Entertainment

World War Z : Battle of Yonkers Concept Photo

Entertainment, Movies

I know I’ve been talking a lot about The Walking Dead lately and I still believe that it will be the best piece of zombie entertainment to ever hit the screen. But that’s mostly because I’m worried about how they’re going to adapt World War Z for the big screen. It’s an epic book that spans years and the entire world, it’s going to be difficult to fit into a 2 hour feature film. Having said that I did come across a piece of concept art for the film. It’s a depiction of “The Battle of Yonkers” where the US military faces off with millions of zombies that are pouring out of NYC. It’s kind of the turning point of the military fighting strategy against the Z’s

Seeing this, I have a little more hope for the movie.

Trying to keep my expectations low…

via IO9

Sympathy for the Juggalos

Entertainment, Random

I can’t seem to put a finger on my fascination with this particular community. According to Laurel “They are the worst people on Earth”. But being an optimist I want to think that they are just people who have found their own weird niche in the music world, if you don’t like it, then stay out of Cave in Rock, Illinois. Xeni of BoingBoing.net keeps posting their new videos and you-tube trailers for their “gathering”.  On the surface I want to laugh at their ridiculous face paint and dumb rap lyrics. But then I remember that I’m trying to be more open minded about different communities and I think… Maybe they’re serious about all this ‘comradery’ and ‘friends’ stuff.  So they like weird stuff, so they like to drink generic sugary soft drinks and get blasted on malt liqueur and dance around and scream lyrics that they can still remember at that point. I like festivals, I like middle aged rap artists, I like legends of wrestling drunkenly fighting in the woods lit only by flashlights… whoa, did that just happen.

I think the interest the Boing Boing community has with them is that they are only a debilitating alcohol addiction away from becoming Juggalos themselves. But for now Happy Mutant > Juggalo.

BoingBoing article

Jack Johnson at Merriweather 2010

Entertainment, music

Who knew Jack Johnson was this popular? Certainly not this guy. I was kind of expecting a kind of “half full Wolftrap” like crowd. But this was a SOLD OUT crowd, it was just an astonishing amount of people.

I guess that’s because Jack is some kind of non offensive surf-rock/environmental guru type that does music for kids movies featuring cartoon monkeys. There’s no way that anyone could ever be intimidated by this guy. So women like him and guys aren’t threatened by that.  This could be number one on Stuff white people like.  If there were a ‘Stuff hot chicks and douchebags like’ it would be number one with a bullet.  This must be the music they play at Hollester or Abercrombie, because they all seemed to be there.  I’ve also learned he’s big in the “we’re in our thirties and have kids but are still trying to be cool” crowd.

It’s not like I didn’t have a good time. It’s just that this wasn’t the kind of concert crowd I’m used to. I guess it’s because I’ve only been to Hippie Jam festivals or Rock Festivals in High School.

First Production Photo of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead

Entertainment, TV

Rick

OMG Nerdgasm!

Every picture that I get from this series says “We’re taking this seriously”. AMC is going to make the Godfather of Zombie TV shows. Actually the bar isn’t set very high. The effects were pretty decent on [W:Dead Set] but the overall show didn’t really go anywhere. I can only hope that this show will go on for at least a few seasons so that we can get a good long look at the world that Kirkman created.

First Production Photo of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead – The Walking Dead – AMC.

Schu-Review : Nas and Damian Marley – Distant Relatives

Entertainment, music


I was talking to a friend about the existence of this album and the first thing he said was ‘I’ve always wanted to like Damian Marley but he’s not hard enough for me.’ which I thought was strange because I’ve always wanted to like Nas but I thought he wasn’t ‘Musical’ enough. I like his lyrics, but sometimes his beats are kind of basic and his choruses are lacking. But he’s from the streets, YO. So this is the album for both of us.

It starts out with a bang. ‘As we enter’ is the classic hip-hop “who we are” song, with an interesting beat and lyrics. Lots of back and forth between the two. Marley really ups his lyric game on this track. Starts the album with a bang, really gets you going. I love this song.

[Damian Marley]
Masuri Sana
Switch up the language and move to Ghana

[Nas]
Salute and honor, real revolution rhymers

[Damian Marley]
Rhythm piranhas

[Nas]
Like true Obamas, unfold the drama

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but this is my favorite song on the album. The album as a whole follows a track where it starts out loud and fast and then each song gets more mellow. There are a few really good songs ‘Strong Will Continue’ , ‘Land of Promise’ , and ‘Friends’. But with the statement it makes when it first starts I wish that it could have maintained that energy level through the whole thing. But I guess that is the melding of these two styles. It’s still a great album, put it on and chill out for 45 minutes.

4 out of 5 Schus

You should be excited about this… The Walking Dead

Entertainment, TV

Reasons you should be excited about The Walking Dead on AMC this fall

  1. The Comic is amazing. It’s pretty hard to have jump out and scare you moments in a comic book so this book  is filled with ‘I cant believe that just happened’ or ‘I didn’t think that guy was going to die’ moments. The story is so dense I’m glad it’s going to be a series and not just a movie, pace is going to be very important.
  2. Written, Directed, Produced by [W:Frank Darabont]. Have you heard of a little movie called the [W:Shawshank Redemption]? or perhaps [W:The Green Mile]? or to a lesser extent, [W:The Mist]?  He directed all of them and also adapted screenplays for the movies based on short stories by Stephen King. This guy knows two things Characters and Scares. He’s going to be the prefect director for this project.
  3. It’s on AMC. A few years ago this wouldn’t have meant much, but then a couple of shows came out called Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Now this network is know first for producing great drama and second for showing . If there’s any network that can elevate the Zombie genre it’s going to be this one.
  4. No Stunt Casting. So far there hasn’t been a known star cast in any of the roles. Which is a really good sign. Could you have imagined the Dad from Malcom in the middle doing dead serious drama? Or who knew who John Hamm even was 5 years ago? I think the characters in The Walking Dead are going to be like that.

I’m very excited about this show. I think they have the right team in place to make a great drama that just happens to have zombies in it. It’s a show about the end of the world and how people deal with it. I just hope that people will tune in to a show with so much potential and so little name recognition.

But two words AMC… SLOW ZOMBIES!


AMC Zombie Photo Gallery

AMC Walking Dead Blog