Bangkok Dangerous

Oh brother, here we go over again. A professional killer, years into his callous life history, suddenly develops a conscience. He decides to take a louche street child who has already proved to be na�ve and unreliable under his wing. Vowing to end his life of secret criminal offence, he commits to one more series of venomous assassinations. With each mutilate, he finds himself more and more lost. When the last hit goes pear-shaped, he must champion his honor while decision making whether it is better to be the highly paid hunter, or the common mundane prey. Oh yeah, and for an added soupy effect, there's a deaf girl dearest interest wHO makes the hitman true pine even harder for that elusive, simple life.


Why the Pang brothers (Danny and Oxide) wanted to remaking their 1999 cult favorite Bangkok Dangerous into a mindless, drone Hollywood cab job has only one viable answer -- the interest of former Oscar winner/current paycheck casher Nicolas Cage to play the lead. As Joe, we are treated to Method mediocrity, the kind of performance that finds our systematic killer following strict protocols and certain compact rules as a substitute for depth or actual personal dimension.


The plot has Cage deciding to give up the game, analyzing the ways he can buoy get out of his occupation in one case and for all. He decides to take unrivalled more task in the title metropolis. There, he befriends street hustler Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), turning him into a quasi-prot�g�. The rest of the picture show is a series of setups for uninteresting, if certainly stylized, pop gun payoffs. Eventually, Joe mustiness decide betwixt people and his personal needs piece taking on the crime syndicate that leased him.


In a movie with many problems, the main flaw in Bangkok Dangerous is that Cage's Joe is never presented as a openhearted or compelling figure. He's completely down and disillusioned from the moment we meet him -- and only gets worse as his situation starts to unravel. Instead of exploitation said circumstances to force his last stand, we are granted over to endless sequences of mum brooding. His interest in the local pharmacy salesclerk (Charlie Yeung) who can't hear seems specious, the twist in their relationship telegraphed by Cage's inherent ability to draw danger to himself. Even his interaction with Kong comes across as a saturated narrative device. So does Joe's decision to swoop in and save the thug once the local mobsters decide he's expendable.


In fact, lots of this movie feels like lessons badly learned from John Woo. While they quash the auteur's overuse of slow motion and visual panache, the Pangs experience their have set of irritating onscreen tendencies. They think that mannered music video moves and a total desaturation of vividness equals palpable post-modern noir. It but inspires electric current viewing nausea. Even worse, they hamfist their handling of the film's few action sequences, a ill helmed gravy boat chase never becoming nail-biting or thrilling. Even the final firefight set in a mill is so dark that a night vision lense would quiet render it dimly lighted. About the only efficient moment occurs when Joe's date with his deaf dream girl goes amiss. There, the Pangs wreak on the syrupy situation to wring out a little forced emotion.


If it didn't finger like such a work of Hollywood hubris and if the original elements that made the first film so intriguing (it was Joe, not the girl, world Health Organization could not hear) weren't swept aside for more anti-climatic, antiheroic stance, mayhap we could support what Bangkok Dangerous was strain to reach. But everything here feels like the proverbial good and madness, filled with typical Asian action film gravitas all the same signifying aught. A whole lot of nothing.




Stop praying. It'll be over soon.

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Puerto Rico guesting at Cuban festival

Cubadisco music fair is set for Havana in May




MADRID -- Puerto Rico is to be the guest rural area at the 2009 Cubadisco music fair in Havana from May 16-24, even though the country is affected by the U.S. blockade.

Organizers of the Cuban music event, which is now in its 13th year, say they are not concerned that Puerto Rico is an associated state of the U.S. and hence subject to laws regulating the U.S. blockade against Cuba.

"Our invitation is to the people and culture of Puerto Rico, and we are not troubled by the blockade," Cubadisco president Ciro Benemelis aforementioned. "The main themes will be 'the music of the South', and 'music and children', and we expect it to be a grandiose Cubadisco, as always."

Cubadisco is organized by the Institute of Cuban Music, which is part of the culture ministry. Previous guest countries make included Spain, Germany, the Spanish Caribbean, Japan, China and this year the continent of Africa, which was tended to by 26 African countries, along with a Latin American presence such as musicians from Venezuela as well as Puerto Rican singer Andy Montanez.

The U.S. blockade now makes cultural exchanges betwixt Cuba and the U.S.� -- on both a commercial and personal level -- highly difficult. In recent years, Cuban artists such as Omara Portuondo and the late Ibrahim Ferrer were refused visas to call for Latin Grammy awards or perform.

Democratic party candidate Barack Obama has said he will speak to Cuban leaders without condition and lift restrictions on visits and remittances by Cuban-Americans to the Caribbean island, but Republican candidate John McCain has not indicated any major change from the stream hard line.

