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

Film Review: Prometheus

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Starring: Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace
Directed by: Ridley Scott

So last night, I finally got around to checking out, “Prometheus” in theater. I actually went with 4 other people instead of going to the movies alone this time.

Here is my review:

Plot/synopsis: A team of scientists journey through the universe on the spaceship “Prometheus” on a voyage to investigate Alien life forms. The team of scientists becomes stranded on an Alien world, and as they struggle to survive it becomes clear that the horrors they experience are not just a threat to themselves, but to all of mankind.

If you’re planning to see this film and expecting this film that will have something to do with the earlier, “Alien” films, then you’ll be pretty disappointed. In early 2000, Ridley Scott originally planned this movie to be a “prequel”, of the first “Alien” movie, but due to the “Alien Vs. Predator” movie just started development, Ridley had to scrap the project. Later on in the years, Ridley picked up interest in this so called, Alien “Prequel”, and decided to make it a totally different film. That’s when Ridley decided to hire Damon Lindelof, to re-write the script.

I saw the film last night, and immediately noticed, the whole movie had nothing to do with the Alien franchise. Yes, “Prometheus” does, have aliens in the film, of course, but they are different forms of aliens. You will not see any of the original aliens from the Sigourney Weaver films. They call the film, “Prometheus”, for a reason. If the film was about the other Alien movies, then the title would have had, “Alien” in it.

This film is getting mixed reviews from critics and movie fans. Some say the script was badly written, but I didn’t think so. I thought the writing was perfect. It was intelligent and insightful. I can understand that “Science Fiction” can sometimes confuse people. I would also say that this film was true science fiction. Watching this film made me think of science fiction writers, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card, and others. While, this film is science fiction, there is also some reality to this film as well.

The film wants to question us of why us humans were made. Why are we living here on this Earth? Where did we come from originally? That’s the main focus of the film. The film is about archaeologist, Elizabeth Shaw, trying to save humans from going extinct. Where did the word, “Prometheus” originally come from? It was a Greek mythology story, probably where, Ridley inspired the film from. It’s not just science fiction, the film will give you a bit of a history lesson as well.

Of course, I was very impressed with the visuals and special effects of the movie. I’m usually not that impressed with visuals and special effects of movies, ’cause most of that stuff looks cartoonish and silly to me. The visual and special effects in “Prometheus”, just blew me away. I liked the casting of the film. I thought, Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace, did a great job, but I was most impressed with Michael Fassbender, who played David the Android. That was some brilliant acting by Fassbender, and I think he should get an Oscar nomination for that role.

The entire movie was entertaining. I wasn’t bored, the story kept you hooked all the way through. Yes, there are action scenes. You will also see some scary scenes and get a few jumpy scenes. You will also get some gross out scenes just like the earlier Alien films. I was very impressed with, “Prometheus”, and so far, it’s the best film of 2012, other than, “The Avengers”. It really is nice to see people interested in science fiction again. I’m hoping “Prometheus” will help give the science fiction genre a huge comeback in Hollywood. I think Ridley Scott can help bring science fiction back in a huge way as he has plans of making a sequel to, “Blade Runner”, as well. “Prometheus” was a phenomenal film, I loved it, and the film works.

Score for “Prometheus” = (**** = 4 stars as in Excellent)

Kev

Local music

One way to earn respect in your music scene, is to support other musicians as much as possible…

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There is too much bashing and hating going on, even to this day. It never ends. I know musicians wants to get respect for themselves as a person and as a musician. One way to get more respect, is to stop the hating and bashing of other musicians completely. Support them, even the successful and more established musicians. I understand you may not like other musicians but keeping your opinions to yourself is the best thing to do, on a professional level.

If you support other musicians, you will get support from them in return, trust me. I’ve supported too many musicians over the years. If you support other musicians, they will reward you stuff in return. Some will just simply give you respect in return. Some musicians will be willing to even become your friend. Some will offer you free CD’s. They will ask you to play on their gigs. They will also give you shout outs on their websites or social networking pages. Things like that, ya know. Some of you have seen me support a lot of musicians over the years, and I got some of the stuff I listed above, back from them. It does make you feel good.

Sure, there will be some bands & musicians that won’t even give you support in return no matter how much you try to support them. Some bands & musicians don’t even play music for the people, they do it for themselves. If you don’t get support from bands & musicians back, then never mind them and move along. Even if they ignored you, at least you did good for the music scene. Believe me, I’ve tried to support some bands and solo artists, the best I could, and they didn’t even care.

