Review: Cracker - Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey

Cracker! Where the hell have you been?

For the longest time, I had the feeling something was a bit amiss. Today, I found out what it was. It came back to me in the form of of a CD in my mailbox this morning. This "it" was the new collection of songs from Cracker entitled, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey.

I admit, I've not been among the true faithful for a few years. Countrysides was fun, if sloppily drunken and Greatest Hits Redux was nice to hear, but it felt like the last gasp of Cracker as a recording group. I felt that their last effort, Greenland, was basically the final curtain for one of my favorite, enduring bands. I was so non plussed by that album, it became the first and only Cracker album I listened to once and then abandoned. Sure it was a good, well written album, but there wasn't any fire. Greenland sounded like a former Hell and brimstone band retiring to their rocking chairs. I said, "Thanks for the memories" and moved on.

Today was the wake up call. Cracker's new album, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey, is the musical (and lyrical) Phoenix rising from the ashes of the Greenland album. In many ways, this is Cracker's most explosive selection of material since their first disc back in 1991.

From the opening track, "Yalla Yalla (Let's Go)" [see the video here], it's clear that Cracker isn't going to be introspective or sentimental. Frank Funaro's metronome drum bash and David Lowrey's throaty rasp sell the plight of a US soldier's day patrolling the Middle East. The following two tracks, "Show Me How This Thing Works" and "Turn on, Tune In, Drop Out With Me" find the band falling back into familiar territory that one would find as filler on any Cracker album. The former tune has a Sci Fi bent with the narrator musing over a device seemingly from Outer Space. The latter tune (the weakest on the album) was selected as the album's first single. It's a pleasant song with a Jeff Lynne style production, but it's maybe a bit too MOR for the tracks that share the disc with it.

"We All Shine a Light" is a custom made lighter raising club anthem featuring "X" front man John Doe lending extra credence to the tune, while "Hand Me My Inhaler" makes the most of it's brief running time with a rollicking punk sensibility that hearkens back to Camper Van Beethoven's earliest albums.

"Friends", a Johnny Hickman penned tune that he previously recorded on his solo album, Stonehenge turns up here in duet form with David Lowrey trading verses with Drive By Truckers' Alumni Patterson Hood. The song sounds like a virtual re-write of "Mr. Wrong" from the first Cracker album and there's just a bit of wonder in this reviewers mind as to why Johnny didn't share vocals with Lowrey instead.

The last 5 songs pretty much solidify the album's brilliance quotient. "I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right" lays down a sinewy funk that wouldn't sound out of place on a Zutons album. "Time Machine" is a straight ahead rocker that Johnny Hickman completely shreds with a killer guitar riff and one of his fiercest solos he's played in years.

"Hey Brett (You Know What Time It Is)" gets a bit political with it's pointed lyrics and a band in-joke chorus. "Darling One", a song written by Lowrey with Mark Linkous and Suzanna Hoffs with backing vocals by Adam Duritz, is a lovely upbeat love song with a soaring guitar from Johnny.

The Album ends with the title track, "Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey". It's a great album closer that left me wanting to start the whole album over again.

You can read from the past paragraphs that this is a new phase of production for Cracker. In the past, Cracker (that is Hickman and Lowrey) would do the majority of the writing and finish the songs with whoever else was in the band at the time. On this endeavour, the songs were written by Lowrey, Hickman, Funaro and the latest bassist, Sal Maida. I don't believe there has been this much outer assistance since the first album, when Davey Faragher (who gets a liner note shout out with his publishing company) was the first official member of Cracker.

This album is not to be missed. No matter if you haven't heard Cracker in awhile... or if the last couple of albums had left you cold... or if you're a dyed in the wool fan of Cracker Soul, you should make the purchase when the album is released on May 5th (yeah, Cinco De Mayo). It's highly recommended.

Review: "L. Save The World"

I am not the world's biggest Anime fan, nor am I the biggest Manga fan. It's not that I hate either medium, I just never really got "it" until a few years ago. Even then, I really only got into it because of the Live Action films they spawned (the exception to that rule would be the Beck Anime). I suppose you could say my appreciation for all things Anime and Manga were due to me being "Backwards Compatible". Battle Royale, Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls), Cutie Honey and even Cromartie High School were all seen by me as a live action movie before I experienced the Anime or Manga (and in the case of Battle Royale, a translation of the original source novel).The same thing happened to me with Death Note. A good friend of mine clued me in on the Death Note Anime which, of course, began as a Manga, but I ended up seeing the first two films (Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name) prior to either. Of course, my friend was correct and I ended up wholly embracing the Death Note stories.