Cubadisco 2009 will hold concerts dedicated to important Puerto Rican composers of the twentieth century such as Pedro Flores, a pioneer of the bolero on the island, as well as Rafael Hernandez, Tite Curet Alonso and Bobby Capo. There will likewise be concerts of traditional Puerto Rican music.

Sleeper Cell

   
Artist: Sleeper Cell

   Genre(s): 
Other
   

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Discography:


   
 6 Song

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 6

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Atmosphere

   
Artist: Atmosphere

   Genre(s): 
Other
   Rap: Hip-Hop
   New Age
   

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Discography:


   
 Headshots: Se7en [CD 2]

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 10


   
 Headshots: Se7en [CD 1]

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 21


   
 Trying To Find A Balance

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 6


   
 The Sensation Of Life

   Year: 1994   
Tracks: 10

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Atmosphere is a rap music radical from Minneapolis that centers around doorknocker Slug (aka Sean Daley). The word of a pitch-black father and a white mother wHO divorced when he was a adolescent, Slug became delighted with rap music, graffito, and breakdancing, and formed the Rhyme Sayers Collective with two high school friends -- Siddiq Ali (Focus) and Derek Turner (Spawn). After some early gigs as Urban Atmosphere, where Slug DJed slow Spawn's rhymed, the couple dependent up with producer Ant (Susan Brownell Anthony Davis), as well as like-minded locals such as MC Musab, Mr. Gene Poole, and the Abstract Pack, forming an underground rap music ingroup dedicated to freestyling, cunning and complex lyrics, and anti-gangsta positivity. In 1998, Atmosphere released its debut album, Cloudiness!, which quick became regarded as an resistance hip-hop classical thanks to Slug's deep personal, poetic musings, as well as Ant's bare bones -- just imaginative -- production. The next Atmosphere album was highborn Sad Clown Bad Dub II, a 2000 set originally sold while the mathematical group was on enlistment. (Now out of print, it's a highly sought collector's item). A year later, the chemical group released Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EP's, a collection of triad EPs built about the theme of Slug's complicated relationship with his ex-girlfriend, the lost love of his life. The radical has toured systematically, both at base and overseas; while Ant usually doesn't come with the group on the road, Mr. Dibbs of the radical 1200 Hobos a great deal joins in behind the turntables and Slug is usually assisted on the mic by whitney Young rappers care the teenaged Eyedea. In June 2002, the radical -- down to the duette of Slug and Ant -- unleashed God Loves Ugly, an 18-track effort that returned to previous themes ("F*@k You Lucy"), simply likewise contained the group's most pop-friendly undivided to date, "Modern Man's Hustle." By this time indie rap superstars, Atmosphere returned with their one-fourth album, Seven's Travels, in 2003, followed two days later by You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having.

ANTISOCIAL

   
Artist: ANTISOCIAL

   Genre(s): 
Rock: Punk-Rock
   

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Discography:


   
 Battle Scarred Skinheads

   Year: 1984   
Tracks: 17

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Crowded House's Somerville set a true fan's 'Dream' come true

Crowded House is the kind of band that can hit you with a deep, brooding song about the nature of life and mortality. Then they’ll crack a few jokes.
The band’s always had a split personality - they’re jovial pop guys with a wide depressive streak, and it’s only widened since they reunited last year.
Life has given frontman Neil Finn some heavy things to write about - last year’s reunion album, “Time



Earth,” seemed informed by the death of original drummer Paul Hesterbut - but Finn’s songs were getting deeper and subtler long before that happened. Last night they introduced a handful of new songs that continued the ambitious trend.
While Finn’s songs don’t necessarily sound like hit singles nowadays, they do sound like gorgeous, dark-shaded pop - and at least one of the new tunes (which uncharacteristically featured double keyboards and no guitars) was up with their best. To their credit, Crowded House never pushed the somber mood too far: They had rockers (“Locked Out”) to pull from the catalogue; and well-remembered hits (“Don’t Dream It’s Over”) to balance the unfamiliar songs.
While the band has a more relaxed sound than before, you get the impression that they reunited to explore new ideas, not to trade on nostalgia. The onstage camaraderie seems natural as always. At one point last night, Finn gave bassist Nick Seymour a piggyback ride around the stage.
The small-theater setting proved a payoff for fans, who got a looser and longer show than Crowded House played at the Pavilion last summer. During a 45-minute encore, Finn accepted a dare from someone up front to try playing every song he’d written with someone’s name in the title. This led to almost-never-played songs “Iris” and “Hello Sandy Allen” (both from his former band, Split Enz), with Finn cueing his bandmates on the chord changes.
After a few more deep tracks, he jumped into the front row to lead a singalong on one of his best ballads, “Better Be Home Soon.” That’s the way to return a cult audiences affections.

Art and Jazz Messengers Blakey

   
Artist: Art and Jazz Messengers Blakey

   Genre(s): 
Jazz
   

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Discography:


   
 Caravan

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 8

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