It’s been a heavy month on the wallet here at SlickTiger Industries, that’s for damn sure but the great news is that today is officially payday bitches! Thank sweet baby Jeebers.
In celebration of this and to give you guys a break from all the sad Madiba news we are being bombarded with, today we are just going to kick back, dig some rad Friday LOLZ and let the good times roll.
As is the norm here on the site, some of these I’ve chosen because they appeal to my warped sense of humour and others I’ve chosen just because they are plain weird.
My good friends at Nokia surprised the hell out of me yesterday by swinging two tickets to the Man Of Steel premier my way so I could get a sneak peek at one of the most talked about movies this year.
Man Of Steel is directed by Zack Snyder (300 and Watchmen), produced by Christopher Nolan (director of the Dark Knight trilogy) and written by David S Goyer (writer of the Dark Knight Trilogy).
Add the insane trailers that have had the internet buzzing over the past few months and the movie looked like it had everything going for it, but did it stack up to the hype?
The drama is sincere, the action is so intense your heart feels like it’s going to explode like a grenade in your chest, the dialogue is lean and mean and the acting is some of the best I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie.
Man Of Steel is essentially a reboot of the Superman franchise that I’ve read was done as the first step in building a Marvel-type shared fictional universe between Superman and other DC characters.
Story-wise I wasn’t expecting too many surprises because we all know the Superman legend. Superman (real name Kal-El) is sent to Earth by his father Jar-El (expertly played by the stoic Russell Crowe) in an effort to somehow preserve their race moments before Krypton goes up in flames.
On Earth Kal-El is found by Jonathan and Martha Kent who raise the boy as their own and name him Clark. Clark endures a difficult childhood, painfully aware from an early age that he is nothing like the people around him.
Through the love and support Jonathan and Martha show Clark, he learns to control and hide his powers and to blend in as best he can.
All this changes when an ancient alien vessel is discovered in the Arctic and Clark infiltrates the scientific expedition to determine the vessel’s origin. Using a kind of Kryptonian key from the ship Clark travelled to Earth in as a baby, Clark awakens the alien vessel and with it, a hologram of his father Kal-El who tells his son the truth about his origin.
The alien vessel also triggers a distress signal that is intercepted by another survivor of Krypton, the ruthless General Zod. Zod and his cronies descend to Earth and demand that Clark be surrendered within 24 hours which is when things start to turn nasty.
Michael Shannon’s portrayal of Zod is some of the most spine-chillingly terrifying acting I have ever seen. This man is the very embodiment of malevolent fury. His malice burns like an inferno – it’s so intense watching him act that you’re torn between fist-pumping “FUCK YEAHâ€s and a powerful urge to hide under your seat.
The best films are the ones that make you like the bad guys and Man Of Steel follows this rule to the letter. Sure, Zod is a megalomaniacal despot hell-bent on the extinction of the entire human race, but it’s only because he wants to bring Krypton back to life and safeguard a future for him and his people.
Is that really such a bad thing? He might be heavy-handed in his methods, but you have to admire a man that dedicated to achieving a task he feels is his birth right to fulfil.
Then there’s ol Supe himself, played by the BUFFEST CHARNA IN THE LAND, Henry Cavill in a role he was born to play. The problem I always have with Superman is that I don’t connect with him as a character because he’s too perfect.
A character like Wolverine I find a lot more accessible because the guy’s a bit of a mess and is the poster-mutant for the archetypal anti-hero. Superman is different. He always does the right thing, he doesn’t suffer from the same conflict that normal people do and for that reason I always thought of him as being a bit of a douche.
The beauty of Goyer and Snyder’s Superman is his vulnerability. It makes him more human. It makes you instantly like him because what Goyer and Snyder show so convincingly in the film is how tough Superman’s life growing up was.
The real clincher though is Cavill’s performance. Not only is the man ridiculously good-looking and built like a brick shitter, but he can actually act, which I’m pretty sure has never been a pre-requisite in a Superman movie before.
The emotion Cavill can convey in one look is more than I think any previous Superman has conveyed in their entire acting careers. He draws the audience in close and keeps them there for the entire film. You actually like Cavill’s Superman, you empathise with him, you want him to beat the bad guys – that surprised me more than anything else in the movie. I left the movie actually liking Superman.
