All posts by Kev Brock

I'm a musician, singer/songwriter, blogger, writer, poet, bodybuilder, movie lover, music lover, video gamer, history/political buff, conservative/republican, etc. I like to do a lot of things.
movies

Finally saw “The Batman” yesterday afternoon… it was freakin’ awesome! Best Batman movie for sure!

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So I finally got around to seeing “The Batman” in theater yesterday afternoon and my god, I was totally speechless throughout the whole film and my eyes were glued to the screen throughout those 3 hours. The film really was that dark and “intense” like Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson themselves were trying to tell us. That is how a Batman story is supposed to be told, they’re supposed to be dark and intense.

Throughout the first 9 Batman films… the Burton/Schumacher series, The Christopher Nolan/Dark Knight trilogy and the two Ben Affleck Batman movies “B vs. S: Dawn of Justice” and “Justice League”… they were all action movies about Batman trying to save Gotham and trying to save himself from the villains that are obsessed at wanting to kill him.

“The Batman” by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson is a totally different film than all those. This film was focused on “story” mostly which was refreshing. The past Batman films were great but Batman going around trying to save everyone and everything was getting old. This one is more of a detective story and a “mystery”. That is one thing the Batman movies were missing, the “detective” story parts. In the Batman graphic novels and comics, a lot of them were detective stories… just Batman trying to solve crimes just like in the 1966 show with Adam West and those “Arkham” video games, ya know? When will Batman the detective ever happen on the big screen? Well thanks to Matt Reeves, it finally happened.

This film is like “neo noir”… kind of like a crossover of gangster movies and horror films. This film is like a mixture of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and David Fincher rolled into one. When you watch this film, you would feel like those three guys directed this film. That’s what I felt like almost.

You all probably wanna know my thoughts on Robert Pattinson as Batman well, I was pretty impressed with him, honestly. I felt Pattinson was the true Batman than all the past ones, seriously. I felt like this was the Batman from the graphic novels and comics. I really liked Pattinson’s Batman voice too. I think they got the Batman voice right this time.

The rest of the cast did real great too, though. I was also impressed with the guy that played the Riddler, Paul Dano made a brilliant Riddler. This is a different Riddler than the comics and graphic novels we’ve seen but there are still similarities. The costume is different ’cause it’s just Matt’s vision but the green is still there, the question mark is still there, the glasses are still there and the laugh is still there but you won’t see Riddler wearing that green hat and walking around with a staff with a question mark on the top of it. The jokes and the riddles are still there too.

This is the Batman I want to see, Batman going around trying to solve all the Riddler’s riddles just like in the 1966 Batman TV show and in the comics.

I thought everybody in the movie did great… Andy Serkis the new Alfred, Zoe Kravitz as Selina/Catwoman, John Turturro kills it like he always does and I was real impressed with Colin Farrell as the new Penguin. Colin is totally unrecognizable as that character which is amazing.

I bet Matt was inspired by horror films too ’cause a lot of scenes in this movie were very dark, scary and disturbing. Crazy. Of course, this film had violent action scenes too. This film had to have some action in it ’cause what’s the point of making a Batman movie when he’s not gonna be fighting? This film had some pretty great action scenes and good fighting sequences.

This film was definitely a masterpiece. I’m definitely gonna buy the BluRay when it comes out. I think I’m gonna buy the soundtrack ’cause I really liked the score in the movie too.

I was really impressed and blown away with “The Batman”. I’ll give it a 9/10 and I’m already looking forward to the sequel now. Definitely worth seeing.

Kev

music

As odd as this sounds, Slash never liked playing guitar in front of people even though he’s considered one of the greats…

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Guitar icon, Slash maybe considered one of guitar greats… he helped Guns N’ Roses become one of the best selling bands of all time and Slash had other great projects like with supergroup The Velvet Revolver, he also had a solo career and his longtime project with vocalist Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators… Slash has always been “self-conscious” and “insecure” about his own playing. He never liked playing in front of people and never liked wearing headphones in the studio.

He maybe one of the great rhythm and lead players but he always get so scared playing for people. Some of you may ask, if he doesn’t like playing for people, why does he always constantly tour with all of his projects? Well, I’ve read in other articles, he wears his top hat as a way to help him play more confidently on stage.

