BOOKS:

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah: I don’t have much to say here that I didn’t the first time around; it’s a noble book in some ways, arriving just four years after the first one, it deliberately undoes so much of what Paul Atreides accomplished in the first book as to be beyond cynical and depressing, and the “happy ending” is so Pyrrhic that it might as well have just had Paul slash his wrists like a Goth teenager. It’s also, at 281 pages, about a third of the length of the first book, and yet took me about as long to read. It’s really kind of a slog, with barely any new interesting characters, a cynical and bleak tone, and a lot of new “groups” to cause Paul Atreides trouble, but only one or two or which achieve interest. Most of the good stuff in the book is packed towards the end, although a rather unlikely twist (involving the resurrected Duncan Idaho) has me confused as to whether it’s really sort of brilliantly handled on Herbert’s part, or a total bungling of a Philip K. Dick-type “what is human?” thing. Barring a miracle, I’m on track to rank the six books ol’ Frank wrote in exactly the same order as the first time around.

MOVIES:

Resurrection: 2022 thriller largely revolving around Rebecca Hall as a troubled mother and businesswoman being harassed by Tim Roth, who gradually takes her down a rabbit hole that grows more and more ludicrous and insane with each minute until there’s no mystery anymore as to whether or not Hall’s losing her mind. If you want me to spoil the final confrontation between the two, ask and ye shall receive; Hall is a really good actress and it’s a tribute to her talent that she’s able to sell any of this increasing lunacy at all. Unfortunately, that’s the main reason to watch the film, to watch how bat shit insane it gets. It starts off far better than it ends.

Blood For Dust: A new thriller where Scoot McNairy plays some down on his luck salesman who is about to get in deep trouble with his company because he was committing some white collar crime or some crap, so he gets into cahoots with Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, who leads him down the path to murder and mayhem and shootouts and shit. A totally generic film that you’ve probably seen a thousand times, I only watched this because the Ebert review said it took place in Idaho in 1992, but it might as well be taking place any time before the Blackberry became popular. All the good I can really say about it is that Kit Harington is actually better here than on GOT. Which isn’t really saying much, now that I think about it. Skip this!

Alien: Romulus: Well, it’s watchable, you could say. It’s nostalgia porn and legacy-sequel stuff, full of big loud obvious references to the 1979 original, and that sort of thing’s getting pretty tired by now. It’s worth watching once as straight-up horror though. You get an avalanche of face-huggers, a few good stalking scenes and the main heroine pushing herself around in zero-gravity around blasts of alien acid-blood. Be advised though that, though the new actors try their best, there are no interesting characters in the film barring possibly the two synthetics, one of whom, as you may already know, is played in CGI form by an actor who died a few years ago, and sadly, “he” gives the best performance in the movie despite that pretty much nobody in the world has cottoned to this recent cinematic practice. Oh, and the horrors towards the end of the film go pretty overboard, including, gasp, a gross pregnancy that doesn’t top the one in Prometheus. It’s also hilarious to think the same director was responsible for Don’t Breathe, the plot of which this movie actually copies (the characters are young people trying to sneak onto a Weyland Yutani ship to steal equipment that they’ll sell to finance a better future, and the ship is the Nostromo.) At least they aren’t retards like the characters in the last two Ridley Scott movies!

Ride The High Country: Not bad for a first real attempt from Sam Peckinpah, but I don’t think I’m going to revisit this much. I don’t know Joel McCrea or Randolph Scott very well as actors but both are very credible as old cowboys confronting a new world. Too bad the plot is mostly about them having to help out poor young Mariette Hartley, who somehow does not emerge as playing a pathetic character despite being slapped around twice, almost raped FOUR times (I am not making that up!) and reduced to tears when she finds out the two old cowboys can’t help her very much. The shootout at the end isn’t exactly The Wild Bunch either. It doesn’t look bad, but I’m not really convinced this is a lost classic, which a number of IMDb external reviews claim it is. Warren Oates is pretty good though! But isn’t he always?