The only one issue I had with the film were the (brace yourself) Christian undertones. I suppose at its core (man with superpowers is sent from above to save mankind) the Superman story has always had Christian parallels, but having Superman chat to a priest in a church before making his mind up to “take a leap of faith†and reveal who he is to mankind had me squirming in my seat.
Also, he’s 33 years old. The same age as Christ when he was crucified. There are probably more parallels if you scratch around for them, but just those two left me a little cold so I chose to actively block out any others that may or may not have been included because I just feel that there’s a time and place for religious sermons and it’s not in Superman movies, especially ones with Snyder, Goyer and Nolan at the helm.
The bottom line however is that Man Of Steel was everything I’d hoped it would be and more. It’s the kind of movie you can watch with high expectations and still be satisfied by, which is saying a lot in this age of over-hyped blockbusters that are mostly epic disappointments.
Watch this film on the big screen. Splash out and go for the 3D version, I guarantee you it will be worth every cent.
Thick plumes of smoke churned from his wheels as Lenny popped the clutch, geared up to fifth and braced for impact.
He came to in the lobby in a mess of twisted steel, broken glass and people screaming. His was sheeting blood from a broad gash across his forehead. He wiped the mess from his eyes, grabbed the steering lock from under his seat and shoulder-barged the driver’s side door until it came loose.
The crowd parted like the red sea around him as he lurched across the dancefloor, his face inhuman with rage. He kicked the door to the back office open in a shower of splinters and stood framed in the crimson light.
Hallas was waiting. He drew on Lenny, flames bursting from the barrel of his nine mil as he emptied the clip. Two slugs found their mark, one in Lenny’s thigh and one in his side. He roared and charged Hallas, rugby-tackling him through a glass table, the ancient kettle drums of war thundering in Lenny’s ears as he raised the steering lock above his head.
He swung the steering lock down in short, brutal arcs. Hallas tried to shield his face from the blows, but Lenny landed them with bone-shattering force until Hallas left the opening Lenny had been waiting for and Lenny began working in earnest to crack Hallas’ skull open.
On trial, Lenny would say that he remembered none of it – the screaming, the blood, the mess he made of Hallas – all he remembered was finding Susan.
All he remembered was how cold she felt clutched against him.
For a long time I thought Russell Brand was a gigantic wanker, BUT having watched the video I’m about to show you guys, it’s not an opinion I’m very proud of anymore.
I formed this opinion after watching a DVD of one of his early stand-up comedy gigs which I found awkward and not very funny. Then he started dating Katy Perry and my dislike of him increased tenfold.
I liked him in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek though, which was why I decided to take eight and a half minutes to watch him OWN the morning presenters of MSNBC in a recent interview and holy shit, it was worth every second.
Take it away Russ.
So many awesome parts, but if I had to list my favourites they would be:
His expression at 2.00 when blondie lands the self-depreciating line about the mental illness she brings to the table
The way none of them have any idea how to respond to his summary of what “The Messiah Complex†is about
His subtle backhand of “Ghandi, go!â€
Him yelling at the randoms in the background to “Work more quietly!â€
The way Brand shoots down the jock-looking asshole’s comment about not understanding Brand’s accent when he’s listening to Brand on satellite radio in his car. “Rather focus on driving†– priceless
The part when he thanks them for their “casual objectification†of him
“Who is Willy?†I mean holy fuck. Willy? Really? You can’t even get his fucking name right?
“Is this what you all do for a living?†Everything after this point is gold. The way he takes over the show and is a million times better as a news anchor than any of them could ever hope to be is hilarious. Their comeback? Talk more about his weird accent and pretend that he’s not in the room. For the THIRD time
The “shaft grasper†comment at the end. Again, what a fucking legend
And lastly, the titles onscreen. Read them carefully, they change dynamically to describe just how much Russell is tearing into the incompetent buffoons they actually pay money to read the morning news
Anyway. I thought that was brillliant. Russell Brand, you are a total badass and I take back any shitty thing I ever said about you.
This one appeals to my warped sense of humour. Italian artist Giuseppe Colarusso has taken photos of everyday objects and with his slick photoshopping skills, rendered them completely useless.
I thought this would make for a great Escape Monday post because if you’re feeling useless today then maybe you can relate and who knows, maybe this will make you feel better.
That’s what this site is all about. I’m not in it for the money or the fame or even the rad free shit. I’m in it for you guys, to give you something to smile about on what is probably a pretty shite day otherwise.
