Across The Universe Review

I've decided to give reviewing movies another try.  The movie Across the Universe is first up.  I have owned this movie for a few years now and have finally got around to watching it.

Across the Universe stars Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess.  Jim plays a young lad named Jude who was born and raised in Liverpool.  Jude decides to travel to the United States to find his father who left before Jude was even born.  While Jude is in the United States he runs into a Princeton student named Max.  Max invites Jude to come with him to his parents for Thanksgiving.  There Jude meets Lucy, played by Evan Rachel Wood.  Jude instantly becomes smitten by Lucy.  Max and Jude move to New York, where Lucy decides to join them during the summer.  From then on Jude and Lucy's relationship begins to grow.

Across the Universe is a musical where songs by The Beatles play an integral part into the stories plot.  Throughout the entire movie the cast will break into song, and sometimes dance, to songs from The Beatles catalog.  For me, most of the musical numbers worked, but at times I felt some dragged on a bit longer than they needed to.  The ones that bothered me the most are the ones where "drugs" where involved and it got all psychedelic.  For example one that I didn't really like at all involved Bono from the band U2.  At first I thought it was okay, but they it got a little crazy and out there.  Below I have include a video of the scene.  These scenes just seemed to take away from the story and didn't really serve a purpose.  The musical numbers I enjoyed fit into the story and weren't a distraction.  They showed the emotions of the characters and help progress their relationships.

Overall I felt that Across the Universe was enjoyable.  There were definitely a few scenes that could have been cut, but hearing songs by The Beatles performed in a new unique way was interesting and fun to watch.  If you are a fan of The Beatles or just enjoy musical in general then I would say check out Across the Universe.

Top Ten Albums of 2011

Here are my Top Ten Albums of 2011.  Bon Iver was my favorite album of the year hands down, wasn't even close.  Such a beautiful album.  If you haven't listened to it yet, please go pick it up!!!

1.  Bon Iver - Bon Iver
2.  Fleet Foxes -  Helplessness Blues
3.  Adele - 21
4.  The Civil Wars - Barton Hallow
5.  Cults - Cults
6.  The Weeknd - House of Balloons/Thursday
7.  St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
8.  Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
9.  James Blake - James Blake
10.  Okkervil River - I Am Very Far

I have also included an Honorable Mention list because 2011 featured some pretty solid albums.

Honorable Mentions:
Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys
The Decemberists - The King is Dead
M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
My Morning Jacket - Circuital
Blitzen Trapper - American Goldwing
The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient
Cut Copy - Zonoscope

James Blake & Bon Iver - Fall Creek Boys Choir

Instead of my normal music highlights of the day post I'm just going to talk about the new song featuring James Blake and Bon Iver that was released today.  Last week James Blake released a post on Twitter saying that he and Bon Iver had an announcement to make on 8-24.  When I saw this I got really excited.  So far I've absolutely loved everything Justin Vernon of Bon Iver has done so far and the more I listen to James Blake, the more I enjoy him.

Early this morning I was sitting at work and remembered that today was supposed to be the big announcement.  I had expected it to be announced early this morning and was slightly disappointed when I didn't read any news of it.  I am have even sent a post to James Blake and Justin Vernon on Twitter about it, but just maybe.  Within 30 minutes of sending the message, news started coming out that the song Fall Creek Boys Choir would be played live on BBC Radio.  When I saw this I got a little excited, okay really excited.

If you are a fan of Bon Iver's latest album or of James Blake album you will probably really enjoy Fall Creek Boys Choir.  It is pure auto-tune magic.  Understanding the lyrics is a tad difficult but the song still has this incredible beauty to it.  I really hope that this collaboration can turn into a full album.  That would be absolutely amazing!!!

For those of you that haven't listened to it, here is Fall Creek Boys Choir by James Blake & Bon Iver

Music Highlights of the Day 8-23-11

Go Outside by Cults:  The Cults are a band out of Manhattan that have an extremely fun sound to them.  When I listen to them I just think of a 60's beach party.  The first single released from their debut album was Go Outside.  To me Go Outside is one of those songs you would expect to hear in a commercial, especially an Apple or some car commercial.  Here is the official video for the song:

Holocene by Bon Iver:  Last week the video for Holocene was released and it is beautiful.  It was filmed in Iceland and shows how amazing the landscape is there.  I absolutely love Bon Iver and any chance to listen to a Bon Iver song is a treat.  Hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

Music Highlights of the Day 8-22-11

Conversation 16 by The National: The National have slowly become one of my favorite bands. In fact I would be them in my Top 3 favorite bands and about to become number 1. Seeing them last summer in concert is the reason for this. They put on such an incredible show. Their live performance alone is why people should check this band out. Today I listened to their last album High Violet. One of my favorite songs off the album has got to be Conversation 16. It's a very dark and bleak song. The lyric "I was afraid, I'd eat your brains" is proof enough how dark it is.