Supporting other musicians is key to getting respect around here, and a good way to get your own music out there. Treating other musicians how you like to be treated, is a good way for a positive music scene. It would be nice if this could be a more positive music scene though. There are too many negative musicians that want to rant and rave about everything. People blame it on the old crumbs board, but it’s not the internet. This is how people are.

Kev

music

Cool Video: Alice Cooper covers Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” at Bonnaroo…

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Here is Alice Cooper and his band covering, Lady Gaga’s, “Born This Way”. They don’t call Alice Cooper a shock rocker for nothing. The man is always unpredictable at his live performances.

Some may find this a bit silly, but no matter what you think about Lady Gaga’s music, she is rock n’ roll. She’s a rock musician even though, she has a lot of electronica and pop in her songs. Any rock band can cover her music, and this is proof of it. Honestly, Alice’s version is better than the original and he just made it his own song. I’m sure Gaga herself is flattered he did it.

I’m a huge fan of Gaga and not ashamed of it either. She already has a fourth album in the works, and looking forward to that.

Kev

Kev Brock music

About that “Nightmare” song…

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Ya know, I think the volume levels on the .wav file to that “Nightmare” song is just fine the way it is. Must be my end of the computer. I just listened to the .wav file on my Ipad, to test it out, and the volume levels on the track were loud and good. I’m sure you’re able to hear it loud and good yourself.

I’m proud of how my version of, “Nightmare” came out. I know that punk band, The Jims, covered it in youtube, while I love their take on the song still, that wasn’t my original vision to the song.

My vision was to have a jazzy lounge kind of feeling. Something that you would hear when you walk into a jazz club. In my original vision to “Nightmare”, I can hear horns playing in the background, a full horn ensemble backing the song up. Garageband does not yet, have horns to play for the software, but I’m hoping they’ll add that soon. I plan on bringing back more of my older songs, and when I get done with some of the older songs, I’ll start writing brand new stuff again.

Kev

Kev Brock music

I get the strangest comparisons with my music of other artists…

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One thing people love to do with my music is compare my music to other artists. People come up to me all the time either online or in person, they say stuff like, “You remind me of this artist (here)”. So far, the most popular comparisons of my songwriting are: Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Nick Cave, Tom Petty, etc.

I can understand why. It’s because I don’t have a very strong singing voice. I’ll admit, that I’m not an actual singer, I just do it. Those guys I listed above are not actual singers either. They just sing with their regular speaking voices, not having a strong range. Know what I mean? To be honest, I actually enjoy singers who don’t take themselves too seriously. When you want to sing, you don’t have to be professionally trained. If you want to sing, just do it, period. You don’t have to be a perfect singer.

I do want to sing better and am practicing and learning. I would like to have better range and a stronger voice, but learning to sing real good takes years, just like it takes years to play great guitar. I am considering taking voice coach lessons though. I would like to sing a little better.

I do get flattered when people compare me to other artists like that though. When people do that, it means they really like your stuff.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Gonna have to cut down on eating tuna…

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Yes, canned tuna maybe a great source of protein, but you don’t want to be eating a can a day or worse a few cans a day. I used to think it was good to eat tuna every day, or at least most of the week. From this point on, I’m going to vary up my lunches during the day. Tuna has something called, Mercury Toxicity, or something like that. I don’t think you want to be eating fish of any kind everyday, doesn’t have to be canned tuna. 2 or 3 times a week for fish is good enough. Read more on it, here. Fish may not harm ya this early but it will years ahead, you could get an early death if you eat way too much tuna.

So I’m going to go looking for other sources of protein for lunch during the day. I think I’m going to start eating more boneless chicken breasts for lunch instead of fish. I’ll also eat a lot more vegetables. You can also find good sources of protein from healthy beans like Soy Beans or Black Beans.

I was kind of getting tired of tuna anyway. I’m going to do more research on nutrition, try to make it a little different.

That’s okay though. I’m still NEW to fitness and nutrition. This is called learning.

For breakfast in the morning, I would have either egg whites or plain oat meal, and I’ll have whole wheat toast to go with it ’cause you need your whole grains. Beginners make a lot of mistakes with nutrition and I do too. I’m not perfect with nutrition but I’m trying to get better as much as I can. Eating healthy is a learning experience, indeed.

