Waiting for Daft Punk: a review

This is going to be hard. Mainly because I don't know anything about music but also because trying to review someone's marketing activity can come across as too earnest.

The last few weeks have been a complete hype fuck. We have essentially been subjected to hints of hints of music videos and had to listen to loathesome characters play some weird Pharrell song on their phones on public transport.

DAFT PUNK are bringing out a new album. You may remember Daft Punk due to their previous videos involving horny mummies, a man with a dog's head and hentai porn vibes.

I think in order to really understand why Daft Punk are getting such insane marketing/hype is to really understand where we all came from. Why Daft Punk releasing a new album means more to us than oh, I don't know, Gucci Mane or Kelly Clarkson releasing a new album.

I actually don't know that much about Dafty Punks really. When their first album dropped I was too busy picking up that new Spice Girls hotness from Virgin Megastores, and when their second album dropped I honestly thought it was a Cher remix album (see hentai porn vibes gif above). I think they released another one after that, but it completely passed me by.

Perhaps people care so much about Dafty Punks because their songs have been sampled by artists that are genuinely famous like Kanye or Wiley. On a side-note, why are Wiley's videos always so terrible?

Maybe Daft Punk are so hot right now because that guy from the Arctic Monkeys album cover sang that song about them playing in his house?

Perhaps people are still feeling burnt after they did the soundtrack to Tron: Legacy and they want some heavy, vibey redemption. Dunno.

So, Daft Punk put their album up for pre-order and people went mental. Then a few weeks later they made this ad that was on during Saturday Night Live, perhaps the least funny TV show ever. No one watches SNL so it had to go viral on YouTube instead.

Pharrell seems to have teamed up with two robotic leather gays and the guy from Chic. Chic made loads of big songs that appear on adverts like Fairy Liquid and Starburst. Might even have had a song on the Flubber soundtrack. Everyone seems to be really sparkly, which is good I think.

Anyway, a short while after this the song came out on iTunes and the Spotify mobile app went mental and started ringing everyone telling them about the new Daft Punk song. Was quite weird and made everyone feel weird when they "got the call".

Then a little while later everyone stayed home and decided the stream the album on iTunes. It was really weird and quite sad. People put embarrassing statuses up on Facebook like "liking what I'm hearing so far", or "omg I hate this, can't believe they hyped it so hard".

I listened for a bit and thought it was OK. I liked the bit when that old drag queen Giorgio Moroder talked for a bit. Don't actually know who he is anyway. Checked his Wikipedia and he won some Oscars. Great. You know who else has won an Oscar? Three 6 Mafia.

And now the album is out. Everyone is feeling quite dejected because it didn't fulfil the hype dream. Just like when the Nintendo Gamecube came out. How many times am I going to skim the Death Star in Rogue Leader? Not many times. Plus Luigi's Mansion was a joke.

I feel like the buildup went quite well for Daft Punk and their record label. They got loads of interest from people like me, pretending I know who Daft Punk are and having an opinion on their "early work". Now the hype is over and we're all here, together, wondering what to hype next.

In other news, Great Gatsby is out! Watch this space...

Overall score: 6.1/10

Lincoln: a review

We're back baby.

So a few weeks ago I went and saw Lincoln. Lincoln is a new movie by Steven Spielberg who is famous for doing ET and also Schindler's List. He also did Jaws which I saw for the first time recently and quite frankly it was bloody great.

I had high expectations for this movie. It's has like a 426% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it is widely expected to win an Academy Award. Academy Awards are the ultimate validation for movies. Sometimes movies win Golden Globes and BAFTAs but then when they get to the Oscars and don't win everyone realises that they are shit.

So Lincoln begins while the Civil War is happening. Lincoln is played by Daniel Day-Lewis who everyone says is great but quite frankly is crap and is in crap movies. Did you see Gangs of New York? Utter shit. He's a bit like Johnny Depp. When was the last time you saw a Johnny Depp movie that was good? But I digress...whatever that means.

Back to the Civil War. Lincoln is intensely timid and relaxed and frankly isn't very presidential. You wouldn't see Ronald Reagan acting like that. Pathetic. So early on in the movie Lincoln meets these black soldiers who are fighting for the Union. They chat to him for a bit about how they want equal rights. He's nice to them but basically tells them to fuck off. Then these white guys show up and do a crap job of reciting the Gettysburg Address. Then it turns out one of the black guys knows all the words off by heart and this basically means that he is a genius.

Lincoln has a chat with the guy who plays Albie Duncan in the West Wing and the guy says he wants to chat to Jefferson Davis about calling the war off. Lincoln decides to send him to do so and then later the Confederacy sends a DELEGATION to negotiate something. Whatever.

Then Tommy Lee-Jones turns up and quite frankly fucking nails it. Initially you think he is a massive racist but actually he isn't. He loves black people. Literally loves them. He wears this mad wig and looks bloody old. Puts on a pretty good accent though.

Then you wouldn't believe what happens next. Tommy from 3rd Rock shows up. It seems like where ever you go these days Tommy from 3rd Rock appears and walks around and then pisses off and has no bearing on the film's story. It's ridiculous. If I write the words "Tommy from 3rd Rock shows up" again I'm going to blow up my local Odeon.

Anyway where were we? Oh yeah. No where. This movie is all over the fucking place. Did I mention that Lincoln commissions a bunch of Hobbits to go around bribing people to vote for the abolition of slavery? There is this one guy who is a massive racist and he just sits in the House of Representatives scowling at people. Classic Democrat.

