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coreycorner · 1 year

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Best of 2022

It's that time and place again for my best of 2022.

If 2021 was the sequel to 2020 I feel as though 2022 is the 3rd and final instalment of this trilogy. 2023 I feel will more than like be a return to a normal or a hybrid of the normal we have known for the past 2 years and the normal we had before it.

While compared to other years 2022 would not be a world beater I will say that 2022 probably has a deeper pool of ok music but only 1 or 2 bands really did well in my opinion. 2022 was a year where the music was better than the movies this time around.

Top 10 Best Songs of 2022

It was hard to rank last years simply because there was not many really strong songs. This time however it was pretty easy and easy to rank. While I do not think there were any true killers this year it was a deep pool and decent music. A list with bands that haven't been on my lists for some time too.

10) We'll Be Back by Megadeth - It feels like the last time I really liked anything Megadeth did was back when I was still living in Fort McMurray, that is at least 16 years ago. While the album is ok this is the killer song on the album in my mind. Full on fucking thrash the way it should be.

9) The Zealot Gene by Jethro Tull - I have been a Jethro Tull can for more than half my life but by the time I did become a fan was when they started to slow down. Their new album from this year was very meh but this song on the other hand was nice and biting.

8) Endless Return by Elder - Elder was a pleasant surprise this year. This song came out of nowhere but came at great time as I was probably having the worst day of 2022 and then this song drops and it at least made the day less shitty. It is too bad that this song is tied to a shitty day but it was the best part of it.

7) The Knife by Royal Thunder - Royal Thunder; a band that for a few years dominated by top 10 lists was a band that I figured was done but like Elder surprised me with a great and very Royal Thunder esque song. No album has come yet but this song is a great and hopeful primer.

6) If The Loneliness Don't Kill Me by Whitehorse - A biting and in someways a telling song of my year, I identified with it immediately. It is a tongue and cheek dark comedy like song about coping with being alone which was 2022 for me.

5) Castasis by Elder - Best song on Elder's new album, more often than not they always put their best song up front. Vintage Elder which is all I wanted.

4) Damnation by Blind Guardian - Speaking of another band that hasn't been on my lists for some time is Blind Guardian with this song being the most Blind Guardian-eque song in a long time. Absolutely glorious song.

3) Last Saga by Ruby The Hatchet - This is another song that I am emotionally tied to from this year. It is a sad but whimsical song.

2) Cage by Billy Idol - Where Last Saga was sad and whimsical Cage is positive and aggressive. Where Last Saga would represent that sad periods of my year Cage would represent the positive and driven points of 2022. Easily my favourite Idol song of all time now.

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1) Suck Push Bang Blow by Rosalie Cunningham - I am surprised that I put this song as number 1 but to be honest there is no song I have played more in 2022 than this song. This song always finds its way with me in 2022 and when I thought about this top 10 this was the first song I thought of so those are my reasons. I have been a fan of Rosalie/Purson since the early 10s.

Top 5 Best Albums of 2022

Where the songs were good in 2022 I can't say the albums were to be perfectly honest. I only really feel comfortable with doing a top 5 for this one this year given there were not many what I would call killer albums that I heard this year.

5) The Sick, The Dying....And The Dead! by Megadeth - I don't want too ay this was a return for Megadeth but I know Megadeth has always been doing thrash but nothing that I cared much to listen to. Megadeth is on here purely for We'll Be Back. I think that enough shows where the drop off is.

4) Regenerator by King Buffalo - King Buffalo hasn't really made a bad album in my eyes but Dead Star and Burden of Restlessness are their best albums thus far. This one is ok but not exactly good. I feel I don't want to be too hard on King Buffalo because I do not know if there was a band that was as productive or has been as productive in my adult life as King Buffalo has been in the 3-4 year span. With that said even a a meh release is enough for 4th in my top 5.

3) The God Machine by Blind Guardian - Blind Guardian has been in my dog house for many years down for making a lot of mediocre album that only had one good song to appease the old Guardian fans. Not counting the orchestral album that I absolutely hate. I feel like Blind Guardian realized they had to a vintage Blind Guardian album. While this would not beat any of their best albums IT IS their best album of this century by a mile. I feel this is as close as they will get to their old selves as we will expect from them as they seem like they don't entirely care to sound like that anymore however if they want make money they should listen to their fans. We wanted an album like this and we got it.

2) Fear Is A Cruel Master by Ruby The Hatchet - Just a very solid album from front to back. This was the first and honestly only album till the #1 album hit that I could play front to back and do so multiple times from this year.

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1) Innate Passage by Elder - For a time I felt like Ruby The Hatchet was going to walk with this this year but Elder came out with their new album a few days after my birthday and essentially stole it right from it's whiskers. I dare say this is Elder's most complete album yet and that is saying something because I do not know if they have made a really bad album yet. Omens was maybe a little bit of a drop for me but it has grown on me but to me they have not made a bad album yet and it doesn't look like they will anytime soon.

Top 10 Best Movies of 2022

This wasn't a strong year for movies at all to be perfectly honest. There was a time when only movies that were 4.5 Cs on the Corey Scale and up would be here but now most of the list is 4 and 4.5s but it is what it is. I mean all of these movies are good I just miss the days when it was harder to come up with 10 because the movies were so good versus now where I have had 90% of this list set for some time.

10) Do Revenge - Pretty solid revenge movie for teenagers. Great cast and was entertaining.

9) Mother/Android - I don't recall many people liking this movie but I enjoyed it, a fairly refreshing post apocalyptic movie.

8) Crimes of The Future - David Cronenberg coming back to do what he does best, body horror. I loved it mostly for Cronenberg being Cronenbergy again. Solid but wouldn't break the 10 top on good years.

7) Nope - This is the first movie I saw from Jordan Peele. I would definitely like to see more from him as this is a pretty solid movie.

6) Emily The Criminal - Aubrey Plaza I feel is finally doing movies I was hoping she would do post Parks & Rec. This is easily her best performance yet and very good crime thriller/character study.

5) Everything Everywhere All at Once - It is funny how (spoiler alert) two multiverse movies will wind up on my top 10 and while both being very different movies both sort of deal with the same theme of changing or trying to change for the better. Very good movie

4) Three Thousand Years of Longing - This was the last entry and I fear that it may go up as time goes but that is the curse with late additions. I wanted to see this movie when it came out but I just never got to but I am glad I did a few days ago. Belongs on this list as everything else going forward.

3) Sick of Myself - This was a pleasant surprise as I went into this movie complete cold and on a whim. What I got was a glorious dark comedy that had glimpses of body horror in it. I would recommend this movie to anyone.

2) Phantom of The Open - If there was a movie that would get the My Kind of Movie treatment meaning if there was a movie I could see myself making that was made this year it was this one. A pure pick me up kind of movie.

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1 - Doctor Strange and The Multiverse of Madness - I was expecting to love this movie but I wasn't expecting this movie to basically walk away with best of 2022 uncontested. I am pretty sure I am bias with this movie because I watched this movie during a particularly depressing day in my life and it completely took me away from it however deep down that is what cinema is supposed to do at it's core. To be an escape and for me Marvel movies are very much that for me. There is not a movie this year that I have watched more and enjoyed more than this movie period.

So with 2022 drawing to a close I really don't know what is in store for 2023 movie wise but it is always hard to tell. It is usually more easy to tell with music and with music I am really excited.

Royal Thunder headlines as the the new release I am most eagerly anticipating followed by Metallica, Frozen Crown and the rest is maybes like Judas Priest, Anthrax and one can hope Unleash The Archers releases something as well.

I just hope for good music and movies no matter who is making it.

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coreycorner · 2 years

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Best of 2021

With 3 days left in 2021 I don't think I thought today would be the day I would go over the best music and movies from this year.

2021 felt like a sequel to 2020 in the way that it could not compare to the first but it definitely was of the same vein. In some ways 2021 felt worse to me than 2020 at least on a personal level with a lot of personal upheaval that came with it but it is at least closing on a good note.

At least this time I am in Newfoundland again writing this and not in a mouldy shit hole that was one electoral fire away from going up.

I was hoping with how bad 2020 was that the movies and music would be good or I should say the music would be good since musicians if they are not touring they are writing and 2020 I feel gave many more than enough time to write. I wound up being wrong and feel 2021 was a fairly mediocre year for music and movies but the movies were definitely better than the music. I feel like a broken record these last few years with so many years where either medium has not been up to snuff, could be either I am getting too old for the movies I used to like, styles have changed or I have changed. I do not know I just know I haven't been impressed with many movies or music.

Top 10 Best Songs of 2021

This may be the hardest top ten I have ever had to write because there really hasn't been a song that truly stood out for me as a favourite song, most if not all of these songs have received and equal amount of airplay with me over the year. I apologize for getting very personal with these, much of the songs I like because of how I am emotionally attached to them. I spent a lot of 2021 soul searching and self reviewing myself so the music I listed to this year reflects it.

10) Chimes by The Joy Formidable - The last entry to this list but it has more to do with getting into it through emotion. I heard it before and didn't mind it before but like most songs I like or gravitate to it latched on to a feeling or memory (new or past) like a slug. I latched on to this song after the end of a 6 year friendship recent. I don't know if it fits lyrically but musically it does. It is very much a vintage Joy Formidable song.

9) Sound of Victory by Andre Antunes - If there was a song that go the most air play of any song in 2021 it would be this song. Not because it is my favourite song of the year but for the longest time it opened a playlist I make for every year of my life so for the longest time this was to open Year 36 so with that it go a lot of play. The song just reminds me of 2020 and how it felt like a battle just to get through it.

8) Back to Nothing by Joy Formidable - This year's album race really is a two album race an by the end of it you will probably figure out who won it but this is another JF song on the listen. Its not so much this album version but the live acoustic version that was played during the live broadcast shows the band did for 2020 and 2021 for their fan which I was a fan of it. It was another song that when I first heard I didn't care for but after letting it marinate it grew on me and is a song that cling to when I am feeling confident or defiant. When I hear the song I think of how many this this year would have affected me years ago and how they would easily break me and leave me lost in my own depression but at 36/37 it doesn't because I refuse to drown in my own sadness though I may fall into it not and then I refuse to let it beat me. As the song says I won't go back to nothing.

7) Eternal Nocturnal by Evergrey - Someday I should back track all of my previous Corey Awards and see how many times a band makes these list. Evergrey is a band that I have grown with without ever knowing. I discovered them in 2003 or 04 I can't remember but it was around the time of The Inner Circle which blew away and ever since they would come out of albums that in some ways reflected me at the time. Inner Circle was at the tail end of my angry years, MMA to Glorious Collision during my sad and resentful years, Hymns to now I guess the maturing of me and picking up the pieces. This song fits me where I am now where I try my best to be there for those who are close to me anyway. I don't know if the lyrics fully fit that that is how I feel about the song.

6) Judgement on You by Andre Antunes (w/ Luis Martins) - This is a song that grown on me and the thing is there is two ways you can hear this song. If you hear a version on YouTube it comes from the real pastor and is pretty funny where the studio version where they got an actual singer to sing it instead sounds very sinister and evil. It is that version I like more. When I hear this song it reflects my anger towards to the pandemic, very evil and biblical like a demonic priest wishing hellfire on a virus that has ruined many lives.

5) No One Answer by Michelle Gurevich - Michelle (formerly Chinawoman) has been a musician I have listed to a lot during this era of my life. I got into her at the tail end of my sad years and has been a constant of mine since being in my 30s. Like Evergrey she is another musician I expect her music to mature with me like this song. The song is very much me these days, indecisive, never satisfied, someone who needs a bit of this and a bit of that and never quite knows when he needs either. There are many times where it pisses me off but in many ways it has ruined a few good things and relationships but at the end of the day it is truth for me.

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4) Death by Rock & Roll by The Pretty Reckless - Other theme of these year is realizing how different I am not to how I was 10 or even 8 years ago. When I hear this song I think of me versus then. Most things would destroy me, so much of my life in my 20s I wanted to die, give up or wither in place. This is song me now; defiant, stubborn and not willing to let anything get to me anymore. My entire life now is fight and go down fighting regardless. That is the biggest difference between Corey at 26 and Corey at 36. This song is that anthem. Song sung from who played the little girl in the How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

3) Oblivion by Wilderness of Manitoba - I will talk about the album later in this post but this song was the best song that came from that album. Another one of those songs you attaches to you on levels from the moment you hear it. I am glad Wilderness of Manitoba is still around. My musical world is very much lonely without them coming out with something now and them. It is interesting that I got into this band around the same time as Michelle and Joy Formidable and with Everygrey continue to aint the tapestry of my life. If you told me I would still be listening to new music from any of these people now I would be surprised.

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2) Into The Blue by Joy Formidable - This was the first song of 2021 I gravitated to in 2021, it came right after my break up. When I hear the song I think of me trying to reconcile breaking up with one of the most important people in my life then and still now. This song is number 2 for me I think because of the strength of the memory behind it and the need to hear it again will be stronger than the song below it that I may have enjoyed listening to it, it was number 1 for most of the year till another song up ended it for the same reasons why I like this song.

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1) Bitter Taste by Billy Idol - If you told me even a year ago that one of my favourite songs of the coming year would be a Billy Idol song I would not believe you at all. The thing is this song came late and came out of nowhere. I was at work during my bouts of depression, on my lunch break I noticed this song on YouTube and thought why not and the song hit me. It was basically how I felt at that moment. Lets just say this song will stay with me for a while.

Top 5 Best Albums of 2021

Now for the easiest list to write. This year truly has been pathetic for music. There were really only 2 horses in this race at the end of neither would have hit the top five if this was the 10s but it is what it is. This year has been so poor I could only really pick 5 albums

5) Escape of The Phoenix by Evergrey - This is not a bad album and Everygrey hasn't made many bad albums but none have held a candle to The Inner Circle though I am sure they tried. Eternal Nocturnal is best song from this album, everything else was pretty forgettable.

4) Hirschbrunnen by Delving - Even during the pandemic Elder is still productive though this is more of a side project. This was the last new album I have heard this year. It also has one good song while the others are ok. As with the other album this would not make the top 10 on most years but these days it makes the top 5.

3) Death by Rock and Roll by The Pretty Reckless - This is where the serious good albums are, at the end of the day I only really listened to three good albums this year and this one was one of them and it was something I wasn't expecting. I started listening to the Pretty Reckless Back in 2019 but didn't think much of the band. They seemed like a generic rock band with drop dead gorgeous singer behind them trying her hardest to be a new age Joan Jett (not that that is a bad thing mind you, the world need more of her) but the music didn't seem to be there with me, till this album. This album is a solid rock album, while I only like two songs on here the album itself sounds like the band is finally starting to really step up and try to hit home runs. If this is the beginning of what they can do then I expect The Pretty Reckless to make their way back here pretty soon.

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2) Farewell to Cathedral by Wilderness of Manitoba - I don't know why and I am not angry about but a Wilderness of Manitoba album always winds up coming out of nowhere and always at the right time for me. Their last album was 4 years ago which feels like an eternity to me. Before that it was 3 years ago with Between Two Colours which is my favourite album from them in 2014 top 10 which would murdered any of these albums. This album is the only one that could have had a chance to make #1 this year as much of the album felt autobiographical of my year at least at first listen but the thing is this album has two good song and the rest of the album is alright that is good on a play through. Its replay value hasn't been as strong as I thought but it is still good enough to be #2 on this this list. I am just glad and thankful Wilderness of Manitoba is still around as they are my favourite folk band and band I have always attached myself emotionally with these musically. This album is no better.

1) Into The Blue by The Joy Formidable - Should not be a surprise as the more songs from one album on the songs top 10 is often an indicator of how high it will be in the album standings. this album was in the lead from the beginning and while Wilderness of Manitoba made me think for awhile as to whether who should be number one the fact that there are three good songs on this one and the album itself is good for a play through won the title for me.

Top 10 Best Movies of 2021

The top 10 for this list is stronger than the list for song and albums that is for sure but still not as strong as other years. It is what it is.

10) Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed - Its very rare that a documentary makes my top ten. I am not really a documentary guy and I wasn't even expecting this one to blow me away but it did. it was a really insightful doc on a guy I always knew of but didn't know about.

9) Hands That Bind - Of the ten this is the one I would call my kind of movie or a movie that I could see myself making. I have a private filmography on my letterboxd account where every year or two (sometimes two in one year but not often) I would add one movie in there that I would say yeah that would be a movie I could see myself making and this is the one for this year. I watched this at VIFF 2021 which was a disappointing year but this one was not one of this disappointing movies. It was a interesting character story. It reminded me of a world I left behind and don't wish to return to but might have to someday. Plus it has Susan Kent which is a instant win for me.

8) Matrix Resurrections - I never thought I would put a Matrix movie anywhere close to my top ten but this movie impressed me too much that I could not keep it from this list. I had no expectations of this movie coming in and this movie surprised me in every way and made me wanting more.

7) Spaghetti Code Love - This VIFF movie was another surprise, but this time I was getting bored and disappointed with he crop of movies from VIFF 2021 and just thought I would take a shot in the dark on this one and wound up being caught up in the fairy tale movie that it is to a degree of all these people all with heir own problems and lives all connected in one way or another. It was a whimsical movie that step me away when a I needed a movie to sweep me away.

6) Bo Burnham: Inside - This was the first good movie I saw this year and weirdly enough it came right after my breakup when all I wanted to do was be alone and fester in my shit. This movie wound up being tailor made for me at that moment in time and in many ways reminded me that there is still good work out there and people willing to go all out to do good work you just got to look hard and sometimes randomly for it.

5) The French Dispatch - I knew I was going to like this movie. The past 3 weeks have been spent catching up on movies and funny enough 4 of the 10 movies on this list have been from these past 3 weeks. this is your standard issue Wes Anderson movie, I do not know if it is his best but it is clearly a good movie to me and I have no problem ranking it in the middle of this top 10 pack.

4) Spider-Man: No Way Home - Like French Dispatch I knew I was going to enjoy this movie and like this movie I wasn't expecting to see an epic Spider-man movie out of premise that often creates hot messes. Instead it created a excellent comic book movie during a time where people are starting to doubt if Marvel can maintain the moment it built with Endgame but like Larry Bird they are still producing at a high level and this movie is enough to make James Cameron and Ridley Scott shut the fuck up (with all due respect of course).

3) Come From Away - This one is a bit of a bias due to it being based and about Newfoundland but I do not care. This is easily he best musical I have seen since La La Land and I can say I like this one better though it is hard to say it is a movie and more of a live filming of the musical. It doesn't really matter boi, it belong be here in my eyes.

2) Don't Look Up - Until a couple of days ago I had no interest in watching this movie, it was my dad who wanted to watch it with me as we used to watch new movies together semi regularly and lets face it, if not for my dad taking me to the video store every Tuesday and Friday as a kid I would not have never been a fan of cinema and that is the truth. And true to tradition I found myself loving every bit of this movie as it is very much my kind of humour and my dad didn't really get it at all, well did sort of get it but not in the way I do. What makes this movie this high is that is got me to laugh in a way I haven't been able to laugh in a long time to a movie. Come to think of it it has been a long time since a new movie made laugh the way this movie did and that is why this movie is here.

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1) Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time - Its not a secret to those who know me that I am a big Evangelion fan and for the last few years I have been pretty impatient and jaded. Impatient because I was told in 2015 or 16 that this movie was going come out a year or two later and here we are in 2021 and it finally came out. Also watching Netflix butcher the show made me sick too. Coming into this movie I was very much afraid that this movie was not going to live up to my expectations. Amazon has control of the retake series and I was not entirely sure how they were going to handle it after seeing how Netflix did with the series. My fears were put to rest within the first 25 minutes of the movie with nearly all of the original cast brought back and just 2 hours of everything I wanted from this movie series in regards to conclusion but the movie serves as a true conclusion to the series as well as movies as it tries to tie it all together as it is all just Shinji trying to work through it all in his head. I may be over rating this movie and just rated it high because I needed this movie to be good and convinced myself it is good but most Evangelion fans I know of love this movie so I can't be the only one then. In most years this would not make the top 5, probably the top 10 but regardless in a shitty year where I had very little to look forward to this was a movie I looked forward to and needed to be good and it wound up being better than that. It is the only reason I got a Amazon Prime trial and the main reason why I would get Amazon Prime again.

So there is 2021, I do not know what 2022 will have for me. More marvel movies of course so I can look forward to that as for the movies I have no bloody clue. Music I am hoping Royal Thunder returns and if they just do what they normally do you can expect them to make the top 5s here. Megadeth, Blind Guardian, Metallica, Anthrax and Ghost may release something which should be good but who knows. One thing is for sure 2022 will definitely be a more metal year for me that 2021 was which felt more alternative rock than anything.