One of the most appealing things about the whole Death Note experience is it's wonderful cast of characters. From the Kira's Light and Misa to the Sinigami's Rem and Ryuk, the characterizations in Death Note are a big reason behind it's success in Japan and abroad. Of course, the most popular character in the Death Note universe is, arguably, the master detective known as L. Although L sacrifices himself at the end of the second Death Note film, the character's popularity is so great that he warranted his own spin off film.

Directed by Hideo Nakata, L. Save The World, is a fine solid action film that touches on both Death Note mythology (although the actual Death Note is merely a cursory part of the story) and (most surprisingly) Hideo's own screen adaptation of RING. L. Save The World starts around the same time Death Note: The Last Name is wrapping up. All of the characters from the first two films are given brief face time to tie the film into the last one and elicit a smile or two from Death Note fans. You see, in the previous film, L had written his own name in the Death Note in order to flush out the mysterious Kira. The mission was accomplished, but it left L with only 23 days to live. This film deals with L's final days and the one last mystery he has to solve before his self imposed death.

The last mystery involves an Ebola virus spliced and mutated to an influenza virus that Eco terrorists are planning to use to thin out the human race and set the Earth's ecology back on track. As the film opens, the virus has already ravaged a small village in Thailand. There in Thailand, another super detective, F, discovers both the diabolical plan and a little boy who seems impervious to the virus. The boy winds up in the custody of L, as does the daughter of a scientist who sacrifices himself to stop the spread of said virus. From there it's L and the children on a race against time to find an antidote to the virus and to stop the Eco terrorists from going through with their plan.

As Director Hideo demonstrated brilliantly in RING, he is a master of the "Race Against Time" plot line. L's race against time to solve the one final mystery directly parallels Asakawa and Ryuji's race to save their son from certain death in 7 days. The big difference here, and one that works in favor of L. Save The world, is L knows his time is limited and nothing can be done about it. The protagonists in RING are living on a hope that they'll all get a reprieve if they solve the mystery. L knows there's no hope left in his surviving past what was written in the Death Note. He's solving the mystery and saving the world just because that's what he does. Another, albeit tenuous, RING connection is this film is to the other Death Note movies what Spiral and Loop are to the RING novel. It's an extension of the storyline, but it doesn't actually continue the storyline. I personally like that approach very much. Having yet another Shinigami show up with a black book wouldn't have cut it for me. I also surprised myself by liking the direct line made between Terrorists and Serial Killers. Usually observations like that in Cinema can come off as extremely preachy. Here, however, the approach was very much of a, "Here it is, absorb it or reject it" type of commentary. The film is full of nice, non condescending touches like that.

Ken'ichi Matsuyama (L) is the undisputed selling point of this movie. His portrayl of L is the film's complete raison d'être and, thankfully, he doesn't disappoint here. All of the mannerisms and quirks that endeared audiences to the Live Action edition of L are all in place. His scenes with the children are nothing short of precious and worth the price of admission alone. His realisation that he's not a very good babysitter since, genius notwithstanding, he's not much more than a child himself is priceless. There are also some expansions of the L character, including a scene where, emotionally exhausted after finishing up all of his open cases on record, we actually see him asleep. He also does the action scenes very well, introducing a physicality to the character while never breaking the L character.

Some may roll their eyes at the overblown action finale (including an intentional (?) homage to Airplane!), but I dug it. It's one of those films where, either you go for the entire ride, or you walk away. The film never gets too, too serious and the sense of fun is always there. On the downside, the intellectual cat and mouse games that dominated the first two Death Note movies are all but gone here. It's a different kind of movie, though. I'd surely love to see more L films; earlier cases and mysteries he may have solved prior to the Death Note case.

GRINDHOUSE Review! SEE! SEE! SEE!

Saw Grindhouse today.

You may not know this, but it's not that original an idea for a film. Back in 1976, there was a film called MOVIE/MOVIE that was just about the exact same thing, except it was a tribute/parody of 1940's double features. It starred George C. Scott, Harry Hamlin and Barry Bostwick. The film included a black and white 'B' Boxing picture and a full color Busby Berkley style musical, complete with trailers in between the pictures... and they did it all in 2 hours. It's not out on video and I don't know why. It's a fine film and I think it would be fantastic to have now to show the know-it-all film fans and reviewers of late that they're not exactly inventing the wheel here.

GRINDHOUSE is a noble effort, but it falls short of what it sets out to do. The directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino show a lot of love for the idea of Grindhouse films but not much actual knowledge of how and why they existed 30 years ago. You just can't watch a bunch of Something Weird videos and think you're an expert on an entire sub genre of film making. Because of this basic lack of understanding, the film is ultimately hollow. The problems here are many. There are too many film imperfections here. Lines and scratches are okay, I guess, but burning frames, sudden discolorations and warpages are too distracting. Same to same, purposely splicing the film is all right for effect, but to not have it affect the soundtrack is not realistic. Likewise, the missing sequence title cards don't seem as clever as they seem desperate and lackadaisical. It's like, when they found themselves in a place were they couldn't get from scene 'A' to scene 'B', they just dropped in a scene missing piece and skipped to the next part with no rhyme or reason. My biggest beef may be the use of 5.1 digital surround sound. Um, no people. Old Grindhouse palaces were lucky if the center mono speaker worked properly. There was no surround sound for those films.