In the end, they vote to abolish slavery and Lincoln's wife doesn't go into an asylum even though she is blatantly mental. Tommy Lee-Jones takes his wig off and gets into bed with a black woman. Actually he also steals the roll call paper thing which seems a bit weird. Imagine if I yoinked the Magna Carta for the evening to show my wife. Wouldn't happen.

Final point is that the movie is like 8 hours long. It's so fucking boring but I'll probably buy the Blu-ray anyway because I get taken in by advertising.

Overall score: 3.3/10

The Dark Knight Rises: a review

This is going to be one of my more challenging reviews, largely because I can't really remember any of the movie but I'm going to try to piece things together and give you a decent overview anyway.

The film begins with Bruce Wayne hiding in his room for 8 years. No one can see him except for Michael Caine. Someone in the film makes a joke about him collecting jars of his own urine, which I'm assuming is a reference to The Aviator. I think that this is a real low blow. The Aviator was great and has loads of stuff you can quote or impersonate. You don't get any of that in Batman.

So anyway, some woman who is pretending to be a waitress tries to steal Bruce Wayne's fingerprints and his mother's necklace. She succeeds. Bruce Wayne goes way less ballistic than expected. Turns out the woman is Catwoman but I didn't pick this up until someone told me afterwards. I think her day job is pimp but can't really tell.

Then we see Bane, who is great. He is essentially a guy from the Middle East but has a very posh accent. He sounds like Krang from Turtles.

He is quite muscular and beats up Batman and then banishes him to this weird prison that you can just climb out of. Then Bruce Wayne does some press-ups and climbs out of it.

Then Tommy from 3rd Rock crops up again and walks around a bit and becomes a detective. Then he chats to some kids and walks around some more.

Then we get near the end and it turns out that one of the characters that I didn't even notice is actually a bad guy. She dies (spoiler). Bane dies? Or does he? Dunno.

Then Batman blows himself up and goes on holiday with Michael Caine. Tommy from 3rd Rock turns into Robin from the old comics and movies. No sign of Katie Holmes. The chap from 28 Days Later becomes a judge and makes people walk on the ice and die. But then the guy with the moustache manages not to die on the ice.

That's all I remember from the movie. It was really terrible. I pretty much told you what happens in the paragraphs above but it took around 3 HOURS! It was ridiculous.

I got really cold in the cinema as well and ate too much popcorn. Felt like I wasted the day.

Overall score: 1.2/10

The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: a review

The 2012 Olympics started the other day and to celebrate they got the guy who directed 28 Days Later to curate the opening ceremony. I have to confess I didn’t actually watch it live and only picked it up via BBC iPlayer clips and also the odd GIF here and there. I know it seems a bit weird to write a review of something you haven’t experienced properly but whatever. I just want to have fun.

Anyway, they opened the whole thing with a bunch of kids singing while people pretended to play cricket on grass. Then they got Brunel to stand around and recite some Shakespeare. Then the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION happened, which looked basically the same as when Saruman went mental in Lord of the Rings and got all the orcs to destroy Isengard.

Then later they got Mr Bean to do some visual comedy. I was never a fan of Mr Bean but I liked Blackadder 1 - which was basically Mr Bean but in the old days and with talking and Brian Blessed.

In between Isengard and Bean they also did this thing where the Olympic rings FLEW IN and started sparking hella crazy. Wasn’t bad actually.

Later on they did a tribute to the NHS by getting loads of sick children to jump on beds that had been retrofitted as trampolines. It sounds better than it was.

Then they did this weird thing where a girl loses her phone and has to travel from 1960 to 2012 via music to find it. She snogs someone at the end (spoiler!). Dizzee Rascal also performs.

Then we get to the best thing to happen possibly ever. They decided to get a camera and have it pan around Sir Tim Berners-Lee while he invents the internet and dances. Note on attention to detail: he is using a NeXT computer to do this. Someone mentioned this to me on Facebook and I pretended that I noticed but actually I was lying. 1–0 to me!

So then they did this thing where someone sang Abide With Me solemnly while people danced really dramatically. This was definitely the worst bit because it was like Olympic Opening Ceremonies in other boring countries. You could definitely picture this kind of thing in Sydney 2000 - no offence Australians (haw haw!).

Then we saw the obligatory Paul McCartney performance and Seb Coe and the guy from the IOC spoke for a while. The athletes then went on parade and the United States had Ralph Lauren outfits and looked incredible.

Overall, probably the best thing I’ve seen this year. I hope they release this on Blu-Ray so I can watch it anytime in HD at my leisure on my 37 inch LED side-lit 1080p TV.

Overall score: 9.7/10

Moonrise Kingdom: a review

I went to see Moonrise Kingdom. It was another of those Wes Anderson movies with kids in. A bit like Rushmore but with more kids and maybe younger.

The kids go to this summer camp in the 1960s, which doesn’t really resonate with me because we don’t go to summer camp in the UK. Or anywhere else in the world I think. Don’t quote me on that, I couldn’t be bothered to do any research on it.

Anyway, this one kids runs away because he wants to nail a female teen/tween, who parades in her underwear and is quite frankly jailbait. Pretty chill.

So the guy from American History X, Bruce Willis and Bill Murray are in it. I guess that’s all there is to say about those three though. Tilda Swinton wears a hat in it, which seems to denote that she works for the Department for Children Stuff. But I don’t think it works like that.

Anyway I sat though the movie but some guy kept laughing all through it, which threw me off. Basically nothing happened and I didn’t really identify with any of the characters. Bruce Willis adopts the main kid in the end. Sorry to spoil it for you.

Overall score: 5.5/10