Blu-ray Review: Jennifer's Body

Jennifer's Body
Written by: Diablo Cody
Directed by: Karyn Kusama
Starring: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, J.K. Simmons, Amy Sedaris, and Adam Brody

Special Features: Theatrical and Unrated versions of the film, Audio commentary from Directer Karyn Kusama and writer Diablo Cody (theatrical version), Commentary from Karyn Kusama (extended version), Deleted Scenes, Jennifer's Body: The Dead Pool, Behind-The-Scenes VIdeo Diaries from CAst & Crew, Gag Reel, Megan Fox Extras, Trailers, and a Digital Copy of the film.

From the box:

Sexy temptress Megan Fox is hotter than hell as Jennifer, a gorgeous, seductive cheerleader who takes evil to a whole new level after she's possessed by a sinister demon. Steamy action and gore galore ensue as the male student body succumbs to Jennifer's insatiable appetite for human flesh. Now it's up to her best friend (Amanda Seyfried) to stop Jennifer's reign of terror before it's too late!

I had high hopes for this film. Mainly, because of Diablo Cody who I have become a ginormous fan of. I really didn't have much invested in terms of the cast or the director (Who I've never heard of) so my desire to see this movie was entirely 100% based on Diablo Cody's involvement (at least until the trailer).

So was I disappointed or captivated by Jennifer's Body?

Click the rawr to find out!



Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Big time. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was that I caused me to just not enjoy the film. Maybe it was Megan Fox who has about as much charisma as a wet magazine. It could have been the lackluster by the numbers direction. Maybe it was even Diablo Cody's script which despite brief flashes of brilliance (mainly her made up dialogue), was pretty underwhelming.

For me the movie just didn't seem to work. It tried to straddle the comedy/horror line but it never really meshed. It wasn't bad enough to shut off, but it's not good enough to ever watch again either.

The cast for the most part was pretty good. I was especially impressed with Amanda Seyfried who delivered a great performance as well as Johnny Simmons who was funny and charming as her boyfriend. Megan Fox, however, fails in her attempt to be a sexy demonic seductress. She is as one note as you can get.

The effects were decent, although I'd have liked to have seen more of the demon. The gore is pretty high for those of you into that. The score is forgettable, in fact, I can't even remember it enough to compare it to anything.

Of course, on Blu-ray the film looks spectacular. The colors are crisp and the sound is sharp I just wish the movie was better for it. The special features are decent but to be honest, the movie didn't intrigue me enough to care about what those features offered.

In the end, Jennifer's Body is a barely enjoyable way to waste 100 minutes of your evening. There are brief moments of brilliance where you think "damn that was a great line" but over all it's just ho-hum.

I'd like to see Diablo Cody give the horror genre another shot, preferably with a better director (Wes Craven anyone?).

Check it out for the great performance from Amanda Seyfried or if you are a fan of Megan Fox. Otherwise, wait for cable.

Jennifer's Body is available now.

Rawr!

Best of 2009 AND the Decade!

Welcome to our year (and decade) end list! I guess you can call this my best of list since our writer Jeremy may post a couple of his own. I decided not to do a top ten kind of thing this year and instead picked my favorite along with some other great examples. I did the same for each section in terms of the best of the decade. There have been so many great examples these past ten years that it's too hard to choose which is the definitive best. This was especially hard in terms of music.

I hope you enjoy our picks and with luck, you'll be inspired to pick up a few of these titles and enjoy them yourself!

Oh and by the way, I didn't link all of our picks so that this isn't one giant collection of links. If you are interested all of these titles are available in the Pop Culture Beast Store, except the podcasts of course.

Enjoy!

The Best in Film:

(500) Days of Summer

Hands down the best. Brilliant script, wonderful direction, flawless cast, and the best soundtrack in years. These are 500 days I want to revisit over and over.

Best of the Rest:

Where The Wild Things Are
Taking Woodstock
Up
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
Inglorious Basterds
Dear Jack
Taken
Drag Me To Hell
The Hangover

*Still to see: Avatar, Up In The Air, District 9, Zombieland, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus, A Single Man, Brothers, Crazy Heart, The Lovely Bones, An Education, The Messenger, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Hurt Locker

Best of the Decade:
Almost Famous
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Brick
Up
Slumdog Millionaire
Garden State
Doubt
Children of Men
Wall-E
No Country For Old Men
The Royal Tenenbaums

The Best in Television:

Dexter

This spot was all wrapped up by Glee until a last minute couple of days marathon catch up of this shows AMAZING fourth season. Four years in and Dexter is just as fresh and shocking as the first time it aired. This was some brilliant television that brought us John Lithgow at his creepiest.

