Movie Review: Breaking Upwards

Album Review: Mighty Tiger's Western Theater

What's in the Inbox: Stat Quo "Success (Back to U)"

Seattle-based Mighty Tiger create faux-vintage studio rock (like Field Music, Real Estate, and Fleet Foxes) on their debut for Paper Garden Records, Western Theater. Throughout the LP, a noticeable analog warmth is audible, but the motif occasionally feels contrived, like a thrift-store blazer over an Ed Hardy tee.

The opening two tracks exemplify this shortcoming as the band attempts a caffeine-fueled Apples in Stereo pace, even though they appear at home with a more reserved tempo. The other noticeable mistep occurs when ”Hands in Holy Water” forsakes lyricism to make a point. The anti-suburban-hippie rant is witty but barely musical, at least until the bridge.

When the band does succeed, the results are impressive. “33 1/3″ is a catchy pop masterpiece and by far the album’s strongest moment, complete with a string-backed hook, percussive piano, and a bouncy bassline.  The synth foundation, persistent picking, and vocal harmonies… … Album Review: Mighty Tiger’s Western Theater

If you’re reading this article, chances are good you’ve heard of xkcd, the thrice-weekly stick figure webcomic by Randall Munroe. I’ve been reading (and loving) it for over three years now because of science strips like this one, computer strips like this one, and all-around awesome strips like this one. I own an xkcd T-shirt and a signed xkcd print.

You see, I’m biased.

I’ve been pondering, though. With many things I enjoy (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Matrix trilogy), I’m well aware of the sizable minority (or even majority) who dislike them. After all, LotR has no shortage of detractors, and if you haven’t seen a Harry Potter hate site, you haven’t been on the internet. But somehow, I’d always assumed that xkcd was different; I guess I just figured it was one of those things, like sunshine, Earthbound, and Patrick Stewart, that… … Does xkcd Suck?

Like most of the cast of Flight of the Conchords, Arj “Dave” Barker’s day job is comedianing. He opened for the duo on one third of their 2009 tour and recently debuted his first titled Comedy Central special, having appeared on Comedy Central Presents twice in the past decade. The CD/DVD combo and DVD hit stores Tuesday.

On LYAO, Barker often practices the brand of comedy, popularized mainly by Jerry Seinfeld, in which logical explanations for mundane complaints are ignored. The most parodied example would be “What’s up with airplane food.” In this scenario, the audience is asked to ignore the fact that this food leaves one wanting because it’s served thousands of feet above the nearest kitchen.

This “suspension of knowledge” let’s call it (as opposed to the suspension of disbelief that allows one to enjoy fiction) allows us to laugh when logic… … Review: Arj Barker – LYAO

We’re finally back to let you know what other great music you may have missed (or forgotten) in 2009. This entry features choices from Matt M. and Jarret G.,  along with some honorable mentions. Make sure to read Part 1, if you haven’t.

Mastodon Crack the Skye

It’s not a stretch to call Crack the Skye the magnum opus of metal’s reigning kings, Mastodon. Crack the Skye may not be the crushing, brutal metal behemoth that Blood Mountain was, but it’s more accomplished overall. Take, for example, “Divinations.” In the first minute alone, the band offers an accelerated banjo part, a similar guitar arpeggio joining it, a drum roll, more crunching guitar riffs, and Brent Hinds’s dueling vocals, which vary between his spacey howl and clinched growl. It’s not every day that a metal band completes a four-album cycle based on the Classical four elements,… … Best Albums of 2009 (Part 2)

I’ve got an idea. Tell me what you think of it.

Say you develop a fun, addictive online game – let’s say a browser-based RPG, something like AdventureQuest but aimed more toward an older demographic. A common feature of such games is that the game itself is free (or cheap) but there is premium content – weapons, items, etc. – that you have to pay for. They draw people in with a low barrier to entry, then once their players are hooked, they reach for the wallets. Simple enough, right?

Now imagine a single twist: the money players pay for the premium content doesn’t go to the game company. It goes to charity.

