THIS IS THE END

It's fairly common for actors to play comic, unflattering, or excessive versions of themselves, but This Is the End takes that practice up several notches by having the whole cast parodying themselves -- and during the apocalypse too!

The plot is pretty simple.  Seth Rogen (who co-wrote and co-directed This Is the End, along with Evan Goldberg) picks up his good buddy Jay Baruchel at the airport in L.A.  Jay hates the whole Hollywood scene and just wants to hang out with Seth.  But Seth takes him to a big party at James Franco's self-designed house.  And it seems like everyone in Hollywood is there, from musicians to comics to an obnoxious Michael Cera.

When Seth and Jay leave the party to get some smokes, things get weird.  Beams of blue light drag people into the sky! Objects come crashing down, killing people!  A huge sinkhole in front of James Franco's house drags almost everyone at the party into it!  Soon Hollywood is a burning wasteland, with monsters and death.  Is it the Biblical apocalypse?  An alien invasion?  Global warming?  Anyway, after the night a few survivors are left at the house: Seth, Jay, James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, and Danny McBride (who crashed the party and fell asleep upstairs).

This Is the End is very dark and silly at the same time.  There are plenty of disturbing things -- from severed limbs to a head used as a kickball to cannibalism -- but it's all so over-the-top that it's hard to take seriously.  The same can be said of the actors, who enjoy spoofing themselves.  Has Jonah Hill really become ultra-nice after the success of Moneyball?  Does James Franco really shift so easily from pretentious artist to stoner ready to do Pineapple Express 2?  Is Danny McBride really that obnoxious?  Is Jay genuine, or just a poser?  None of it really matters, as the actors all riff on each other, throw parties, wonder if they deserve to survive, and have very explicit arguments and discussions.  (One between Franco and McBride is amazingly disgusting -- and laugh-out-loud funny.)

There's no real depth to This Is the End, but it's a very funny movie (and a nice contrast to the pre-2012 end-of-the-world disaster flicks we got).  There are numerous terrific cameos, plenty of bizarre interactions, and finale that's so silly it must be seen to be believed.  This Is the End could have been a self-indulgent pile of incoherent silliness, but it manages to be a bit more than that -- and pretty hysterical too!

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD by Avery Monsen and Jory John

Schadenfreude describes taking happiness in the misfortune of others -- but what if that feeling was expressed as a children's book?  And what if it took on unexpected tangents?  All My Friends Are Dead is a simple, surprisingly effective comical book about different things and their missing friends.

Friendship is the key to All My Friends Are Dead -- and usually its lack, or it's variety.  Everything from the cover dinosaur to cassette tapes, ventriloquists, trees, sheep, people on a desert island, and others comment about their friends; usually there's a follow-up comment from them or their friends on the following pages.  For example, a clown comments, "All my friends are terrifying"  On the next page, another clown responds, "I've already made two children cry today!"


There's a very twisted humor at work here -- and a very elegant simplicity in the drawings, subjects, and delivery.  All My Friends Are Dead could have been much darker (especially given that title), yet it's very odd and very funny.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

THE PURGE

Politics and horror can make for strange bedfellows: The combination of the two can either provide a fresh look at current events, or they can wind up preachy.  The latter is the case with The Purge.

It's 2022, and the New Founding Fathers have instituted a tradition called the Purge: once a year, from 7 P.M. to 7 A.M., all crime is legal (including murder) and there are no police, medical, or emergency services during that time.  Proponents of the Purge (who show their support with purple flowers outside their homes) say it gives people a release from the anger, jealousy, and other negative feelings they build up during the year.  Opponents claim it's a just another way to support the rich and eliminate the poor, since the wealthy can protect themselves in their homes while the poor have to fend for themselves on the streets.  Naturally, people can also watch live footage of the Purge killing and destruction on television.

James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) supports the Purge; he also profits from it, living in a gated community and making a living selling home security systems.  His wife Mary (Lena Hedley) also goes along with it, even if she doesn't participate.  Their teenage daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) is more concerned that her dad doesn't like her older boyfriend Henry (Rhys Wakefield), while their young son Charlie (Max Burkholder) is mainly interested in playing with a remote-control creepy doll/video camera.

The Sandin family seems ready to settle in for the Purge -- protected behind blast doors, watching the neighborhood through video cameras, and carrying guns just to be safe --  when Charlie sees a stranger (Edwin Hodge) running from pursuers, bloody, and screaming for help.  Clarlie lets him into their home, which makes James and Mary nervous because they don't know if he's dangerous.  Worse, the pursuers (young people wearing creepy grinning masks and armed with guns and machetes) followed him to the Sandin home.  The gang's leader (Tony Oller) gives the James an ultimatum: Turn over the stranger so the gang can finish "purging" on him, or they'll break into the house and make the Sandin family their prey as well.