ALBUMS:

Aerosmith, Get A Grip: Probably the worst of their albums I’ve heard so far. I don’t really want to go off on it like George Starostin did (and if you never read his recent review of it, it’s hilarious, easily the funniest he wrote on his second site), but it doesn’t have much that I cared for. I sort of like “Cryin’“, which manages a moderately catchy melody, but of course “Crazy” is automatically worthless. The third Alicia Silverstone ballad, “Amazing,” is sort of minor key compared to those two and is salvageable, but it isn’t really a classic. I don’t hate “Flesh” anymore, actually–it’s a stupid, obnoxious song, but sort of worth hearing because of that? I dunno–I’d certainly take it at this point over “Livin’ On The Edge,” which seems to be based around, like, ONE CHORD. Doesn’t it seem that way? I detect no real interesting experimentation either, low even by Aerosmith standards, and I don’t listen to Aerosmith for the lyrics, so I don’t have much to say about stuff like “Eat The Rich.” Really, the best I can say for this album is that despite being about a full hour of Big Fat Stupid MTV Rock, it’s not ENTIRELY terrible. But isn’t that what I’ve BEEN saying?

Rainbow, Long Live Rock & Roll: The third and final album Dio did with Rainbow, and things aren’t looking good. It’s listenable at best, but there’s no classics–“L. A. Connection” and “Lady Of The Lake” aren’t bad, maybe “Kill The King” is salvageable, but the lengthy ballad “Rainbow Eyes” that closes the album, SUCKS ASS. I’ll defend “Catch The Rainbow” but not this slow, silky puddle of drippy stringy mush–what an embarrassment. This album mostly seems like relatively unpretentious late 70s metal for Rainbow, not “epic” like a lot of the previous stuff. It’s not that good, either.

The Mothers Of Invention, Uncle Meat: First off, don’t listen to the CD edition of this. One song is clearly from the early 1980s, full of embarrassing non-1960s sounds, just like you’ve probably heard Frank got into during that time. Also, there’s like 45 minutes of dialogue from Frank’s unfinished movie of the same name that he was making at this time, and it’s what you’d expect, a bunch of unfunny free-form crap and people doing awful New Yawk accents and talking about sex and dirty shit. The actual music is okay, and there’s LOTS of it, and the “King Kong” stuff comes across the best, and it’s all in that whole rococo vibraphone-jazz kiddie-classical whatever you want to call it style that there was lots of on Burnt Weeny Sandwich the next year, but BWS is quite a bit better, IMO. I didn’t really love any of it, though most of it is adequate. Good lord, I mean we all know Frank Zappa is hit and miss and hit and miss…but yeesh.

Bob Dylan, Another Side Of Bob Dylan: This is my pick for the best of Early Bob, no doubt due to, duh, all the songs the Byrds would cover. “My Back Pages” is definitely the best, followed by “Spanish Harlem Incident,” but I liked “Chimes Of Freedom,” “All I Really Want To Do,” etc. as Byrds, so there’s no reason not to like them as Dylan. The two biggest discoveries here were, then, “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Have Never Met)”, which is pretty cute, and of course “It Ain’t Me Babe,” his big kissoff to the folk movement, which I actually was completely unfamilar with before this year. It’s awesome!! Not sure about “Motorpsycho Nitemare” which I know he’d rewrite right away, or “Ballad In Plain D” which is obviously an embarrassment lyrically but I’m not sure what to make of that melody. Not a bad melody, but goes on too long? Go read a Wikipedia entry for more info on the songs, I just think this has the best batting average of his early stuff. But, I’m only a passing fan…

Black Sabbath, 13: Well, what you’ve probably heard about this is that Rick Rubin butchered the production of this studio reunion album, turning into a Vapor Trails style victim of overcompression and clipping and whatnot, but I didn’t have anywhere near as much problem with that as I did with the fact that his idea of “resurrecting” the classic 1970-75 Black Sabbath sound involved simply a)rewriting their old songs in a rather obvious manner (“Zeitgeist” = “Planet Caravan,” “Loner” = “N. I. B,” etc.) and b)making so many of them TOO DAMN LONG. The band sounds fine, Ozzy included. And hey, “Zeitgeist” and “End Of The Beginning” are pretty good rewrites. But not the rest of it. It’s just really long and really mediocre, even if the sound was right, IMO. The bonus tracks “Methademic” and “Naivete In Black” are far better, far more energetic than bores like “Dear Father.” So really, although this was made with good intentions, it’s really not that much better than all the 80s disasters, and I can’t get behind it. Sorry!

The National, Boxer: Inchy squinchy, inchy squinchy, the National get inching even closer to the high point of High Violet…yay. “Mistaken For Anger” is a really great Joy Division-meets-energy thing and “Racing Like A Pro” is really mournful stuff. “Ada,” “Gospel,” “Squalor Victoria”, a few others here and there. Pretty solid. Does anyone here besides me and Norville like this band?