Best of the Rest:
Glee
Modern Family
Brothers and Sisters
The Cleveland Show
True Blood
The United States of Tara

Best of the Decade:

Lost
Nip/Tuck
Greek
Glee
Huff
Boston Legal
24
Modern Family
Desperate Housewives
Family Guy
Dexter
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Carnivale

The Best in Music:

Album:

Owl City - Ocean Eyes

This was the choice that almost wasn't. This was all set to post today when I stumbled across the latest Alberta Cross album. I gave each album more time to convince me and in the end the gorgeously captivating Ocean Eyes from Owl City emerged victorious.

Best of the Rest:

Jay Brannan - In Living Cover
Alberta Cross - Broken Side of Time
Kelly Clarkson - All I Ever Wanted
The Fray - The Fray
The Lonely Island - Incredibad
The Decemberists - Hazards of Love
Tinted Windows - Tinted Windows
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Outer South
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Brand New - Daisy
Thirty Seconds To Mars - This Is War

Best of the Decade:
Jay Brannan - goddamned
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Hanson - The Walk
Kanye West - The College Dropout, 808 and Heartbreak
Damien Rice - O
Margot and the Nuclear So and So's - The Dust of Retreat
Green Day - American Idiot
Eminem - The Marshal Mathers LP
Radiohead - Kid A
Sigur Rós - Ágaetis Byrjun
Blink 182 - Blink 182
The Killers - Hot Fuss
Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
Björk - Vespertine
The Postal Service - Give Up
Patty Griffin - 1000 Kisses, Impossible Dream, and Children Running Through

Single:


Lady Gaga - Paparazzi

There is no denying that 2009 was Lady Gaga's year. At first I didn't really like her but this song was like a light switch. I just can't seem to get enough of it. I'm officially on the GaGa bandwagon.

Best of the Rest:

Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind
Owl City - Fireflies
Weezer - (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
Phoenix - 1901
John Mayer - Who Says
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You

Best of the Decade:
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Rhianna - Umbrella
Jay-Z - 99 Problems
Coldplay - Yellow, Viva La Vida
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
Christina Aguilera - Beautiful
Outkast - Ms. Jackson
Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Postal Service - Such Great Heights
Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends
Bright Eyes - Lover I Don't Have To Love, Lua
Blink 182 - I Miss You
Jay Brannan - Housewife


The Best in Podcasts:


Never Not Funny
with Jimmy Pardo, Matt Belknap and guest

They've topped this list for as long as I've been doing these lists and with good reason. Never Not Funny is the most consistently entertaining and hilarious podcast on the internet.

Best of the Rest:

I Love Movies, RadioLab, This American Life

Best of the Decade:

Never Not Funny

The 2000's have certainly been the decade of podcasting which, until Ricky Gervais launched his phenom The Ricky Gervais Show, was a format few people had ever heard of. This format exploded in Gervais' wake and now everybody and their mother has a show (don't worry we will too at some point) but few people, if any, have turned a show into a financial success. Never Not Funny has accomplished that feat and continues even after 3+ years to be just as fresh and entertaining as the first episode. This is not only a show for fans of comedy, it's even more so a show for fans of comedians. You won't hear material (that often anyway) what you will hear are stories from some of the best comedians working today. Stories about life, families, the road, friendships and more that will have you rolling in laughter courtesy of folks like Maria Bamford, John Hamm, Conan O'Brien, Paul F. Tompkins, Daniel Koenig, and many more. This is the podcast of podcasts and well worth the pennies it costs per episode.

The Best in Books:



Under The Dome by Stephen King

The King is back. This epic and emotional creep fest is King as the top of his game. The scariest part? Everything in the book could happen if a dome really did cover a small town.

Best of the Rest:

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover

Best of the Decade:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski


The Best in Video Games:


Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Best PS3 Game by far. Just go play it. This franchise is ready for a movie. A good one.

Best of the Rest:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Aion

Best of the Decade:
City of Heroes
World of Warcraft
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Bioshock
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Rockband
Resident Evil 4
Portal
Silent Hill 2
Kingdom Hearts

Phew! That was rough. Time to get to work on next years list...

Happy New Year everyone!

Rawr!

New 24 Season 8 Promo

2 weeks. Can't wait. Send me a screener Fox!