One can only hope.......see you next year.

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coreycorner · 3 years

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No Time To Die - CCC2/3

I have no time to read my old James Bond reviews but I am fairly sure I have told the story of how I got into Bond. I will probably tell it again if I ever decide to revisit the older movies which I am due to to do. This story is more about Daniel Craig's Bond and why watching this movie made me more reflective than I thought going in.

I knew this was going to be Craig's last movie that is not really a spoiler but it didn't really hit me till around August. Why August?

August of this year marks 16 years I moved to Vancouver from the oil sands of Fort McMurray. I came to Vancouver to study film at VFS, I will spare you of that story but I remembered within 2 months later Daniel Craig was announced as the new James Bond. I never understood the fan backlash he got but it is a faithful reminder that fanboys will bitch about something no matter what but also that it doesn't matter, only results.

A year later a couple months after I graduated and was a total mess of a young man Casino Royale came out and blew my mind the same way Goldeneye did when I first watched it. I was already sold on Craig but it was good to know everyone else was too.

2 years later Quantum of Solace came out and I was still a mess but I was just starting working full time at Electronic Arts as I would for the next 6 years so there was stability in my life. It has been awhile since I watched that movie but where most hated it I didn't mind it. I am actually fairly soft on Bond films because most of them fall into a formula and it is pretty hard to mess that formula up but Craig's Bond was about shaking it up and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of For Your Eyes Only which is one of my favourite Bond movies and a very under rated one. I have a soft spot fo Quantum, I like what it tried to do, did it succeed....maybe not but its not the worst Bond.....not even close.

4 years later came Skyfall, the one everyone thinks is one of the best Bond movies ever and easily Craig's best.....personally I have to disagree. I will not say it was bad I liked. It does have one of the best opening Bond credit titles and Bond songs but the movie felt very by the numbers Bond with a few quips but it has been awhile since I watched it maybe I will see more but I am one of those peculiar people whom rejects what many people like which is why I try to disconnect from pop culture any way a can and tries to watch or experience things as cold as possible so I can give it a fair shake. 2012 was another year where I was still a mess of a young man but don't worry, 3 years from this time I got my shit together emotionally.

Which just so happened to coincide with Spectre. When Spectre came out it was a year after I decided to drop everything in my life, backpack Europe and try to rebuild my life from the ground up. By this time I had returned to school and things were finally starting to look up for me. I actually don't mind Spectre but I do agree that the movie wasn't as good as it could have been.

Which brings us to No Time To Die, its been an interesting 6 years of my life between Spectre and this movie. A relationship began and ended, many kilometres traveled around the world, no career that is slowly progressing, finally in an apartment on a permanent basis and dealt with a pandemic. Stable for the most part though still reeling from the end of the relationship and this movie comes out.

I could not help but take stock of the last 16 years of my life and how it all coincided with Daniel Craig's time as Bond. At the end of the day I will be here now longer than Bond but I can imagine or at least I hope I will be out of Vancouver by the time a new one comes but who knows. Long story short I was planning on reviewing my year at some point but I wasn't expecting to review my last 16 years upon leaving this movie but it is what it is. It is what these reviews differ from others and how I need to do them to make them mine is to put myself into them.

Maybe it is overly dramatic in that in a way my path through adulthood weirdly mirrors Craig's Bond......I can sense your eye roll from here. Part of me wants to explain why I believe that is but this is a movie review not a therapy session. All I can say was that this movie was bittersweet sad rollercoaster ride like things have been for me this past year but I think everyone can say the same in their own way. Reminiscing on the past while closing the book the story that is Craig's Bond. It is not really a downer, well it sort of is but again......bittersweet.

We catch Bond with Swan in the throws of love finally ready to both open up to each other when Spectre rears its tentacles again and breaks them apart. Bond immediately reverts back to the cold Bond we knew from most of his time. Without going into much detail because even this whole bit is edging close into spoiler territory Bond goes back to being hot on the trail of Spectre once again but there is more to it than that of course.

I feel with Bond movies you have to grade them differently than others because to me they are not like regular movies. So I will grade it on the hallmarks of Bond movies.

Pre credit action sequence - I liked it, while it did feel a bit too long it made sense and I liked the anti climatic feel of it. It was good way to set the tone for what this movie was going to be like, in fact it's probably one of my favourite ones.

Bond Theme/Opening Credits - To tell you the truth to me this was the biggest weakness of the movie which I know people will egg me for and even I am uneasy about being critical of this song. I don't mind, it's not bad at all I just feel like it could have been more. I have a feeling I will change my mind on the song like I did with Another Way To Die by Alicia Keys & Jack White, I originally hated that song but over the years I grew to love it. I have a feeling once I let this song set for awhile I will grow to love it more I just felt like the song needed more weight to it. That said I do think the opening credits video was disappointing it just seemed very underwhelming, there were parts of it I liked that seemed to reference Casino Royale but even still I was disappointed. I was expecting a Skyfall level like song and credit sequence. You can feel the weight with that one versus this one if that make sense.

Action Scenes - I dug most of the action scenes in this movie, they served their purpose and were well paced but I felt like the goons in this movie were extra storm troopery in this movie. There were many cases where I noticed them shooting at Bond nearly point blank and not even scratching him. I mean I get it but there were at least two scenes where I thought to myself shit I have never fired a gun in my life and I am pretty sure even I would have hit him from that range. It took me out of the movie a few times. However those are minor nit picks.

Bond women - I think this was the strongest point of the movie was the Bond women this time around. I am not fluent in Phoebe Waller-Bridge's writing style but I can definitely sense a woman's touch in how the women are written in this one. Swan's character is vastly improved in this one versus the other. In the last movie I felt like she was just jammed into the movie so James would have someone to fall in love with or fuck and so on. It felt forced where in this one we finally got to see them in romance and out as well but we got a sense of their relationship because that element is very important with this movie. Even more important that Swan actually returns as Bond's lover and isn't replaced by another woman as it often is in a Bond movie. That in of itself brought weight to their relationship. I like that Moneypenny was back, I will always love the character of Moneypenny.....always.

I like the addition of Nomi but I feel like they should have done more with her character than they did. Ana de Armas.....while Julie Delpy will always be my cinematic crush Ana is stunning in this it is funny seeing her and Daniel in this movie though a year ago they were in Knives Out together. I was almost expecting her to puke on him when she said she only had 3 weeks training. She was as mesmerizing as she was in the last Blade Runner movie. Ana's character was another one I wanted more from but at the end I think her screen time was just the right amount however again I feel we needed more of Nomi.

Gadgets - See that is something that has been lacking in the Craig movies is gadgets but I do like that they made more of a deal about it in this one almost like ok lets just have Craig have fun with this at least once. I know there have been Q gadget scenes before but this one felt more James Bond film like than the others which gave it the extra sugar it needed to be sweet.

Villains - I know the director has already said Rami's character is not Dr. No but I got a lot of Dr. No vibes from him and the sets of the movie. It doesn't matter though I thought Rami did a good job with the role. That said I didn't really care about this villain that much but that was not Rami's fault I thought he was good I just think this villain was not that important and in a way never seemed threatening, only a device to move the plot forward. I felt another villain had more strength to him than Rami's but I won't say because it is a spoiler but those who have seen it know who I am talking about.

Story - Well not ever Bond movie needs a good story, it often just needs to give Bond something (and someone usually) to do. I actually felt that this script was one of the strongest Bond scripts I have seen in awhile. Not without plot holes but it was surprisingly strong. It had the unfortunate responsibility of closing Craig's legacy which is varied depending on who you ask. The Bond universe is not known for it's continuity from film to film as they often are stand alone films but this movie did a great job bringing everything together at least as best as one could. I do sort of dislike that it ignored everything in-between Casino Royale but I got it.

One thing I appreciated was the to me obvious references to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, only really Bond fans or those who have seen the movies as much as me will get the references this movie makes to that movie.

The one thing I take issue with was the ending, we all know this was going to be Craig's curtain call I just felt like it could have been done better. I do not know how it could have been done better but I felt like it could have been better. I guess I was expecting a Hugh Jackman Logan esque send off where you knew he left it all out there and it was the end and you got to morn. With Craig I did like that you got to feel the bang of it but I still don't feel like there was enough to morn from it. Again this is all nit picking.

From all of this it may seem like I didn't like the movie, untrue I enjoyed the ride I am just a overly critical guy but all things considered this was a good Bond movie. Not the best and it shouldn't be considered as such but I do think it is well work a Bond fan's times to watch it. Best Craig Bond? No Casino Royale is untouchable I would say this one is middle of the pack for Craig's time as well as all time for the franchise, maybe in the upper middle area of the list.

It was a good ride, it reflects on Craig's time just like writing this made me review my own. Bottom line is if you are a fan of James Bond especially Craig's version I say watch it. I give it CCC3/4 on the Corey Scale.

#James Bond #rami malik #Daniel Craig #007 #No time to die #cary fukunaga

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coreycorner · 3 years

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Best of 2020

I am pretty confident that there won’t be anymore movies or music coming out this year that has a chance of breaking into my top ten for anything at this point so I thought that I may as well do my best of blog post now. Was reminded of last year when I said the last best of post was my last post. I guess I lied, I thought discogs would suffice as a place to keep track of my opinions on music in a more public way but it wasn’t. With that said I only reviewed two albums anyway so this blog may as well still be dead but oh well my best of blog posts were always my most popular of my posts every year why not keep it going?

2020 sucked, there is no way around that at least in terms of life, everyone is suffering from this. Normally I am in Newfoundland sending Christmas with 95% of my family whom lives in Newfoundland. However at the end of the day I have no right to complain about anything while so many are suffering from losing jobs on top of not being able to see family, friends and be able go wherever you want. Not counting a virus killing thousands of people worldwide above all else.

For some reason before I started gathering the list for movies that this year was so much better for movies than last year but looking at it compared to last it is not even close, 2020 sucked when it comes to movies. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I watched much more indie movies this year than last and had to fill last year’s with Hollywood movies to make up for it but to tell you the truth there wasn’t very many Hollywood movies to fill this list with to begin with.....for the obvious reasons. Most of the movies on this list were from when I watched VIFF 2020 when I watched 27 movies in two weeks. As I have stated my gradings may not be consistent with how I have ranked them, this is because time may have changed my mind with these films but I don’t think that will be the case, the race for the best was a 2 movie race and everyone else wasn’t even close this time.

Top 10 Best Movies of 2020

10) Lapsis (https://boxd.it/oMAo) - One of the last movies I watched at VIFF. It was a good movie, it felt like a longer Black Mirror episode. Not without it’s issues with me but at this point it doesn’t matter I had to find a movie to put at #10 and of the movies I didn’t put as my top 10 this one felt like the best.

9) Bill & Ted Face The Music (https://boxd.it/i7BI) - Part of me would say any other year and this would not even be in the top 10 but I am starting to get used to the fact that either I just don’t like movies the way I used to or movies just aren’t as good anymore to me. With that said in terms of craft this movie is rather tame but in terms of fun factor mixed with nostalgia this movie was fun and deserves to be somewhere on this list since not very many movies this year brought me the brainless joy this movie did. This movie is all about fun not about art and it served it’s purpose.

8) Borat Subsequent Moviefilem (https://boxd.it/rNS0) - Nowhere close to as funny as the first but that would be hard given everyone knows who Borat is and they address it but with that said I feel like this movie had a whole lot more to say that was worthwhile than the other did. I am not going to lie I think I like this one more than the other and I think that this one will probably be more remembered in a positive fashion than the other will be.

7) Beauty Water (https://boxd.it/qqRw) - I try to avoid 3D animated anime like the plague but this one was my girlfriend’s choice to watch when we did since I owed her at least one of two that would be her choice from VIFF since I was going to monopolize our TV for 2 weeks. This one wound up surprising me in being how good it was. I still don’t like 3D animated anime, I think it looks creepy and un natural but all of that worked in this movie’s favour. I would say this was the best horror movie I watched this year, easy.

6) No Visible Trauma (https://boxd.it/rRqE) - Police brutality is nothing new we all know it happens but as naive as I am about it I was shocked to know where it is the worst. I would have expected it to be bad in Winnipeg, Toronto or even Fort McMurray but in Calgary not so much. Not going to lie over the past few years I have had a harder time defending my home province and the bullshit it gets up with but this sort of thing just adds more fuel to the fire. Very well done documentary. Best documentary of the year.

5) Superman: Red Son (https://boxd.it/mSas) - Of the movies I was most surprised to have here on this list this one is the one but this movie impressed me. When I went to watch it I was just looking for something like and brainless and the premise interested me. I wasn’t prepared for how good it was going to be. Best animated film of the year easily and makes me want to read the graphic novel someday.

4) Beans (https://boxd.it/rdZO) - No film pissed me off like this film did but did in an emotional way not in how it was made. When you are able to manipulate me into feeling something in a movie you are doing something right. Another example much like with No Visible Trauma that Canada is just as racist as any other country if not more so. Worst part about it is this sort of thing is still happening, you can take this out of it’s place in history and put it into at least 3-4 other places in Canada right now and it is still going on.

3) A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s an Alcoholic (https://boxd.it/m2uK) - In terms of grades this movie should be number one but it takes the 3rd spot because for some reason it hasn’t lingered in my mind the way the other two have. This one quite honestly is the best movie in terms of craft and story telling but it is not my favourite of the top three. Maybe that makes me calling this list a best of list misleading but I don’t care I am not changing it at this point. With that said this movie is still worth checking it. It walks a hard time between funny, sad and scary which is not easy to do. I think of any movie I have ever seen that discussed the real effects of living with an alcoholic this is one that is one of the most honest at least from the family member’s point of view. I mean there are still parts of this movie that is very unrealistic and a bit ridiculous but this movie also lines it up with some very real bits as well. it humanizes, dehumanizes and parodies the alcoholic in rotating succession. I definitely recommend this movie.

2) Another Round/Druk (https://boxd.it/lkba) - This was the first movie I watched on VIFF simply because I was interested in the premise but also because Mads Mikkelsen is one of my favourite actors. This movie wound up starting my VIFF marathon well and is still a movie I think about a lot. There is a lot going for it that it makes you think about and in many ways compliments or runs counter depending how you view it to “A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s an Alcoholic”. It talks about alcoholism but from a different perspective, the drunk’s but not just that but when we talk about how alcoholics and how one becomes one we usually think in terms of movies it is because of an abusive or a traumatic past or lie is just so hard but maybe it is that someone just doesn’t want to be themselves unless it is under the influence of a chemical. I didn’t like the ending and what I felt it was saying but I think I need to see it again to make sure it is what i think it was saying. Though I get it I still don’t agree with it.

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1) Nadia, Butterfly (https://boxd.it/qhbw) - I knew by the time I finished this movie that this was probably going to be getting the number one spot. Why? Well firstly with the other two movies had some flaws, mind you nitpicking kind of but nitpicking none the less. #3 was a bit too long, #2 had a questionable ending where this movie didn’t really have any flaws. The pacing was perfect, the story and ending made sense, the movie didn’t really do anything drew me out of the movie. I also identified myself with the main character for the most part. While I am not a beautiful olympic athlete I can identify with losing my love for something I committed so much of life and energy but being scared to really leave it behind not knowing what they were going to do next. This movie is essentially one of my kind of movies, the kind of movies that if I was a film maker I would see myself making. On top of all of that we all know that I give a significant handicap to movies that are Canadian and/or independent movies with no much money to work with because if no one else is going to champion them why not I? I doubt very many people are going to list this movie in the top 5 much less #1 but I am going to champion this movie this year.

One thing is for sure the music for 2020 was easily better than 2019, I hd a hard time making a top ten for songs much less a top 10 for albums. That wasn’t the case, while this was still a two horse race drop off is not that significant. It was a good year for music. Finding a top ten for music was pretty easy to build but hard to figure out which one was better than the other. Honestly this is one of those years where any of the top 5 could have been #1 last year.

Top 10 Best Songs of 2020

10) Omens by Elder - A lot of bands I really like put out an album this year and all of them came out with either passable to good albums. Elder had been getting better and better I feel like this wasn’t so much a step back but a stall but this song was the best song on the album. Very Elder and still sounded great.

9) Tequila Shots by Kid Cudi - This song and the album it was on was a late edition to this year, I feel like Omens was a better song but this one is higher simply because it is catchier as well as more relatable to me. Its great to have Kid Cudi back on these lists with me again.

8) Witch’s Spell by AC/DC - Speaking of another group that don’t come around on these lists anymore is my all time favourite bad AC/DC but that is because they just don’t make many albums anymore those at least I didn’t have to wait as long this time as I did for the very disappointing Rock or Bust. Witch’s Spell was the second best song on the album easily for me and one I enjoy listening to still. Whether I will be listening to this song for years to come who knows but it is still a great song I listened to a lot this year.

7) The Adventures of Moon Man & Slim by Kid Cudi & EMINEM - This one came as a surprise to me, I wasn’t expecting it but it suddenly came out and it wound up being awesome, even more so with EMINEM on it. While doing my musical biography I came to realize I was secretly a EMINEM fan though I didn’t like him all that much when he came out but I think was more his initial fans I didn’t like than him. It was still great seeing these two rap however I am not going to lie Slim Shady’s rap on this was the most solid I ever heard from him.

6) Shameika by Fiona Apple - I expected more from Fiona than what I got from his album but this song was definitely the best song on that album, catchy but still very odd and very much a Fiona Apple song.

5) Wolves of Winter by Demons & Wizards - Speaking of another musician/group that I waited a long time to hear from and being somewhat disappointed with it was with D&W, their newest album sucked in my eyes but this song didn’t it’s a great song that shows me they still got it when they want to do it. I don’t understand why so many like the album though.

4) Abyss by Unleash The Archers - Unleash the Archers really took this year by storm for me, I don’t know if I was more excited for any album in awhile than I was for this one. I didn’t doubt they would make something good but when I heard this song I knew they were going to make something great.

3) Midnight Phantom by Lucifer - This song is just so good, I don’t know how to describe why I like it so much. The guitar tone, the catchiness, the solid construction of the song. This song just fucking rocks and you should listen to it.

2) A Shot In The Dark by AC/DC - Speaking of a solid rock song look no further an AC/DC to deliver it. AC/DC releasing an album this year was a big surprise from me but it wasn’t a surprise for me that it was going to be good and this song from the first 30 seconds confirmed it. I was having a shitty day the night I heard it; long day at work, Eddie Van Halen died and I was pretty depressed but when I heard this song it lifted me out of my funk. AC/DC does that for me. Enough said.

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1) Soulbound by Unleash The Archers - There is no song I listened to more, no music video I watched more no song I loved more than this one. Like the last time their song took the #1 spot (The Coward’s Way) it checks all of the boxes for me. This song epitomizes everything I love in power metal and everything I love period these days; power metal, synth, science fiction and colour. Just listen to the song and you will get it.

Top 10 Best Albums of 2020

While there were any great songs from this year the choice of albumsChoosing this ten was much more easier and more definite, this was a 2 horse race but at the end of the day if you looked at the above list it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who won first place.

10) Man on The Moon 3 by Kid Cudi - The last album I listed to this album will probably be the last new album I listen to....well probably not because Spotify for as bad as it could be for musicians does allow me to taste new music before I decided to spend money on it so in many ways Spofiy is good at least for those still willing to spend money on the musicians you want to see stay around. Lets face it though of the musicians out there Kid Cudi is one of those who probably doesn’t have to worry that much but the same can be said for 3 other bands while 6 of the bands here need all the money they can get. I feel I need to give this album another full listen but of the trilogy this one was the weakest but it wasn't bad. It was good enough to make the top ten.

9) Time II: Party by Rumahoy - This like the next 5 other albums here only have really good songs and for that brings it on this list sadly. Only Cowboys Of The Sea is good while the rest is forgettable. Maybe that is unfair and I need to re listen but it is what it is. That song deserves a honourable mention however at least the album makes my top ten on that song alone. I guess that just shows that while the amount of good songs in 2020 was deep the amount of good albums this year was still a bit shallow.

8) Curse of The Crystal Coconut by Alestorm - Tortuga was the best song on this album but the rest of the album wasn’t bad. Alestorm always tries to make fun music above all else and this album is still fun but good and fun can sometimes but not all of the time or often.

7) Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple - I waited a long time for this album, for Fiona to make an album. Maybe my expectations were too high but her previously was that good. With all that sad this album wasn’t really bad, I feel like this is an album that all grow on me. I bought it on vinyl, I feel as though I need to hear it on vinyl to give a final verdict but I think even if I just want to hear dogs barking in on vinyl I don’t think this album would beat the next albums.

6) Dead Star by King Buffalo - The one good song was about 30 minutes long, another song was good but I feel like that song is more of a prelude than a song. Either way this album is a solid album, one you could listen to front to back and not mind but nothing really stands out, even the 30 minute song which only really works in context with the rest of the album. There are times where I really dig it and there are times where listening to it feels like a marathon.

5) Perdida by Stone Temple Pilots - I love the song Three Wishes but I also like the rest of the album for the most part. Maybe it just fit my mood of the day but it was still a good album though I could have done with at least one hard song on there. It was just an album of all acoustic charm.

4) Omens by Elder - Outside of the first album and the demo I have not heard a Elder album I did not like. Each album has been a progression in a positive direction that made me love them more than the last. I knew there had to be a stall or a drop at some point and I sort of expected it to be this one and in a way it was. Well you know what that is a lie The Gold & Silver Sessions were a bit disappointing but still not bad and I sort of feel the same about this one. This one was not bad but it wasn’t as good. So why is it this high? I guess because I think this is a more solid album that Perdida. Perdida is at #5 because not only does it have one good song but the album itself is sold. This album has one good song but the album is solid enough that I could listen to it anytime and not have a problem. Maybe that is reaching but those are my reasons, if I had a choice between listening to Omens or Perdida on a given day the odds of me listening to Omens are much higher thus why it is higher on this list.

3) III by Lucifer - Now much like the differences between Omens and Perdida are the same as the differences between III and Omens however Midnight Phantom is a song I like more than all of the other one songs below. With that said the album itself is also very solid and the chances of me wanting to hear III is higher than listening to Omens. Its really that simple this is a killer album from front to back but Midnight Phantom is just a great song in of itself.

2) Power Up by AC/DC - If there was a band that could possibly have toppled who I chose as #1 it would have been AC/DC. I was expecting this album last year. By the time 2020 came and the pandemic hit I all but forgot about AC/DC because I figured they would at some point but why 2020 when there was no chance of their being a tour. AC/DC only really releases an album when they plan on doing a full blown tour but I think they did it because the world needed a new AC/DC album and they were right. This album may very well be considered the best album of 2020 to most people and I won’t argue with them because they are my favourite band. This was the album I was expecting from them in 2014. Rock or Bust’s only 2 good songs were better than the three good songs on this album but this album was superior front to back all while still having three good songs. If Power Up is AC/DC’s final album I would say they went out swinging the way I knew they could. If this album came out last year it would have won easily in fact I would have said it was the only good album from last year but it came out this year when they only had one other album to compete with. #1 must be pretty good if it was able to not only beat an album from my favourite band but a good album at that.

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1) Abyss by Unleash The Archers - It has been a long time since I looked forward to listening to an album like I did with this album, not since 2015′s Crooked Doors by Royal Thunder actually. My love for this band any my excitement for this album i think started when I just stumbled upon the band for Apex in 2017. It had been so long since I heard really good power metal, the kind of power metal just lifts you off your seat and pumps you up and just goes for it. I mean lots of bands do that or try to do that but I feel like very few or not very many really make good power metal songs anymore just clique power metal just sounds so cookie cutter. However when I listen to UTA it’s like this is what it should be sounding like. I loved Apex and knowing there was going to be a sequel to it planted the seeds of expectations but I knew it was going to take some time. Last year I won’t say I forgotten about them but I wasn’t thinking of them when they suddenly put out Northern Passage the day I started my European trip as they were christening it and it became the anthem of my trip.

I loved the song so much it reminded me that they had album they were going to make soon or I am assuming should have been done already. It was a good primer of excitement for me to get ready for Abyss. It wouldn’t be till the summer till I hear the title track and that was more than enough for me to be sold on buying the album. So much that I bought 4 different formats of it (vinyl, ear book, digital and CD). While I sort of like Apex more I do love Abyss nearly as much but also in a different way because it is a different kind of beast. I knew after the initial listen that it was probably going to be the best album I would hear this year. So like with Crooked Doors it took won best album clearly. I am not going to say easily because Power Up is still a good album. I did have to really think about which one was better. Both have stand out songs that are awesome and both can be played front to back with a high level of enjoyment and both I did purchase 4 different formats of but I think at the end of the day it was the higher quality of Abyss’s three songs and album as a whole that won out over AC/DC.

These are interesting time for me when it comes to music taste. Over the past 5 years there has been a new guard of bands that have taken the mantel as bands I consider my favourites versus the bands I loved from 2002-2014 period. AC/DC is a constant and unless they come out and turn out to be monsters they will always be my favourite band but those I love below them have always changed.

From 2002 or 3 It was Iced Earth, Kamelot and Blind Guardian however outside of Kamelot who still tries to be good both Iced Earth and Blind Guardian have really started to suck. Especially in the last 10 years with Iced Earth, with Blind Guardian the quality was already starting to drop by the time I started listening to them but at least there was always one song to hold my head one but their orchestral album on top of III by Demons & Wizards (essentially Iced Earth and Blind Guardian fusion) being weak ass my faith in them has been dying if not close to death. in 201 or 2014 I discovered Royal Thunder & Elder whom turned me to stoner metal more than power metal and Royal Thunder has been a band I have seen as much as AC/DC which says a lot. Followed by Holy Grove and Unleash The Archers I see all of them being bands I love for at least the next 5 more years but the real fight if one calls it that is who is number 2 now; Unleash The Archers or Royal Thunder. There really shouldn’t be a number two but in my mind there has to be. If Royal Thunder is still alive and puts out an album next year that will have to be when I make that decision if they can keep the spot.

So that is 2020 in a nut shell, musically better than 2019 without even trying but in terms of cinema not even close.

So many bands I liked put out an album this year 2021 is looking to be a much more dry year but who knows I do have some hope of it not being so. Why? Well if a band is not touring they are writing and producing new material, no one was touring this year so with that I fully expect a lot of new music next year.

I know there will be a Evergrey album next year. Do not hold me to this but I am expecting a new material from Royal Thunder, Holy Grove, Rosealie Cunningham, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Dream Theatre, Ghost, Judas Priest, Kamelot, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Megadeth so I expect 2021 to be a very interesting year for metal. Metallica for a time was my favourite band, Iced Earth was my #2 band for a very long time and Royal Thunder took their crown only to be challenged by UTA. If Royal Thunder can come out with an album that can beat everyone else in 2021 it would be very hard not to let them keep the number 2 spot but don’t sleep on Holy Grove. They also made an album was the best I have heard in one year. 2021 is looking to be a great year if we can get everyone vaccinated and healthy sooner rather than later. A guy can hope can he? Here is hoping 2021 is as good of a year as I feel it can be!

#unleash the archers #nadia butterfly #AC/DC #Abyss #abyss by unleash the arches #power up by ac/dc

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coreycorner · 3 years

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Power Up by AC/DC - CCCC1/2

Look, I love AC/DC! Anyone who knows me personally or is just a acquaintance of mine knows I am a AC/DC fan. I would say of all of the most distinguishable characteristics me that people tend to think of me when or if they ever do think of me is my love for AC/DC. They are my band it really is as simple as that.

I have reviewed all of their albums, I own all of their albums almost twice over except for the River Plate live album (though I own the DVD of it which is my excuse for why I don’t own the CD/vinyl) but I don’t feel like that counts but maybe someday I will just get that just to be completionist. I feel as though I should re review those albums because I have grown up a bit since then and my views of AC/DC have slightly differed though do not get me wrong they will more than likely be the same now as they were back then. I guess what I mean by that is I find myself changing which albums I love from them fairly often. Highway to hell and Back in Black will probably always hold the 1 or 2 spot every other album goes through a rotation of sorts as I have grown up.

I have been an AC/DC fan since late 1997 though if you really want to be technical about it I have been an AC/DC fan since 1993 when I heard Big Gun for the first time. I think I was destined to be a AC/DC fan because unlike most if not all of the bands I have liked in my life there has been one or two bands that have been constant throughout my evolution in my music taste. One I would say is Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band but most importantly and most evident is AC/DC.

I speak of my musical evolution because over the summer and fall I had taken upon myself to really do a musical biography of myself. What I mean by that is since 2006 every year I would for shits and giggles create a playlist of all the music I liked for that specific age of my life. I lost the playlists around 2014 when I got a new computer and I also sort of lost them again over this year when the place I housed them (8tracks.com) shut down for good. I had become a subscriber of Spotify and found they had 90% of the music so I decided they would be the new house for my playlists. I do plan on recreating them on my own computer so I don’t lose them (again hopefully) but Spotfy had such a large library I felt like I should do it there first so I could catch every song I could that would be accurate. Now that I have the playlists down it is just a matter of creating them on my computer as well.

Anyways I am veering too far off the road here, point is it was very interesting listening to how my tastes in music evolved during my life. Where I started with and where I am not but again the constant has always been AC/DC. Maybe Weird Al Yankovic too but I don't know if there is another band that has made more apparent and pivotal appearances in my life’s playlists and life in general than AC/DC.

I remember listening to Big Gun for the first time as a 8 or 9 year old and just being fucking floored. It is still one of those songs that always floors me to this day, I just listened to it and I can’t but always just get into a pumped up mood when that song plays. If I knew more about music or had more dispensable money at that time (though lets me honest if I did I probably would have just spent it on candy, toys or renting movies/games instead which is what I often did) I would have bought more AC/DC but I don't think I was ready.

Fast forward December 1997 the I was watching WWF Monday Night Raw when I heard Stone Cold Steve Austin come out in a Austin 3:16 truck to Back in Black. Again I was floored the same way as I was in 1993, I had to hear that song again. Over the year of 1998 I would educate myself with what AC/DC music was and was quickly becoming a huge fan of theirs. Metallica at the time was my favourite band but after Napster and a bad performance at Woodstock 99 I decided to say fuck you to Metallica and AC/DC officially became my favourite band right before the millennium and since then they have been my favourite band.

I have found myself asking myself a lot these days how is it that a environmental feminist whom most consider to be a lefty or in some arena’s a “socialist” be so infatuated with a band whose fan base is very right wing and conservative and whose lyrics if you actually read them really walk a sharp line of being sexist. I am willing to bet if AC/DC was a new band today they would probably catch a shit ton of flack if they wrote the kind of songs they wrote from the 70s-90s but since they are basically of legend and untouchable status most people let that pass as they are from a different time.

I have chose not to answer that question for some time mainly because I couldn’t come with a straight answer but after listening to this album I feel I know the answer but then I guess I always known and just had to be reminded.....it’s the riffs.

Something about how Mal and Angus Young play that just get me in the right way. I cannot describe but that is really what draws me to AC/DC, it is the riffs because it sure as hell isn’t the lyrics most of the time.

Since I have been an AC/DC fan there has been 4 albums that have been released, funny enough all were recorder where I have lived in the past 15 years (Vancouver, BC Canada); Stiff Upper Lip, Black Ice, Rock or Bust and now Power Up.

I remember the day I listened to Stiff Upper Lip for the first time like it was yesterday though it has been more than 20 years ago now. My parents and I decided to spend a weekend at West Edmonton Mall’s Fantasyland Hotel. I brought my Sega Dreamcast with me during that trip. I knew that the album was going to come out the weekend I was there. I remember being the very first kid to enter the HMV that early morning. I grabbed the album which came with a sticker and guitar pick and bought it with my babysitter money. The rest of my babysitter money went to buying Crazy Taxi. Once I made those purchases I spent the rest of the day playing Crazy Taxi and Stiff Upper Lip. That created a tradition that I have held to this day that I must be gaming while I am playing AC/DC. For Black Ice I remember buying the album right after work in 2008. I had just bought the new Ridge Racer game for Xbox 360 and when I got home I played that game while listening to the album and I don't know if I have ever had such a fun time listening to an album for the first time as I did during that initial play through of Black Ice.

When Rock or Bust came out sadly there wasn't any new racing games out that I wanted to play (I am not much of a racing fan) so I decided to play an old favourite of mine as a kid Cruisin’ USA for the N64. I remember buying that album in Newfoundland as I had just arrived there a week or two after coming back to Canada from my European tour. I had that album on full blast for hours. However I am not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed with that album.

For all intensive purposes Rock or Bust is probably the worst of the four albums that have came out since I have been officially an AC/DC fan. It left me wanting more and not in a good way. There was really only one or two good songs on the album, two that were absolutely killer but everything else wasn’t good at all and seemed to just exemplify AC/DC’s main weaknesses to me; the lyrics especially. I felt like if this was AC/DC’s last album then that is unfortunate because it wasn’t a great outing. I felt if there was an album that they could be proud to hang it up on it was Black ice and I know I am not the only one who thought that way.

Despite the album being very lack lustre their live show which I got to see twice for the Rock or Bust tour was still awesome but I am not going to lie I am so glad I got to see them live twice because not long after Brian Johnson was kicked out of the band and it seemed as though the band simply imploded. I knew AC/DC wasn’t really done but I knew it was going to be awhile before anything was going to happen.

in 2018 I soon found out they were recording in Vancouver again and I couldn’t help but be excited and anticipating an album to come out either at the end of 2018 or at least somewhere in 2019, that didn’t happen.

By 2020 I felt like it was pretty fucking ridiculous, AC/DC is usually pretty quick with things when it comes to album making. By the time they are in the studio they usually already have everything written and it is just a matter of getting it recorded then releasing but this basically took 2 years since recording to release. Mind you 2020′s COVID-19 probably had something to do with them releasing it so late but closing to release it a day after my birthday (today) isn’t a bad idea.

So I have listened to this album front to back at least 3 or 4 times. I broke the tradition slightly though, I do not have any racing games. Actually that is a lie I do but none new and none I felt like playing or remembered to want to play so instead I played NHL 21 and quite honestly it didn’t make a difference I still fucking loved this album. I played it on my way to the eye doctor to get an eye test and I played on my way home again. I think at this point I feel I can give a good honest opinion of the album.

It is very much better than Rock or Bust, infinitely better I would say. That being said it doesn’t have the solid hit power of the songs Rock or Bust or Play Ball but what Power Up has that Rock or Bust doesn’t is that it is a solid ass kicking album from front to back with very litte what I would call filler. Rock or Bust I feel like had two very good songs, one ok song and the others that was just flat out filler and cringe worthy. This one however had very little and the ones that may have seemed somewhat cringeyish (I will get to that soon) were still very listenable because the riffage is just so fucking good on this album.

Look this is an AC/DC album, you more or less know what you are going to get with them. Love them or hate them you have to respect the fact that while they may not hit it out of the park every time you know you going to at least get some good cuts of hard rock from the back who really is the best hard rock band of all time and I defy anyone who could tell me other wise because I am willing to bet the one you think is better than AC/DC probably thinks AC/DC is the best too.....just sayin’. Lets start with the song breakdown, I will write it as I am listening to.

Realize - Not going to lie when I first heard this song as a single the day before this album came out I didn’t entirely like it. But while playing NHL 21, drinking beer and eating doniars this song put me in the mood to listen. The riffage feels a little different from what I remember from them but still very much AC/DC. Definitely put me in the mood.

Rejection - Very much a typical AC/DC sounding song, this song got me pumped up for sure but I will say the lyrics are a bit cringe worthy. It sounds very rapey, white male privieldgey. Maybe it is just my mind set but it felt like it could have been spoken to a woman but let me be clear they don’t say whether they are talking to a woman or not but the lyrics either way are not very good. With that said the riffs are vintage AC/DC. Look we don’t go to AC/DC for poetic lyrics, great lyrics and AC/DC do not go together and haven’t been together since Back in Black where I am more than positive now that some of those lyrics had to come from Bon Scott. With that said we don’t come for the lyrics but the riffs and this song delivers on that.

Shot in The Dark - This was the first song I heard from the album a few weeks ago. I listened to it half way drunk from a long fucking day and this song was a shot in the arm I needed I feel like I know I am not the only one who felt that way especially after losing Eddie Van Halen the day that song came out. It is just a solid vintage AC/DC song. Easily the best song on the album.

Through The Mists of Time - When I heard this song title it seemed very weird, this doesn’t sound like a song title from an AC/DC album. Song titles are usually very clique, tongue and cheek and often involve either rock in the title or something perverted. The song itself also sounds somewhat out of character for AC/DC. Again don’t get me wrong it still sounds like AC/DC but slightly different. I would say this is my second favourite song on the album easily. It is poppy yes but I don't care I like a bit of pop with my rock and at least this delivers still.

Kick You When You’re Down - We go from a song that I didn’t quite expect from AC/DC to a song that I expected from them. The song is not bad however still very much a clique song. Well the lyrics are clique but the groove grows on you. It is still very much a toe tapper that you will enjoy for sure but very cliquey.

Witch’s Spell - This song feels like it could have come from Black Ice and in that I fell in love in with this song pretty quickly, even the lyrics were not half bad. This is another great song on the album, 3rd best maybe or 2nd I do not know but it is definitely one of the highlights of the album.

Demon Fire - This was another one where i heard not in the context of within the album that I felt unsure of but by the time this song came on I was already well on board with the cut of this album’s lib that I was willing to be open to whatever this album thrown at me next. I think this song works very well in the context of the album it is in. I don’t know if I could like it as a stand alone song but AC/DC isn’t exactly about stand alone songs. They have always been a album band where the collection of songs are all supposed to work together. They make albums meant to be listened to from front to back in your vehicle or in the case of me doing other stuff in order to heighten the fun. Its meant to be int he background of fun. This song is meant to be there to make the moment funner and it works. It is a song that grows on you like Kick You When You’re Down. By the end of the song it wins you over.

Wild Reputation - This sounds very similar to Kick You When You’re Down, same kind of groove and clique. I don’t really have much of an opinion of this song though. Like Demon Fire it works int he context of the album and with the album.

No Man’s Land - Another clique hard rock song but because it is AC/DC it works better than it should, as long as you don’t listen to the lyrics. I sound like I am hard on the lyrics but honestly I am because they sort of stink. It has always been a weakness with AC/DC but it hasn’t been more evident than in these last two albums. They really need to get someone who can do it better. I know they won’t but one could hope.

Systems Down - I love how this song started but like every other song it is just a typical solid ass kicking hard riffing AC/DC song. It’s as simple as that.

Money Shot - If there was any filler songs where the shit lyrics wasn’t clouded with good riffs it would be this song. I think this song is the bad song on the album, I don’t like it. The riffs are ok but generic and the lyrics may have worked in the 80s or 90s but just screams laziness to me. If not for a typically good Angus guitar solo this song would be a fun blown stinker.

Code Red - I know some people like this song but I don’t see the appeal they do. Don’t get me wrong this song is still a decent hard rock song, earlier better than Money Shot. Vintage AC/DC hard rock but a fairly forgettable song in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know if I would have ended the album with this but at the end of the day it wasn’t the worst choice.

Like I have said before you more or less know what you are going to get with an AC/DC album, they are not going to change the formula and they should be respected for that. Sometimes it is good to know you can always know you can rely on certain things to always be a certain way.

Of the 4 albums that have come out since I have technically been a fan I would say this is probably the second best album of the 4, maybe third best I dunno because Stiff Upper Lip is a solid album in of itself to but that album requires the right mood where this album is vintage AC/DC to the fucking bone. Nothing about this album is really surprising at the end of the day it delivers the way you expect an AC/DC album should. With that said it is not as good as Black ice but I was never expecting it to. In all honesty I got what I wanted to a degree and came out more satisfied with this one than I did with Rock or Bust.

With that said the weaknesses with this album are the same as they were with Rock or Bust; weak lyrics and the album is way too short. The lyrics I can forgive though i am always going to be critical of them for it but the fact that this album is only 41 minutes long to me is questionable. it is longer than Rock or Bust but you can tell me especially after publicly saying that there is a mountain of riffs untapped in the vault that you could not come out with an album that is at least an hour long. AC/DC albums only really come out every 5-8 years so you can't tell me that 2 years of working on this album with a mountain of riffs at your disposal that you could only put out 41 minutes worth.

If I was Angus and the boys I would have been plugging to make a full on double album or at least 2 45 min albums. One be Power Up and another 2 or 3 years later or something. or better yet just don't make anything till you figured out which riffs work and just make one last colossal album and make that be the last. Not like you have very many albums left in the tank anyways. Brian is nearly deaf, Cliff can’t tour hard anymore and everyone is north of 60 you guy’s music isn’t as easier to play live as the Stones who could probably play well into their 90s at this rate.