While The Purge is ostensibly a horror/suspense movie, it's more about social commentary.  The Sandin's are the stereotypical upper-class family (they even consider buying a boat) who are fine with something that affects the poorer people -- until it affects them.  The stranger being pursued is a black homeless man (whose dog tags suggest he's a veteran), while the gang leader is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young man in a prep school uniform.  Subtlety is not this movie's strong suit (though neither is logic: Would the nation really benefit from unfettered looting, destruction, and murder one night a year?).  Unfortunately, The Purge is also not that effective at scaring the audience either.  While there are some unsettling moments (from the grinning masks to seemingly normal neighbors sharpening weapons in anticipation of killing), the movie ultimately comes down to a standard siege drama (not unlike the terrible horror movie The Strangers).  I doubt The Purge will come to pass -- but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone either.

Overall grade: C
Reviewed by James Lynch

Demi Lovato, DEMI (Target version)

While Demi Lovato dealt with her hardships and trials on her last albbum, her new album Demi has her focusing squarely on boys and romance.  The result is some pretty standard pop.

To her credit, Lovato does have a strong voice, and she attacks the songs with eagerness, whether on the impassioned first single "Heart Attack" or the breathy ballads through the album like the yearning "Nightingale" or the hate-and-love-together single "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me" on the Target edition.  (Disclaimer: I work for Target -- but I don't play for Target!)

Alas, all the songs on Demi are pretty routine about either being in love or being out of love.  There are such overused images as two halves of a whole ("We'll never fall apart, 'cause we fit togethe rlike/ two pieces of a broken heart") or some amazing verbal clunkers (like bragging that a romance in "made in the U.S.A." or that a shallow guy will "try to take me home like you're DiMaggio").

Demi has some good songs, but the album becomes an ordinary collection of sonsgs about why romance is great or why it's awful.  It's ironic that this former Disney star made an album that could have been released while she was with Disney, years after she left them.

Overall grade: C-
Reviewed by James Lynch

Paramore, PARAMORE

Paramore is back!  The indy trio of singer Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York, and bassist Jeremy Davies return to the world of alternative power pop with their latest album Paramore.

"If there's a future, we want it" the band sings on "Now," and that mix of optimism and uncertainty is present throughout the album.  Paramore deals with the ups and downs of romance (including the comically obsessive "(One of Those) Crazy Girls"), mixing societal responsibility with wanting to party ("we've got our riot gear on but we just want to have fun"), attacking haters ("Anklebiters") and struggling to stay optimistic ("Last Hope").  This album also reflects the band's growing sense of maturity and responsibility as well: "Ain't It Fun" is an ironically-titled song about living in the real world, while "Grow Up" balanced becoming mature with leaving others behind.

Paramore has the band's usual hard-rocking vocals and guitar: nothing new, but still exciting.  ("The Future," the album's closing track, is a new and meandering disappointment.")  There are plenty of pulse-pounding and sensitive songs here -- I wish "Daydreaming" could become this generation's version of Blondie's "Dreaming " -- and Paramore is pretty enjoyable.

Overall grade: B+

Reviewed by James Lynch

MAXIM Hot 100 2013

Top lists are usually released at the end of the year, but Maxim has been bucking that trend by releasing its Hot 100 collection of beautiful women with its June issue.  This year's collection is very similar to last year's list: amazing photographs of beautiful women, brief comments, and popularity being as important as beauty.

Voted on by the magazine's readers, the Maxim Hot 100 2013 is, well, just that.  Each person picked has a photo (from the magazine in most cases), accompanies by brief, often humorous comments about them.  For example, Candice Swanepoel had this entry: "Our favorite South African scored a hat trick when, for the third time, she secured the cover of the Victoria's Secret swim catalog (way better than those stuffy issues they put out the rest of the year.)"  There are plenty of actors, singers, models, and other famous folks.  And in what I suspect is too perfect to be coincidence, Stephen Colbert lost the #69 spot he had in 2012 to Manti Te'O's fake girlfriend, "shown" below.

While it may seem amazing that such a list could have problems, the voters do display something of an... immediacy in their selection, based on the picks' popularity.  I'm just as sure that Heather Graham made the list for her "stripper with a heart of gold" role in The Hangover 3 as that Anne Hathaway got left off for her less-than-glamorous doomed prostitute in Les Miserables.  Previous mainstays got left off because of less current publicity (like Nicole Scherzinger, Jennifer Lopez, and Britney Spears), while Alice Eve made it in thanks to her gratituous underwear moments in Star Trek Into Darkness.