Read this little interesting article from Guitar World.

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/slash-gets-self-conscious-in-guitar-stores?utm_content=guitar-world&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=socialflow&fbclid=IwAR1o1O6zEQFUr75nlTqk6E170c0gCdIcdNDZM2tlOefXx-e958AEh1mfTxw

Slash maybe one of the greats but he has always been shy and insecure about his playing. He just plays guitar for himself pretty much and the way I see it, that’s how you play great guitar is play for yourself and not be a “show-off”. Slash was never the “show off” type like, “Hey, look what I can do, think you can play better than this?”.

Slash has always been a humble guy and that’s one of the reasons he’s respected.

Slash is a genius at both rhythm and lead. He’s definitely a riff master and he’s a fine acoustic player as well. Speaking of Slash, I’m a fan of all his bands and projects. I love Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver and all the stuff he did with Myles Kennedy. Speaking of Slash & Myles Kennedy, I forgot they just released their 4th album this year and I have the first three. I forgot to grab their fourth album from Itunes but I’ll grab their new album sometime in the future.

Slash rules. He’s always been one of my favorites and he’s definitely one of those that sparked my own interest in guitar as well.

Kev

Random/off topic posts

A couple of more Blu-Rays to add to my movie library… “Fast 9”, “Venom 2” and “The Suicide Squad”…

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Well, here’s a couple of more movies I bought from amazon that I’ve been wanting to see but never got around to it. Now I own these, I’m gonna get around to watching these this weekend. All 3 of these look good so I can’t wait see ’em.

I’ve seen the first Venom movie not too long ago so I can get ready for the second one, “Let There Be Carnage”. I’ve seen the first 8 “Fast and Furious” movies and yes, I’m a huge “Fast and Furious” fan so I had to get 9 to complete that series. As far as “The Suicide Squad” goes, I’m a huge superhero nerd and I try to watch all superhero movies as much as I can so I’m looking forward to this one. I saw the first “Suicide Squad” movie with Jared Leto as the Joker, though, haven’t seen this one yet.

I just noticed that I bought two movies with WWE star, John Cena in them ’cause he has a role in “The Suicide Squad” and “Fast 9”. Yeah, I do like John Cena but that’s not the reason I got these movies. I wanted to see them ’cause they look good. Plus, “The Suicide Squad” has Stallone voicing that shark character so that would be interesting.

I’ll give my review on these after I see them. I still gotta review the new “Dune” which I will in a new post.

Yeah, I still love watching and reviewing films. It’s just one of those things I’ve always liked to do.

Kev

WWE

Vince McMahon interview on the Pat McCafee show… entertaining as hell, really!

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Yesterday afternoon, I watched Vince McMahon’s interview with podcaster, Pat Mcafee live on his youtube show. I watched it from start to finish. I must say that it was a very interesting and entertaining as hell interview really. Vince, the CEO and chairman of the WWE and Pat McAfee a podcaster turned WWE Smackdown color commentator. Pat is a really good interviewer and good talker, I can see why Vince hired Pat to be the color commentator on Smackdown.

This interview goes over about an hour long and if you don’t feel like watching the whole thing, I’ll give you a small recap.

On Pat’s show, anything goes. It’s a no holds barred, anything goes podcast/show so guests on his show can talk whatever and however they want. They can swear too so yeah, you can betcha Vince drops a lot of F bombs which is cool. A different side of Vince you’ve never seen before.

Pat is not afraid to ask Vince some hard hitting questions and he asked plenty of hard questions. Vince seems okay with it and he answered everything.

