Monday Matinee - Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Personally, I'm not a big fan of childish animated films. Prefering Zemeckis' Beowulf to Cars, for example, I like animation to serve a good story (Avatar can't comes fast enough). But every once in a while a delicious animated movie seriously entertains me. First it was Pixar's Up, now it was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, a movie with a funny title that doesn't know how to take it seriously, and I say this in the good way. The story is about a small island town's inventor that can't get anything right, and whose inventions keep backfiring. This until the day he solves the food diversity issues of the town by creating a machine that makes food out of water. Of course it ends up backfiring into giant food storms, hilarity ensuing. The cast has great names such as Neil Patrick Harris, the legendary duo of Bruce Campbell and Mr. T, Anna Faris and Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader as the main character. The story, although, is able to move past the funny side and actually give a lesson on how the sons always do their best to please their parents, not always with the best results. An hilarious movie for all ages.

8/10

Thursday's Shows - V S1 E3

Invasion! A fan of the original or not, I think anyone can enjoy V. It's sci-fi at its finest. With a great cast and a good storyline, V provides 50 minutes of top-notch entertainment every week. In this latest episode we see the tv machinations of Chad Decker start to turn the polls to the V's side when many americans still hate them while Anna is able to convince even the greatest skeptic that their intentions are true. Erica and Father Jack keeping searching for more clues to gather a fighting front against the Vs and Ryan starts a plan to bring back a rebel V column back to fight the invaders. The drama gets personal when Tyler starts dating Lisa, which we find out is actually Anna's daughter, and Dale comes back to life only to remember which human almost killed him. Three episodes in and V is already an addicting show. Not to miss.

9/10

Wednesday Sounds - Them Crooked Vultures

What a good surprise. Dave Grohl and Josh Homme reunite since the Queens of the Stone Age time and get with Led Zeppelin's John Jones to bring us one of the best rock albums of the year. This album reminds a lot of Queens' Songs for the Deaf, although not as good in my opinion.Opening with the simple and slow paced No one loves me and neither do I the album rapidly moves to faster and catchier sonorities such as New Fang's or to the brilliant Scumbag Blues. And after some great stylized songs and the pausic Interlude with Ludes the album goes out with a bang with Gunman. One hell of a record.

8/10

Tuesday Titles - Born of Night

Listening to friends recommend reading advices may not be a bad idea after. Gave Born of Night, by Sherrilyn Kenyon, a try and can't say I regret it. With a good narrative and fast paced story, Born of Night kept me hooked for some good days. The futuristic story tells us about Nykyrian Quikiades an Ex-League Assassin, the private army of a bloodthirsty government, which is hunted by those he turned his back to. Our (anti-)hero ends up having to protect a woman that can't trust him for what he used to be, because of the family she lost to League Assassins. As the first chapter of a new universe, this book does a good at keeping the reader gripped as well as giving him enough motives to wait for the next installment eagerly.

7.5/10

Thursday's Shows - South Park S13 E13

It's great to have South Park back. The week is not the same without a decent 20 minutes dosage of slightly offensive humor. In this week's episode - Dances With Smurfs, which doesn't disapoint, we get another of Eric Cartman masterplans against Wendy as student president when the morning announcements student is killed when a cheated by his wife man confuses him by another man. After becoming the announcements student he goes on a personal attack on Wendy, blaming her for everything there is wrong in the school until he gets his announcements on television and ends up creating a whole story that allies Dances with Wolves and Smurfs, just to prove his point. Hilarious as always, South Park never fails to give us the social critique we deserve. By showing that just because someone owns a show or writes a book that doesn't mean that person has any idea of what they are speaking of, that they aren't exactly right or say the unquestionable truth. And there's also a stab at the "originality" of James Cameron's soon to be released Avatar. A good episode.

8.5/10

Wednesday Sounds - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Finally, Kasabian are back! It's been too long. And after a slightly disapointing album like Empire, they return with a bang. West Ryder, although not as good as their first album, is a return to the greatness it had. Brilliant electronic sounds added to guitar riffs and drums in perfect unison. Songs like Fire, that start as a simple tune with deep lyrics and ascends progressively to a catchy complex and developed song, ballads like Ladies and Gentlemen or electronic madnesses like Vlad, the Impaler mark this album as a masterpiece of alternative rock. And the lyrics clearly showed a maturation in the band, which sound much more at ease with trying different rythms. Definitively one of the albums of the year.