Wake and Be Fine by Okkervil River: Okkervil River is another one of my favorite bands. I actually got to see them last summer in concert opening for The National. I don't know what it is about Okkervil River but I absolutely love them. Their songs end to be dark but always seem to tell a great story. Below is a video from their latest album. Hope you enjoy it.

Music Highlights of the Day 8-18-11 & 8-19-11

Work has been kind of slow the last few days so I haven't really been able to focus on music as much. Because of this I've decided to combine the last two days.

Change of Time by Josh Ritter: If you've watched any of the preseason NFL games this season you have probably heard this song. When I saw the commercial I was completely shocked. I couldn't believe I was hearing Josh Ritter on a nationally televised commercial. I've seen Josh Ritter I'm concert and he is one of the happiest people I've ever seen on stage. If you have the chance to see Josh in concert, do it!

First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes: I first started listening to Bright Eyes my senior year of college. With the release of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, Bright Eyes released a collection of beautiful songs, but to me the best song was First Day of My Life. When you listen to the lyrics you can't help but feel great and possibly get the chills.

The Party & The After Party by The Weeknd: The Weeknd is an R&B singer out of Toronto that has released two mixtapes for free online. His first mix tape, House of Balloons, Has received a lot of praise from various critics. I feel that it is a solid album that is enjoyable to listen to from beginning to end. My favorite song on the album has got to be The Party & The After Party

Music Highlights of the Day 8-17-11

Limit to Your Love by James Blake:  So I've listened to James Blake full length album twice now and every time this song comes on I wonder where I've heard it before.  The reason why this song sounds so familiar is because it's actually a song originally performed by Feist.  Feist is an artist who I haven't listened to a lot of but I some how remember she did this song.  I kind of prefer the James Blake version but I can let you decide which one you like more, so here are videos for both.

Sun Hands by The Local Natives:  The Local Natives are a band that I fell in love with the second I heard them.  I just really enjoy their harmonies and the tempo of their songs.  I actually got to see them in concert a little over the year ago at what once was the Empyrean in Spokane.  It was a nice intimate venue and I was able to pretty much be right in the bands face, it was incredible.  Sun Hands is probably one of my favorite Local Natives songs and watched a video of them performing it at this years Lollapalooza.  I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do.

Music Highlights of the Day 8-16-2011

Set Fire to the Rain by Adele: Set Fire to the Rain is probably my favorite song off Adele's latest album. It is just one of those songs that gets into your head and you can't stop singing it all day long. Every time I hear it I wonder what it would look like to set fire to the rain. It's one of those things I can visualize happening in some apocalyptic movie. Yes I know that sounds strange but that's what I think when I hear it.

Howlin' for You by The Black Keys: The Black Keys are a band I wish I would have found out about earlier. I had heard of them but never listened to them until after their latest album, Brothers, was released. Howlin' for You is a song that you can't help but enjoy. For me, it's a song that pumps me up and gets me excited. It's one of those songs that everyone should listen to. The video for Howlin' for You is pretty crazy, tons of celebrities.

Music Highlights of the Day 8-15-2011

Spanish Sahara by The Foals:  A friend had told me to check out Spanish Sahara by The Foals, so I did.  At the beginning of the song I was a little hesitant because it was slower than I expected.  Not really sure why I expected it to be more uptempo but I did.  While listening to it, I kept saying to myself, "This has got to pick up at some point."  And sure enough it did and I love it.  Below is the music video for the song.

Black Leaf by The Cave Singers:  The Cave Singers are a band that I had heard of before but never listened to their music.  Recently I had read on Twitter that they were opening for the Fleet Foxes, a band I love, and that Robin Pecknold, the lead singer of Fleet Foxes, was blown away by their performances.  Because of that I had to give The Cave Singers a listen.  I listened to the album while working one day, nothing really stood out.  I decided to give the album another listen and when I heard Black Leaf something just hit me.  Not sure what it was but I loved it.  I really like the way the lead singer sounds and enjoy the tempo of the song.  Here is the video below.

Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch:  The other night I was watching the movie Away We Go and one of the first things I noticed about it was the music.  I immediately did a search to see who it was that was featured in the movie.  It happened to be Alexi Murdoch, a singer who I've had on my iPod for years but haven't really listened to him.  First thing Monday morning I decided that I must listen to his album.  I really enjoyed what I heard but what stood out to me the most on the album was the last song, Orange Sky.  The part I enjoyed the most had to be the lyric "In your love, my salvation lies".  This lyric is repeated multiple times throughout the song and something about it just gave me chills.