Maybe I am just hard on them but I love AC/DC, I put them on a higher pedestal than others. With that said my grading system for them is different than others. When I grade them I grade them in comparison to their other albums. So a CCC could very well be a CCC1/2 or CCCC when compared to other bands. This album deserves a high rating but not too high. At the end of the day I feel CCCC1/2 is very fair for this album. It is great AC/DC album. It is an album you can play start to finish and thoroughly enjoy. It’s a bit corny and still short but all things considered you get a good dose of hard rock with this and that is all that matters. This album more than confirmed why they are my all time favourite band.

#AC/DC #ac/dc power up #hard rock

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coreycorner · 4 years

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Abyss by Unleash The Archers - CCCCC

I know what you are thinking, I thought your 2019 review was going to be your last Corey’s Corner blog entry. You were correct for the time however I felt like I needed a place to collect my thoughts on this album that discogs could not do though I hoped it would have but that is my fault. Technically my return to this blog should have been with me revisiting Back in Black by AC/DC on it’s 50th anniversary but....long story so maybe it is fitting that this would be the album I review as one could say the last truly great album I heard was the album that came before this one.

Looking at when was the last time I reviewed an album on here it was 4 years ago which shocks me but to tell you the truth that doesn’t surprise me all that much. I am not going to go into it as you already know I don’t have that much time to give myself to review things and wax my soap box on stuff the way I used to but I do still like doing these sort of things because it almost always gets me into writing. That being said I have already spent 5 hours writing in my travelogue so I don’t think I will be able to give this one the full war and peace treatment but that being said maybe that is a good thing that I stay clear and concise with this but make no mistake this is a glowing review if you didn’t already notice the perfect rating.

Back 2017 I was hungry for power metal music, I mean I always did but by this time power metal was hard to come by. Well let me correct myself....good power metal. Most if not all of the power metal bands I got into around 2002/03 to that point had either disbanded or had started to suck.

Iced Earth wasn’t consistently good anymore; Dystopia was meh, Living Dead was trash and Incorruptible was mediocre if anything not mention Jon Schaffer, his politics and point of view have serious skewered my love for the band. Evergrey was still alright but they hadn’t made anything on the same level of The Inner Circle. Threshold lost the singer that I liked with them, though they were not bad they were not as good. Nightwish seemed to change singers on a whim and hadn’t impressed me for awhile. Kamelot wasn’t making good albums to me either. Blind Guardian......don’t get the started on them. There just wasn’t any power metal bands out there really kicking ass to me and I didn’t really know where to go or where to look for more new blood. I got into power metal through my friend RJ and through Rubyeye productions who made AMVs using power metal bands I would in turn get into. By this time I turned to stoner metal and such for my metal fix.

While I was working I was lucky enough to be able to listen to music if I wanted to, through an algorithm of me listening to Nightwish YouTube gave me a suggestion to listen to a band called Unleash The Archers. I loved the name of the band and I had heard of them before but I remember asking about them to a friend and he said they had some cookie monster vocals in it which completely detracted me. Since I was curious I decided to give them a chance and started with listening to the album they had just released called Apex. From the first song on I fell in love with this band, it was everything I wanted in a power band and sounded like everything I needed to hear at that time. It easily became the album I listened to the most that year. I follow up by basically buying all of their albums on iTunes and listening to all of them. I could see where my friend got his assuming but by Time Stands Still they had merge into basically a traditional power metal band figuring out their sound by this point. I mean Brittany Slayes always have a prominent role in the band but the first few albums fell unrefined and had too much cookie monster vocals to me. Time Stands Still and Apex sounded like they finally refined it and went the next level.

I went to see them live not long after and from then on became a big fan. To tell you the truth the last time I was this excited for a follow up was in 2015 for Royal Thunder’s Crooked Doors which met expectations. This one did to say the least. However with this it felt like such a long wait for me but I think it was because I got into them just as they released a new album. it was not like I was in without a fix. Their new album and their catalogue got me through the year and 2018. In 2019 I was expecting something but instead of got Northern Passage which was enough for the most part to get me through what was a extremely disappointing year musically but I knew something was coming in 2020.

To tell you the truth I was expecting more better music to come out in 2020 thus far, while this year has been better easily 2019 left a pretty low bar. All this made me even more impatient to hear their new album. Hearing Abyss and then Soulbound sold me that this album was going to be even better and made me even more impatient. When I finally got the album on Friday I knew the best way to listen to this album was on my bike which has always been the best way to test great music.

As I am reviewing this this will be the 6th(wish) time I have listened to this album from tart to back and weirdly enough I have gotten nearly 6 different perspectives or maybe I just say I have had my mind changed 6 times with this album. Each time loving it but maybe becoming more and more forgiving of the parts I was a bit more critical of. As you read this you will probably discover where I have a change of heart on parts.

Waking Dream - Talk about a perfect build up song it was almost like they knew how long i had waited and just wanted to build up the anticipation even more but to an almost fever pitch. To say I was ready to have my mind blown was an understatement. Such a great build up song.

Abyss - Title track and the first song they shown to the public, not surprising as it is pretty much vintage Unleash The Archers right down to the opening screams showing Brittany’s great vocal prowess. From listening this song you can tell this one was built for the stage and this song basically sets the stage for the story and the entire album. The use of synth is heavy in this song and constant throughout the album but in a good way. I love me some good synth when done right and they do it right with this one. This one is just a flat out roller coaster of solid power metal. You know you are in for a great hour ride with this one.

Through Stars - It is from here that this album starts to conflict me. When I say that that doesn’t mean I don’t like it it just wasn’t what I was expecting. With Apex it was just a flat out ass kicking power metal album however with this album you are getting something slightly different. It is still very much a power metal album but it is very ballady if that makes any sense but that again doesn’t make it a bad thing it was just something I wasn’t expecting. I still didn’t mind the song. That being said I felt if there was a weak link song on this album it might be this one or another but again I enjoyed this song but after Abyss I was expecting another fast ass kicker.

Legacy - From what i heard about this song it was more or less what I was expecting. Though Abyss and Soulbound are my two favourite songs on the album this one would be my 3rd favourite. It is just so unique sounding and just has everything this album has been working with going for it. Of the entire album I felt like this song has the best narrative behind it. Concept albums are hard to do, there is a reason why not many do them because they can so easily blow in your face (just ask Judas Priest) but something about concept albums lends well with power metal but I think one of the biggest reasons is because of the theatrical nature of power metal and how so much of power metal sounds like a big movie score and often lends itself to telling stories and much of what makes power metal unique from other metal styles is the dramatics and the storytelling element. This song is not only able to tell a story but bring together all the great elements of what make concept albums and songs from them work when done right. I feel like this song could have went horribly wrong but int he context of this album and this point is works so damn well. I can’t help but sort of wonder if they ever considered getting a guest singer for this song. While Brittany still does an awesome job for some reason I can’t explain I imagined Devin Townsend would have been a great alternative or great guest vocalist to play the old man who awakens the immortal. I feel as though his vocals would have been just as complimenting to this song as Brittany’s was.

Return To Me - From the opening notes I knew this song was going to be the Matriarch’s song. Dark, demonic and slightly haunting but more so dangerous than haunting. It is the exact song that needed to follow Legacy, light with dark. Great ass kicking song, I feel like maybe My Finest Hour should have been the song title but I understand why Return To Me was chosen. My Finest Hour I think may have been misleading to those just reading the titles before listening also it is a bit on the nose. From reading Return To Me you know who this song is about or whose perspective this song is from without the need to be on the nose with it.

Soulbound - Fuck I love this song, this is the best song on the album as it takes all the elements this album has been playing with and sudden just got super saiyin with it. I don’t know what I could say other than that, the song speaks for itself it is just Unleash The Archers just in the shit and kicking ass. I mean they already had me with this album but it truly was hearing this song that sold me hook line and sinker before I even heard the album. This may just be my favourite UTA song now which is hard because I felt like The Cowards Way was their best and was/is the perfect power metal song to me. This song is making me seriously question that.

Faster Than Light - I am torn with this song as well, I absolutely love the riffage in it but at times it does get a bit cheesy and dramatic or ballady. Ballady is probably the wrong word to use but the chorus at times just feels to cheesy at first listen but when I listened to this song more and more I warmed on it. It is hard to follow up Soulbound in my mind so I feel like this sort of song had to be what came after which is basically the musical fight/chase scene of this story. Long story short I went from thinking that this song wasn’t quite as good to thinking no this is a good song I just needed to adjust my expectation and see the song for what it was. It is just another quality ass kicking song and obviously the fastest song not he album....for the obvious reasons.

The Wind That Shapes the Land - This is the 3rd act or I guess the big fight scene song between the Immortal and the Matriarch. This was the song I was the most curious about because I knew this song was the fight scene so to speak. This is probably the part that needed to be done right. I have not read many interviews about this album because I wanted to go in cold as possible in order to be as open as possible and I am glad I did. This being my 6th turn on this album I feel like I need to take back something that I may have implied or said. From the first few listens I felt like this album was a softer album than Apex and in a way I still feel but by soft it is not soft as in slower I think it is from the production. Apex sounded much more grittier, darker and heavier production wise. Abyss on the other hand though just as heavy and in many ways it is much more faster and much more ass kicking in many ways but it feels softer. The best way I describe it is Apex felt more earthy while they one sounds more airy or spacey if that makes any sense. I am discovering that while listening to this song for the 6th time. It is a great song and may very well be UTA’s epic song the way Iced Earth has Dante’s Inferno though this song is half as long. It is a great song, it is not a song I feel I will listen to a lot but it is a song I respect because what it is trying to do is hard enough as it is. I don’t feel like this song could be a stand alone single but a song that works best played with the entire album.

Carry The Flame - So this song is the weakest link of the album but with that said I don’t hate it, it makes perfect sense where it is and how it is. It just sounds way too corny for me. If I didn’t hear this song in the context of this album I would have probably not understood this song and maybe even hated it. It has a Stan Bush vibe to it and I am sure that was on purpose. Again I like the song but I like it because it fits with this album and where the story but yeah maybe it is just me be a borderline lactose intolerant person but the cheese was a bit much with this song at times but the riffage pulls me through it.

Afterlife - Great closer, of all the songs on this album that constantly forced me to reset my expectations and open me up more this one was basically what I was expecting because it sounds very much like the end of a big epic which this was. It is a very good song, fist pumper and a proper ending to a great album.

So yeah this album for most part has left me torn even though I love it. It is like getting something for Christmas that I didn’t entirely know I wanted, wasn’t sure I wanted but knew I would like. If Abyss and Soulbound were the only good songs on this album I would have still probably given this album a positive-is review due to the fact that 2020 hasn’t produced as many good albums as I expected. So it is safe to say that by a landslide this album has taken hold of the best album of 2020 and I doubt it will let go of it. It is going to take surprise entry or AC/DC coming out with an album as good as Black Ice, Highway To Hell or Back In Black to dethrone this album. That is if they do release an album his year which I doubt.

This album is deceptive I think, when I listened to it the first few times it felt like a softer or lighter album, not as aggressive and as ass kicking as Apex was which felt hard, rough and aggressive. Listening to this album again I feel I got to take that back it is just as aggressive, heavy and ass kicking as Apex was just in a different way. I think it was the ballady choruses, the synth and I guess something narrative lyric points that made me think otherwise. I feel like I am being passively negative to this album but I am not. I guess even after 6th albums I am still trying to process my love for this album and whether I love this one more than Apex or not.

I do not know if that is a fair decision to make, both albums are excellent and in their ways. As I said in one of the song reviews Apex feels earthy while Abyss feels spacey and I am sure that was the point where Apex was set on a planet this is set in space.

I remember a week after listening to Apex for the first time I told the band (I am assuming it was Brittany who read it but who knows) that it was the best power metal album I had heard since Crucible of Man by Iced Earth. Now after listening to this album and in the context of Apex with it I will say that both these albums are better than the Something Wicked albums Jon Schaffer made. Both easily surpass them and that is heavy praise for me because I love both albums but those albums had some really solid singles though a few songs felt like fillers. These two on the other hand felt more cohesive and fused well with each other.

If I had to choose between the two I think I would still choose Apex but if everyone was on the love train or Apex leaving Abyss will less love than the other I would hop on this one’s love train instead because it deserves just as much love. Both are great power metal albums period!

The best way to appreciate this album to me is listening to Apex first and then immediately play Abyss after that I think they made it that way and Abyss should be played front to back. This is a mark of a good concept album. As I have said before concept albums are hard to pull off, you are lucky if you are able to pull off one but UTA was able to pull off two of them, one after another.

With that said it deserves its perfect rating of CCCCC on the Corey Scale.

#unleash the archers #abyss #abyss by unleash the archers #power metal #Canadian metal

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coreycorner · 4 years

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Best of 2019, Best of The 10s/My Final Entry

It has been practically a year since I may my last entry here, I think it is safe to say Corey’s Corner on Tumblr is very much dead. I knew this last year but I wanted to make my last entry before the end of the year in order to do one last few of the year as that has always been the most popular post I would make here every year but not only a best of 2019 but also best of the 2010s. Back in September 2012 I created this blog as a outlet to share my opinions of movies, music, books and video games but it was mainly used for movies and video games. Much has changed since then for me personally and for things on the internet. Letterboxd have provided me with a better outlet to not only let me express my opinions of movies but also keep track of what I have watched in a way Tumblr could never help me with. Sooner or later Discogs could be that way for me with music as well.

On top of all that I just dont have the time that I once did to write essays on films and music while I have a full time job, a relationship and other pursuits that I find to be more important. Also I have come to realize that I just dont love movies and music the way I once did or I should say I am not quite as passionate about it as I used to be especially in the last two years. I think much of this is because the quality of movies I have seen in the past 2 years has dropped considerably. That could be because I have also had little time to watch movies but I do also believe the quality has dropped as well.

It could also be that opinion of what makes a good movie differs greatly from what everyone else thinks. There have been so many movies that have come out this year alone that everyone loves that I can’t be bothered with like Joker, The Lighthouse, The Irishman, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and Midsummar.

Without further ado however let’s get to the top ten best movies I have seen in 2019.

10) Toy Story 4 (https://boxd.it/9ALu) - In most years this movie would not have even been a runner up for the top ten but I think the fact that it is here goes to show you how little I have felt of this year’s crop of movies in 2019. With that being said that is not to detract from how surprisingly good this movie is. I mean you have to hand it to Pixar for making this series of movies such a solid one. I am not the biggest Toy Story fan out there in the world but I do respect the hell out of how they have been able to turn out such great stories out of this one. While I still believe it should have ended with Toy Story 3, the newest is still a fantastic instalment and great in many of its own ways on it’s own.

9) Fighting With My Family (https://boxd.it/fRyO) - I never expected this movie to be any good at all even with The Rock/Dwayne Johnson and the cast in this movie but this movie pleasantly surprised me. There was a time where I was a hardcore wrestling fan and while I don’t watch the programming anymore I am still passionate about it and have a large amount of respect for wrestlers and I feel this movie was excellent and held the line of being realistic and a bit storybook without been too storybook even though it is based off real life events. It is no world beater but it is still a pretty good movie. Again like Toy Story 4 in most years I dont think this would have made it in as a honourable mention but did this year.

8) The Report (https://boxd.it/j2X2) - This one was one of the later additions to my list and rightfully so and not the only movie on this list with Adam Driver in it. I watched this movie mainly because everyone said this was his best part of the last few movies he has been in this year and after watching the movie he was in this year that is ranked higher than this one I had to see it for myself. While I can definitely see why people think this one was better I think otherwise but despite that he is still very good in this movie and the movie in of itself is great.

7) Captain Marvel (https://boxd.it/9vSA) - Thinking about how I graded this movie over The Report I am sort of second guessing myself because in a way I think The Report is sort of better than Captain Marvel however I am going to stand by keeping Captain Marvel higher. The reasons is because I have very little expectations for this movie but I wanted to to succeed because everyone was ready to bury this movie because of Brie Larson and the fact that it is a female star and the fact that this movie not only silenced most people and was able to be a great movie in its own right is the reason why I rank it higher. The movie is fun, well acted, it is a nice thrill ride with great messages for young women. We need movie movies like this

6) Avengers Endgame (https://boxd.it/9vE4) - In some ways I should put this movie higher because this movie was able to make me tear up and get emotional but I think that has less to do with the movie itself and more that I am still a comic book nerd that I was just so happy to see Disney able to replicate how I read comics. It felt like reading a comic book and it took me back to childhood where I would get just as emotional of reading every comic book I had. It is just a good damn movie that no one can touch because it is good and it has out grossed everyone. It is Marvel’s mic drop of DC and their critics. This is our generation’s Ben Hur or whatever epics of yester years. While I dont like what this did with Hulk at the end they got just about everything right with the MCU.

5) Adopt A Highway (https://boxd.it/kImk) - This was literally the last 2019 movie I have seen this year and one that I didn’t even really know of till I found it in Walmart for a decent price. I mean I did hear of this movie but I never really looked far into it during their I just knew Ethan Hawke was in it and figured if it came my way I would watch it because if there is one actor who is secretly scoring home runs with every fucking role he takes these days while getting no award respect it is Ethan fucking Hawke. This movie is no better, in fact I think this movie may be my favourite role he has done thus far. It is such a charming and nearly heart breaking story. It is a bit hammy at times but it has a great heart and is one I would recommend to even the most critical of cinephiles. It’s heart is just too damn big.

4) Goalie (https://boxd.it/lkva) - I am not going to deny I give clear biases to Canadian movies for many reasons I have stated countless. Technically many of the movies on this list are better than Goalie but I still like goalie over the ones mentioned because of personal ties to it. For years I have been trying to write a fictional novel about a goaltender which was spawned from a screenplay i made years prior. I couldn’t get that script made. Either way the biggest inspiration or one of the biggest inspirations to who the main character is in my story was Terry Sawchuk. One of the main things I wanted to talk about with my screenplay/novel was male mental health issues through a sport highly recognizable to Canadians across the country focused using a position that is probably the most mentally stressful int he game itself. A position that is less physical and more mental.When I watch Goalie at this point if I was to tell anyone how my screenplay/novel would turn out on film Goalie is the movie. Well actually I would say it would be a fusion of Goalie and Hello Destroyer. Of the movies on this list without looking at actual numbers I am willing to bet this had the smallest or 2nd smallest budget. It definitely had least star power of any other movie on this list and I think it is an excellent movie anyone can watch even if they are not a hockey fan.

3) Marriage Story (https://boxd.it/hJAw) - Netflix movies haven’t entirely impressed me over the years but I am not going to deny they have been able to put out at least one movie every year that has blown me away whether it be Ojka, The Kindergarten Teacher, First Match or in this case Marriage Story but I think this one may be the best of them all. This is Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson at their best. I could say more but I am sure others have said it better, I have let to see a bad review for this movie.

2) A Vigilante (https://boxd.it/i4UM) - This is the movie that I think I may be the only one who truly liked it while everyone else either didn’t like it or didn’t mind it. I can’t tell you why I think this is the 2nd best movie I have seen or why I rank it higher than all the others. it was the first good movie I watched this year. I think when I was watching it it was everything I needed to see at that point that I decided to watch it with rose coloured glasses. I just love cold, hard and unrelenting character study movies and this one fits the bill. If I ever could have been a film maker these would be the kinds of movies I would be making. This movie hooked me, grabbed my by the throw and it never let go and by the end I so badly wanted Olivia to get her revenge. Getting me to pay attention to movies these days is extremely hard but if you can get me emotionally invested to where I am evoking emotions out of your movie then you got me and this movie did it in spades.

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1) The Art of Self Defense (https://boxd.it/hf5y) - As much as I love cold, dark and unrelenting character study films I also love twisted dark comedies, especially if they can pull of dead pan which seems to me to be a lost art in comedy these days the moment Leslie Neilsen died. I knew from the trailer alone that this movie was probably going to be the best movie I saw this year and be my favourite of the year and it did not disappoint. While I don’t like today’s cinema all that much right now I do like that stories of about toxic masculinity are being told more and more. If we are going to progress further as a society and start to rid ourselves of white male privilege and toxic masculinity we need to start telling stories that shine a light on them and show them for what they really are. This movie had me emotional invested, it made me laugh, made me shocked, surprised me (which is very hard to do) and further more it entertained me.