My Breakdown of the film?

The MACHETE trailer was great. How the hell did they cull all those Adolph Caesar soundbites for that narration?

PLANET TERROR was pretty much self serving crap. Too many winks at the audience; too many film imperfections. I'm 38 years old and I remember a lot of the original films they paid homage to. Those films didn't look like that then. They do NOW, but not then. Also, it wasn't a very Grindhouse type film. Rodriguez is too Mexican-centric. Yeah, he's Mexican, but he can do other types of films, right? PLANET TERROR should have been aping Italian productions like "Cannibal Apocalypse" and "Nightmare City" than whatever the hell he was trying to do. The whole Strippers, Guns, Undead Things, etc... is as big a yawn for me as it was 5 minutes after FROM DUSK TILL DAWN ended.

Thank God for Josh Brolin, though. He's looking more like his dad every day and he was the only saving grace for me in that film (though, Bruce Willis made for a nice John Saxon stand in). Stacy Ferguson was a delightful surprise. She was actually attractive and sexy here and her short scenes were well acted. I wish I could say the same for Rose McGowan. OK, I'll say it. She's terrible. She's an enormously untalented actress and she never found the right tone for the character. Her dialogue was contrived and poorly written to begin with. It would have taken an actress five times her talent to deliver them properly and she ain't that actress. Marley Shelton was a lot better as Josh Brolin's character's wife. She had the right tone, even when carrying her dead son around. Which brings me to a problem.

(SPOILER)

There is a scene where her son shoots himself with a revolver. This scene sent two people in the theatre into absolute hysterics. Can someone tell my why this is funny? Please? I mean a proper answer. Not just, "It WAS funny!" or "it was funny because it was shocking!" Those answers are not acceptable. If you laughed at that scene, stop reading this now and go away forever... and kill yourself just so you can understand how funny it is (maybe then I'll get the joke).

All in all, it was overkill. Too gory, to gooey, too self aware, too in love with itself... too too much. My advice, come to GRINDHOUSE 80 minutes late, 'cause it gets better from here.

THE INTERMISSION TRAILERS... Rob Zombie's Werewolves vs. Nazis trailer, "Werewolves of the S S" was a bit obnoxious (Nick Cage? C'mon!). Why doesn't he just admit he wants to be Johnny Legend? Edgar Wright's "Don't" was brilliant: Just everything an American trailer for a British film should have been (and was!). The Nick Frost cameo had me rolling. Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" will be the most remembered, but it's not the best one, just the most in your face shocking.

DEATH PROOF was, aside from being too talky, pretty astounding considering I hate most of Tarantino's work (I think his only great film was JACKIE BROWN). I was amazed at how much I liked it. It wasn't the second coming, mind you; it wasn't even Grindhouse material... it was pure drive in; but it was everything it should have been. The movie had me immediately when the opening (retitled) credits were set to Jack Nitzsche's "The Last Race". The soundtrack is awesome, though that in itself is a problem: No film like that would ever be able to afford a soundtrack like that.

I love Zoe Bell now. She isn't stunningly beautiful, but she's quite attractive. That is, she does have a quiet star quality. Kurt Russell was really fun to watch. It's really amazing that, when you see him in action, you start to wonder where the hell he's been? He needs to make more movies like this. Rosario Dawson, my love, is totally wasted here. There's just no reason for her presence. Sorry, hon. I love ya, but try for some roles with meat in the future. Tracey Thoms was quite delicious as Zoe's sidekick (Tracey, if you're reading... I'm single. Marry me and you only have to change the last letter of your name. Call me. I'm waiting).

Yes, the film was very Tarantino with long winded stretches of dialogue (mind you this portion of the film was only 80 minutes) so as to mask the fact that there is no real plot to speak of. Still, the scene at the dinner table where the girls talk about a bunch of films that I personally grew up on gave me a warm feeling. The Tarantino / Rodreguez hounds won't understand (I doubt they'd ever heard of "Vanishing Point", "White Line Fever", "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" and "Big Wednesday" until this film), but it made me smile. The car chase sequences are all done for real and it shows. They are very impressive. The only thing really missing from Death Proof is an ending. It just ends. It really needed a wraparound.

All in all I liked it I guess, but I think the most impressive, smile inducing part was the Film Leader Queens tribute during the end credits. Only people who handle film would get that one so I won't explain it. Some things just need to be kept between us film hounds.