E.R. Torre's Blog, page 144

Every David Bowie album ranked…

Found this article, written by F50!! and posted at “Talk Amongst Yourselves” offers a ranking for all 24 of David Bowie’s albums (minus collaborations or soundtracks) from best to what he considers the worst:

Every David Bowie Album Ranked, By a Long TIme David Bowie Fan

As with any sort of ranking of this kind, the judgment is in the eye of the beholder.  For example, I wouldn’t agree with his ranking of Reality, Hours, Earthling, and Young Americans as being quite as low as he states they are.

Frankly, I feel David Bowie (Mr. Bowie’s first album) is probably the least of the works he has released.  Let’s face it, with David Bowie we were dealing an album that was released when Mr. Bowie was an amateur without a solid direction.

Still, there are a couple of interesting songs to be found in his very early archives, including this one, also mentioned by the author of this article…

I would then put Space Oddity, Mr. Bowie’s second full album, as the next on the list.  For certain there are a couple of very good songs to be found here, including the all time classic which the album was named after and The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud, which Mr. Bowie noted in an interview was the first song which he considered a proper “David Bowie” song…

From there I’d go with Never Let Me Down, a very disappointing album that nonetheless also featured some good songs but…well, it just felt like Mr. Bowie was alternately trying too hard and not hard enough to create another “hit” album.  A big disappointment.

From there, its up to everyone’s own taste, IMHO, where each album lies.  But of the albums released (and going by the list provided here, eliminating soundtracks and collaborations), what would be my top 5 David Bowie albums?

For as big a fan as myself, this is not an easy task.

But here goes (and they are presented in order of release and not preference. This list, by the way, reflects where my thought process is at the moment.  A year from now, who knows?).

Regardless, you can’t lose, IMHO, with any of these five albums:

The Man Who Sold The World:  I consider this the first “real” David Bowie album from start to finish.  A dark, macabre work that came ages before, yet featured elements which would appear in heavy metal, goth, etc. etc. work to come years later.  By now most people know the song which gave the album its title and it is one of David Bowie’s best.  But also check out The Width of a Circle or Supermen or Saviour Machine, etc.  A very strong album.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars:  Of all the albums David Bowie made, this is the one everyone will include on his top 5 release list and, further, likely put it at #1.  Who am I to argue?  Ziggy Stardust is an incredibly ambitious yet very “tight” album.  It is one of the earliest concept albums ever created and involves a decaying, dying earth that is visited by an alien rock God named Ziggy Stardust.  A terrific album with terrific songs from start to end.  (By the way, the song All The Young Dudes, written by David Bowie but given to Mott the Hoople to record was originally intended to be a part of this album and fits on it very nicely.  I suspect it would have fit in right after the album’s first song, Five Years.  A David Bowie version of the song is available as well).

Aladdin Sane: Coming hot off the heels of Ziggy Stardust was that album’s follow-up/companion Aladdin Sane.  Some have called the album “Ziggy Stardust comes to America” and they’re not far off the mark.  While not quite as good as Ziggy Stardust, this album remains one of my all time favorites.  I absolutely love Panic In Detroit, Drive In Saturday, Aladdin Sane, and the chilling Lady Grinning Soul.

Scary Monsters (And SuperCreeps):  I have to admit, though unintended, the last two albums in this list (this one and the next) could easily be substituted by any number of other great Bowie works.  For example, I’ve not mentioned at all his wonderful Berlin Trilogy of Low, Heroes, and Lodger?  Thought I know there are those who don’t like it that much, I absolutely love the admittedly more shallow/hit filled Let’s Dance.  And what of Station to Station and Young Americans?  And Hunky Dory and Diamond Dogs!  How could they not fall somewhere on this list as well?!  And that great final album, Blackstar!  Where is it?!  Well, as I said, this is my list and while those I just mentioned are terrific albums, they fall just a hair below this and the next album on my top 5 list.  Scary Monsters is, like David Bowie’s best albums, ambitious in scope and features many different -and at times very wild- music choices.  This is an album that is great from start to finish though I would point out the underrated Teenage Wildlife for special attention.  Great stuff.