Some of the topics that I found most interesting that were talked about…

  • Vince was asked about the roster cuts like all those superstars that were released/fired over the past year or so. Vince’s response that he just does what is right for business. Not a clear answer really.
  • Vince was asked why he ignores “wrestling” and everything about it. Vince’s answer to that one is that his father Vince Sr. ran the company a similar way, Vince Jr. is just doing it the way his father did it. Vince also said there will always be wrestling in WWE.
  • Pat asked Vince why he made himself a wrestler over the years… well Vince replied saying that the feud with Stone Cold forced him into being a wrestler/performer himself. Vince had to be the most hated bad guy ’cause of it.
  • Vince was asked about the Monday Night Wars and AEW. Vince said he enjoys confrontation.
  • Vince said he listen to audience but a portion of the internet audience can be biased and so he doesn’t listen to any of it. (meaning Vince doesn’t like the “wrestling smart” community? Which is no surprise really…

A lot of people want to hate on Vinnie Mac but I don’t know why. I respect him. Always did. He gave us all this, ya know? Wrestling. Without WWE, we wouldn’t have gotten WCW, TNA, ECW, ROH, AEW and all these other wrestling promotions that are out there. Plus Vince is a legend himself and he was a great performer in his own right.

I respect Vince even more after this interview. Vince is a very soft spoken guy but he’s actually surprisingly pretty smart. Vince doesn’t do interviews that much and I try to watch/listen to all of them.

Kev

Random/off topic posts

well I got that covid-19, just minor symptoms… it’s not the deadliest virus that the media and government trying to make it out to be…

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Well I’ve been feeling a little off for a little while so I took the covid test and it turned out positive. Covid 19 is actually pretty interesting really. It’s not that bad. Just small symptoms… just feel a little cold and shivering a little and also feeling a little strange so I’m not that bad and gonna be okay. Good thing about it though is that I can eat well at least which I was afraid of losing my appetite and sense of smell and thankfully I still have those.

So no going anywhere at all for a while. Gonna have to quarantine myself for a week or more depending on how I feel. Like I said, covid is not the deadliest virus… you can recover from it quickly.

Yeah, I’m unvaccinated and anti-mask so I know what you’re thinking, “You had it coming”, “You deserve it”, blah blah blah… well let me tell ya something. You’ll get covid even with the mask on and if you’re fully vaccinated either way. Even if you do everything you’re told… social distancing and quarantine, you’ll still get it.

You see virus’s are invisible and they go where it wants and it hits anyone it wants so there’s nothing you can do to stop covid.

I’m gonna be okay. It’s gonna suck staying home all the time but I got plenty of things to do here…like music, guitar playing, books, video games, movies and I have 4 different streaming services so I’m all good.

People are saying that “covid” is beat but not really…. people are still getting it from what I’m seeing and I’ve got it. I’ve never had it until now.

I’m trying to keep my gym days going so now I’m gonna have to take more time off from the gym so I can’t go for now.

This quarantine thing is gonna be fun so I have more time to work on my guitar playing and try to start writing songs again. Yeah, I like to go out and do things but I gotta be holed up at home for a week or so. Gonna be interesting actually.

Lets see how this goes.

Kev

Politics/war

Thoughts on Biden’s first SOTU last night, yes I did watch it…

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I haven’t watched a single Biden speech ever since he got elected president ’cause I wouldn’t want to waste my time. I hear from social media that Biden is not that great at giving speeches, though and when I watched Biden’s speech last night, I was like “MY god, this guy is horrible at reading off a teleprompter”. Obama was pretty bad at teleprompter reading too but Biden is ten times worse. Yeah, when Trump was president, he is totally capable of doing speeches without teleprompters but Trump does use teleprompters when he had to and when he had to use a teleprompter he was a better reader than most.

Anyway, Biden messed up his speech reading like mad, it was funny to see actually… and it definitely seemed like he rushed it. Speaking very fast as if he was a in a hurry to get it over with.

Onward, it is interesting that Democrats are ending “most” covid protocols and rules especially before a Biden SOTU and the mid-terms and no surprise to see Biden claiming “victorious” of ending covid. Like they all say “the science didn’t change, politics change”. Which is true. Now Democrats wants to act like Covid is over all of a sudden, yet covid is still raging… people are getting it like crazy still, ya know?

It’s also funny that Biden wants to fund the police and not defund. That’s another WTF? Democrats are now acting like they haven’t done all they can to destroy the reputation of our police? Democrats and the hardcore left did all they could to make them look like bad guys and racist cops… putting body cams on them and trying to disarm them, now Biden wants to act like none of that happened and wants to give cops more money? Hey Joe, how about giving the police an apology and giving them more freedom would be a great start.

Why are they going off about lowering drug prices when food and gas prices are so high in America right now?