I really want to bypass the top ten best albums I have heard in 2019 because to tell you all honest truth 2019 was worst year I have ever experienced with music. There is not one album I would even consider putting on a top 10 much less saw one was my favourite. It was not for the lack of trying either as I purposely sought out as much new music as I could this year and nothing really good came out. Also none of my favourite bands came out with anything either. I was eagerly expecting AC/DC to come out with an album since they were in Vancouver in the summer of 2018 recording and here we are at the end of 2019 and not even a peep as to when or if a new album will come out. I love AC/DC but they truly suck at keeping in touch with their fans. I completely get how they want to keep as far away from the spotlight and limelight as possible but how they purposely keep their fans in the dark for years on end is borderline disrespectful to their fans. I am not going to give a top ten I am just going to say these were the albums that I did not mind this year.

Thanks For The Dance by Leonard Cohen

Paradise by KMFDM

Gold & Grey by Baroness

The Mortal by Merlin

The Atlantic by Evergrey

While the album selection has been shit this year it would be impossible for there to be no good songs this year. Here are my top ten best songs of 2019.

10) Throw Me An Anchor by Baroness

9) Happens To The Heart by Leonard Cohen

8) Paradise by KMFDM

7) Tower Fall by Merlin

6) Deutscheland by Rammstein

5) For Real by Tom Petty

4) I’d Do Anything by Baroness

3) The Kids Are Alt-Right by Bad Religion

2) A Silent Arc by Evergrey

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1) Northwest Passage by Unleash The Archers - Leave it to the band I consider to be the saviours of Power Metal and my love for it to easily give me the best song I heard this year.

For as shitty as 2019 has been or music I am extremely confident that 2020 will make up for it ten fold.

Unleash the Archers (whom AC/DC could learn a thing or two from when it comes to keeping their fans informed) has already stated they will be recording in the new year following up the album that in my opinion is the best power metal album of the 2010s which is Apex. I am expecting Royal Thunder, Castle, Demons & Wizards, Body Count and other bands I love to be releasing albums next year. I am also expecting AC/DC to finally release a new album as well. I know they are working on it and i can’t imagine it would take more than 2 years for them to do it. As much as it is often a long time between albums usually once they are in the studio they don’t normally take that long to finish an album and release it hereafter but this time around is different. Given that Rock or Bust was fairly disappointing to me I don’t have that much expectations for the new one. I am more looking forward to the tour because that is AC/DC at their best.

I normally or try not to focus much of my personal life on this particular blog unless it links with what i reviewing but given this is the last entry of Tumblr Corey’s Corner I feel it is somewhat warranted. As bad as 2019 has been more or less for music and movies it was a bit of a unique year for me. For the first time in my life I am living with someone else, I have a film time career, I have had many great adventures, a few bad experiences and some close calls. By and large 2019 though rocky was a pretty good year for me personally. Would it be the best year of the 2010s or my life I do not think so but that discussion I think is for another blog. When it comes to music and movies as much as I have given flack to the 00s for generally being bad for music from a pop stand point it was very strong in terms of music I did listen to but back then I had the time to find it and listen to it. The 00s was also a excellent decade for indie movies for which the 10s to tell you the truth I don’t think was as strong in that regard. That being said the 10s did proceed a lot of great movies and a lot of good albums. What separates the 10s from the 00s in terms of movies for me is that the Hollywood movies were generally better than they were int he 00s thanks mainly to Marvel.

I am not going to deny I am a big supporter of the MCU, I am still critical of them but in the end I much rather watch MCU movies than the general remakes and movie masculine big budget bullshit movies that generally come out in between the comic book movies that once dominated Hollywood to begin with before Iron Man. I agree that the market is over saturated with comic book movies and sooner or later the bubble will bust but you know what I am just going to enjoy the ride all the way into the sunset. Plus its obvious Hollywood has no answer to the Marvel movies. They really don’t have an answer, not even Disney itself has an answer to it. They just like Fiege do his thing and that is what they should continue to do.

In terms of music there was a lot of albums that came out during this decade that struck a personal cord with me and what I felt mimicked much of what was going on in my life. In previous decades albums like that came one every few years however for this decade I could say for the span of 2013 to maybe 2017a whole bunch of albums came out that I felt were like soundtracks to my life at that period. Maybe they felt more plentiful than other decades who knows it just felt like there was more music I identified with this decade than previous decades.Where the 00s was mainly all power metal and grunge rock for me this decade was mainly stoner metal and folk. I am curious to see what the music I will be listening to predominantly in the 20s will be.

The next/last three top tens are not going to be easy for me and are going to be filled with many contradictions I am certain. Why because things change over the span of ten years especially me. I am not the same Corey I was in 2010, 12 or 14 as I waist 2016 much like I am bit different from I was in 2016 than I am in 2019. People change, opinions change, albums, songs and movies grow on me and some fade away from me. All I can really provide at this point is my point of view in 2019 Corey version 35.0′s view of what I thought was the best from my time versions 25.0 to now. I will start with the easiest one, the best movies. Oh boy......

10) Under The Skin (https://boxd.it/3mDa) - This movie hit me, it hit me in a way I could not explain then and I still cannot entirely explain why I love this movie. It’s visually engaging, it is the definition of a slow burn movie that requires multiple viewings to get. In many ways this is my art house entry into the list. I just dig everything about this movie.

9) Shame (https://boxd.it/2CxU) - It’s a character study much like Under The Skin was and like that one this is a slow burn. It also touches on subject matter that is pretty hard to tackle and does it so well. This movie like the previous movie and all of these movie has stuck with me long after I saw it which is why they are on this list.

8) Brigsby Bear (https://boxd.it/ebkS) - I don’t if there was one movie more than this one that left me with a bigger smile and feeling more inspired than this one. When I saw the trailer to this movie I thought it was one thing but it wound up being another. Normally when that happens they spells danger for me but it was n’t so with this one. This movie belongs on this list.

7) Attenberg (https://boxd.it/bzq) - I watched this movie a few years after it came out. For a time most of the movies I watched was often linked to the trailers I saw from other movies I bought on DVD. I bought a shit ton of DVDs over the last 20 years and finding Attenberg came out of my DVD addiction. I remember the movie just looking weird and just different which sold me on watching it. If I remember correctly I found it at my public library in Burnaby which has an excellent foreign movie collection. I watched and I just dug the movie. I would say of the movies I have watched on this list I may have watched Attenberg the most of all of them. Why I don’t know it is just a movie I really dig for it’s style and weirdness.

6) Hello Destroyer (https://boxd.it/erN2) - I don’t know if there is a better movie that discussed toxic masculinity than with this movie. The movie could have done with more hockey however this movie was never meant to be a hockey movie. In fact you can replace hockey with any sport in this movie and it would be just as relevant. Just a tour de force by Jared Abrahamson in this movie.

5) Her (https://boxd.it/4O24) - This is a movie that I feel like I could not leave off the list but I had no idea where to put it. I put it in the middle because I do love this movie. This movie reeks of charm and heart, it is just a well made movie that thoroughly belongs on this list. The acting is great, the camera work is great, music is great, the look is great this movie is nearly perfect in of itself but unless the next 4 movies what sets it apart is emotional engagement. This one engaged me but not as much as the next four.

4) Short Term 12 (https://boxd.it/5f6s) - Anyone who is trying to figure out why Brie Larson became such a big deal recently could look at Room but i think they should look past that one and look at this one. Just a great and emotionally engaging movie. Just watch this movie, you won’t be disappointed.

3) Camp X-Ray (https://boxd.it/7biI) - This movie came out of nowhere for me, I heard nothing about this movie then it suddenly popped up for me and I decided to give it shot. What I got was a that for a time considered the best movie I saw this decade but it is not. That doesn’t mean this movie is not worth seeing, this movie is very much worth seeing.

2) Mad Max: Fury Road (https://boxd.it/2DjO) - I thought long and hard about whether this would be the best movie I saw this decade or not. It was pretty hard decision. There is no doubt that this movie belong here. This is one movie that I have saw and many people’s list of best of this decade, it deserves it. There is no question that of all the Hollywood movies this decade this was the best one. I won’t spend much time kissing this movie’s ass, the movie speaks for itself. This movie is the best action movie of the decade. This should be the bar for which all action movies should strive to achieve but few do. This movie is damn good and there are few out there who despite it. That simple.

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1) Gregoire (https://boxd.it/fkvM) - I am not going to dodge it, I chose movie because I am bias towards it but I have reasons behind it. I give bias toward Canadian movies but this even more so because this movie came from my hometown and was made by someone from my hometown and done better than I could have done it. I give bias to Canadian movies because Canadian film needs that bias and if I can get at least one person to consider looking into one of our movies then I feel I have done my job and that is one of many reasons why I say this was the best movie of the 10s and thus favourite movie of the 10s. I have a emotional attachment to this movie because it was made and set in my hometown, it was a great depiction of what it is/was like living in Fort McMurray though you could replace this with any small isolated city/town and it would be the same. However take the bias out this movie has the lowest budget of all of the movies on this list, no real star power with that said given which was more than like a toilet paper budget was still a very good movie. Acting was top notch, camera work excellent, a very relatable story even if I wasn’t from Fort McMurray. In the end I am a big cheer leader for this movie thus why it is my favourite. If someone was to ask me about what Fort McMurray was like for me as a teen I would show this movie.

Top 10 best albums fo the 2010s

This was actually more easier than the movies weirdly enough when I actually went through the best albums of the past decade. Ranking them was the harder part though.

10) The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable - I was surprised that I would add this album tot he top ten but given the amount of good songs that I love that were actually on this album it’s not that surprising. I never considered this album the best of this year simply because I never heard of this album or bad till the Wolf’s Law but much of the reasons why I love this bad stem from this album.

9) Bloodlust by Body Count - At the beginning of the year this album came out if you told me that this album would wind up being one of the best I heard that year as well as decade I would be shocked. This album is just so fucking solid from front to back.

8) Endless by Mount Salem - I get angry when I hear this album, not so much the album just the band. When I first listened to this album I enjoyed it but I thought it was just ok but by the time I listened to it a few more times in Europe I fell in love with this album and band. So much I needed to see them live in Paris and I am glad I did because they split not too long after. That is what makes me so mad, I so badly wanted them to be a band i could hear more of. Their sound and musicianship had so much potential but they decided to just disappear after this first album.

7) CVI by Royal Thunder - If there was a band of the decade award for me it would be Royal Thunder, in the past 6 or 7 years i have listened to them just about all of their albums I love but this was my introduction to them. Such a great album with great songs for which they have cemented themselves as a top 5 band for me, #2 for a long time before another band would come to give them some serious competition for that spot.

6) Under Siege by Castle - This was another album or which at first I didn’t think much of but over theirs has grown on me, 2014 was probably the best year for music for me this decade. At least three albums came out in 2014 that are on this list (Endless, this album and one more). Of all the albums on this list I would dare say this one is the most complete, if not the most the 2nd most. This is one of solid albums front to back.

5) Holy Grove by Holy Grove - This is where it gets very hard for me to rank albums because we are talking about albums that either won best album for me for the year it came out and/or that album had a personal significance to me. This album I am certain was a #1 for me and it came out of nowhere. It is just a good heavy album. I can’t help but imagine how happy I would be if I would be able to look forward to a Holy Grove and a Mount Salem album at one point. Both bands came out with such solid heavy opening albums. Thankfully Holy Grove is still around and making good music.

4) Man on The Moon 2 by Kid Cudi - This album and the next 3 all had a big impact on me in one way or another. This album came out during the darkest point of my life and was easily the soundtrack to it. I remember drowning myself in this album for a very long time. While I am not the same person now as I was then I can still listen to this album and remember who and where I was back then. This was a big album for me and easily my all time favourite rap album of all time.

3) Between Colours by Wilderness of Manitoba - Where Man On The Moon 2 was the soundtrack to the darkest point of my life Between Colours was the soundtrack to the brightest or maybe the most important as there was still many dark point during m 78 day trip to Europe but this album was the soundtrack to that life changing adventure. Whenever I hear this album I immediately think of that time in my life. That is how important this album is for me. It is not as over all strong as many of the albums on this list but particular songs on this album with stay with me for the rest of my life. Something that I don’t think few or any other song on this list can say.

2) Crooked Doors by Royal Thunder - Another album that could be a soundtrack for the time period it came out in. 2015 was a year I did a lot of growing in, who I am today is from the internal work I did on myself and experiences I had in 2015. This was the album I listened to consistently during that time period. I created a soundtrack/mix CD for myself for age 30 but to tell you the truth this album would have been just as effective, at least 3 songs from that album we put into that mix. That should say everything as to how important this album was for me. I don’t really listen to this album all that much anymore but even if I don’t anymore I can’t deny how important this album was for the time period I did listen to it was.

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1) Apex by Unleash The Archers - Of all the albums I have listen to on this list I think I may have listened to this one completely the most. For the past 20 years power metal was the genre I loved the most and for this decade power metal had sucked. When this album came out it felt like a breath of fresh air, a much needed breath. The songs on this album for the past 2 years I have listened to consistently and a lot where the others I have barely played much at this point. I love this album and I can’t see any real reason why this is not #1. Plus they are Canadian and from Vancouver/Victoria.

Now we are at the final list which I think is going to be the hardest list. I dont know how I can pick ten of the best songsI have heard this album. Feelings change, moods change so if I choose a ten right now it is reflected of how I am feeling right now but the best I can do right now is to try and have introspection. Either way though these ten songs are/were important to me for these past ten years but make no mistake they could be very interchangeable depending on mood. This is less of a top ten for me and more of a 10 best.

10) Mein Land by Rammstein - I love the music video as much as I love the song but that can be said for a lot of Rammstein songs.

9) These Worries by Kid Cudi - A song that like the album I talked about above reminds me of the darker times in my life, none more significant in my memory or triggers in my memory than this song.

8) Forget You by Royal Thunder - At the beginning of 2015 I had a lot of unresolved issues and thoughts in my head I needed to sort out. When I hear this song I think of that moment in time and how I began to rise above them.

7) Dying Breed by Castle - One of the best metal songs I heard this decade. Always pumps me up

6) Whispering World by Royal Thunder - This song got me into Royal Thunder and it is still a song I listen to now and then though not as much as I used to.

5) Good Times by Mount Salem - Just a beautifully heavy fucking song that held so much promise for a band that could have been big in my eyes. Whenever I need to listen to something really fucking heavy I listen to this song.

4) The Last Thing On My Mind by Joy Formidable - Over the last 20 years I went through a lot of heart break, many wasted years licking my wounds over people I shouldn’t have been doing it for. This was another song I heard in 2015, which Forget You was about the process of trying to get over that hump this song was about finally being over it.

3) Play Ball by AC/DC - AC/DC only had one album out this year sadly enough enough, only two good songs came out of it but of those two this one was the best and is very much signature AC/DC in every way. Whenever I hear this song I get pumped but it also reminds me of when I was in Istanbul purposely eating a cafe with bad food simply because it had wifi just so I could hear 30 seconds of this song. It was worth it.

2) Oh Heart by Wilderness of Manitoba - When I first heard this song on my first go around I didn’t really think too much about it. It wasn’t until I was at Octoberfest feeling lonely missing family, friends and home that this song really hit me. it was a song that really provided me some much needed therapy and singled the first steps I was taking to conquer the depression I had been suffering for over 20 years up to that point.

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1) The Coward’s Way by Unleash The Archers - There was never a question in my mind for which song was going to be number one, it would be this one with bullet. No song pumps me up or motivates me more than this song, to me this is basically the most perfect song I have heard in this decade. When I think of how power metal should sound or be played, or metal in general I think of this song. I love it way too much, it’s just that simple.

So there you have it, 2019 in a nutshell and the past 10 years in a nutshell. It has been quite a ride for me this decade but a very worth while one. But in terms of this blog it has been an evolution of sorts. 7 years ago i created this blog in order to kill time, 9 years later I have no time for this blog but who knows, I doubt it though. I will keep this blog up anyway just incase but don’t expect another blog post here.

As 2019 and the 2010s draw to a close I wonder what is next for me in the next 10 years. Ask me 10 years from now. For those who still read or have read this blog over the years thank you for your time and entertaining my opinions over the last 7 years. If you still wish to follow my opinions on movies and music go to the links below:

https://letterboxd.com/coreybussey/

https://www.discogs.com/user/coreybussey

#unleash the archers #art of self defense #royal thunder #gregoire movie

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coreycorner · 5 years

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Best of 2018 in Movies & Music

Better late than never but it has been a long and busy couple of days, in fact 2018 in of itself was that way too. Not so much long as it was just busy. With that you have probably noticed that I don’t put many reviews in here anymore. One reason is Letterboxd (https://letterboxd.com/coreybussey/) does a better job of keeping track of the movies I have watched than this does and I like their system better. Second reason is I have had no time to really sit down and make more thoughtful reviews of other stuff, 2018 was spent traveling, working and being with my girlfriend and the future will be more of the same. Third reason goes with the other is that I haven’t been able to listen or watch as many good movies or music in 2018 as I did in previous years due to where I work now. So be prepare that this post may either be my last blog post or that I may just use this blog to celebrate what was the best I have seen or heard in a particular year. Barring that is anyone actually still reads this blog but oh well.

2018 I know there had to be better music and movies that came out that year but from what I seen and heard most of it was disappointing. I guess over the past few really good years there has to be a stinker and I thin as much as I really enjoyed 2018 in life, in art it was very much a stinker.

Lets start with music, I really did try at the end of the year to try and find good albums but all I really found decent to bleh.

Albums

Most of these albums deserve a second list but I haven’t really listened to any of them front to back more than once except for one album which is what wound up broke what would almost be a 4 album tie for first. None of these albums deserve to truly be number 1 in any other year if competing against those but this is the best of what I heard.

5) The Shadow Theory by Kamelot - There was a time where I was a big Kamelot fan. From 2000 to 2008 was a great time for power metal at least for me with Kamelot, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth amongst others. The Black Halo remains in my mind their greatest album. With their seminal singer now gone and a whole lot of lack lustre albums during his time and the new singer’s time hurt my opinion of Kamelot. I am not going to blame their singer because I think they chose a proper singer to continue I just feel the music hasn’t been up to stuff even with the seminal singer there too. The Shadow Theory to me is their best album they have made since The Black Halo, it doesn’t come close to touching it but it tries at least.

4) Firepower by Judas Priest - Not going to lie, as much as I love Judas Priest I never thought I would ever see them back on any top five of mine of any year anymore. Since Retribution everything they have done since has simply been puke worthy in my opinion. Look I don’t expect them to make another British Steel or Painkiller but I hold bands to high standards. I will always go by the saying that a band is only as good as their last album. There is a reason why I will always bend the knee to the church of AC/DC. While Rock or Bust is no way their best album, there is still songs that will beat the shit out of you (in a good way). I expect the bands I love and continue to pay to hear to at least try to make something worth listening to because there are too many old bands that have simply given up doing that (I am looking at you Iron Maiden). With Firepower I will say it is the best album Priest had done with Halford since Painkiller easily. I will still be a defender of the Owens era and felt fans gave him a raw deal. If I was to compare this album to those as well I will say it is their best since Demolition (and I dont care what anyone thinks of that). That being said this album only has two good songs and those are No Surrender and Firepower. The others are fairly forgettable to me however still listenable at least. Do feel like I should listen to this album again someday but outside of those two songs nothing ever really caught me.

3) Deal Thy Fate by Castle - Castle often seems to make a good album then a meh to ok album then a good album. This one I would say is pretty good but even then I am reluctant because I feel this is an album best listened to front to back enjoyed driving or if anything getting stoned in your room head banging. Outside of one song there isn’t anything else in it that stands out. So in a way its strength is also a weakness; I would say this album is best as a whole compared to others in that no one songs is greater than the sum of others outside of Can’t Escape The Evil but there must always be one song set apart from the others as the best. This is the most complete album I think they have done but not their best overall.

2) Prequelle by Ghost - If I can go full hipster for a moment but I loved Ghost far before so many did, they hooked me with their first album. However I didn’t follow them as strongly after that, not really because I didn’t not like them.....I actually don’t know why entirely except that Meliora didn’t impress me much at all at the time and I think I was diving deep into stoner metal around that time. With this album I do think that it is strong, it is their strongest from front to back but I do feel this album is one or two songs away from being an album that I would have given the number one spot the album I would say is their best ever. Opus Eponymous still holds a place in my heart though comparing this album to their other albums seems unfair because they have definitely gotten better with their musicianship, the album just sounds like so much fun compared to the others at least to me. The album as a whole doesn’t have the replay value that the one that got the number one spot did.