9/10

Friday Comics - Captain America Reborn #4

Ed Brubaker is awesome. He brought Captain America back to the spotlight after some rought years. He made one of an arc about the state of America. He took the risk of killing Steve Rogers and he made Bucky the new Captain, a bold, XXI century soldier with a more straightforward attitude. Now he is bringing Steve back and doing it in style. With Sharon Carter having given herself to HAMMER, we find her arriving on Latveria where the Red Skull and Dr. Doom prepare the final arrangements for their big plan. We get more visions of Steve Rogers as he flashes through his life timestream, his past, catching one of his worst days - the "death" of Bucky. And while that happens Pym and Reed Richards finally conclude how Captain America can stop being unstuck in time and what can bring him back. But their plan doesn't go fast enough, and Steve Rogers returns only in body, only to be a vessel of the Red Skulls mind. With two issues to go, we know there's more twists to come. As usual the characterization is right on in every character, from Doom's condescence to Zola to Reed and Pym's geek debates. Bryan Hitch continues to create beautiful visuals for this story but he may be exagerating in the number of splash pages used, being some of them unnecessary, since they serve no purpose of shock, awe or surprise in most cases. Still, this is as best as comic storytelling gets.

9/10

Thursday's Shows - FlashForward S1E1

ABC is bringing some good surprises this year. First we get a remake of V, now we get another spectacular science-fiction show. The story starts with a worldwide incident in which all humanity blanks out for 137 seconds, during which everyone has a vision of their future, six months from now. With destruction and death resulting from that, a FBI team joins together to find out what has happened, and who or what was behind. As the flashforwards are used to provide clues and keep the story moving, we get a good look at the personal dramas of the cast, dealing what they saw during the incident or didn't saw, and why they didn't. The acting is pretty good, specially from John Cho, whom we are used to see in a more comical role but is able to give a great performance in this genre. Without dragging the plot througout the episode too much and giving a very good twist in the episode's end, this show is able to keep you hooked for the next episode. A great start.

9/10

Wednesday Sounds - The Life of the World to Come

I'm am not a religious guy, so when a friend of mine recommended me this album I wasn't sure I'd give it a go, since I knew The Mountain Goats had a great biblical source of material for their songs. Well, if you can't judge a book by its cover, you certainly cannot judge an album by its authors ideals. This is a marvelous album. Drawing themes and lessons from the Bible, The Mountain Goats bring us an album that isn't trying to force a belief into you, but using it to give us lessons in life and, really, a optimistic support for times of crisis in our lives. The songs show a great deal of originality, a clearly unique sound in each yet a defined characteristical rhythm to this band. A must, no matter what your beliefs are.

8.5/10

Tuesday's Titles - New Moon

I know, I know... But a friend of mine told me that for her to accept my criticism of Twilight I had to read it first so here we go. I don't think that anyone can disagree with me when I say this books saga is The teen girl fantasy. A book about a girl falling in love with a misterious and atractive boy written in the first person. Now, what does a guy think about it? Well, it's not exactly as bad as I thought. There's some good characterization and decent personal drama in there, a couple of action moments featuring vampires and werewolves and the ocasional humor. The story starts with Bella's birthday, which she isn't exactly happy about. After some vampiric birthday party mishap, Edward decides it's better for Bella to never see him again before something bad happens and that's followed by sadness, suicide attempts, a werewolf with raging hormones and a twist that shows us how much Edward loves Bella. The story is compelling enough to read through and the pages seem to fly by. Actually this feel like Stephenie Meyer is the Dan Brown of teenager chick lit. Short chapters are the secret ingredient here. For a guy, the first person read seems weird sometimes, specially when you have a description of how Edward kisses Bella. Although it doesn't justify the success of the books, this is a fairly decent read that should keep the reader entertained.

6/10

Monday Matinée - Anti-Christ

Lars Von Trier. The man that proclaims himself the best director in the whole world. I won't deny I'm a big fan of his Europa Trilogy but that claim is a little too much in my personal opinion. Anti-Christ is another statement. A movie that draws a very, very thin line between shocking and offensive and something artistically beautiful. The story starts with one of the best introductions to a movie I have seen all year. A brilliant black-and-white scene to the sound of an aria from Handel's Rinaldo that shows the greatest tragedy of a couple, when their infant son falls out of a window while the two make love. And sex is one of the main points of the movie. Following that event we see the male protagonist, Willem Dafoe's unnamed character, decide to take her sorrowful wife, also unnamed and played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, to a cabin in the woods of Eden. What follows that is series of horror moments that show chaos rulling over nature in the most shocking ways possible, in animals and plants alike. But its in the wife that evil really shows up, leading to many scenes of pure violence and sexual mutilation, that end with an epilogue that attempts to pass us the idea that the wife death is the necessary unfortunate event that can end and evil that started with Eve's original sin. I say attempts because, apart from the brilliant acting and the beautiful visuals, the story isn't exactly clear in every moment. It may as well be the idea of the director, but we don't get a complete picture of the metaphor Lars is trying to create with this movie. With people fainting in Cannes when this one was showed you know this is isn't for weak hearts. The violence is shocking but not gratuitous in my opinion, it does serve the story. Possibly one of the love it or hate it movies of year, it's certainly on experience not to miss because of the way it makes one feel.

7.5/10