RKNet Blog... Thing

In recent years there has become almost a tradition of graphic novels and comics being converted into amazing movies. Spiderman, Road to Perdition, Sin City, 30 Days of Night, and of course Batman.

A while back I saw a film called Faust: Love of the Damned. I could go on and on about my impression of the film. Indeed, I found myself lying awake, babbling in a stunned fashion over what I’d encountered. Truth be told I wish I remembered half my commentary. The movie is realy a comedy goldmine for those who enjoy a MST3K the Home Game viewing experience. For those who feel as though they are brave enough to bear witness to the whole thing, I feel obligated to give you a taste of what you’re prepared for.

The Good:

• This film makes no qualms about what it is and compensates fairly adequately by including several non-disturbing shots that feature (very nice) breasts.
• It features cops being sliced, beheaded, dismembered, and otherwise mutilated.*
• This film offers just about every kind of death you can think of: poisoning, fire, being eaten by a monster, head blown off, head cut off, guts spilled, buried alive, and death by curse.
• It’s got that guy from the Wishmaster movies. (and I guess he’s been in Lost, too.)
• Will heavily add to your “I Watch Bad Movies” cred.
• The male protagonist has an entertaining Renfield vibe at the beginning of the film.

The Bad:

• This film makes no qualms about what it is and includes several disturbing shots that include breasts, ruining the bonus points that breast shots ordinarily give to a film.
• It features cops being sliced, beheaded, dismembered, and otherwise mutilated.*
• Poorly researched psychology references riddle the film like cancer through a lab rat.
• Even more poorly researched occult references. I’m no expert but man some of this stuff would make a teenage wicca fanatic shake their head shame of the inaccuracy.
• The male protagonist turns into some kind of cheese-tastic Spawn/The Mask/Wolverine mashup.
• Female protagonist gets brainwashed into a nympho by being beaten, electrocuted, and forced to confront her past, but the actress clearly doesn’t ever get nude. (This seems like a cop-out compared to the fearlessness of her castmates.)

The OH MY GOD MY MIND IS BEING VIOLATED! (OMGMMIBV!):

• This film makes no qualms about what it is and includes a scene with disturbing special-effect breasts.
• Suggested rape of an eleven year old girl by a guy with no face.

*I realize that people are divided on the treatment of police, real or fictional, so I am willing to count this aspect both good and bad as it relates to one’s personal perspective on the matter. I should like to clarify that for the purpose of this story it does appear that all the police are apparently a part of some evil conspiracy.

Thanks to the hard work of io9’s Annalee Newitz, I’m able to point you in the direction of one of the more OMGMMIBV! clips. It’s NSFW, and it’s epic as hell.

50,000,000 Blank White Pixels for starters. Although I prefer to see it as an exercise in photoshoppery, combined with an unwillingess to stagnate into the blah conformity of constant stress.

My private, LAN-based ShoutCast radio station. I enjoy sharing my musical collection and providing my co-workers and myself with an enjoyable soundscape for the day. Incidentally, the Last.FM stats seen here are coughed up by the box running the Shoutcast. Which means the presented stats aren’t all “me” in the strictest sense.
Work. Always with the work.
I’ve been playing a lot of Pokemon Pearl since I got my hands on the game. The changes they’ve made (like time-sensitive events, better dual-pokemon battles, etc) really add a new level of enjoyment to the standard of gameplay they’ve set up. While I agree with my friend John that the battles themselves are still sort of slow, I’m pretty accustomed to that from years of RPG-type “random encounter” battles. It’s really not that much of a sacrifice. Besides, I got a freaking Abra before I even got my first badge! What’s up now, bitches?! (Incidentally, I don’t have a good place to connect for WiFi play, so no friend code action until I get a real wireless router.)
This blog. Yes it’s true. I spent a few hours last night just slapping social widgets and whatnots into the template. Of course, this template is highly temporary. I have every intention in the world of redoing the entire site to something more cross-browser compatible and attractive… or at least more cross-browser compatible.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time on IRC and a lot of time playing with Twitter. I’m in the mood to absorb ideas and assimilate people into my “circle of contacts”. There are few things I like more than knowing who to ask about certain subjects. The internet is a vast array of tubes crammed with all the information I could ever want, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to just ask somebody about something you’d like to know.
Yeah. Anyway. Time to stop wasting time and figure out what to do with the rest of today.

http://www.azuli.com/full-details/?s=67135c9d2024662c695090f3c6be4697&id=537&category=1

This compliation is to die for. It opens with some pleasantly ethereal Bjork. In contrast to the Filter review, this song’s album of origin is not one I assumed I must own. Point of fact, I myself only like Bjork’s material in small doses. (They mentioned a few others I didn’t necessarily classify as flat-out essential. At least, not until I heard this compilation.) This happens to be a particularly pungent and heady dose, a good kickoff to the tone and caliber of this album overall.

The album is sprinkled throughout with the deep, heartwarming and bizzare mix of sonic encounters one has come to expect from a group like the Flaming Lips. Although, ironically enough the track I found least intriguing was the one contrbuted by the band responsible for putting together this otherwise stellar mix of sound. They procure a cover of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, cheekily titled “Harry Potter and George Bush’s Severed Head Mix”. The listenablility factor is somewhat qwestionerball, what with the heavy presence of siren sounds and the like. However, if one like’s Faust’s odd buzzy tone in the chorus of their contribution (It’s a Bit of a Pain, track 4), then one is apt to enjoy this cover. The other track liable to raise a few eyebrows is the last. It’s part of a series, and not part of the Lips’ picks at all. Worth a listen for the beat poetical value, but definitely not for everyone.

The booklet is highly edifying in this audio journey, and provides a really candid glimpse into the band that is the Flaming Lips - more than worth a look in my opinion.

In these busy days of iPods and burnt discs cobbled together from oddball MP3s, it’s nice to be able to pop down to the record store, and get a total education on music from a single disc. Skim the tracklist, if you don’t know half the artists, and are a Flaming Lips fan, then I implore you to trust their judgement. I picked it up in a Virgin MegaStore, but you can find it online here.

On a one to ten scale, I give this disc an overall of 9.7. Would have scored a perfect if it wasn’t for the two slightly awkward tracks and the realization that I have a lot of albums to buy. (Sebadoh’s Harmacy down… a whole bunch more to go.)

If you like:

Techno -
07 - Flim Aphex Twin
11 - Playground for a Wedgeless Firm Chemical Brothers

Pretty Rock -
03 - Speed of Sound Chris Bell
06 - People Alfie
16 - On Fire Sebadoh

Utterly Unique -
09 - Up The Down Escalator The Chameleons
10 - Seven Nation Army Flaming Lips

Instrumental -
08 - Galileo Mice Parade
02 - My Ship Miles Davis
12 - Saudade Love and Rockets

Old Skoolish -
14 - Sleep Comes Down Psychedelic Furs
18 - I’m Not In Love 10cc

Dreamy -
13 - Monochrome Lush
15 - River Man Nick Drake
17 - Pyramid Song Radiohead