You can advance, get experience points, without paying anything. But if you want that Lightning Sword, it’ll be a dollar to the Red Cross (or Direct Relief, or some other worthy cause)…. … Could a Video Game Help End World Poverty?

Insulinfunk is aware of our total lack in originality in doing a “Best Albums of the Year” list. We would like you, general reader, to be aware of the originality of our list. We took every CD that came out in 2009 (excluding the Beatles remasters) and tossed them onto the roof of The Old Bridge Inn in Greenville, Kentucky. Next, we collected the ones that fell to the ground and wrote a blog post about Transformers instead.

Then, Wes, Matt, and Jarret picked albums from this year they thought were good.

Japandroids Post-Nothing

Like most of the duos that have pervaded this decade, Japandroids have enough guitar to more than make up for the lack of other instruments. With Brian King’s rapid-fire rhythm guitar (usually with clean and distorted layers on the album) and David Prowse’s straight-up rock drumming, Post-Nothing is 35 minutes of great indie rock…. … The Best Albums of 2009 (Part 1)

Just what is the most overrated book of all time? For starters, let’s put aside religious texts like the Bible and the Koran, because that’s a can of worms tucked inside a hornet’s nest. I’m talking secular here, y’all. And just for kicks we’ll narrow the focus even further: fiction only.

Now. Just how overrated can you get?

There are the usual knee-jerk responses, of course: Harry Potter, Twilight, The Wheel of Time, Eragon. But Harry Potter and The Wheel of Time are actually pretty good reads, and as for Twilight and Eragon, they’re not overrated because they’re not really rated that high to begin with.

In fact, I’d venture to say that within the realm of science fiction and (modern) fantasy, there isn’t much that’s incredibly overrated. The genres are young enough that only a handful of works, like Frankenstein, have achieved classic status; and few… … The Most Overrated Book of All Time

I’ll start with a simple and fairly obvious fact: Twilight is not a good movie. The acting is bad, the plot is boring, and the villains are about as scary as Lord Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. So it should be pretty obvious that anyone who enjoys it is stupid and should start liking cooler things. Right?

No. No, no, no.

And I’ll tell you why. It’s not because the world needs everyone to join together in brotherly love, hold hands, sing “Imagine,” and weave hemp prayer rugs. It’s because, paradoxical as it sounds, hating the fans of Twilight goes against the very core of what it means to be a geek.

Let me explain.

Being a geek is all about liking things that are awesome, because they are awesome, regardless of what anyone else may think. Do theoretical physicists care that Paris Hilton isn’t interested in… … Hating Twilight Will Not Make You Cool

If you’ve ever been on the Internet (and I suspect you have) you likely at some point encountered one or more of the following:

• Pirates
• Ninjas
• Zombies
• Robots
• Monkeys
• Vampires
• Cthulhu
• LOLcats
• pr0n

These are staples of Internet dialogue because, as Staples should, they provide an Easy Button: no need to invent your own new, creative idea! Just reach for one of these! Writing a webcomic? You could come up with deep complex characters OR you could throw in some ninjas fighting some robot monkeys, add a few sprites and call it a day. Done. Easy!

But of course you cannot spell staples without “stale” (go on, try!) and I submit to you that even such venerable tropes as the pantheon above can grow weary from overuse; indeed, I say they already have. So what’s a global computer network to do? Shall we turn away from our childish pursuits and train… … Blank Is The New Blank

Did you hear? Books are on the way out! No, it’s true. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Philip Roth says so. Within 25 years, he says, novel-reading will be a minority, cultish activity, something that not too many people do anymore.

“The book can’t compete with the screen,” says Roth. “It couldn’t compete [in the] beginning with the movie screen. It couldn’t compete with the television screen, and it can’t compete with the computer screen. Now we have all those screens, so against all those screens a book couldn’t measure up.”

He further explains, “To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading” that American culture will no longer have in 25 years.

If at this point you find yourself confused, this simple chart may help.

Things Philip Roth is good at: writing novels.

Things Philip Roth is laughably bad at: predicting the future.

In… … Why Won’t You People Believe My Ridiculous Prophecies?