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1) Holy Grove II by Holy Grove - With no surprise to me to a degree it was the album I was anticipating this most this year. Holy Grove came out of nowhere in 2016 and saved what would have been a slightly stinker year for music into a good one. Their album was just heads and tails better than everything else easily. I can’t entirely say the same for this album but in no way does that mean it is an inferior album. I still think it is the best album I heard this year, its an album I have listened to a few times front to back, it has two good songs and the others are pretty good too but those two songs do make up nearly half the album since this band really went long with their songs. While it doesn’t have the hooks that their first album it has it delivers double to heaviness. The album is just fucking heavy it is insane and the singer’s voice just bites into you. Not as good as the first but easily a worthy followup. It's still a good album overall, the songs are better to me and its replay value made this album the only logical choice for number one.

Songs

I dont think there will ever be a such thing as a year without good songs even when the albums were lacklustre. 2018 was no different, there was plenty of god metal songs, even to make a top ten for this one that is for sure. The ten songs I chose are very interchangeable. Of all the lists this year the songs were the hardest to construct, it often is but more so this year.

10) Twilight Sunrise by The Sword - The Sword has gotten soft over the last while, they aren’t as hard or as stoner as they used to be but this song shows that they can at least come close to it. I mean they are still young men I am sure if they wanted to they can make heavier stuff but from what I have heard they are trying to do what Ghost is doing in reaching a more bigger audience which means they have to be softer in order not to scare the ones with virgin ears away from the heaviness. I don’t agree with that I feel what brings you to the dance is always best, just trying to top it. Look at Metallica yes going ‘softer’ with the Black album sort of worked but lets face it folks when we think of Metallica and when people want to think of Metallica including those they brought in through the Black album will always go with the albums before that as their favourites (from my experience with other Metallica fans) over anything Black and past that. This song as well as the album itself is much better than their last album but nothing much outside of this song grabbed me.

9) Faith by Ghost - This one took me for surprise when I first heard it, I heard Rats and I thought fuck that was a good song so the next one should be meh but Faith was like point on the rollercoaster when you think it will slowdown but instead you are in for more fun. That is what Faith sounds to me, even on it’s own it is a whole lot of fun to sing and head bang to. I think it stands close to Rats, very close but not close enough but very much worth being on this list though.

8) Blade Born by Holy Grove - What can I say about Holy Grove that i haven’t already said before now, they came out of nowhere in 2016 and has been a band I follow intently and look nearly in the same like as Royal Thunder as both are heavier bands and both have females with soulful voices fronting them. Blade Born sounds like it came from their previous album which I loved because I love that album and felt it was a good way to segway into their new album though the rest of it sounds a bit different but still good. Holy Grove is now a two time album of the year winner for me and just on their second album. Tied with Royal Thunder again funny enough.

7) Abyss by Merlin - This album and band was a big surprise for me this year, who knew a saxophone could work so well with stoner metal. It did and generated into this song from a band that I will be curious of in the near future to see if they can build on their saxophone laced stoner metal.

6) Ravenlight by Kamelot - Easily the best Kamelot song to come out since maybe Ghost Opera in my opinion. Hard to really say anything else that hasn’t already been said. It has much of what you expect of Kamelot at their best though it isn’t their best but it is still a good song and is their best song on their new album.

5) When The Curtain Falls by Greta Van Fleet - Biggest surprise and if there was an award for best new band I listened to this year it would be Greta Van Fleet. They are already bigger than most of these bands right now so they dont really need me pumping their tires. What I don’t get is why so many hate them for sounding exactly like Led Zeppelin. Last time I checked Led Zeppelin hasn’t really been making albums since 1981 and last time they played a show was 11 years ago. Yes they sound exactly like them but quite honestly I think we need a new Led Zeppelin right now because the old one ain’t coming back (sorry if you were the last to know that, I knew that since I was I dunno 13). I don’t expect them to continue to sound like Led Zeppelin but if they did and made the same progressions like they did I would still love the because we need as many big rock bands out there as possible. Rock is not exactly mainstream right now and AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Weezer and a few others only have so much left in them. So haters do the future of hard rock a favour and shut up for once. I have never been that much of a Led Zeppelin fan but I appreciate them and what they done for music just like I appreciate what this band does making what was old new again for a whole new audience. As for the song it is great and outside of the sound and voice it doesn’t even entirely sound like a Led Zeppelin song. Its just a nice fun rock song that is very catchy.

4) Fred Astaire by Jukebox The Ghost - The only non metal/rock song on here to a degree. I thank my girlfriend for this one, I feel like this is our song or at least it is my song to her and how I feel about her. yes sappy but whatever even if I didn’t have emotional ties to it one can’t deny it is a great pop song.

3) No Surrender by Judas Priest - Possibly the most corny song I heard this year but even then it is still the most inspiring pump up song I know outside of anything by Stan Bush that I listen to. It is still very much Priest and show that they still have the ability to make good music. Easily the best Priest song made in a LONG TIME.

2) Can’t Escape The Evil by Castle - Choosing between the last two was pretty hard because of all the songs on this list I think I listened to these two the most consistently but in the end this song get number 2 but could easily be 1B. it is just a great and heavy song. If you are to ask me what song to recommend from Castle I might recommend this song. It is not their best song ever but it has all the elements that make them a consistently good metal band. I don’t know if Castle will ever hit number one with me; Under Siege may have had a chance if it didn’t have such stiff competition that year if I remember. Castle and their albums often do nothing for me at first but always require being warmed into and once you do they are very enjoyable. This song didn’t require any warm up it just comes at you like a right hook to the jaw. Great riffs, great flow and a song I love to listen to while I do my stairs at work.

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1) Rats by Ghost - It came down to numbers; the amount of times i listened to this song over the others and how many times I can still enjoy it. It is 2019 now and I still love it like I did last year. It hits all the right beats with me; it’s hard, it’s melodic, it’s heavy while still catchy and it’s just a greatly constructed metal song. PERIOD. From 3:49 to the end of the song in the video above gets me every time, no matter what I am always head banging by the end of it. That is why it is number 1!

Movies

I really tried hard get in all the movies I missed while I was in Newfoundland this year and I feel like I still missed out on quite a few; The Favourite being the one that I wish I could have seen but found no way of seeing it. 2018 wound up being not as bad as I felt previously but still far weaker than previous years.

*10) Nancy - This was literally the last 2018 movie I watched in 2018, I watched it on the plane back home. This movie just popped out of nowhere on my iTunes and I love both the cast and the concept of the movie. I mean make no mistake I love a well done character study and this movie is a good example of a character study. It is strange how I have watched quite a few movies with Andrea Riseborough in them this year without purposely seeking her out but after seeing her those movies I am becoming a fan of her. This movie isn’t a world beater by any stretch but it is a good movie to check out. This movie is what I would call my kind of movie in that if I was a film maker this would be the kind of movie I would make kind of thing. Normally when I say that about a movie it is normally a movie at the top of the list or top 5 at least but this year I would say no only this one I would say is my kind of movie, the kind of movie I would make. Either way check it out.

On a side note I created a list of the movies I would consider ‘my kind of movies’ (https://letterboxd.com/coreybussey/list/my-kind-of-movies/), I must say if those were my filmography it would seem I really like to make either dark character studies or quirky indie relationship movies.

9) My Diner With Herve - This won’t be the last time you see Peter Dinklage on this list but of the two movies this was his best performance. Look this is still very much a paint by numbers biopic but it is still funny and entertaining to watch. Plus you watch for Dinklage and he just owns it in this movie.

*8) I Think We’re Alone Now - I was really on a Elle Fanning kick in 2018 I will say that much I would say 1/4 of the movies I watched in 2018 had her in it. Some on purpose and some I didn’t even realize. Mainly because I really like the work she chooses to do. Most of the movies she does are the kind of movies I go for and this one was no exception. Plus I really like post apocalyptic movies though this one is loose on that end. Plus this also has Peter Dinklage in it. This movie was just a whole lot of fun to watch as well. Plus if all of humanity died I would probably do the same thing Peter was doing, mind burying people.

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*7) First Match - Netflix has done a good job with TV shows over the past few years but in terms of movies to tell you the truth most of the movies they have done have not done much for me outside of Okja however this year they really stepped up their game. This one came out to little to no promotion at least on my end I don’t know if anyone else even knew this was released but it caught my eye and I am glad I watched it. Again it is sort of a character study like Nancy was but not about an emotionally flawed person but of a girl struggling to find her identity. I am a big cheerleader for this movie, this is a movie I would like to show to little girls showing them they don’t have to be what society tells them to be.

6) BlackkKlansman - Spike Lee very rarely disappoints in whatever he does and even when doesn’t do something well he at least tries to bring the fire and this one did both. Event hough this movie was set in the 70s its obvious why Spike chose to tell this story now during a time where things are almost no better than they were back then. We live in a very divided time and while we will never ever nor should we ever all agree on everything we can’t forget who the real enemies are and that hate will never be the way for us to grow as a species.

5) Ballad of Buster Scruggs - You would think a person like me would eat up everything the Coen brothers made and smile after but no not really, I am not as much a flag waver of their work as others are but that does’t mean I don’t respect their work. I don’t know any student of film who could say the Coen brother do not have talent. I just never saw how they could be as beloved filmmakers as they are where everyone thinks most of what they make turns midas gold. I like half their stuff, the other half I either don’t care for or think are ok. This one on the other hand unlike some of their other movies I am on board with saying it is an excellent movie and highly entertaining. While the last two stories I didn’t care for 3/4 of the entire movie was excellent. Surprisingly another good Netflix movie.

4) Flavours of Youth - Another Netflix movie or at least is distributed by them, like movies I haven’t been quite impressed with Netflix and their choice of anime but this one as well as the Devil Man Crybaby series it making me think otherwise. I had no expectations with this movie and had no idea what I was in for. What I got was just like The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in that it is a collection of shorts woven together. While Buster is set under the Western trope this movie is focused on food in some way or another. It such a beautifully written, drawn and made movie. One of the better anime movies I have seen in a very long time.

*3) The Kindergarten Teacher - I am a big cheerleader of Maggie Gyllenhaal, I feel like she never gets enough respect or recognition for her work but in a way I don’t think she cares or should because she always gets work and always gets to play interesting roles. She is a character actress and character actors/actresses often get the best roles in any movie. This is very much a character driven movie, a character study of a woman seemingly normal and seemingly means well but does it in a completely inappropriate well. I love these kind of movies. This movie was one of only two movies that evoked real emotion out of me, this one not as strong as the other but close. When I was watching this movie I was puling for Maggie’s character. Pulling for which I mean I understood her perspective and I related though I did not agree entirely. By the third act however I was ‘distraught’ that she would wind up doing what she did and very disappointed with her. I felt sorry for her in the end because deep down she is not a truly bad person and she only wants to see the kid succeed (even though in many ways she is just using the kid to grab the success she never got to have) but her way of doing it was so inappropriate. Excellent character study movie, excellent movie all around. Again this was another Netflix movie.

*2) Galveston - This one came late in the game and I wasn’t entirely sure of it when I wanted to watch it because it seemed like a generic getaway movie with characters that I probably did not want to care about. What made me want to watch it originally was because those characters were played by ben Foster and Elle Fanning. At the beginning I still did not think I could get into this movie because the characters seemed very cookie cutter for the movie they were in but my tune changed. This movie is a good example as to how important character development is in a story/movie and that in a way you can almost never have enough of it if you can pack it into your movie because if you can’t find a way to get your audience to connect or relate to your characters they won't care when they die or have drama inflicted on them. This movie went from me not caring about Ben’s scruffy dangerous character or Elle’s stereotypical ditzy prostitute character to nearly being heart broken when seeing what inevitably happens between them at the end. All because half the movie was spent developing who they are, showing you who they were beyond the tropes they seemed to be. I nearly got dry eyed by the 3rd act which I won’t spoil. Let me just if a movie can evoke an emotion out of me, someone who is extremely unfair to movies these days then you are doing something right and will probably win big in my books and this movie did. Doesn’t hurt either that I did not realize till the end of the movie that Mélanie Laurent directed this movie. Bravo Mélanie! Bravo!

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1) Isle of Dogs - Replay value is often what separates the movies I give CCCC or CCCC1/2 from CCCCC on the Corey Scale and that is honestly what separates this movie from the others. I have watched this movie 3 times in 2018 where the others I have only seen once and don’t feel like i need to see it again anytime soon (though I would in order to get someone else to watch it). Wes Anderson is typical Wes Anderson in this, the same cast with the same kind of music and look to a degree and everything and like always I eat it up like it was a doniar from North Burnaby on doniar day. The movie is pure of fun and a joy to watch each time I watch it.

For those wondering why I put a * in front of some movies on this list it is because while I was writing up my thoughts on each movie I noticed that at half of the movies on my list were directed by women. That did not play into my selection of these ten movies at all as these movies were already predetermined before I realized that bit of knowledge. With that said I am proud that statistic. While I always try to go out of my way to watch movies directed by women and over the past few years much like with music I have been more interested in watching movies directed by women much like I enjoy listening to metal with women fronting them. I am glad I did not need to try too hard to seek out great movies directed by women, they were already out there. Take that however you want I could care less but I am person who likes variety and feels more voices out there telling stories the better stories will be. Call it PC if you wish but the world is better with more choices and options. I have seen enough of the male perspective. I am more interested in the female perspective in both film and rock/metal.

So that is 2018 in nutshell, while 2018 didn’t entirely impress me much I am really looking forward to this year in music at least because one can never guess at what movies will come out this year.

AC/DC was working on their new album for much of last year so one can assume that they will come out with a new album this year. Royal Thunder has been awful quiet in the last while outside of a few one off show since their last tour so one can suspect their are working on their new album if so I can expect 2019 to be the battle of the old and new guard in terms of my favourite bands. AC/DC will always be my favourite band but of bands that are out there and active Royal Thunder is my 2nd favourite band followed closely by Unleash The Archers whom are also working on a new album right now I think so with all three possibly releasing an album this year 2019 should make up for 2018 in spades.

The leader of Purson; Rosalie Cunningham should also have a new album coming out so thankfully I won’t have to look too hard for good new music.

So with that I wish you all a happy new year!

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Major Junior - CCC

I am almost certain by the time I finish my novel a movie will have already been done about a troubled goalie because in the last two years there has already been two hockey movies eerily similar to the book I am writing. Hello Destroyer and Major Junior (or Junior Majeur in Quebec) combined are practically the book I am writing to a degree however thankfully neither deal in goalies just goals corers and fighters which this movie is about.

Where in America the dumb arrogant jocks are often football, basketball or baseball players, in Canada it is hockey players. This story is about two young douchebag players; Janeau and Joey. Apparently this movie is a sequel to another movie that I am fairly interested in seeing now.either way these two kids are basically best of friends, brothers and both very good junior hockey players looking to get drafted to the big leagues. These kids feeling untouchable and being treated like rock stars get into trouble. Both drink and party and decided to drive back home thankfully harm nobody but their own truck running into a snow bank.

However being a small city and being the celebrities of that city it doesn’t take long before more and more people find out about what they did. The results of that night as well as affections for a woman drive a wedge between the two boys as they both have to grow up and grow out of their immature attitudes.

There is more to this movie than that but I feel if I explained I am spoiled what makes this movie redeemable because honestly I think both these kids are dicks and they really never stop being dicks but in the end that is what makes them who they are the only difference is that they learn to be responsible dicks.

I like the other parts of this movie that don’t entirely revolve around the characters. I like that this movie discusses hockey parents and how some over coach or apply themselves too much on their kids, how this movie shoots a hockey game and how gets the turn aboutness of the game itself and how hypocritical fans can be towards it. An example of this is when one character antagonizes anothe into drawing a penalty. The home crowd cheers and loves how their home player cheaply draws a immediately cries and whines about how the opposing team draws a penalty themselves in another cheaply fashion. That is a funny part of the game that I like that it shown on top of. Inner workings.

I like that this movie has two strong female leads, one being the owner of the hockey team which I think is original at least in the context of hockey. The other is a female journalist looking to make a name for herself. I would like to say they ripped off my idea but they didn’t because nobody knows about my novel. I did find the romantics between the female lead and one of the main characters to be very forced and not entirely believable. I found that whole relationship to be one of the more poorer aspects of the movie. I don’t find it very believeable that this girl would actually like either of these guys if she was written properly. Maybe at the beginning but when she finds out that one of is a liar I just think it’s unrealistic she would get back with him at least that easily. I guess in the end I like her in the first act because she appears to be a strong, smart and independent woman who distances herself from being a general puck bunny to being nearly one in the other two acts.

Another thing I like in the movie is also something I feel is a bit of a plot hole. Legal drinking age in Quebec is 18 yet these kids drink as if they were in their mid twenties. Look I am not going to be naive and think they didn’t start drinking till they just became 18 (I am assuming they are 18 given the bars openly let them drink and the police didn’t reprimand them hard for it), I am assuming since playing junior that they have went to parties and got well steeped in booze drinking but I just found Joey’s alcoholism plot line to be very flaccid. In one instance I liked the plot line that a young kid is already fighting alcoholism with direct correlations to his father’s drinking problems and in how it is negatively effecting him but I have a very hard time believing that management would let him off on this for so long especially when they sort of know from the start that the kid is becoming a boozer.

Maybe I am nit picking but those things did bother me. It is a very corny and it shows, it is very male centric and oriented and it hurts the film but showing the realities of junior hockey and the other stuff tied to it I feel saves this movie from being sports movie of the week material though in many ways it still is. That being said I give it a pass because it is a hockey movie and there are not enough good hockey movies out there. This movie is not entirely great but it is not entirely bad.

I recommend this movie to hockey fans or sports fans in general, I don’t know if ones who are not will get much out of this movie.

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Cabaret - CCCC1/4

My experience with musicals is nearly the bare minimum, sort of on purpose and sort of not.

The extent of the musicals I watched as a kid were purely from Disney and Don Bluth films and that was it. After that nothing but mind you the 90s was not a great time for musicals anyways outside of Disney movies.

It wasn’t until film school that I got to look into musicals a whole lot more. Even still though of all the genres it is one of my least favourites I think for the same reason my least favourite genre is my least favourite. Both musicals and period films are often over grandiose or over dramatic. With musicals I can be more forgiving with that because by design musicals sort of have to be over dramatic and grand but not always.

Through film school I got into Bob Fosse whom two of his musicals are basically 1 and 2 in my favourite of musicals, well maybe one could be three but one is clearly #1. All That Jazz is my favourite musical, in my ways it is a anti musical. The other which may be my 3rd favourite music is of course......Cabaret.

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Cabaret juggles the story of two couples in a period of time but mainly centres around two people; Sally and Brian. Sally is a girl who works as a singer/performer at a place called the Kit Kat Club in Berlin 1931, she is a free spirit who wants to be a movie star but for the most part is stuck where she is and making the best of it. Brian is a well to do British scholar type who moves to Berlin to give English lessons to Germans. They both meet simply because they live in the same apartment area (Sally is the one that gives him a tour). At first they are simply just friends who enjoy each other’s company but of course as the film goes their relationship gets deeper. Their relationship grows while they both try to play match maker to these two German people from different sides of the social and religious structure.

Almost like interludes there are dance numbers much like a night at the cabaret, movie starts with the opening number to a cabaret at the Kit Kat club and the end is like the end to one but all the numbers in the movie pretty much act as a companion piece to what is going on at that point in the story. Like Maybe This Time for when Sally and Brian start to fall in love.

So what made this movie so special that it won 8 Academy Awards. I think because of the casting (of one person),the direction, the music and the setting.

I will start with direction because Bob Fosse’s style is written all over this. Fosse’s style is so prevalent in most musicals of these days it is sad most people don’t remember him though if you watch this movie then watch Chicago the similarities are astounding. Bob Fosse was a musical director and choreographer what made him unique to me was how he blended those styles and made dance a whole lot more visual. Most musicals pre Fosse in my eyes always had the camera at the back, showing the dance as open as you could so you could see all of it and that was it. Fosse made it more cinematic, he didn’t really just show you the dance in a full wide shot. He would shoot wide or give you a specific angle that seemed very weird but in context of that dance move made so much sense and made it look good all while on particular beats just shoot inserts of particular movements in of themselves. To me it gave his musicals a more intense, vibrant and raw feel. His musicals made you feel like you were right in there while most musicals in my experience (as little as that is) always keeps you at a distance.

Next is the cast; I heard that Joel Grey was cast s the master of ceremonies before Fosse and he had the choice of accepting that casting choice or not directing the movie. Normally something like that smells fishy but in this case this is where I have to agree with that casting choice. I have seen this movie so many times and I dont know if there would’ve been anyone better to play the master of ceremonies than Joel Grey. Everyone in the movie you could tell played a part and were all names but Joel made you forget he was a actor. His performance always made me forget it was an act (or his part I should say). He was head and shoulders the best part of the movie. He played the character on the stage so he already had that experience and he looked like he had so much fun doing the movie. His joy and fun translate well into this movie as well. Anytime he is on stage doing a number you are always watching.