Rawr!

Sade: Soldier of Love Track Listing?

The internets is all abuzz today with a supposed track listing of Sade's new album Soldier of Love due out 2/8/2010. Looking at the titles on this listing, this sounds like a Sade album to me. February cannot come soon enough.

1. The Moon and The Sky

2. Soldier of Love

3. Morning Bird

4. Baby Father

5. Long Hard Road

6. Be That Easy

7. Bring Me Home

8. In Another Time

9. Skin

10. The Safest Place

Rawr!

LA Readers - MUST SEE SHOW!

One of our favorite artists, the amazing Chris Pureka, is doing a month long residency at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood!

Every Wednesday in January

8:00 PM

@ The Hotel Cafe

tix: http://www.hotelcafe.com/tickets/

These are sure-fire can't miss shows and I beg you to check them out. Chris is an amazing singer/songwriter who you will not soon forget.

Tickets are available now.

Rawr!

Blu-Ray Review: (500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer
Written by: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Directed by: Marc Webb
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler and Clark Gregg

Special Features: Deleted and Extended Scenes, Bank Dance directed by Marc Webb, Mean's Cinemash: Sid and Nancy/500 Days of Summer, Making of Featurette, Conversations with Zooey and Joseph, Music Video for "Sweet Disposition" by Temper Trap, Summer @ Sundance, Audition Tapes, Audio Commentary from Marc Webb, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and more

In the interest of brevity, I'll tell you now that I absolutely love this movie. Beginning to end this, for my money, is the best film of 2009.

The story is of Tom Hansen (who is in love) and Summer Finn (who is not) and 500 days of their roller coaster romance told out of sequence. It's a tale of love and heart break, joy, friendship, growing, and sadness.

The film is flawless. The music is gorgeous, both soundtrack and score, the script is perfect, the direction is wonderful but there are two aspects that elevate this movie to even greater levels of perfection and that is its lead actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel.

They light up the screen and have such great chemistry together. It's no wonder they're two of my favorite actors. They are a match made in heaven in this film.

If the pitch perfect cast isn't enough for you than the amazing soundtrack should be. A perfect blend of brit pop, classic rock, and indie sweetness complimented wonderfully by a great score from Rob Simonsen.

I can't even praise this film enough. It's charming, funny, beautifully shot and brilliantly acted.

The Blu-ray release is gorgeous. The picture is crystal clear and the sound pitch perfect. The special features are well represented with audition footage, extra scenes, and much more. You even get a digital copy which I have been against in the past. To be honest, this is probably the only movie I would actually take advantage of that feature with.

(500) Days of Summer is a beautiful film well worth your dollars and your time. A smart and original film that has a soundtrack to die for. In fact, save yourself the time and buy the soundtrack along with the film. It's been nominated for several Golden Globes and is sure to get Oscar recognition as well.

Get your hands on the best movie of the year, (500) Days of Summer, now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Rawr!

Erykah Badu New Album Set for 2/23/2010 Release

Erykah Badu's 5th studio album NEW AMERYKAH PART 2: RETURN OF THE ANKH, will be more emotional than her previous more politically inspired album New Amerykah Part 1: 4th World War. She calls it her sister album featuring thoughts and melodies from her "right side of her brain."

I like Erykah's music, it's funky, tragic, thought provoking and best of all, groove-able. But i have to admit that Mama's Gun was her best album to date. It was more traditional in the sense of "song writing," it had verses, chorus, bridge and so forth. Her last three albums were more snippets on repeat, a few lyrics, repeated with a vibe of good beats and rhythm. Lets hope part two of New Amerykah has more! If you are interested for more information, below is the track listing and a link to her site.
01. 20 Feet Tall
02. Window Seat
03. Agitation
04. Get Money
05. Don't Be Long
06. Love
07. Umm Hmm
08. Fall in Love
09. Incense
10. Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 1) (Undercover Over-Lover)
11. Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 2)

Official Site

Rawr!

Music Video: Nick Jonas & The Administration - Who I Am

Check out the new video from the youngest Jonas' new band Nick Jonas & the Administration called "Who I Am", which is the title track from the debut album arriving on February 2. I have to admit I kinda dig the song. Check out ticketmaster if you want to catch the band live. They start a 14 city tour tonight in Dallas.

Rawr!

PFT Vs. ZOMBIES!

Sketch Of The Dead

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Atom Originals | Funny Animations

Rawr!