Most of that speech was a joke really. As for my thoughts on Vladimir Putin attacking Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is a madman and Biden is of course, really weak. If Russia attack Ukraine happened under Trump… Trump would have responded a lot tougher. Putin is evil and should be removed from the Russian presidency and he should be locked up. Why didn’t Biden say that? A Russia attack Ukraine wouldn’t have happened under Trump anyways ’cause Trump and Putin got together for peace talks a number of times and Biden never did that so…

Biden missed so many important talking points though. Anyway, fuck Biden, he’s just a puppet and he’s only doing/saying what he’s told.

That SOTU was terribly boring, though… even a die-hard Democrat would have to admit that. I don’t think I’ll watch another one ever again, though.

Kev

movies

At long last, Indiana Jones 5 is finally done filming…

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The 5th installment to Indiana Jones has been in development since Indy 4 in 2008 so that is a little over a decade the film’s been in the works. Film had some problems and setbacks, though. George Lucas was in charge of Indy 5 but then he sold Star Wars and Lucasfilm to Disney which means Kathleen Kennedy is now in charge of Indy. Film had some setbacks with some re-writes of the script and all that stuff. Now that they actually went into filming the movie, Harrison Ford suffered a shoulder injury, I bet probably during an action scene. So that suffered some problems as well and of course, Covid pandemic happened so that delayed filming.

Well filming has finally wrapped and it’s all done shooting… but they still have loads more work to do. They have to do editing process, add in special effects, CGI (there probably will be some of that), sound and all that stuff. They also gotta record the soundtrack and musical score for the film which will still be composed by none other than the great John Williams.

https://collider.com/indiana-jones-5-filming-wrap-harrison-ford/

Plot and subtitle is being kept under wraps for now but I’m sure we’ll learn more soon. It’s probably gonna be called “Indiana Jones and the…” or something.

Once again just like with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Indiana Jones 5 looks like it’s gonna be a passing of the torch kind of movie. That’s the idea that Lucas had in the beginning so Disney is going for it.

I’m a huge Indiana Jones fan, love them all… and yes even “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” Indy IV was great. I can’t wait for Indy V, though. While I’m hoping this movie will focus on story, I’m sure this movie will be action packed popcorn flick. I’m sure James Mangold won’t disappoint ’cause he is a great director and made some great movies.

Think about it right? Mangold directed the Wolverine movie “Logan” and that film totally reminded me of Indiana Jones which was probably why he got the job to begin with. Mangold did some pretty huge movies over the years like “Cop Land” w/ Stallone, “Girl Interrupted”, “Walk The Line”, “3:10 To Yuma” and “Knight and Day”.

I think he’ll make a great Indy film, Mangold’s directing style will be way different than Spielberg, I’m sure but I’m sure he tried his best to make it seem like Spielberg did it. I’m kind of glad Spielberg stepped out, actually. Give the film a new vision.

Harrison maybe 79 now but I’m sure he can still play Indy well and knock it out of the park.

Kev

movies

Finally saw “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” last night… very good… I was impressed… they did it justice for sure…

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So Ghostbusters 3 is finally here but instead of calling it “Ghostbusters III”, they didn’t want a number instead giving it a subtitle: “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”. The third Ghostbusters movie was in the works since the early 90’s but it took a long time to make due to script re-writes, Bill Murray not being interested and then the death of Harold Ramis caused a lot of problems so we had to wait a lot longer for the third film. So now the third film is finally here, I bought the BluRay since I didn’t get the chance to see the film in theater an watched it last night.

While the movie was a bit predictable and things I’ve been saying about the film turned out to be exactly right, I thought it turned out really great. I was impressed with Jason Reitman, he really did it justice and did it for the fans like he was saying since the beginning.

This is not gonna be the last Ghostbusters movie ’cause to me, it’s looking like it’s gonna be an ongoing franchise… the ending seems to have left open for more. This is a passing of the torch kind of movie, just a new introduction. The original Ghostbusters, Ray, Peter and Winston weren’t in it that much but that’s because it was a re-introduction of the original Ghostbusters… but they still got it and Ray, Peter and Winston haven’t changed a bit even though they’re a bit older now.