1 Outside:  When this album was originally released in 1995, I was shocked by how much the critics hated it.  In fact, there were very few (if any) I could find that actually liked the album.  It was a weird experience because for me the album was nothing short of amazing and featured some incredibly strong tracks (I Have Not Been To Oxford Town, Thru These Architect Eyes, I’m Deranged, Heart’s Filthy Lesson, Strangers When We Meet, etc.) and a bizarre, almost Blade Runner/William Gibson-like sci-fi concept involving the end of the century.  Over the years, it appears there has been a re-evaluation of this album and many people now seem to have recognized the album’s quality versus when it was first released.

Look, I’ll be blunt here:  I can sorta understand where the original criticism came from.  1. Outside is a very overstuffed work.  It features a plethora of songs and styles and there are oddball “segues” between many of the songs wherein a story is told by David Bowie using distorted voices.  Yes, I can see where some might have felt this was all a little too much.

But that’s what makes the album so damn good!  1. Outside is an immersive experience and, if you’re willing to give it a try and roll with it, I promise you will be amazed.  A great, great work.

*****

So there you have it, my all time favorite five David Bowie albums.  Your mileage, as they say, might vary.

Bone Tomahawk (2015) a (mildly) belated review

When word came that veteran actor/full-time bad-ass was starring in the latest Quentin Tarantino film, a western called The Hateful Eight, I was soooo eager to see it.  Alas, the movie’s runtime (over three hours) and my inability (as usual) to find the free time to go see it meant I’d have to wait for the movie to hit the home video market.

But as that movie neared release, seemingly out of nowhere I saw a listing for Bone Tomahawk, another western starring Kurt Russell.  Intrigued, I read up on the movie and found, to my delight, that it was not only a western, but a horror film as well.  Two very intriguing genres mixed together.

Naturally, I put the movie on my Netflix cue but it popped up for free viewing for Amazon prime members so, last night, I watched it.

With some caveats which I’ll get into later, for the most part I really liked what I saw.

As eager as I was to see the film, going into it I was also a little worried.  With Bone Tomahawk we have yet another of those low budget direct-to-video type movies and, unfortunately, my last experience with one, the horrid Killing Season (read all about it), wasn’t a ringing endorsement for these types of films.

Bone Tomahawk starts with a pair of bloody “bush-whackers” ( and in what amount to cameo roles) attack and kill a group of three campers, their intent being to rob them of whatever possessions they carry.  However, in the course of the robbery a gunshot is fired and that brings someone on horses (the law?) their way.

Fearing being discovered and arrested, the duo head deep into the bushes and, while they lose their would be captors, hear eerie shrieks in the wind.  They eventually stumble upon a strange rock formation surrounded by the skulls of animals and…humans.  Once past that formation they are attacked by strange, shadowy figures.  One of the bushwhackers is killed while the other, younger bushwhacker stumbles away.

Eleven days later, that younger bushwhacker makes his way to a town and raises the suspicions of Chicory, the town’s deputy sheriff ().  He and Sheriff Hunt (Kurt Russell) confront the man in the town’s bar and rapidly determine he is a criminal.  The Sheriff shoots the man in the leg as he tries to flee and takes him to jail.

To treat his injury, the Sheriff asks dandily-dressed Brooder () to get the town’s doctor.  It turns out the doctor is Samantha () who is married to Arthur (), a man currently recovering from a broken leg sustained while trying to fix their home’s roof during a storm.

Samantha tends to the bushwhacker and is left with a third deputy to care for the man overnight.  It is during that night, however, that those eerie howls are once again heard.  The shadowy creatures that attacked the bushwhackers have followed the surviving man to the town.  In the morning, the Sheriff finds a stableboy viciously murdered and the bushwhacker, the third deputy, and Samantha are gone.

The Sheriff finds an arrow left behind by the kidnappers and determines they were Indians.  Not just any Indians, though, but “troglodytes”, a cannibalistic, animalistic group that is as far removed from civilization as can be.  Sheriff Hunt, Deputy Chicory, Brooder, and the injured Arthur ride out toward where the troglodytes are supposed to live, intent on rescuing Samantha from their clutches.

The remainder of the movie involves the trip to the troglodyte’s home and what happens there.

