Unimpressive.

I love Cake.

I first heard Against Me! in 2001 while I was spinning discs at a college radio station. We get this album and it sounded like one guy with a guitar singing poorly. I was very disappointed, because I wanted to love this band like a few people I knew already did. That night, the guy, Tom, played at the lobby of a hotel down the road from where I was living at the time, but I didn’t go. Over time, this guy had a drummer and a bass player join him and learned how to sing. Since then, they have gained a younger following and even started appearing on MTV. So everyone keeps asking me “Why are you just getting into Against Me! now?”

Well, for whatever reason their genius was lost on me when I first heard them. Reinventing Axl Rose is a good middle ground for Against Me! albumbs. Not too polished, but not so rough. It actual sounds like it was recorded in a studio, but Tom’s voice still cracks and screams.

These guys have truly combined folk and punk, taking the angry fist in the air to 60s era protest songs. They find the common ground between peace, love and anarchy in the U.S.A. and seem to be a kindred spirit with Woodie Guthrie more so than Sid Vicious.

Musically, its a punk rock scream-a-long. I’m glad I finally caught on.

Hilarious. A cast of deceitful and unintelligent characters create a “clusterfuck” over sex and money with the help of the intelligence arm of the most powerful country in the world. Anyone looking to fall in love with the characters or take a meaningful message from this movie will be disappointed. I was thoroughly entertained.

Fun movie loosely based on a true story about MIT students who start a car counting racket in Vegas. The romantic subplot was contrived, but the happy ending gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Kevin Spacey rocks.

An interesting look at an era. I liked the whole Jersey boy makes it big in New York City at the cost of his dignity thing. Mike Myers’ character is a total creep. Good performance from him. I dunno… it could have had more boobs and Neve Campbell’s attempt to order a cup of coffee with a Jersey accent was embarrassing. Still, I was entertained.

I remember seeing this movie as a kid and thinking it was the weirdest thing. I couldn’t figure out what the title was until today. I remembered Chevy Chase was in it and I looked up Chase’s filmography on Wikipedia and, lo and behold, Nothing But Trouble!

Apparently this movie earned a half dozen razzie awards when it came out in the early 90s. It was supposed to be set in New Jersey (an easy, yet unfair, target) but is actually loosely based on the real world town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an underground coal fire has been burning for 45 years.

Unlike Centralia, “Valkenvania” is run by a monstrous sheriff (Dan Akroyd) who constantly complains about “bankers” and has some kind of fake nose (he won the razzie for worst supporting actor). Valkenvania looks like hell itself and, as a kid, I thought it was pretty badass. I would like to see this movie again as an adult (I was nine years old in 1991) not only for nostalgia’s sake, but to laugh at how terrible it may or may not have been.

This collection of narratives about various writers’ introductions to punk rock culture was a fun read. A lot of the writers focused on the American hardcore scene in the 1980s. None of the stories were particularly well-written, but they did a good job of capturing the zeitgeist of the era.

Dr. Thompson was an asshole. This movie follows Hunter’s life, paying a lot of attention to his greatest books: Hell’s Angels, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. After around 1980, he devolves into this bloated Elvis circa 1970s character. He does so much drugs and screws so many women, his wife divorces him. His son has few kind words for him. His celebrity ate him alive, but his fans still celebrated his gaudy funeral: shot from a cannon on his sprawling Colorado estate. I thought this movie would inspire me to continue pursuing journalism. It did not.

Still, it was great to see footage of the 60s, a time when a freak journalist had a place and America craved the ultimate rock star journalist. I wish there was less footage of Johnny Depp playing him in the film adaption of Vegas and more from his family about the man behind the legend. Still, accounts from illustrator Ralph Stedman, his editor at Rolling Stone and his first wife painted a picture of the drug-fueled, gun-toting freak who set out to change the world and, at some point, gave up. It was intense to hear Ralph Stedman tell the tale of how he was a no show at the Muhammad Ali/George Foreman “fight of the century” to splash around in the hotel swimming pool.

The message I took from it was to be a good family man and lay off the drugs but think big. The late Dr. Thompson had no qualms about focusing on the fat and greedy sports fans at the Kentucky Derby and paying little attention to the race. He also had no qualms about spreading a rumor that a presidential candidate was addicted to a rare mind-altering drug for no good reason.

The world will miss his balls-to-the-wall, half-factual, all-accurate reporting and gripping prose. His family and friends probably will not miss his fits of rage, binge drinking and senseless gun shots into the air.

The guy who played Ralph Cifaretto in the Sopranos and that hot chick that was in Liar Liar star in this kinky crime drama packed with gratuitous torture and hot girl-on-girl action. A nice way to kill two hours on a Sunday.