Check it out:
And then there are these two last ones, which are actually pretty practical and awesome:
Shit, if that heading doesn’t pretty much sum up this entire post, then I have failed dismally as arguably one of South Africa’s best and most influential (*ducks) blog headline writers.
If you’re in Cape Town today and getting over the icy cold winds that are blowing through the city, cutting right down to the bone, then this playlist is for you.
What have I thrown into the mix today? Some pretty insane sheeit that’s what. All new music by The Strokes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Biffy Clyro, The National, Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats, Iron And Wine and Soundgarden to name a few. But wait, there’s more!
Call now and we’ll throw in this free instructional video so you too can make badass playlists like your Tiger Pal and show off to everyone with a bunch of music they’ve never heard before!
How was that for you? Good? Cigarette? Here ya go…
For more information on any of the bands, tracks or albums featured on that list or to thank me for melting your face off, hit me up on Twitter (@slicktiger).
It’s going to be a pretty insane day for your Tiger Pal so I’m going to have to make this one pretty short and sweet so I can get back to the grind, these turds ain’t gonna polish themselves.
What you’re about to see is a guy who has completely mastered the use of The Force to the point where he can control objects with telekinesis. That’s right, he’s bulimic.
Kidding. He can move things with his mind. The great thing about this is that he uses this incredible super-power not for the good of humanity, or even to the detriment of humanity. He uses it to open lift doors over and over and over and over again.
Genius.
Definitely trying that one the next time I’m at Canal Walk… which will probably be around 2015… because I hate that place.
I was pretty fired up when I found out that Ironhide Studios was making a sequel to Kingdom Rush, because as a general rule game sequels (unlike movie sequels) are almost always better than their predecessors.
Making a game better than one of the best iPad games I’ve ever played is no easy feat. If you haven’t played Kingdom Rush, do yourself a favour. It is honestly one of the tightest games I’ve ever played.
Could Kingdom Rush: Frontiers top its predecessor? Could lightning strike the same flippin game twice? The answer is a resounding YES from your Tiger Pal, and here’s why…
First off to the uninitiated, KR:F is a classic tower defence game where you build defences on designated building sites along a pathway with the aim of destroying any bad guys walking along that pathway before they get to the end point.
It’s a simple premise, but trust me, shit ramps up pretty fast and before you know it, you’re elbows-deep in strategy, trying to figure out the most effective way to take the bad guys down and prevent them from bulldozing a path through your defences.
As with the first KR, you can choose one of four basic towers to build: Archers, Barracks, Mages and Dwarven Artillery.
Each has its own merits and weaknesses, adhering to classic gaming archetypes (ie. archers are quick but deal out low damage, barracks produce soldiers that can take punishment but also deal low damage, mages deal high damage but are slow and dwarves deal the highest damage but are the slowest).
What makes the game highly addictive though are the vicious enemies the developers think up to throw one spanner after the next into your carefully thought-out defence strategy and the awesome way the towers upgrade.
After you’ve upgraded a tower three times, you get the option of changing it into one of two specialist towers. The new specialist towers in KR:F are:
The Assassin’s Guild and the Knights Templar for the Barracks
The Crossbow Fort and the Windwalkers Totem for the Archer Tower
The Necromancer Tower and the Archmage Tower for the Mage Tower
The Battle-Mecha T-200 and the DWAARP for the Dwarven Artillery
Once you’ve created a specialist tower, it can be further enhanced with a number of special abilities to kick some serious bad guy ass.
The Crossbow Fort for example can be given the special ability to fire multiple flaming arrows at enemies, it’s like a burst of baddie-annihilating machinegun fire.
The Windwalkers Totem can be given special abilities that amplify damage and remove any magical spells the bad guys cast on their henchmen to make them more powerful.
It’s a water-tight system made even more awesome because of the incredible attention to detail Ironhide has put into this game. Finish a level having let 2 or less bad guys through and you get three stars which you can use to boost your various towers’ abilities even further.
This gives you more than enough incentive to keep at the levels until you ace them and to play the levels at the two higher difficulty levels (Heroic and Iron Challenge) for an additional two stars.
What’s great about KR:F is that they’ve overhauled the entire Hero system and made it MUCH better than in the original KR game (you can choose one hero to fight alongside your army who typically deals a shiteload of damage and is a huge asset).
This time around, your Hero levels up steadily throughout the game instead of only levelling up during a level and then starting from level 1 again on the next level. Also, as they level up they get skill points you can assign to different abilities to make them even more badass.