Music Beta by Google Hands-on Day 2

After about three and a half hours, I finally have about 2.5 GB worth of music up on Google's cloud. Now that the music is up on the cloud, how do I access it? That's a simple a simple question to answer, just go to music.google.com in any web browser.

Music beta by Google has a fairly basic looking media player interface. You have the option to sort your music by songs, artists, albums or genre. I prefer to listen to albums in their entirety so I tend to sort by artists then select the albums I want to listen to. Selecting an album is fairly easy you just click on the album artwork which then shows you the track listing from there you just select a song and hit play. It seems fairly idiot proof.

I didn't really do too much today to challenge Music beta, all I did was listen to two albums in their entirety. As I use Music beta the rest of the week I will try creating playlists and instant mixes (whatever those are). So far I am fairly satisfied with Google's cloud music player but not 100% certain it will replace my iPod.

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Poster

The first teaser poster for the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, has been released and here it is:

The Dark Knight Rises is set to be released a year from now and is currently being filmed.  For those of you that don't know me that well, I have been looking forward to this movie the second I walked out of The Dark Knight.  I absolutely love the Christopher Nolan Batman movies and can't wait to see what he has in store with The Dark Knight Rises.

Image originally posted here:
http://www.thedarkknightrises.com/

Music beta by Google Hands-on

About a month ago Google finally announced a cloud based music service. For the past few years I've been wondering if they were going to get into the music player business. Once I heard about music beta I knew I had to get my hands on it. I decided to sign up for it right away and within a music weeks was accepted to give it a try. Google isn't the only one with a cloud based music player, Amazon was the first to release one and Apple is soon going to launch there's. Since there are options I decided that I would spend a week with Googles and Amazons to determine which one is better.

For those of you that don't know what music beta by Google works here is a quick summary. With music beta, you download a Music Manager on your computer. With the manager you set the location where the music is on your computer that you want to put on the cloud. The cloud is a server that Google has where users can place their music so they can access it anywhere there is an Internet connection.

Is the Music Manager is needed to load music to the cloud that is where I will start. The Music Manager has a fairly simple interface. On the first tab you have the option of where the music is that you want to put on the cloud. The options are iTunes, Windows Media Player, My Music folder, or other folders. Since I have over 70 GB of music on my netbook I selected other folders so I could have more control over want goes on the cloud since I don't need all my music up there. The second tab allows you to select how often music gets sent to the cloud. The options here are Automactically, Once per Hour, Day, or Music, and then Manually. I've selected manually so music only gets added when I want it. There is also another option for how much bandwidth you want to allocate for uploading the music. In the Music Manager there is also a button at launches the Music Player which opens in a web browser.

Now that I have my Music Manager set up, it's time to add music to the cloud. I've selected just under 1 GB worth of music to add. I've selected the bandwidth allocation to be the fastest possible. Let's see how long this takes. The music gets added to the cloud 2 songs at a time, this could take a while.

Must See Movies of the Summer (May)

With Thor coming out this weekend I think it's safe to say it's time for the summer movie blitz to begin. The summer time is the best time for big budget blockbusters to be released. This summer you will also find big name comedy sequels and potential indie gems. I thought it would be a great time to give a run down of the summer movies I am most looking forward to. I will break of the films by month. First up May...

Thor (May 6th)
Once summer comes around you know you can count on a few big comic book movies and Thor is the first one this summer. Thor stars Chris Hemsworth as the comic book legend. Along with Chris, you will find Anthony Hopkins, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, and the always amazing Natalie Portman. For those that don't follow comics, Thor was created by Stan Lee, the mastermind behind Spider-man and Iron Man. Thor is a warrior from the mystical realm of Asgard and gets banished to Earth when he starts a war. I'm looking forward to Thor because I love comic book movies and always enjoy a good action film.

Hesher (May 13th)
Hesher is an indie film staring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception and 500 Days of Summer), Rainn Wilson (The Office), and Natalie Portman. I don't know all the details about the plot, but I've always enjoyed Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman, so I have high hopes that I will enjoy Hesher.

The Hangover Part II (May 26th)
The first Hangover film was released in 2009 and was an instant hit, both at the box office and with critics. When that happens you know there will be a sequel and this summer is when the sequel is released. The Hangover Part II stars all of the big names from the first movie, but instead of being in Las Vegas, they take the madness to Thailand. I have some hesitation when it comes to this film just because most comedy sequels aren't that great. As long as they come up with new antics and laughs this could be a very funny movie.

Kung Fu Panda 2 (May 26th)
Everyone remembers the joy and fun that was had with Kung Fu Panda. This summer we are given the opportunity to experience it all over again with Kung Fu Panda 2. I haven't seen any trailers for this one yet so I'm not really sure what to expect. Dreamworks has been know to release some amazing films as well as some stinkers. I hope Kung Fu Panda 2 is at lease entertaining.