Though the film is touted as a horror/western, the movie’s structure mostly recalls the classic John Wayne film The Searchers married, toward the end, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

As with The Searchers, our heroes set out to find and rescue a kidnapped woman.  The trip involves diverse characters whose interactions form the backbone of the story.  We feel for these characters which makes the dangers they face toward the end all the more terrifying.  The concluding act of the film, as mentioned, plays out like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and we’re given one particularly gruesome killing (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about) along with a really bizarre human subculture.

As I said above, I generally enjoyed the film but I can see why the studios were hesitant to release it to theaters and spend the large amount needed to advertise the product.

At a runtime of two hours and twelve minutes, Bone Tomahawk is an awfully long film to sit through and I’ll be very blunt here: It is at least twenty minutes or so too long.  There are some scenes here and there (including a love-making scene between Arthur and Samantha and a somewhat humorous appearance by the town’s Mayor and his domineering wife) that could easily been trimmed from the feature without audiences missing them.

Further, though the film is touted as a horror/western, the reality is that other than the opening and climax the film plays out more like a semi-comic (there are some very funny lines) and slow moving walk through the woods to get to the bad guys and rescue the damsel in distress rather than an actual horror film.

According to IMDB, “the final movie represents the first draft of the script”.  Though I don’t know how many times the author went over that script before delivering this “first draft” and while I really enjoy the way the characters talk (the dialogue in the movie is a highlight), I’ll repeat what I said above: This movie maybe could have used a couple of more drafts to trim some of the fat and tighten the story’s focus.

Ultimately, Bone Tomahawk is an odd, but certainly not unpleasant bird of a film.  An at times very laid back comic slice of life western which features a genuinely gruesome horror movie climax.  I don’t think Bone Tomahawk is for everyone but if what you’ve read above intrigues you, you’ll want to give the film a look.

What’s the Greatest American Rock Band?

With the death of Glenn Frey, a founding member of the best selling band The Eagles, Todd Leopold for CNN.com asks the above question:

What’s The Greatest American Rock Band

I have the say, the question is trickier than one might think, given that there are some bands that sound very “American” and yet whose members (some or all) may be from other countries.

Mr. Leopold offers some interesting choices, among them (of course) The Eagles, The Beach Boys, Nirvana, Aerosmith, The Ramones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Grateful Dead, etc. etc.

There is a reader voting offered at the end of his article and, of the bands offered, I’d probably choose The Doors as my favorite.  In six albums they created a unique, eerie, haunting, and at times bluesy sound.  Some of their songs were big radio hits…

They also created a few long, epic songs…

And toward the (ahem) end, shortly before lead singer Jim Morrison’s death, the toll of his abuse of drugs and alcohol ravaged his voice.  And yet, even with his voice noticeably different than from his early days, it was nonetheless still more than good enough to serve up one of the group’s final, classic songs…

Six albums -and one live album- released between 1966 and 1971.  A very high output and, in my opinion, a great body of work.

Glenn Frey, RIP

Wow.  It just seems like suddenly so many famous people are passing away.  In the music business alone we’ve had the recent deaths of David Bowie, Lemmy, Scott Weiland, Natalie Cole, Mike Porcaro (from Toto), Chris Squire (from Yes), Joe Cocker, and B. B. King.

Taking a step back, one notes that a part of this is aging.  Several of those who have passed away were reaching/had reached their senior years.

Though many consider it a terrible movie (I don’t, although I also don’t believe it was a particularly great movie either) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull offered a great line regarding growing older/aging.  When Indiana speaks with Dean Charles Stanforth and laments the fact that he’s lost both his father and Marcus, the Dean replies:

We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.

While I’m still a ways from being a senior citizen (may that day arrive veeeerrrry slowly!), for a few years now I’ve noticed either the aging of actors/musicians/TV personalities/athletes who I saw/admired while in their prime and/or the passing of many of these figures.

To me, David Bowie, for example, is a man I envision from his Let’s Dance years.  It was startling to see the elderly and, though I didn’t know it until he passed, infirm David Bowie present in the Blackstar and Lazarus videos.  Similarly, when I think of Harrison Ford I see the young, vital man from Bladerunner or Raiders of the Lost Ark and not the older, much grayer Han Solo in the current Star Wars film’s commercials (haven’t seen The Force Awakens).

