

Garden State: So I finally got a chance to see this movie, a movie I'd been wanting to see for a long long time. Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed - an excellent movie. Great storyline, some of the best character development I've ever seen, and great dialogue helped make this one of my favorites in a long, long time. Chalk this one up in the "do not miss" category as well. Oh, and the soundtrack is phenomenal.

Team America: World Police: Now, if you haven't seen South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, then you might not be prepared for what happens when Trey Parker and Matt Stone get together to make a movie - everybody is fair game. Every single group of people you can think of gets made fun of, and the results are hilarious. This movie is satire at its finest - as over-the-top as you can get - and when you tie in the rediculous script with the fact that all acting is done by marionettes, you've got a great comedy. Definitely worth seeing, especially if it hits the $1 theaters at a town near you or late night on HBO or something.

We Were Soldiers: When I first saw the trailers for this movie, I thought "yawn, another war movie." And I only saw this flick after my parents raved about watching the DVD after it arrived in the weekly Netflix shipment. I watched it, and I really liked it. One of the better war movies I've ever seen - though my mother's calling it "the best Vietnam War movie ever" was a bit preposterous - how can you forget Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now? Mel Gibson's acting in this movie was absolutely brilliant and I do recommend this movie, especially to those who enjoy good war movies.

Ali G Indahouse: Da Ali G Show is a hilarious show, but I wondered how they would be able to pull a full-length movie out of the Ali G characters. The end result: mediocre. While this movie is funny and worth seeing, it isn't worth buying or anything. Rent it, watch it on TV, or if legality and morality aren't your strongpoints, download it. The flick is an enjoyable way to kill a couple hours and there are a few side-splitting moments that make it worthwhile.

Now, for some quick music reviews:

The Arcade Fire - Funeral: How to describe The Arcade Fire - perhaps as a strange mixture of the lyrics of Modest Mouse and the Pixies coupled with the grand musical arrangements of The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi. This album has some of the absolute best instrumentation that I've ever heard. When I first put in the CD and was listening through, I was taken aback by the phenomenal quality of the instrumentation. While the lyrical and vocal style of lead singers (and Montreal based husband-and-wife team) Win Butler and Régine Chassagne may take a while to warm up to (much like the aforementioned Pixies and Modest Mouse), once you do the album really becomes something special. This is one of my favorites for the year, and I can't wait to figure out where this sits in the 2004 album rankings.

The Mars Volta - Tremulant (EP): The first offering of half of the old band At The Drive-In, this album came a few months before TMV put out their masterpiece De-Loused in the Comatorium, one of 2003's best albums. "Disturbing emo" is how I'd characterize Tremulant, a 3-song EP that shows the brilliance that TMV has. I like this EP, but it's nowhere near the piece of work that De-Loused ended up being. Still, it's worth listening to a couple times.

Eminem - Encore: Now, I liked the firstEminem album. I thought The Marshall Mathers EP was one of the best rap albums ever. I loved The Eminem Show. Even the 8 Mile Soundtrack was good. This album though, it left me wanting more. I just really couldn't get into it at all. Maybe one or two songs caught my attention, none in the way that it seemed every single track on The Eminem Show did. I'm disappointed now, but maybe it'll just take a few more listens for the album to grow on me - but I doubt it. More listens sure didn't change my very low opinion of Nelly's latest albums.

I'm also listening to a few more albums, but don't think I've heard them enough to fairly critique them at this point.

Oh, and Halo 2 is hella sweet. I really want Mario Power Tennis and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. The first Metroid Prime is in my top 5 of all-time games so more than likely I'll buy it the second I can and play the bejeezus out of it. I pray for my social life.