What I also liked about KR:F is that there are six new non-upgradeable towers that are available on different levels where you can buy everything from genies to legionnaires to corsairs and Spear Maidens.
They’ve also introduced a lot of fun, random things into the game like a monkey on one of the levels that throws bananas at the bad guys, a giant desert worm that surfaces periodically on one of the levels and devours anything (good guys and bad guys alike) in its path and giant man-eating carnivorous plants on another level.
They levels play out first in desert setting, moving to uncharted jungle and ending in underground caves full of crocodile-men out to fuck your shit up.
It’s a great game by anyone’s standards. My only complaint are the goddamn in-game purchases which, in some instances, cost more than the game itself.
There are currently 9 Heroes in the release version of the game of which three are unlockable and the other six you have to buy. There is also a shop available for idiots who need to buy things like dynamite and nukes to help them finish the levels (granted, they do get VERY tricky, but c’mon! There is no excuse for buying stuff so you can finish the game quicker, it doesn’t make logical sense – you’re paying to finish a game faster and ultimately, enjoy it for a shorter period of time).
I think they should unlock more heroes or bring down the cost to buy them. The best hero available, the dragon Ashbite, costs $6.99! What a joke!
That aside, you’ll still get plenty enjoyment out of the three unlockable Heroes in the game, so buying additional ones is not essential to completing the game in any way.
The game costs $2.99 for the normal version and $4.99 for the HD version from the iStore.
So yeah, as you may have noticed, I decided to take a long weekend break on the site as well as a long weekend break in real life, so there’s been a distinct lack of Tigery goodness in our lives.
Good news is I’m back with more internet inanity, starting with this pretty damn hilarious video of a major league baseball game being commentated by a British chap.
Then, as we progress through the week I’m thinking of dropping a sick iPad game review into the mix, a review of a Scottish band I got the scoop on and who knows? Maybe even a Friday playlist when we get there.
I’ve purposely waited a full two weeks before reviewing this behemoth of an album because I needed to get at least ten listens under my belt before even attempting to put my thoughts about …Like Clockwork into words.
It’s been six years since Josh Homme and his ever-changing band of musical freaks got together to throw down a follow up to 2007’s Era Vulgaris.
Though Homme has been busy as ever during that time with other musical projects (Eagles Of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures, producing an Arctic Monkeys album, etc.) it’s done very little to fill the gigantic Queens Of The Stone Age-shaped hole in the rock music world.
When rumours started surfacing more than a year ago that the Homme had summoned long-time QOTSA guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen with a host of regular contributors to the studio to start work on the new album, I was pretty fucking fired up.
Then news broke that Dave Grohl had climbed back behind the kit and I immediately knew that something truly epic was in the making.
As time wore on, it was announced that everyone from ex-QOTSA bassist Nick Oliveri to Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor to motherflippin SirElton John were getting involved in the new album.
My excitement mounted.
Then, finally, the band started releasing their new material online when they dropped the first single “My God Is The Sunâ€. I eagerly blasted the track through my headphones at eardrum-shattering volume only to take them off again three minutes and fifty-five seconds later feeling, well, a little meh.
Sure, it had that desert rock goodness I love about this band, complete with rattlesnake maracas, Grohl pounding the shit out of the kit, wailing guitar solos and Homme’s signature falsetto, BUT did it make me want to smash a bottle of whisky, drop two tabs of acid and drive screaming into the desert? No, it just didn’t have that kind of explosive, maddening energy I’d come to expect from this band.
A couple of weeks later, the five animated videos the band did with Boneface started getting released one after the other, each continuing the story from the last until the final 15-minute promo video was released in one huge, difficult-to-swallow chunk.
It was a low point for me, as you might have read here. I found the animation depressing, unjustifiably violent and pretty siff all in all. As for the music itself, with the exception of the track “If I Had A Tail†I wasn’t blown away.
Then I finally got my hands on the album, listened to it from beginning to end without interruption, took my headphones off at the end, put them down, slumped back in my chair and whispered two words.
“Holy fuck.â€
Sick Tracks
Before I get into which tracks on this album kicked my goddamn teeth out, there’s a crazy story about Josh Homme I read that gave me some insight into this album.
In 2010 Homme underwent a pretty straightforward knee operation and due to some extreme complications that happened whilst he was under general anaesthetic, he died.