Liza and Michael to tell you the truth I cared less for, for me I felt their relationship in the movie was rather bland and simply there to push the plot forward and get us to the next musical number. The relationship between the two Germans felt more interesting to me and even when the rich German comes in-between Sally and Brian it makes things for interesting but with all due respect to Liza and Michael I don’t think either brought very much to their roles. Liza to me played Sally like a borderline hysterical dreamer who was lost in her own dream while Michael and his character felt like a cardboard cut out of a tight assed old school Brit.

if the music fails the musical fails and I don’t know if there is a musical whose music has stayed in my brain longer than the music in this one. Just about every song is perfect and in their own way stays in your head and does a better job of hammering home plot points than the actual dramatic parts themselves.

Lastly the setting, at first you don’t think too much about it even if it was set in the 30s I dunno to me it felt like it could be at anytime. Something about it felt very universal/timeless to me at least in this go around (maybe it’s the political climate right now). It isn’t until the first Nazi comes around trying to pull followers in that you are set in a certain time. This movie does a fantastic job of subtitling telling you where you are and what is going on around you without being totally on the nose about it. The best example of this is the “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” number.

When you are in the scene you immediately think its just Sally, Brian and the rich guy in the German countryside enjoying beer and sunshine with the locals. Then this blond, blue eyed young man starts to sing what seems and feels like a beautiful song. Then slowly as the song progresses and the camera moves you slowly discover that the kid is a Nazi and his voice is pulling everyone around him together singing in unison. At first a song that seems beautiful and beautifully sang slowly starts to become scary and deeply foreboding of what is the come in Germany. To me that is a great example of good storytelling.

Bottom line is that this is a great musical that I am sure most who love musicals have seen before, if you haven’t I do highly suggest you check it out someday. Even if you are not a fan of musicals per say I do think it is worth checking out. It is a movie that takes two subgenres I normally don’t like and spins in in a way I really enjoy and that says everything that needs to be said. I give it CCCC1/4 on the Corey Scale.

#Cabaret #liza minnelli #bob fosse #michael york #musical

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Akira - CCCC

The older I have gotten the more surprised I am that of all the anime that has come before and after my birth that has stuck in the collective culture mind of society, Akira is that anime. In my honest opinion I think it is all down to timing; right place, right look, right everything for the time.

Akira is a great anime, a seminal anime, an anime one could definitely show someone un initiated in anime that this is what it is and what it is capable of. Would it be first on my list? Not really I would probably put Ghost In The Shell, Perfect Blue or nearly any Ghibli movie in the 90s on there too or before this. If the person had more time I would give them Cowboy Bebop above all else.

As I am sure I have stated before but I have had to fight for my love of anime and try to get respect from people for it. As a teenager when one thought of anime it was either Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon; while all part of the anime lexicon not exactly a true picture. When I went to film school and did our casting nights I would often suggest anime and would almost collectively be shot down by all my fellow cinephiles. They all seemed to look down on anime as a lower form of storytelling, like it was not on their level of film making, if I could remember what one person said exactly it was that you could not learn anything from watching it. That in of itself irritated me because you don’t have to look hard to see that while anime has never had a big impact on the film world outright its influence is there and it has only grown over the years. Watch Ghost in The Shell and Akira then watch Matrix and try to tell me the directors of that of that movie and trilogy were not watching anime before hand. If you look hard enough you can find anime’s influence everywhere. As the comic book genre is starting to run dry I wonder if anyone has noticed how hollywood going into anime more and more. Why not?

That being said of all the anime as I am thinking about now to have had a impact it does surprise me that it is Akira. If I could take a gander as to why it is probably because outside of the timing it was an anime that was a sort of coming out party for Japanese animation as a whole. In a way my generation was the first to be opened to it through Astro Boy, Transformers, Thudnercats etc. but we were never really told it was from Japan till Akira came out then we knew it was simply because where else could it have came from? Akira must have been the first rated R animated movie they had ever seen. It had been a long time since Ralph Bakshi movies were common and years since Heavy Metal came around to remind people animation can be for adults as well as kids. Japan had always done their own thing with animation and it seemed like by the time Akira came out they took the baton and said well if the west are not going to tell adult stories with animation we will. They did lets face it nobody does animation like the Japanese. All the west can do is stupid dick/fart joke comedies and kids shows with animation while Japan can basically do whatever genre they want and dominate. It can’t even be a competition anymore and I would like to see someone try to argue that with me.

I think the look, attitude, tone, music and animation as a whole blew everyone away because at that time it was miles ahead of anything anyone else was doing with animation. Watching it again on bluray it still holds up as being mightily impressive especially for it’s time. Music is still some of the best scored music you could ask for, cyber punk is slowly coming back into style these days and we know how much I love my cyber punk.

I guess I am surprised it is this movie that gets the attention because the movie’s story is so hard to unwrap. Even though millions have seen this movie, most of whom I have met still don’t entirely get the story, some assume they do (like me) but finding someone who is willing to sit you down and give it to you straight is rare at least in my circle but that being said I never had a large circle of friends who enjoyed anime as much as I could.

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Akira is set in 2019 (yes I know a year from now technically), 30 years after WW3. A mysterious force completely devastates Tokyo in 1988 and in 2018 Tokyo has been rebuilt but chaos and corruption consumes the city. We learn that the mysterious force that destroyed Tokyo in 1988 was a boy named Akira whose powers the government tried to control and bend to their will till it inevitably lead to their destruction.

30 years later again in 2018 we meet 3 children whom were like Akira whole survived that devastation. One of them tries to escape from military captivity, while trying to escape the child (a boy) gets caught up in a gang fight between two rival motorcycle gangs. One of those motorcycle gangs is lead by Kanada; your run of the mill bad ass or someone who is a bad ass when he is not trying to be one (hard to explain). One of his friends Tetsuo is also part of the gang though most of the rest of the gang don’t really like or respect Tetsuo. During the gang fight Tetsuo comes across the boy and nearly dies in a head on collision. When they take Tetsuo back with them for medical treatment they discover that this boy Tetsuo’s aura and power ability is exactly similar to Akira.

As Tetsuo becomes more and more aware of the powers inside of him Kanada and a others plot to try and save him from the clutches of government control whom wish to do what they failed to do 30 years prior; control the power of a god.

I am surprised how well that synopsis turned out honestly. There is so much to unpack with this movie. I have been watching this movie for more than 20 years and still feel like I haven’t unpacked things and I see new things more and more. This IS NOT a movie you will get on the first try. This is a movie that requires a large investment in it’s audience come and see and periodically over time peel the onion that is Akira to discover more. I do feel it is movie that you may love for the visuals at the start but the more you watch it you return for the story.

I remember Akira as one of the first wave of anime I started watching after Vampire Hunter D introduced me to the genre. The thing was I actually did see Akira before VHD but I was too young to really get it was from Japan or get any of it (we are taking about a boy whom was 7 to 10 years old). Prior to rewatching it knowing it was an anime my experience with the movie was simply that it was a horror movie to me and if you watch particular scenes in the movie it is not hard to imagine someone thinking it was a horror. The 3rd act with Tetsuo losing control (yes a spoiler but this movie is 30 years old, if you haven’t seen it yet you will never see it and its not that bad of a spoiler in all honestly) had to be one of the grossest and sickest things I seen as a kid and as a young pre teen. I could never get through that scene even in my older years. However I noticed it before anime simply because of the awesome looking cover. As I have said I have always had a love for cyber punk even in my very young childhood I gravitated to it. Watching it again knowing it was anime made everything more sensible to me. So to speak VHD, Robot Carnival and Akira were true first wave of anime that i knew was anime that built the foundation of other anime I would grow to watch for the next 10 years during the time when anime consumed most of what I watched and bought.

This review is more me telling you my experience with Akira and in many ways to me watching Akira is an experience, especially for one who has not seen very many anime which has to be a lie but when I mean anime I mean something not Pokemon, Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball Z, even Ghibli to a degree. Watching Akira for the first time after coming from those shows is like a kid who grown up on soda and kool aid now old enough to drink suddenly having his/her first shot of tequila. That is the difference.

Bottom line is Akira is a seminal piece of art in not only anime but film making in general. You don’t have to agree or like it because the movie does force its audience member to have to deal with a lot more than many other movies do. However you have to respect this movie and this movie is respected and beloved whether you or I agree with it or not. It’s influence is vast and continues to grow. I give it CCCC on the Corey Scale, I should probably give it a bigger rating because I watch it at least once every two years but when I think of all time favourite anime it is not on the top 10 or 20 but it is still an anime I highly respect.

#Akira #anime

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Violent - CCC1/3

This movie caught my eye years back but then I forgot about it just as quick up until recently. From the trailer it looked and felt very much like a art house movie and it fit the bill for the most part. However to tell you the truth I was ready to give up on this movie half way through. I came into this movie rather cold and not really knowing much about what the movie was about and what not. The trailer doesn’t really help either I think, it gives it a bit of a suspense forbodding vibe and while there is some forbodding in this movie it is not a suspense movie. It can be considered a lot of things but suspense is not one of them.

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Well this trailer did a better job than the iTunes trailer or maybe it’s because I have seen the movie now so I get it.

The movie centres around a girl named Danny (played by a woman of the same name) and the 5 people who loved her the most. That was what I knew about the movie before going in. Dagny is a young girl who longs to escape the small town she lived in and decides to move to a bigger city. Apparently this movie is a her last memories of five people who loved her the most prior to something bad happening to her and possibly the world or maybe the city. The movie never tells you what happened to her or what happened in general it primarily centres around her last memories of 5 people who loved her the most or ones that had some sort of relationship with her.

Astrid is the first one we meet from her circle, she is a close friend and both share a hike in the Norwegian mountainside. Dagny tells her about her feelings and her wishes to leave. From this encounter one can assume these two are childhood friends or at least trusted friends.

Embela is her close friend in the city she moves into called Bergen, Norway. We assume Dagny moves to this city know she has Embela and her grandfather nearby so it won’t be quite a lonely undertaking but we soon find out that Embela plans to move away.

Bengt is the 3rd memory/slash friend and the most different of them. Dagny moves to the city to work for him and live over his shop. They appear to have a good and healthy working relationship but there is more to it than that at least from Bengt’s side.

Andrew is another male friend she has, one that there seems to be a hint of possible romance in the future but one never knows but they spend a night together hanging out and bonding.

Then there is her grandfather whom she seems to have the most deepest relationship with.

In a way I have spoiled the movie for you because part of the movie is about exploring her relationship with these people but its pretty hard to explain this movie without talking about those characters in some length.

I do think this movie was built for you to come in cold on and learn as you go along but that being said that was the part I didn’t like about it.

I didn’t understand why this movie had to be set in Norway being Canadian and all firstly, I didn’t entirely understand where the movie was going and why up until the Bengt portion of the movie. Up until him this movie just felt like a full on confusion and arts forty visuals to make up for a foggy plot. I knew this was about her and the memories of those who loved her but I couldn’t really paint an entire picture of who she truly was until the Bengt part. Maybe because that was where I got engaged. I related to that character a bit in his attraction to her and knowing how it feels to repress feelings however his actions by the end of it to me saved this movie. Then I began to understand her, what she was going through and the movie a whole lot more.

This is a very slow movie though it does try to fill it’s empty spaces with interesting visuals this is one of those movies you really need to be engaged from minute one and stay there. I don’t know if I was for the first half of this movie and maybe that harmed my viewpoint of this movie.

The acting is believable for the most part though at times it all feels a bit random and understated.

One thing I should tell you is that this movie is done entirely in Norwegian language, even though this was made by a Canadian film crew the rest is Norwegian. Not that there is anything wrong with it but just so you know.

I am still uncertain about this movie I have to say, I know I will need to watch it again to maybe get it. It seems like the kind of movie that gets better with multiple viewings but the movie does really try your patience and that comes from someone who normally loves slow dry movies. It tried my patience by not really giving me any worthwhile plot movement or character development until the half way point. Half the movie I didn’t care for, the other half I did because I felt like I got closer to the main character at that point and got her. This movie is very much so a mixed bag.

Hearing it was a top ten Canadian movie of 2014 surprised me given now I have only seen 3 of those ten including this one I guess I am not entirely surprised. All those movies seem to be very art heavy. I should consider watching them but I do feel like this should not have been on that top ten. Doesn’t mean it is a bad movie I just feel like maybe there were others that we better but I think I need to watch more from the 2014 crop to make sure.

Bottom line I think this movie is a rent first and see what you think sort of movie. If you art into slow moving art house movies that have worth while characters then this movie may be worth taking a chance on but be prepared to have to put in patience to allow this movie to guide you through Dagny’s story. If you have the patience there is a chance you will enjoy this movie, if you don’t have that patience you won’t enjoy this experience. I give it CCC1/2 not he Corey Scale, may rate higher some day if I feel the need to revisit.

#Canadian Movie #Canadian film #andrew huculiak #dagny backer johnsen

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Wonder Woman - CCC3/4

As another weather bomb has hit Newfoundland and practically stranded me with my parents till Monday (not entirely a bad thing but not if you want to get back on a healthy diet if you are my family). I decided since I could not write my novel due to no ideas coming out to do what I always do when I want to do something but don’t know what to do; watch a movie.

I noticed that Wonder Woman was available for rent for a dollar so of course I thought well why not for that price. I know I am late for the party I am probably the only one of my social circle who has not seen this movie up until 10 minutes ago. It was no on purpose, I always meant to watch this movie but for some reason over the past few months other things came up and by the time I was ready to check it out it was out of the theatres and I am not going to spend 20 bucks to watch it. Thus the dollar rental. I watched it and what can I say........DC why can’t you strive to make more movies like this? I don't think any is or should be expecting every DC Comic movie to be Batman Begins/The Dark Knight but if they were looking for a bar or a standard to strive for and attempt exceed each time I think it should be this movie.

It is perfect? No not really it is intensely hammy, plot holes are aplenty and love interest in this movie feels incredibly forced however in terms of embodying Wonder Woman, embodying what she must mean to her fans and being completely true to her character. I can’t speak for the fans but I felt it did that in absolute spades. Mainly because I came in never having read a Wonder Woman comic in my life, never really understanding her from a personal point of view.

Well that is not entirely true I should say that I felt that way till I met more female comic book fans in my life. During my comic book phase I was predominantly a Marvel/Image kid which in of itself didn’t help with me knowing or caring who Wonder Woman was because I cared more for X Men/Wolverine and Spawn than her, or Superman (outside of when I saw him get his ass kicked across the world by Eradicator) or Batman (because of one one off issue dedicated to the origin of Two Face). Whenever I thought of her I thought of just this scantily clad woman with a golden lasso who drives a invisible car and was almost as invincible as Superman. I always figured as a kid up to when I was a teen why can’t they just call her Superwoman and get it over with. That was my experience with her and in may ways it’s almost no better. I have still yet to read a comic and I may never who knows.

It wasn't till I met my group of friends whom I know now that I started to understand who Wonder Woman was and more importantly what she meant. My male entitlement blinded me till I realized how true female super hero icons there are in comics. There are powerful female superheroes I can just say Jean Grey and there is the most powerful woman ever in comics (at least in my opinion if she has the phoenix force) but I would not put her in the class of Superman simply because well if you went to Africa the chances of them knowing someone like Jean Grey over someone like Superman are quite small. If you asked them about Wonder Woman then there might be a chance. Of all the female super heroes in the world from the past and now Wonder Woman is the only real female icon. I hope that will change but that is how it is. So when I realized that then I understood why Wonder Woman is so beloved it is because she is to women what Superman/Batman/Captain America/Iron Man are to men. Someone to look up to, to aspire to and so on. Sort of like why I gravitate to Wolverine not just because I identify with a lot of his personality traits but also because he is Canadian and there are very few big Canadian super heroes.

As the Hollywood has dragged it’s ass for a long time I am surprised it took this long for a female super hero movie to come out, especially with DC doing it first but then they do have the most well known hero of them all.

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Wonder Woman is about a girl named Diane who is Wonder Woman but she is princess on and island hidden away from the world. This island is inhabited by Amazonian women whom are warriors who protect the island but are also responsible for protecting the planet from Aries the god or war. Before Diane was born Aries was struck down and disappeared but to protect the Amazon women from him the island was created so he may not find them and hunt them down.

As a child Diane is force to live a protected life as she is not like everyone around her but everyone soon agrees that it is in her and everyone’s best interest that she learns how to fight like them. Fast forward to when she become a woman and has become quite a skilled warrior it is there she realizes that there is more to her than what she thought. Before she can ask those questions a plane finds its way into their part of the world and crashes into the waters. Diane saves the man in plane named Steve. We soon find out that Steve is a spy for the Allies who uncovered a secret weapon from the Central Powers that could turn the tide of the war. Diane believes that the one who must be controlling the Central Powers is Aries and decides to take Steve back to London for him to tell them about the plans for the weapon but to also go and kill Aries.

Without giving away any spoilers that is the movie in a nut shell. It is a origin story movie for the most plot like with most comic book movies it is a simple narrative with a simple drive whose purpose is for you to get to know this hero and there motivation and/or to watch them become who they are to become.

Lets start with the bad because I like to do things differently.

The first weakness is the weakness I think I have read from most reviews and I agree, the love story in this movie feels force fed. Chris Pine and Gal Gadot do have ok chemistry and what scenes they do have to build their relationship is entertaining but it just felt like it was forced upon them in this movie. I feel like the same result could have been achieved if they were just friends quite honestly. Making them become lovers just seemed rushed cookie cutter for me.

The second is the story; very little about it truly engaged me at all which is sad because I wanted to care because it was set in WW1 and I feel that war is criminally under covered compared to WW2. I do like that this movie tried to paint both sides as innocent and not entirely evil only the bureaucrats above them were (as they were in WW1 because the entire fucking war was merely pissing match between rich people using human lives as pawns for it). I do like that the movie sort of touched on that but feel like it didn’t go further with it. I understand that this movie is PG-13 and it is hard to show the casualties and results of war while still keeping a PG-13 but again at least through the plot they could have done better. Give Aries more ammunition for his cause by showing reasons why he is not entirely wrong as well as not entirely right. It could have made both the Aries portion of the film strong as well as have greater message as whole in the movie.

The story felt absolutely hammy from the get go and almost cookie cutter (for those who don’t know what I mean by cookie cutter i mean generic, over used, traditional, safe, etc) like someone cut and pasted another comic book origin story and pasted it into Wonder Woman’s first act and just replaced some of the characters.

Last thing I didn’t like is more of a nitpick than a weakness, it is one I forgive given the run time and the nature of the story but it was the use of Doctor Poison. Maybe it was only me but I found her to be a more interesting villain than anyone else in the movie. Whenever I saw her on the screen I wanted to know more about her, I sort of wanted her to have a bigger role in the movie. At the end she sort of does but again they barely used her for even that. Again it’s a nitpick but I do feel like that was a missed opportunity to not have a strong female antagonist to match up against a strong female protagonist.

To talk about what I liked about Wonder Woman it has to start with Gal Gadot. Not going to lie after watching Superman VS Batman I was not entirely sold on her being Wonder Woman. Again it thought they just casted a pretty face to look bad ass between Batman and Superman. I was not entirely sure she could carry a movie on her own let alone do a character like Wonder Woman justice. Well she proved me wrong and thrown it in my face. Gal Gadot is what makes this film succeed, her portrayal of Wonder Woman grounds the character it realism and feels completely authentic. She immediately convinces you that she is Wonder Woman and you are willing to follow her and believe her, in her and what she is doing as the character. When you watch her you know she is taking the character serious and takes that feminism torch and runs with it and root for her all the way to the end.

Next is the casting, outside of the crew that joins Pine and Gadot I thought the casting was pretty spot on. I like Danny Huston though I do feel like they didn’t give him much to do as a villain outside of be the clique villain but I feel like that was on purpose given to what happens in the movie. I liked the character of Doctor Poison as I have state before, in what could have been a run of the mill Bond side villain like character they made the character be a little bit more than that but I think a lot of that has to do with the casting more than the writing. I feel like the lady they casted as her gave her a lot of I won’t say humanity but I will say really made that villain more real. Though she was a person who wanted to see people die and burn you could see there are reasons behind it like there was possibly trauma or someone must of have happened to her that made her like this. There is a sadness in her eyes that I gravitated to. Maybe it was just me. She could have been like Wonder Woman (in virtue not in exactly her) if something didn't sway her and make her a murderer.