Kev

Kev Brock music

New and old song: “The Nightmare Has Begun Today” (garageband)

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I spent the last couple of days working on this song, I wrote a couple of years back. If you can tell by the lyrics, the song is another one of my dark songs, based on horror and true crime kind of stuff. I know I said I was going to write positive/family friendly stuff from this point on, I will write those kind of songs too, but I think I’m going to get back into writing the darker stuff. I seem to be better at writing songs with dark & angry lyrics anyway.

I kept the drum beat simple, nothing too complex. It’s just a demo and I’ll improve the song down the road. This is just a song idea.

Enjoy.

Kev

Edit to add: I know the wav. file volume seems kind of low, but when I record and listen to playback on the computer before exporting it, I can hear it loud and fine. It must have something to do with the settings of the “exporting’. I’ll figure something out. You can still hear it okay, just turn the speakers up or listen to this on headphones.

And I know the vocals are kind of louder than the music, I’ll fix that too. I need a break from the computer. Gonna go out and enjoy the nice hot day.

NightmareHasBegunToday1

movies

In honor of Johnny Depp’s birthday today…

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As of today, Johnny Depp turns 49. He’s one year away until the big 5-0. Whether you love him or hate him, I’m sure you at least love a few of his movies. We’ve all seen his flicks. He made his film debut in the original, “Nightmare On Elm St.” which Freddy Krueger helped launched him into world wide fame. I also liked him in, “Edward Scissorhands”, “Ed Wood”, “Donnie Brasco”, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, “From Hell”, the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie (I didn’t like the sequels), “Sweeney Todd”, “Public Enemies”, and “Dark Shadows”, were some of the movies, that I liked of his.

I’ve always respected Johnny. Kudos to the man for having such a positive career, and he’s a pretty successful and legendary actor, no matter what you think of him. I think Tim Burton is responsible for making him so famous. Without Tim Burton, there would be no Johnny Depp. I’m not a fan of all of his movies, he had a handful of movies that I never cared for, I only like the good ones, like the ones I listed above.

Happy Birthday to Natalie Portman too.

Kev

TNA Impact, WWE news

The problem will professional wrestling today, will there ever be good wrestling?

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Even though I’m still a fan and still respect the professional wrestling industry, I just wish it can all get better. Not just with WWE, TNA needs to get better too. I like both companies. I still watch both as much as I can.

There are some good things and bad things about the WWE. The bad things, I actually don’t mind their “PG” rating, ’cause that’s how WWE started out in the 80’s. I just want their wrestling and promos to get better. The word, “promos”, another wrestling term where a wrestler gives a speech out in the ring. In the WWE, there are very few of today’s wrestlers that puts on very good promos, like CM Punk and Jericho. Those guys are still amazing on the mic, but everyone else in WWE? *yawn*

The guys in TNA seems to be much better at promos than WWE ’cause they are a TV-14 company. I think Bully Ray, who works for TNA, is one of the best wrestling heels I’ve seen in a long time. Bully Ray is what keeps me watching TNA I think. Bully Ray, used to be one of the Dudley Boyz (a former WWE tag team). Bully is a great character and he’s the best at doing promos in TNA, than anybody in their roster. The whole point of TNA is that they are competing against WWE. All of TNA’s ppvs and storylines are pretty much the same as WWE’s but it’s their own version.

The problem with today’s professional wrestling, is that it’s all too mainstream now. It’s not like what it used to be in the old days. The old days was “true” wrestling. The old days, they tried to treat it like an actual sport, but now it’s “sports entertainment”. Today’s wrestling is not special anymore. The old days would have some of the most amazing matches I’ve ever seen, more guys would cut great promos back then too! It really is sad how wrestling is today.

I still do enjoy watching WWE shows live in person though. I just enjoy seeing the performers enjoying themselves out there. Whether they’re badguy wrestlers, or good guys, I respect them all. It’s just a wrestling show! Yes, I have been criticized and been made fun of for my love of professional wrestling, but I’m a fan ’cause I respect what these guys do. They work hard to entertain fans and very good at it. I just want both companies to get better like everyone else. People complain about WWE and TNA ’cause we want to see good wrestling matches and we aren’t getting any of that. It’s all storylines and soap opera stuff these days.

Kev