Still, Maxim has never taken itself too seriously, and the Maxim Hot 100 2013 is a visually stunning list of who's hot -- and a reflection of who's hot right now.  (It also lends support to my theory that female Disney stars become highly sexualized as soon as they get away from Disney, as former Disney stars make up four of the winners in the list's top 10 -- including the top two spots.)  While the spoilers about the selection hit the Internet before the magazine did, this is still an enjoyable little photographic romp of hot women in the public eye.

Written by James Lynch

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BAD KIDS GO TO HELL dvd

There's a certain appeal for young folks in watching rich, spoiled, beautiful kids -- and in watching their downfall -- so it's no surprise that these sort of teens are the focus of the horror-comedy movie Bad Kids Go to Hell.  This non-serious movie, based on the comic book of the same name, revolves around the elite teens of the world, stuck in the detention from hell.

With echoes of The Breakfast Club (underscored by casting Judd Nelson as the headmaster), Bad Kids Go to Hell opens with the police breaking into a barricaded room, to find Matt (Cameron Deane Stewart) holding an axe and surrounded by corpses -- including a headless body that falls over.  We jump ahead eight hours earlier, when six Crestview Academy students are being locked into the school library for detention.  Veronica (Augie Duke) is a goth who believes in the supernatural.  Megan (Amanda Alch) seems like a shy nerd with an inhaler -- but she has a wild side.  Tricia (Ali Faulkner) is a vain beauty whose mother is an ambitious politician.  Craig (Roger Edwards) is a jock stumbling around on crutches.  Tarek (Mark Donato) gets flak for being Arabic.  And Matt has the biggest reputation as a troublemaker -- not to mention one of the poor kids at Crestview.


Dr. Day (Jeffrey Schmidt) somehow thinks locking these six troublemakers together for detention is a good idea, so on the first day of winter break he gets them together, confiscates their phones and electronics, and locks them in the library.  Only he and the slightly slow janitor Max (Ben Browder) seem to know they're there.

Rather than bonding, the students start sniping and fighting with each other.  But when things start to get weird -- and they begin dying -- there's no way for them to escape, or call for help.  Is what's happening revenge from the ghost of the Indian whose land was stolen to build Crestview Academy?  Is one of the troublemakers killing off the others?  Does it have to do with a conspiracy, revealed bit by bit in each student's flashbacks?  Or is something else going on?

Bad Kids Go to Hell revels in slickness and meanness, from the superficially perfect teens to the dark comedy of the killings and murders.  Alas, that doesn't make up for the fact that none of the characters are the slightest bit likeable (though it turns out Matt's reputation comes from his every attempt to do the right thing going horribly wrong).  There are some decent scares and misdirects, but Bad Kids Go to Hell ultimately feels more like a MTV original movie than a try at redoing suspense-horror for the teenage generation.  (DVD extras include standard behind-the-scenes material, plus comparisons between the movie and comic book visuals.)

Overall grade: D
Reviewed by James Lynch

Ljova, Melting River (2012)

Whether working by himself or with his group the Kontraband, the New York-based violist and composer Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin is always worth checking in with. His latest offering Melting River is a collection of works originally commissioned by Canadian choreographer Aszure Barton for her work "Project XII." The pieces in Melting River evoke specific moods, from subtle agitation in "There You Have It" to placid tranquility in the title track to the dreamy whimsy interrupted by fits of tension in "Birds." Ljova once again shows his creativity and versatility as a composer; "Birds" holds up really well as a modern classical composition, and "Asha" is a quick, fun tango. A few of the tunes will leave you wanting to know the context, but most of the tracks on Melting River stand on their own just fine.

The album is available for download through the bandcamp site.

Overall grade: B+

XCON WORLD VI

This past weekend, fans of science fiction, fantasy, horror, comics, gaming, and a lot more converged at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center for XCon World VI, the latest gathering of fans for all things geek.  The convention was a lot of fun -- albeit with the same problem that it faced last year.

Held mostly in one big hall, XCon World VI managed to squeeze just about everything together -- and that was reflected in the numerous costumes worn by the attendees.  Some characters were very popular -- I saw numerous Wonder Women, Harley Quinns, and the Doctor(s) from Doctor Who -- but there were also zombies and creatures a-plenty, video game characters like Lara Croft and the folks from Minecraft, Jedi and Starfleet Officers, medieval ladies and steampunk men, and even the first costumes from Breaking Bad that I've seen at a convention!  There was also a TARDIS (stationary) and a Dalek (which rolled around the convention.)

XCon World VI also provided plenty of activities for folks.  Little kids could get their faces painted, play in a bouncy castle, or receive balloon animals.  Old-school gamers could play the quarter-fueled arcade games, while a bus held XBox and PS3 games for those who subscribe to the new school.  (I saw a lot of Injustice: Gods Among Us played.)  A local Gaming Guild ran demos, including near-continuous sessions of the Pathfinder rpg.  Outside the building was a replica of the vehicle from Ghostbusters, while inside folks could get photographed with the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo, shown below.