The question you have to ask is this, i thiss the last time Ray, Peter and Winston will star in a “Ghostbusters” movie? From the looks of things, no. I would think they would star in a few more ’cause those new kids are getting trained as new “Ghostbusters” so they will need mentors, ya know? Those kids need to be taught how to become “Ghostbusters” by the originals… Ray, Peter and Winston so they’ll probably be around in the next one to teach them how to catch ghosts. So I would think in the next movie G4, Ray, Peter and Winston will be in it a lot more ’cause those kids will need ’em.

I’m thinking the next plot for the next movie is that the new kids in Ghostbusters goes to NYC, go to the Ghostbusters firehouse where the 3 originals would teach the kids everything they did in the past and of course, I’m sure Ray, Peter and Winston will teach Phoebe and Trevor more about Egon which they need to know more about. To me “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was just leading up to the next film.

I did like “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” a lot and was impressed with it so I’m definitely looking forward to G4. “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was also a beautiful tribute to Harold and I think Harold would have been proud of the film himself. I watched “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” on Harold’s anniversary passing so it was good timing. He was a talented man, though, I was definitely a fan of his myself. I was bummed too when he left us.

“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was great. Definitely recommended if you’re a fan.

Kev

movies

People want to complain about “Texas Chainsaw” (2022)? The original had its problems as well…

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So I watched the new “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2022) a Netflix exclusive on the weekend it came out so while this film is getting mixed reviews, I want to say that I quite liked it. I liked it a lot really.

There are a lot of people trashing this movie saying it has no story… nothing but blood and gore. Many saying it was not scary enough. Really? I would have to think the exact opposite.

I thought the movie did have a story to tell this time around. I was also surprised how frightening and brutal this was one was. It was a bit gritty some scenes. I think that’s why some didn’t like it ’cause the brutality in the movie even scared the hell out of them. Especially this one scene which I don’t want to talk about to avoid talking about spoilers.

This movie is not a remake… it takes place 50 years after the Tobe Hooper original. Yes, the 2022 movie pushes leftist politics yes but I don’t mind as long as Leatherface slaughters leftist characters which is a part of what made the movie entertaining as hell.

They want to complain and bitch about this new one? Well, the original Tobe Hooper movie had its problems as well as I’m not too crazy about the original to be honest. The original had no plot and that movie is nothing but a girl screaming throughout most of it anyways. I don’t watch the original that much. I wasn’t crazy about Tobe’s directing style either.

My favorite Texas Chainsaw movie is the 2003 remake, that’s the best one, in my opinion.

I was impressed with the new one on Netflix so I’m gonna give it a second re-watch this weekend, I think.

Kev

music

Will years of loud music destroy your hearing? Truth be told, yes, it will…

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Dave Grohl on his hearing loss: “I’ve been reading lips for 20 years”

Well, Dave Grohl is the latest rock musician to admit that he has hearing loss. He has had it for a long while but Dave isn’t the only rock musician that lost their hearing… Brian Johnson of AC/DC is just recently suffering from it ’cause that’s why he left that band for a while to begin with.

There are other rock musicians who are hearing impaired such as Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, Huey Lewis, Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, Brian Wilson, Liam Gallagher, Bob Dylan… the list can keep going. Really, many of the big rock legends suffered hearing loss over the years.

Why? Maybe some of them were born with bad hearing but most rock musicians lost their hearing due to loud music over the years. Ya know, they spent their whole life playing loud music, thousands of hours of playing in the studio and playing on the stage night after night.

I myself am hearing impaired, I’m deaf on the left ear and have partial hearing loss on the right but I still have an okay ear with music. I was born with hearing loss, music didn’t do it to me, though.

Being a musician may sound fun and addictive but is it healthy for your ears being around music all the time? Not really.

I understand rock musicians need to play loud ’cause that’s how rock is supposed to be played but I think the industry needs to find a way for musicians to protect their ears more. I’m sure the industry comes up with gadgets that protect their ears and I’m sure they aren’t cheap to get either. As a musician, do you really need to be around loud music all the time? Truth is, you don’t really need to.

It seems that hearing loss with musicians and artists is getting worse and worse. That’s what happens with dealing with life in the studio and on the road touring heavily, ya know? Loud noise can wreck your ears that easily.

Kev