Returning to Glenn Frey, I’ll admit I never was a huge fan of The Eagles or Mr. Frey’s solo career but there is no doubt he, along with his Eagle bandmates, created a monster of an album with Hotel California and his solo career was a success as well.  His passing, like Mr. Bowie’s, is nothing less than a shock and another sign of the inevitable passage of time.

Rest in peace, Mr. Frey.

By all that’s holy…why?!??!

The answer, of course, is because they can.

Witness a washing machine with a brick in it on a trampoline.

Nothing more need be said.

Killing Season (2013) a (mildly…and pointless) review

In this era of movies released directly to video or pay-per-view, there are times you’re startled by the actors involved in said features.  If memory serves and strictly going by that memory, I can think of direct to video/pay-per-view films featuring among others Bruce WIllis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Hugh Jackman, Charlize Theron, Samuel Jackson, Kevin Bacon, Kurt Russell, Nichole Kidman, and Nicholas Cage (ok, perhaps this one is expected).

The 2013 film Killing Season was released to theaters in the U.S. (and, according to IMDB grossed a whopping $27,713 in its apparently very limited release) but, for all intents and purposes, it is another of these direct-to-video/pay-per-view features in my mind.

The only thing that distinguishes it from so much other forgotten fare is the fact that it stars and .

While its tempting to say something along the lines of “my, how the mighty have fallen,” especially when I’m feeling like cutting to the chase and noting Killing Season is almost complete crap, the movie’s conclusion nonetheless makes you see what might have interested these two recognizable stars’ participation in this almost comically silly project.

The plot goes like this: Benjamin Ford (Robert De Niro) is a veteran soldier -and pretty much a walking cliche- who lives a stoic, solitary existence in a cabin in the woods.  His son’s baby is about to be baptized and he wants Ford to come see the child but, being all stoic and unemotional and what-not, Ford puts them off.  Clearly he’s fighting demons related to some traumatic event in his previous life and that has driven him away from people, just like all good stoically-cliched characters are want to do.

When his jeep conks out while driving off into the woods one rainy night, Ford encounters a man walking alone who offers to help start the jeep.  The man, Emil Kovac (John Travolta, sporting what looks like spray painted jet black hair while speaking in an accent that would make Borat proud) gets the jeep running and Ford drives off.

However, the stoic unemotional man stops, backs up, and offers Kovac a ride.  They go to his cabin in the woods, talk about good times, and drink down waaaaay too much liquor.  In the morning, they head into the woods to hunt deer.  Turns out Kovac is good with arrows, just like Ford.

While on their hunting expedition, Kovac’s true intentions are revealed.  He hunts and captures Ford and then tortures him.  He claims to want Ford to reveal his sins.

While the opening minutes of the film are almost interminable -filled with cliches and the type of danger that everyone but the protagonist can see coming- it is this section of the film that becomes unintentionally hilarious.  To wit, this is how the film goes:

Kovacs captures and tortures Ford.  Ford escapes and captures and tortures Kovacs.  Kovacs escapes and captures and tortures Ford some more.  Ford escapes and captures Kovacs and…

I’m being dead serious here.

After a while, it was like watching an old Wile Coyote/Road Runner cartoon, except in this case we had two Wile Coyotes banging their heads against each other and inflicting as much pain as they can.  Adding to the craziness is the amount of injury each sustain in their encounters.  Very conveniently these injuries, in particular the ones Ford receives, seal themselves and their characters somehow doesn’t bleed out during the course of the night.

As if you didn’t know by now, Kovacs is a one-time Serbian soldier and Ford was in Bosnia during the war and the two share a common experience from that deadly time.

As downright stupid as most of this film is and as I mentioned above, I found the very ending, which comes after a particularly idiotic scene involving Ford pulling out old shrapnel from his leg and using it as a weapon (I can’t make this stuff up!), offers us the best and only part of this work I somewhat enjoyed even though it too was so much silly fantasy.  I don’t mind SPOILING things here because I doubt there are many out there dying to see this film.

Anyway, the movie’s ending has our one-time adversaries forgiving each other and finally moving on with their lives.

There.

I’ve just saved you ninety minutes of your life.

