Author Archives: awarshauer

Howdy folks,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and I wanted to let you know I apologize deeply for that. I’ve still been seeing movies on my golden pass, but I’ve failed you on posting my rambling thoughts.

Well I’m here today to let you know not about movies, but instead about some music you should be checking out. The album I’m recommending is Giggle In Awe by MSIF+Boost. MSIF is currently based out of Atlanta, although they just recently moved from St. Louis. The album (released May 1st) is the first release by Mike Stasny, the main man behind MSIF. It’s also important to credit Mr. Stasny for his role in writing the lyrics for this viral video.

This is some electro-dance pop. The album has tracks that fulfill the lighter-side of dance (“A Few Good Men”, “The Boogie That’s Mine”) and some that make you wish you were at a lunch rave in Sweden (“Change Me Levity”, “Full Circle”, “Abby”). It passingly reminds me of a less grandiose Empire of the Sun, combined with Jookabox (whose song “You Cried Me” is a must listen to jam). One thing that stands out to me is the production quality on all these tracks. It’s high quality.  I’m not sure how the drums were recorded, but the record sounds like the instrumentation was recorded by real people and not just a producer behind a drum machine and a keyboard. Props are also due for the vocals, which are in many cases double tracked in an excellent manner that keeps the range open and prevents them from ever getting boring.

The moral of this story is get on over to the Bandcamp page, grab yourself a copy of this album, and dance (or nod if you’re at work).

Recommended if you dig: The Notwist, Empire of the Sun, Jookabox White Flight

So this post is a little overdue. It’s going to be a double review of two movies I saw back-to-back: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” and “The Adventures of Tintin”

First up is “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”. Where to even begin? I guess I should let you know that I only saw bits and pieces of the first one while on a bus traveling to a rowing event. This meant it had bad sound, I was likely tired and in the process of cutting weight. I came to this movie with fresh eyes (you really don’t need to know much about the first movie to get the plot of this one), so maybe I missed something that would have changed my opinion, but I’m skeptical.

The dialogue is terrible. It’s presented as pithy and witty. But it’s neither. You might get wrapped up in the way it’s acted (which has the airs about it), but don’t be fooled. Just take a look at IMDB’s “Memorable Quotes” page and you’ll get the idea.

The only redeeming quality of this movie is the way it looks. The color of the movie is very cool. Blues and greens pop out creating a look that does seem to evoke a historic feel. The movie also periodically slows things down for certain action scenes, sometimes using a narrative to explain the thought process behind certain movements. This produces some effective scenes that breed excitement. But they are few and far between, and had they been used more, they would have likely lost their charm. The final part of the movie I liked was the abundance of amazing facial hair. It’s just luxurious. It’s hard to go wrong when you have beards like this:

(not even the best one, but no appropriate images are easily available)

Rounding out this post is “The Adventures of Tintin”. Which in my opinion was delightful. It wasn’t perfect, and some parts of the movie seemed to drag a bit for me, but I for one had a good time. When I tell people that I’ve seen the movie, they always ask me what I thought about the animation. “Was it creepy?” or “Was it hard to watch for the entire time?” were the two questions I was asked the most. My response is that it seems so for the first few minutes, but tends to just fall into the background.

(Real)

The plot centers around the first meeting of Tintin and Captain Haddock. The movie merges the plot lines of a few of the different comics to set up the series. In a way, it was somewhat of an overview of the whole series. This provided one of the most interesting features of the movie. Captain Haddock, as any reader of the comics would know, is a terrible alcoholic, and it features prominently into the plot. This is the first kids movie that I recall seeing that features alcohol this prominently. It certainly made for interesting questions from my “Little Brother” Joshua on the way back from the movie. It is brought to attention in the film, but the actions still make it a little fun. I’m guessing most of the readers of this review are over 21 or close. But don’t let the alcohol dissuade you from taking young people to see the movie if it’s appropriate.

Anyways, there are the reviews. See Tintin, don’t see Sherlock. It’s that simple people.