For whatever reason, his heart stopped beating and he had to be resuscitated and essentially, brought back from the dead (get the full story here).
Chances are the whole incident was greatly exaggerated if it even happened at all. I remember reading the article when it happened and not thinking much about it, until I heard the new album.
There’s something about the band’s new material that I couldn’t quite place at first. It’s a kind of eerie feeling I got when wading through the dark sludge of “Keep Your Eyes Peeledâ€, wandering the abandoned halls of “The Vampyre Of Time And Memoryâ€, melting through the kaleidoscopic Neverland of “Kalopsia†and finally, confronting the gaping void of “I Appear Missingâ€.
Whatever happened to Homme, whether it was on that operating table, or whether it was something else equally as profound in his personal life, has left him a changed man.
Gone are the chugging ten-ton riffs that made tracks like “Sick, Sick, Sickâ€, “Everybody Knows That You’re Insane†and one of my personal favourites, “Misfit Love†so fucking epic.
They’ve been replaced by otherworldly harmonies, melodies and chord structures dredged from the ether. You won’t find material like this on any other album, I can guarantee that.
It will either turn you stone-cold in an instant or it will strike that tuning fork we all have inside us, buried deep down beneath our fabricated layers, and continue to strike it with every listen until you wake up with these songs resonating in your head.
All airy-fairy, introspective, deep-and-meaningful nonsense aside though, there is another side to this album that is just pure rock ‘n roll swag at its best.
After surviving the onslaught of “Keep Your Eyes Peeledâ€, Homme and the boys take a 180 degree turn with the instantly likeable “I Sat By The Oceanâ€.
Light and breezy, this track hints at the fact that …Like Clockwork is not completely wrought with deep, dark, emotionally taxing songs. In fact, on a good five tracks out of ten the guys are just there to kick out the motherfucking jams.
They dial the swag up another notch with “If I Had A Tail†which sees Homme landing killer lines like “Buy flash cars / Diamond rings / Expensive holes / To bury things†and “If I had a tail / I’d own the place / If I had a tail / I’d swat the flies.â€
But undoubtedly one of the best tracks on …Like Clockwork is “Smooth Sailing†which sounds like it could have been written for the express purpose of becoming the soundtrack to every dive-bar strip show from now until mankind goes up in flames.
If I had to try and describe it in terms of genre, I’d probably go with “mutant funk-rockâ€. This is not a song you play in the background while you make love, no. This is a song for fucking. End of story.
So yeah, while this album might not have the ten-ton riffs mentioned earlier, it still rocks pretty fucking hard, which is all I ask of a QOTSA album.
What’s weird though is that despite the fact that none of the tracks in the Boneface promo video impressed me much, when listened to in their entirety and in the context of the album they take on a whole new meaning and are somehow a lot more accessible.
Should You Give A Shit?
Look, though it comes pretty damn close to perfect, this album still has its flaws – two of them to be precise.
The first is the opening track (“Keep Your Eyes Peeledâ€) which is pretty much the aural equivalent of eating a mouthful of glass.
The second is the fact that try as I might to find them, I have no idea where Trent Reznor, Nick Oliveri, Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys frontman), Mark Lanegan, good ol’ Elton John, even Dave Grohl himself are on this album.
If you’d never told me that any of them had contributed, I’d be none the wiser. Sure, I could Google who is doing what where, but if it isn’t apparent from listening to the album countless times, then what does it really matter?
What does really matter is the simple question “Is this album worth a damn?†to which I can honestly reply, “Holy fuck yes.â€
I’m not going to go the whole hog and post “Smooth Sailing†to melt your guy’s faces off. Instead, here’s “I Sat By The Ocean†to give you a little taste of what we’re dealing with here:
It’s been a heavy month on the wallet here at SlickTiger Industries, that’s for damn sure but the great news is that today is officially payday bitches! Thank sweet baby Jeebers.
Clueless British Commentary For Baseball
Tags: clueless british baseball commentary, funny baseball commentary, hilarious commentary, joseph gordon-levitt, tigery goodness
Good news is I’m back with more internet inanity, starting with this pretty damn hilarious video of a major league baseball game being commentated by a British chap.
Then, as we progress through the week I’m thinking of dropping a sick iPad game review into the mix, a review of a Scottish band I got the scoop on and who knows? Maybe even a Friday playlist when we get there.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt all the way!
Happy Tuesday boys and girls
-ST