Music Review: Allegaeon - Fragments of Form and Function

Very interesting. Yes, simple way to start the review but it is accurate. When I saw the name Allegaeon (pronounced uh-lee-juhn), I was not sure what to expect. I see countless bands with hard to pronounce names with music to match. So many bands that have similarly brutal sounds that they start to blend into one another, much like the accompanying press releases, all which want to make them the next coming of death metal with their amazing new take on it. Many of them fail to stand out in a crowd. The same thing can be said about this Colorado act's release. However, I think they may actually have the goods, or at least a bunch of the pieces to build on.

DVD Pick of the Week: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Welcome back! Well, to some of you, anyway. To the rest of you, glad you decided to stop by and I hope this humble column helps you navigate the stacks of new releases each week. My goal is to point you toward titles of interest and warn you away from those films that seek to do nothing but leech away your time and give you nothing in return.

2010 at the Movies: The Best and the Worst So Far

The first half of the year is up, so it is the perfect time to look back on 2010's first six months and think about what movies worked, what movies didn't, and which ones failed to live up to their potential. That is what this column is all about, I will share with you what movies you need to see and what you should avoid.

Movie Review: The Last Airbender

Originally titled Avatar: The Last Airbender, from the Nickelodeon series, the film dropped the leading word since it was already snagged by the blockbuster from James Cameron and there was a desire to not cause confusion over the potential audience. In any case, the film has arrived on the big screen courtesy of M. Night Shyamalan. The twenty episode initial season, called Water, has been condensed to a 100-minute film that is an utterly frustrating experience even without the baggage of fandom or even familiarity. That's right, while I am familiar with the name, I have never seen an episode nor read any sort of synopsis. Hey, I watch a lot of stuff but I can't watch it all!

Blu-ray Review: The Crazies (2010)

This is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name from George A. Romero. That earlier film came in the wake of his genre defining classic Night of the Living Dead. At the time Romero was still an unknown quantity, making films the only way he knew how and decidedly outside the studio system. Th original version of The Crazies is a little free-form in execution, shooting as they could with locals in many supporting roles. He clearly did not want to make another Living Dead film so quickly, so h found another way to use a zombie-style outbreak while also playing with ideas of distrusting the government. It is a good, if odd film. Now, here we are 37-years later with a remake made from within the studio system. Does it succeed?

New Movies and Box Office Predictions: The Twilight Saga - Eclipse, The Last Airbender

This week's wide releases -
The Twilight Saga - Eclipse
The Last Airbender

Music Review: Carnifex - Hell Chose Me

If there is one thing you can always rely on from a deathcore album, it is that it will likely be to the short side. There are cases where more is not always better and deathcore is one of them. Deathcore is a particularly brutal style of music, it is kind of like taking hardcore and the violence it brings (in this comparison I am thinking of hardcore like Emmure) and injecting it with a good dose of evil like Venom or Behemoth, for example. The resulting combination of musical gene-splicing may result in a band like Carnifex who seem to go for the jugular and the cranium with their attempts to shock (just check the album art) and bludgeon into submission. Does it work? Somewhat.