- I don't have a whole lot to say about the movie of Angels & Demons except that it's a decent, semi-grown up summer thriller that's a lot better than the Da Vinci Code movie. Basically, it captures the book very well (despite a few minor additions and omissions), for better or worse. This means that all the pros (the fun, connect-the-dots plotting, the enjoyably twisty narrative, the genuine suspense, the good pacing) and all the cons (the barely-there characters, the illogical situations, the hackneyed attempts at social commentary, the flat self-seriousness) from the book are present. Though, in the movie's favour, you don't have to deal with Dan Brown's clunky prose style while watching it. Tom Hanks (with a much, much better haircut and a thankful lack of double chin) is a good fit for Langdon, even if his academic asshole routine gets grating at a certain point, and Ewan McGregor is nicely hammy as the interim pope. All of the other actors really make no impression one way or the other, staying out of the way of the plot; that's a good thing. Ron Howard's direction is his usual clean-but-sterile craftsmanship (he does do a lot of spin-the-camera-around-the-actors shots, though, for some reason) but that's not really a negative; flashy direction wouldn't benefit here (see the sequences in Da Vinci which attempted to illustrate Langdon's claustrophobia for proof). It is a bit long (and there's some besides-the-point padding in the middle) but not so much so that I was actively annoyed. All in all, it's worth seeing once but I wouldn't (and didn't) pay full price for a ticket.
- I'll keep my thoughts on Relapse, the new Eminem album, to point form, as it doesn't deserve much more:
- Production, mostly by Dr. Dre, is fine but leans really hard on those cold-steel percussion figures and chunky synth runs that he's been dealing in since "In Da Club" hit it big. It works on "Old Time's Sake", possibly because that song features Dre, but nowhere else. The big departures from this formula do work: "Bagpipes From Baghdad" is mediocre but through no fault of its snake-charmer beat, "Underground" has a clumsy rhythm but a moody ambiance and "Deja Vu" has a dusty guitar-and-drums musical makeup that feels very 90's New York rap.
- Em sounds really tired and bored, for the most part. There's no joy to his voice; when he makes the jokes that should be gleefully offensive pranksterism, they sound like he's just going through the motions because people expect it of him.
- Evidence of this; there are two songs on here where the whole joke is "I am a rapist" and neither are remotely funny or even really offensive in a way other than, "man, that sucks".
- However, when he does get fired up, he proves that he can still rap. "Insane" hearkens back to his Slim Shady LP days, in both rapping and lyrics, "Deja Vu" (the best song on the album) is a brilliantly self-effacing account of his troubles in the past four years, "3 A.M." is a lame horrorcore throwback that's redeemed only though delivery and "Must Be The Ganja" grinds a tired lyrical concept but Em, surprisingly, makes it work.
- The skits are, predictably, awful.
- "Beautiful" samples a goddamn Queen + Paul Rodgers track; that's all I have to say about that.
- Overall, better than Encore but nowhere near as good as it needs to be to get me to truly care about Eminem again
I'll post later in the week about the new Green Day album, the 24 and Lost season finales and Terminator Salvation. But, for now, in order, here's my thoughts: Pretty good, weird/confusing in a bad way, weird/confusing in a good way and overly grim but still well-done.
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