HundredPennies

As 2008 comes to an end it’s good to know that there is something to look forward to in 2009.

Crank 2 is one of those things. Check out the badass trailer below.

Yes it looks shit and low budget but you have to admit it does look awesome.

Due to a small error by a couple of retailers Fable 2 broke its street date and went on sale for about half a day before being taken back off the shelves. Apparently there are still some stores selling but it appears to be a bit hit and miss. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and pick up a copy on my lunch break and seeing that Fable 2 will be available for the masses later this week I thought I’d post a quick first impressions on this highly anticipated game.

It looks like Kevin Smith is back to making decent films. Some people may be getting Seth Rogen overload but I’m still enjoying it all. Check out the trailer for Zack and Miri Make a Porno and let me know if your looking forward to it.

I must admit that I hadn’t actually heard of Trial Kennedy until I read a great review for their upcoming album on Bombshellzine back in June. Despite a couple of EP releases (Present For a Day & Picture Frame), and frequent support tours with the likes of Gyroscope, Kisschasy & Fall Out Boy, its taken them about four years to finally release their first album. After receiving a record deal with Sony BMG, these four Melbournites headed over to Atlanta and worked with producer Nick DiDia (Stone Temple Pilots, Powderfinger, Incubus & Audioslave) to develop their debut album New Manic Art.

When Less Than Jakes last release In With The Out Crowd was critically panned for sounding too pop & commercial they mutually split from their previous partner Warner Bros. to start up their own label Sleep It Off. After listened to the fans they then decided to go back to basics for there follow up album GNV FLA. Chris Demakes (guitarist/vocalist) and JR (saxophonist) stated that “We should do what we’ve always done, and do what we do best” which resulted in “a quintessential Less Than Jake record”.

On Monday I saw my second MIFF movie called Not Quite Hollywood. This time my trick of arriving a little earlier was to no avail as one of the ‘organisers’ -a loose term as they didn’t know what the fuck was going on- told us that the movie was delayed by about 15 min and just to rub it in she then condescendingly added that we should enjoy our time in the line. Thankfully this film was well worth the final 30min delay as it turned out to be one of the most funny & entertaining documentaries I’ve seen. As an added bonus there was even a Q&A session from it’s director and two others that had films featured in the doco.

Ten years and six albums since Zebrahead’s first studio album and the boys are back with their latest release Phoenix.

With each album spaning so many genres and different sounds & considering that their last release (Broadcast to the World) was over two years ago, I was jumping with anticipation to see what would come out of Phoenix.

On Saturday night I was lucky enough to attend the Australian premier of the Diary Of The Dead at the Melbourne international film festival. On the night, all horror fans were in for a real treat as the legendary director of horror, George A. Romero was there in person to give a short introduction & 15 min Q&A at the end of the film.

Agony & Irony is Alkaline Trio’s 6th studio album & sees the Chicago threesome split from their previous independent label to join with Epic records. While this has resulted in the usual backlash of sellout remarks (The band recently endorsed a limited edition set of Nike Alkaline Trio shoes), this is still a solid release that will should appeal to those that like their punk rock laced with a good dose of pop.

Today I was originally going to try write a review for the new alkaline Trio album, but instead I got distracted after listening to the latest effort from Me First And The Gimme Gimmes titled Have Another Ball.

Unfortunately it caught my attention in a bad way as this album is actually pretty substandard. Even though every Gimme Gimme release has had its fair share of hits & misses, their 7th studio album is by far their worst to date (technically it could be classified as their 1st album since it was originally going to be released as a b-side to their 1997 release Have A Ball).