Robin Wright in this movie was a surprise, I didn’t know she was in it until I read from someone on my facebook that she was and playing a utter bad ass. I have a lot of respect for Robin Wright and her work, she has really been carving incredible and vast collection of great work these last few years since she started doing House of Cards. She was always talented but it was like she suddenly found a new level and is just riding that wave high and hard. Even though Blade Runner 2049 was a failure she should be proud of the work she has done this year playing and paving the way for more older women to still be playing important and strong roles in film.

I liked the score as well, I normally don’t think about the score or often care about it because most of the time i hear nothing but bad score that purposely always tries to force me into feeling things or it draws attention to itself too much. We live in a John Williams inspired landscape of scores where it feels like everyone tries to make their own John Williams score. While this certainly tries to do that too I felt like this score was more appropriate, it didn’t try to force feed emotion like the others did. It was at times very unassuming plus I like the Wonder Woman theme for some reason, I can’t put my finger entirely on why I like it. It sounds iconic and heroic but almost unassuming again I guess to reuse the world.

Again this is not a perfect film, I think I give it a high mark simply because what it means for having more strong female driven movies, it takes it’s source material seriously and despite it’s flaws it is still a entertaining movie that engages you and succeeds in being an escape for it’s time slot.

Bottom line is if you are a fan of Wonder Woman, comic books in general and/or you just want to want a nice fun popcorn movie tonight or some time soon this one is worth checking out. I don’t think it should be anywhere close to being considered the best comic book movie or but I do feel like this movie will have the same impact on female comic book movies and female actions in general as the first X Men movie did 18 years ago proving it can be done, done well and there should be more done. I give it CCC3/4 on the Corey Scale.

#Wonder Woman #gal gadot #comic book movie #Chris Pine

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Best of 2017 in Music & Movies

2017, a year where the sequel that everyone liked (Blade Runner 2049) made less money than the one everyone hated (The Last Jedi). 2017 was just fine for me overall, better than 2016 but 2016 for me wasn’t bad either for the most part. In terms of movies and music I wish I watched more movies this year, of all the years of my adult life I think I may have watched the least amount of movies this year. Even while in Newfoundland I often catch up on movies but even on the rock I haven’t done much. As for music I listened to a lot of music so there is no problems there. I do enjoy that I am getting back into power metal in a big way after a few years of dry spells.

Make no mistake though there is a lot of local bias in my grading this year but at least I am honest. As I have probably said before my lists are probably not consistent with my reviews/grading simply because when I rate a movie/album it often comes from the first few spins. These top tens are more overall scope meaning I have now let these albums and movies boil in my brain for awhile. These top tens are where it counts, or at least for me it also allows me to fix reviews if I had them too low prior. There is always at least one album or movie that that happens with, last year it was The Lobster. At first I didn’t like it all that much but by the end of the year I had given it a second chance and watched it a few more times and enjoyed it. It happens

So lets get at this!

Movies

I have to say if were not for the Vancouver International Film Festival finally having the time and money to go this top ten list would be far more depressing and it would have been a one horse race.

10) Suntan - This one came out of left field for me, I have always had a soft spot for Greek film that began with the director of The Lobster and a few other movies made there like Attenberg, Dogtooth and Chevalier. Their films are not afraid to be different. This movie is just that, a character study of a lonely guy so lonely that he goes to creepy and insane heights in order to try and be with the one he loves even if she doesn’t love him back. The ending is sad and pathetic on purpose but its a moment where the character hits his rock bottom and he knows it. This movie walks a tight rope of making it’s main character still sympathetic despite how desperate and deep he goes with his obsession but by the end you hate him and rightfully so.

9) Spider-Man: Homecoming - The necessary comic book movie on my top ten, it is the best one of the few I seen this year. Guardians of The Galaxy and Thor had weak stories and brought nothing really new to the thing outside of low calorie laughs. Spider-man Homecoming had a good story, great cast (always love me some Michael Keaton whom may be one of the strongest Marvel villains yet), great comedy almost everything good. It makes up for the last three Spider-man movies but its still not as good as Spider-Man 2 but I don’t expect that.

8) Catfight - It’s great nowadays that people are starting to get my sense of humour. it only took most people 5 years or so or in the case of the coworker who recommended me this movie it took 4 months. Probably because we share the same taste in humour. I just loved the absurdity of this movie from beginning to end and for as absurd and hilarious as it was it’s under tones were just as rewarding. This movie was just flat out fun to watch and left me smiling.

7) Mother! - Talk about the polar opposite of leaving one smiling this one felt like steel toe boot kick to the stomach. This movie would have been the most divisive movie of the year if The Last Jedi didn’t steal it’s thunder (because it’s Star Wars). Its one where I can understand why people hate it but to me it’s very much a movie that is more about what you bring to it than the other way around. Every person I have noticed who seen this movie seems to have a nearly different take on this movie. To me that is what a good art movie should do.

6) Blade Runner 2049 - I wasn’t expecting to like this movie so my expectations were at coffee table level. I knew going in that this movie was gonna look beautiful and that went without saying but I wound up being impressed with just about everything else about this movie. Its very depressing that three big sci fi movies came out this year all trying to do something original while still being true to where it came from but 2 of the three bombed, the one that didn’t was Star Wars which is hated by many yet still rolling in the money. Why? Because it’s Star Wars (maybe now you can start to understand my lack of respect for the franchise). I guess I will say what I did in my Blade Runner review now because I don’t think it could be disputed much now that I think Blade Runner (both movies) are better than Star Wars. You can definitely say 2049 is better than The Last Jedi though I myself did not mind that movie. I think this movie failed because it should have been put in the summer time, it should have been put in the fall and be sold like it was art film and less of a blockbuster movie. Plus people are getting plum sick of sequels.

5) Never Steady, Never Still - If there was a “Slow Burn Movie Award” I could hand out every year this one would get it hands down. This movie should be the definition of a slow burn movie if there was one. I love slow burn movies only when it is done properly and this movie does it properly. Talk about a tour de force by Shirley Henderson. If I could award someone best actress of the year she would get it for her role in this movie. I don’t think I would recommend this movie to most of my friends or family as I can see many people getting bored to tears when they are not getting their heart ripped out watching Shirley’s character have to deal with her disabilities. This movie will break your heart without a doubt. This was the first movie I watched at VIFF this year.

4) Okja - Everything about this movie spoke to my sensibilities. An excellent and heartfelt movie through and through. Outside of Jake Gyllenhaal’s over acting this movie is nearly perfect to me. I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Bong Joon-ho with every movie he makes.

3) Brigsby Bear - This was one of those movies that I knew I would love from the start and it didn’t disappoint. Enough said

2) Hello Destroyer - If not for VIFF this would have been my pick for the best movie of the year and in a way it probably should be my number one but I am pulling my home town bias for number 1. This movie is still a great movie and easily a 1B this year. I just find it interesting that one actor is in 3 of the 10 movies in my top 5 of this 10. Watch out for Jared Abrahamson is all I will say, he would get my best actor award for this year for this movie and even the following movie.

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1) Gregoire - Unfair bias sure but the fact that it was shot in my hometown (in a neighbourhood that barely exists anymore due to the fire), shot in 2 weeks on around 12 grand and it was still a very well done movie to me makes this the best movie I seen this year. I heavily wish to champion this movie because it deserves it. I hope it comes out on digital video because I will be the first to buy it. While I failed in my film career I am happy someone from the graduating year after me from the same school and same city I grew up in got to make he kind of movie I wish I had the talent to make. I am rooting for him.

Albums

I couldn’t find a solid ten albums to make a top ten to this so it will have to be a top 5 this year but this top 5 really is a good solid line up. While I have listened to a lot of albums this year there is too much of a significant drop off after 5.

5) Sleeping Through War by All Them Witches - I got into this band earlier in the year and became really impressed with their southern stoner metal style. With this new album this is easily their best album yet. Very much a road trip album.

4) Reflections of A Floating World by Elder - I heard of this band at the start of 2014 but it wasn’t until 2015 when I started to really dig them. This is a band that I feel has been getting better and better every year. This album lacks the particular hits that the others had however every song on this album is strong. This is their best album yet hands down.

3) Wick by Royal Thunder - A band whose last album ran away with being my favourite album 2 years in Crooked Doors I tried coming into this album with no expectations and just expecting a solid effort and for the most part it is a solid effort. I don’t think this album is anywhere close to as strong as their last two albums but the few good songs on this album are really killer and to me warrant being in the middle of the pack here. I do hope that they get back to being heavier or harder in their next effort.

2) Bloodlust by Body Count - I have always liked Body Count but I wasn’t expecting an album from them let alone expecting them to come out with at least from what have heard from them as their best effort. This whole album is killer but there are about 3 or 4 songs that just grab you by the throat of kick your ass hard. This was the first album that came out as the strong contender for #1 but lost but it should be said that I did have to sit down and really think about making this one a 1B but I believe there should only be one and after thinking about this one is #2.

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1) Apex by Unleash The Archers - I don’t know how I discovered listening to this band in the summer but I will say I feel like a fucking idiot for not discovering their music sooner. After the new Iced Earth I was starting to doubt my love for power metal since many liked that album but I didn’t. Was it them or was my love for power metal weaker than it used to be. Then Unleash The Archer’s Apex came out my god did it blow me away. This is how power metal should be, this is how it needs to be. This is the best power metal I have heard since Iced Earth’s Crucible of Man. Every song is strong but the hits are just fuck epic and the best part about it is that this band is Canadian from my own back yard of Victoria (I am in Vancouver). When i sat down to think about it as good as Bloodlust was this album I played more and has consisted got my blood pumping. I love this album, this is power metal to me.

Songs

10) Beacon Hill by Rural Alberta Advantage - I think this song hits the top 10 simply because of my personal connection to it. Beacon Hill is a neighbourhood in Fort McMurray I spent a fair bit of time in as a child, there are lots of memories there that now will only be a faint memory due to the fact that it is gone due to the fires.

9) Sanctuary by Elder - I am of two minds with this song, when I first heard it because I love how fucking Elder it is. When you hear it it is everything you expect and want and it works, I also like it because it reminds me of a personal memory this year and the stress I was going through at that moment to get somewhere in time to see someone. The good songs find a way to make you not only aware of how good the song is but where you were to appreciate it.

8) Black Hoodie by Body Count - Second best song on the album but ends the album and gives the ultimate exclamation point to a album that is Ice T’s answer to the shit that is going down in North America right now. This song needs to be heard by people, only of the strongest and more relevant songs of 2017 in my mind.

7) Wick by Royal Thunder - Royal Thunder’s Wick album wasn’t as over all strong as Crooked Doors but the better songs on the album stand up very strong and could have been held in the same regard as the best from any of their young catalogue. This is just a great song period that I think show a lot of Royal Thunder’s strengths as well has show how they have yet to reach their peak yet and when they do WATCH OUT!

6) Seven Headed Whore by Iced Earth - Not gonna lie, after their last album I doubted whether Iced Earth could really kick my ass with a song anymore. This song proved my wrong, while it is not strong enough to hit the top 5 it deserves to be mentioned that this band can still do it. I know they can do better than this but this song shows why they hired Block because of his awesome range. This needs to be their bar going forward to get back to where they once were. That being said it is still a awesome song and very much so their best song the album.

5) On My Mind by Wilderness of Manitoba - When I first listened to this song I didn’t care too much for it, at the time it just sounded weird, I am very weary of country music. Most of the time I hate country music so listening to this song at first it just sort of weirded me out. Then I heard it live and it made me think of my girlfriend and I listened to the words of the song and from then on whenever I think of my girlfriend and my feelings for her when I hear this song. Like i have said before a great song not only makes your appreciate how good it is but makes you aware of where you were when you did and doesn’t leave you.

4) Cleanse The Bloodlines by Unleash The Archers - Not the best song on the album (which gives you a hint that this is not the only Unleash The Archers song on here) but easily a mother fucking ass kicker from front to back that is one of the songs that reminded me of why I love power metal so much and has renewed my faith that it can still be done properly in this day of age.

3) Bloodlust by Body Count - This song just kicked my ass from beginning to end. It is a very dark song with out a doubt. When I heard this song for the first time I immediately thought that this would be such a good entrance song for me if I still played wrestling games. It is just a awesome pump up song, this is what metal music should do. Make you think but also my your blood pump a whole lot faster.

2) April Showers by Royal Thunder - While the album is not quite as good as previous albums this song is the strongest of the album and possibly the strongest song I have heard from them. It sticks in your head and lingers for a long time. This song demonstrates all of Royal Thunder’s strengths, this is the song I show people who don’t know the band what they are capable of.

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1) The Coward’s Way by Unleash The Archers - The moment I heard this song I knew it was the best song of 2017. When I think of what a power metal song should do for me this is an example of what it should do; pump you up, get you moving and feeling like you are a few inches taller. This song just fucking rocks!

So that is 2017′s best in my mind. When it comes to music and movies I can’t say here is much I am looking forward to outside of a new Holy Grove album and the standard issue Marvel movies but those are always the ones one knows ahead of time. The more meatier movies will be known soon I am sure the closer we get to the oscars.

Have a wonderful new years and a fun 2018 everyone!

#Royal Thunder #Unleash The Archer #Iced Earth #Body Count #Elder #Mother!#gregoire #Brigsby Bear #Blade Runner 2049 #Hello Destroyer #Suntan #never steady never still #spider-man: homecoming #Catfight #okja #Rural Alberta Advantage

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Important update about Bell Media/Canadian Net Neutrality and how to share your thoughts with the CRTC

So today, my cdnpoli twitter blog (@allthecdnpoli), actually got a private message from the CRTC’s twitter account. The CRTC is Canada’s telecommunications regulator, similar to the US’s FCC (though structured differently).

They noticed that a relatively large amount of responses to the CRTC came from traffic generated by this blog.

One post I shared earlier on this blog contained instructions on how to comment on Bell Media’s anti-piracy/anti-net neutrality proposal.

This is the proposal that Bell Media is apparently planning on bringing to the CRTC (and why Canadians are mad as hell about it):

Bell Wants To Use NAFTA To Completely Criminalize Piracy

Inside Bell’s Push To End Net Neutrality In Canada

Bell, Rogers, Cineplex Linked To ‘Radical’ Website Blocking Plan: Report

Bell Leads on Radical Proposal for CRTC-Backed Mandatory Website Blocking System

If you previously reblogged that post with instructions on how to submit comments to the CRTC, can you delete it, as it has wrong information?

The intention behind that post was good, but it was directed to the wrong proposal at the CRTC. The proposal that the vast majority of people sent their net neutrality remarks to was actually about ‘the license renewals of English language television private ownership groups’. People got this mixed up because the proposal was by Bell and Rogers (and Corus).

The CRTC have told me that they have forwarded all these responses from tumblr to the correct proposal, and so if you want to let the CRTC know what your thoughts are about Bell’s proposal you can comment at the link below:

https://services.crtc.gc.ca/pub/instances-proceedings/Default-Defaut.aspx?lang=eng&YA=2017&S=O&PA=b&PT=nc&PST=a#2017-359

This is where you need to submit your comments. The deadline is open until 13th of February, 2018.

You can read additional information on the comments section here:

Consultation on the future of program distribution in Canada

and:

Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2017-359

As for Net Neutrality, the CRTC said this:

Concerning Net neutrality, the CRTC has supported and reinforced net neutrality in Canada. In fact, the CRTC’s net neutrality framework was developed through a series of decisions confirming that service providers should treat data traffic equally (regardless of the content) to foster consumer choice, innovation and the free exchanges of ideas.

For more information:

Strengthening net neutrality in Canada

This gives me some hope that if Bell does propose what they are apparently proposing that they’ll be shot down, but lets all keep focus on this until its clear that its not a danger to net neutrality.

I’d appreciate if you could share this post, to clear up some of the misinformation going around tumblr.

Thank you.

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coreycorner · 6 years

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Across The Line - CCCC1/2

If I knew this movie was out there sooner I would have grabbed it sooner, just goes to show how piss poor Canada/Canadians are are selling themselves in their own country especially with a director like Director X who is a big game music video director helming the project. These are the kinds of movies I seek out for to help me with the novel I am slowly writing. Though hockey i a part of this movie it is not so much about hockey but those or I should say someone playing it.

I can’t pretend to act like I don’t know how it feels to be a minority but I want to watch as many of these movies as I can about their story because I have purposely filled my novel with them or try to at least.

To say Canada is without racism is both ignorant, arrogant and a flat out lie. As I have said a few times before I am sure Canada has a long history of racism it is just we are more passive aggressive about it. We generally like to think it doesn’t exist, lift our noses up thinking we are above it while it is so bluntly rampant in the USA. Yet we still treat our First Nations like crap, our police while not as bad as in the USA still prefer people of colour before the caucasian, and sports like hockey and curling both have very little black representation which is almost ironic think the black people of Nova Scotia played a huge part in shaping what we know as hockey to this day. That is where this film is just so happened to be set in; Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia has a long history of racism towards black people. Slaves and those from other countries would go there to start their own life anew without of the involvement of the white upper class but even though they had their own lands called Africaland if I remember correctly everyone else around them including the province themselves would try every trick int he book to drive them out. Tension has always been high there and racism seems to be bred into both sides which brings us to the story of this movie.

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The movie tells the story about a guy named Mattie but one can say it is also the story of girl named Jayme though she is a slightly more minor character.

Mattie is a good kid and a excellent hockey player whom everyone knows is good but the problem is he is black in a obviously racist neighbourhood that is seemingly unrelenting and unforgiving about it. Mattie tries his best to do the right thing and stay out of trouble but it seems to follow him everywhere. Either because his older brother is involved with prostitution, his black friends are constantly fighting with the over privileged white kids in the the school or that he is hangs out of a girl named Jayme that he likes who is dating a white guy who doesn’t really like him at all and sees him as a threat.

Jayme is a girl whose mother is white but her father is black so she gets it from both sides. She is dating a white guy and is friends with Mattie, of all the characters in this movie she is probably the strongest and more morally sound character in the movie. She sticks up for white girls who get picked on by other black women and then gets hated by both sides for it calling her a half breed. Her relationship with her boyfriend becomes strained because she wants to leave this racist cesspool of a place she lives in and start a new live in Toronto but her boyfriend doesn’t.

Both become closer as shit gets worse for both of them. For Mattie despite trying his best to keep his nose clean winds up being guilty by association and dragged into the racist tension of the area which endangers his chances of getting drafted by a NHL team.

I really like this movie I think mainly because it pissed me off so much but in a good way, it did an excellent job of engaging me with both the story and its characters. It pissed me off because it angers me that I could not only share a skin colour but also a country with such openly racist pieces of shit who seem entitled to be right to have things over others that even if someone else who doesn’t look or act like them comes around and earns a piece they have to opening break them down. Again I have been naive to think up until recently that racism was a near extinct thing in Canada only to be reminded it is not to where it completely pisses me off. I can’t help but enjoy when then the rich white kids in this movie get their asses handed to them. That speaks a lot to the cast, this movie is cast of nearly completely unknowns and they all knock it right out of the park.

However another great thing about the movie is it’s underlying message of confronting racism in that it is coming from both sides. In this movie we see two sides of the same coin; both white and black people at each others both equally fanning the others flames. While the white boys in this movie are obviously guilty for being the instigators of the racial problems the black community especially by the end seem at this point completely jaded to the thought that things can ever get better and bitterly hate the white people amongst them.

There is a bit of Romeo & Juliet going in this movie which is sort of a spoiler but quite honestly this is one of those movies that I do feel like you know what is coming. You know how it is going to play it out, its only all about watching as this slow motion car crash finally occurs yet you still want to root for Mattie to be able to succeed and for Jayme to escape despite the world around them completely at war with itself.

The ending of the movie I do feel is a bit anticlimactic at first I felt cheated because of it because I felt like there needed to be a point driven home with this movie but the more I thought about it the more the ending of this movie made sense and in a way how else could a movie like this end. When the entire world round you seems fucked sometimes all you really can do is deal with your own shit and know you are doing the right thing and hope that the rest of the world follows suit someday.

Bottom line is I highly recommend this movie to everyone. It is not a hockey movie, even though Mattie is a hockey player and this movie touches on the pressures black people have to face versus white people it is still more of a drama about the racial tension in a neighbourhood that seemed threatened in tearing itself apart because of it. I give this movie CCCC1/2 on the Corey Scale.

#Across The Line #Canadian movie #Canadian film #Director X #Hockey #Sarah Jeffery #Stephan James

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