Vendors were spread throughout the convention, selling everything from toys to classic movie posters to t-shirts and varied medieval weaponry and costumes.  There were also numerous celebrities, from voice actors-animators Bob Camp and C. Martin Croker to scream queen Cindy Crotts to Deep Roy.  Several folks from The Walking Dead were there; I got to meet Travis Love!

The main stage of the convention had a variety of events, from costume contests and battle demonstrations to the Geek Dating Game and pro wrestling (shown below), which is even sillier live than on television.  Outside the building, a panel "room" was set up with folding chairs and fabric walls for discussions, lectures, and Q&As with the XCon World guests and professionals.

Much as I enjoy XCon World, there were a few problems.  The biggest one was with the panels: With only one location, there could only be one panel at a time, which led to less variety and a lot of time spent wandering around the convention area.  (The lack of real walls also made noise pollution a problem, especially from the traffic.)  A few events got moved or cancelled (alas, no Twister with the XCon Girls), and the sound from the main stage was sometimes hard to hear over the gathered crowd.  And I was slated for a lecture, but the organizers never quite found a place for me to deliver it.

I've been to XCon World twice now, and the convention seems to be growing each year.  My fervent hope is that they can get more space and rooms, so they can provide more panels to give more variety to attendees.  That said, the convention was a blast -- and I'll be there for XCon World VII!

Written and photographed by James Lynch

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

When the Star Trek franchise got rebooted, writer-director J.J. Abrams opted for new takes on the series' original characters.  This continues -- with mixed results -- in Star Trek Into Darkness, the latest (and most confusingly titled) movie in the series. 

Star Trek Into Darkness opens with Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) after getting in trouble -- again -- by ignoring the Prime Directive to save a planet of primitive beings.  Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) manages to save Kirk's career, but Kirk is demoted to Commander and Spock (Zachary Quinto) is reassigned to another ship.  However, rogue Starfleet agent John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) carries out a number of terrorist attacks against Starfleet, and following the deaths and destruction Kirk and Spock are back where they were.

Following the attacks, Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) gives Kirk a new assignment: Follow Harrison to Kronos (the Klingon homeworld) and kill him with some experimental torpedoes.  Kirk captures Harrison instead, despite Harrison's near-superhuman killing skills, which leads to a Federation cosnpiracy, the return of a familiar villain, plots within plots, and sexy science officer Carol (Alice Eve) who has her own secrets.

Star Trek Into Darkness works best with the smaller interactions between the main characters, whether it's the lover's quarrel beween Spock and Uhura (Zoe Saldana), the perpetual grumpiness of McCoy (Karl Urban), or Chekov (Anton Yelchin) struggling to take over Engineering.  Unfortunately, Cumberbatch spends most of the movie absent, making him catch up rather than continue as a fearsome villain.  The action isn't consistent enough to be that exciting, and if Kirk was supposed to learn humility, well, let's just say that by the movie's end he's done more than ever.

Star Trek Into Darkness is enjoyable enough, but it's also a little too much of what we've seen before (and not just from borrowing heavily from an episode of the original series).

Overall grade: C+
Reviewed by James Lynch

Ashley Tisdale, GUILTY PLEASURE

There's something about working for Disney that makes its female actors and singers go from wholesome, G-rated characters to highly sexual and rebellious individuals as soon as they can.  Ashley Tisdale had wrapped up her work on the High School Musical series -- and had her first solo album, Headstrong -- when she released her sophomore album, Guilty Pleasure.

Tisdale tips her hand about this album in the first song when she sings "No, I don't think it matters/ if it's just real or just a role."  Tisdale was in her mid-20s when Guilty Pleasure was released, yet Tisdale takes on the role of a rebellious teen in almost every song.  The opening song, "Acting Out," has Tisdale proclaiming her independence and wild side by, well, acting out.  There are songs about dating and infatuation ("Hair," "Masquerade"), songs about dumping a lousy boyfriend ("It's Alright, It's Okay," Delete You"), songs showing her naughty sexy side ("Hot Mess," "Crank It Up"), and a wrap-up (before the bonus tracks) romantic power ballad ("Me without You").  The lyrics are as generic as the themes, and Tisdale's vocals don't stand out.

The most interesting thing about Guilty Pleasure is the frequent theme of deception.  There's the quote above about not caring if it's real or a role, the desire to be lied to rather than dumped ("Tell Me Lies,") and the false faces worn in "Masquerade."   But this is never developed, and Guilty Pleasure is just another standard album of a pseudo-teen trying too hard to act out.

Overall grade: C-

Reviewed by James Lynch

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Music Reviews May 2013