In sum, even if you’re a fan of Robert De Niro and/or John Travolta, seeing them face off against each other in the supremely silly Killing Season is waste of your time.  Please don’t be like me.  Please just step back and forget there ever was a film named Killing Season out there.

You’ll be glad you did.

Is there something out there…? Part Deux

A while back I wrote about the intriguing discovery astronomers made involving star KIC 8462852.

While you can read the entire post here, the essence of the story was this: Something mysterious is blocking the star’s light, something which astronomers at that point could not explain.

One astronomer brought out the stunning idea that perhaps the blocked light could be the result of aliens building a Dyson Sphere.  A Dyson Sphere is a massive artificial structure built around a star and whose purpose it is to collect all energy flowing from said star…

This concept is pure science fiction and, even in the original article, scientists were extremely hesitant to give credence to that idea.

The best natural theory put forth to explain the star’s loss of light became the idea of a passing comet storm.  A large group of comets therefore block the star’s light.

Alas, that theory is now gone as well, as mentioned in this article found on i09, The Case of the So-Called Alien Megastructure just got weirder.  The gist of the article is found in this paragraph:

…astronomer Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University decided to look at photographic plates of the sky dating back to the late 19th century. To his amazement, he learned that over the last hundred years, KIC 8462852’s light output has steadily faded by about 19%, something that’s “completely unprecedented for any F-type main sequence star.”

The steady fading through all those years hurts the theory of a comet swarm cause and leaves scientist once again wondering exactly what is causing the strange dimming of that star’s light.

Fascinating, fascinating stuff.

Global PC sales…

…they are a fallin’, according to this article by Ted Cruise for vilayas.com:

Global PC Sales Fall to Eight-Year Low

I’ve written about this and will repeat:

It’s not that PCs are suddenly undesirable to the public at large, but what is happening is that PC makers have reached a point where the products they are making are TOO GOOD.

I know I’m repeating things here (you can read one of my original posts regarding this here), but when personal computers first appeared, it seemed each passing year they got remarkably better.

As I stated in that original post, I bought a computer with an 8086 processor waaaay back when and though it was great…until a friend bought a 286 processor computer which blew that 8086 out of the water.  Then came a 386 which blew the 286 away, then a 486 which blew the 386 away, then a Pentium.  However, when the Pentium II showed up, there were fewer differences between it and the Pentium one.  Sure, your computer was a little faster, but the incredible advances between systems weren’t quite as evident.

We are now at a point where a new system comes out and we don’t really need to upgrade like we did before.  Thus, one can keep one’s desktop PC (if you have one!) for a far longer period of time.  I kept my previous PC an incredible five plus years before upgrading.  My new computer is faster but, frankly, other than more memory it really isn’t a quantum leap above the last system like, for example, the 386 was versus the 286 processor.

Sometimes, industry simply makes something so good there is little need to replace it.  Doesn’t mean the item they made is suddenly worthless!

This is impressive…

Found this on reddit:  The horizons of Venus, Earth, the Moon, Mars, and Titan:

Incredible.  Beautiful.

About the Republican debates…

I’ve mentioned before I don’t like to get into politics on this blog.  Especially nowadays when whatever you say becomes “fightin’ words” to those who are on the other side.

Having said that (you’ve been warned), there is no way I’d spend any of my limited free time in watching the Republican debates.  Based on the high level of crazy talk just about all the candidates have made, there is little point: I will not vote for any of the Republicans.  Not in a million years.

Sadly, there was a time not all that long ago when elections came up and I was interested in hearing from each candidate.  I would even give them proper consideration.

No longer.

The fact is that the strongest voices of the “right” wing have moved politics so far toward their direction that they’ve dragged almost every other candidate/politician with more moderate views their way.  I’ve mentioned this before and it bears repeating: In another time, Bill Clinton and (yes) Barack Obama would be considered moderate Republican politicians ala Dwight D. Eisenhower or Richard Nixon (minus the paranoia).

My great hope is this election finally knocks some sense into the public and the hateful, paranoid, backward politics get rebuked.  It happened before in the 1950’s and I’m hoping (praying!) history repeats itself.

We’ll see.

Alright, I’m getting off my soapbox now…