Thought: Why Dolph Lundgren deserves more recognition in Hollywood…

It seems that action-star Dolph Lundgren, only gets huge in Hollywood whenever he works with his long-time pal and friend, Sylvester Stallone. Dolph is only well-known for “Rocky IV” as Ivan Drago, and in “The Expendables” as Gunnar Jensen. He has done some big-screen movies without Sly with films such as: “Masters of the Universe”, “Red Scorpion”, “Universal Soldier” (the first one), “The Punisher” and maybe a few others; most of Dolph’s movies have been straight-to-video B-movies. Dolph has always been a struggling actor-director for years. He tries really hard to become successful and he does take his work seriously.

Why does he deserve more recognition? I can think of a few reasons. For starters, Dolph knows movies and behind-the-scenes directing better than everybody. He can do the tough-guy image really well in action movies. In films, he can play both the villain and the hero really well. He knows how to make violent action scenes and make them exciting and thrilling. Even some of his straight-to-video movies can be pretty violent and gruesome. I actually like some of his straight-to-video stuff ’cause I’ve been watching quite a lot of ’em on Netflix. The man works extremely hard.

I also admire Dolph for his martial arts training and fitness advice. In fitness, he’s one of the very few guys who don’t rely on bodybuilding weights to get ripped. He got the body with martial arts, which is what he is an expert at. I watched “Red Scorpion” on Netfilx last night and forgot how good that movie was. Dolph is a badass, and a true action star. He’s underrated and wish he would get recognized more.

I think he will get bigger roles after, “The Expendables” is done. He’s an interesting guy, I don’t get why Hollywood continues to ignore his talent. Dolph is great. I wish the nay-sayers will give the man a chance ’cause he can be something special. He is also a big inspiration to me right behind Sly and Arnold. I’ve been watching Dolph movies for years. I thought I would get this topic off my chest since I’ve been watching a lot of Dolph films through Netflix streaming and DVD rentals.

Kev

Edit to add: I also watched the new “Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning” on Netflix a few weeks ago and that was actually really good! Dolph only had a small role in that film, though.

“Man of Steel” soundtrack set for release on June 11th…

ManofSteelSoundtrack

I usually don’t pass along all of these press releases and spam-mail I’ve been getting in my inbox, but I thought this one would be worth posting. The Hans Zimmer score for the film “Man of Steel”, will be getting released for a Deluxe Version; two-disc soundtrack. This movie will be a John Williams-less score, so you will not hear the main theme for this movie at all. This will be completely new music for Superman. From what I heard so far, it is amazing. So maybe this movie can do good without John Williams, after all?

Here’s the press release of the Soundtrack below (I’ll also post the link for the pre-order, if interested):

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MAN OF STEEL TWO DISC SOUNDTRACK FEATURING ORIGINAL MUSIC BY HANS ZIMMER SET FOR RELEASE JUNE 11th

Limited Deluxe Edition Soundtrack Also Available

 

Man of Steel: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Available For Pre-Order

LOS ANGELES, CA – April 30, 2013 – On June 11, 2013, WaterTower Music will release two configurations of the Man Of Steel: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. The album will be available in standard form as well as a limited edition deluxe version at all physical and digital retailers. Academy Award®, Grammy®, and Golden Globe® – winning composer Hans Zimmer composed the music for this highly anticipated project, joining forces for the first time with director Zack Snyder.

“The challenges of creating a Superman score are daunting because Superman is so iconographic,” said Snyder. “I really feel like what Hans created is perfect. Subtle and stirring, epic and commanding. Honestly, Hans crushed it.”

Fans will have the ability to choose between the standard two disc, 18-song soundtrack, and a limited, deluxe edition of the soundtrack. This deluxe edition will be housed in a special embossed steel case, contain 24 score selections, and give fans the ability to access multiple videos showing an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the music. Both the standard and deluxe editions will include the epic track “Man of Steel (Hans Original Sketchbook)” which clocks in at over 28 minutes long. This exclusive track is performed solely by Zimmer, and allows listeners to experience firsthand his initial experiments with the film’s music, which ultimately lay the foundation for the film’s final score.

Those fans who purchase the CD version of the deluxe edition will have the opportunity to download all 24 songs in DTS Headphone: X, which reproduces a cinematic multi-speaker surround sound experience using only the user’s headphones. DTS Headphone: X presents a whole new way to hear mobile entertainment over headphones. The technology garnered rave reviews from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, and Cnet, among others at this year’s CES convention.

Additionally, a double, 180 gram vinyl configuration of the soundtrack is slated for a summer release.

In addition to his orchestral arrangements, Zimmer, no stranger to stepping outside the confines of traditional film scoring, has assembled two unique musical entities to contribute music to Man of Steel. The first, a “drum orchestra,” which was brought together for the album, is described by soundtrack co-producer Peter Asher as “some of the best drummers in the world all playing simultaneously in a space designed for a symphony orchestra – using not only rock drum kits but tympani and field drums as well.”

The membership of this elite assembly consists of many of today’s top musicians including John JR Robinson, Jason Bonham, Josh Freese, Pharrell Williams, Danny Carey, Satnam Ramgotra, Toss Panos, Jim Keltner, Curt Bisquera, Trevor Lawrence Jr., Matt Chamberlain, Ryeland Allison, Bernie Dresel, Vinnie Colaiuta and Sheila E. Their contribution, under Zimmer’s musical direction, creates a towering and powerful musical accompaniment to the film.

Another distinctive group the composer assembled was a gathering of eight of music’s finest pedal steel guitarists who play classical string section parts. This collective, consisting of Chas Smith, Marty Rifkin, Skip Edwards, Boo Bernstein, Peter Frieberger, Rick Schmidt, JD Maness, John McClung, was described by Asher as, “a uniquely new metallic orchestra” added its own distinct and soaring musical stamp to the soundtrack.

The Man Of Steel: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is currently available for preorder at Amazon and will be available for preorder on iTunes starting May 7.

 

SOUNDTRACK TRACK LISTING

  

Disc 1 – Flight

  1. Look to the Stars
  2. Oil Rig
  3. Sent here for a Reason
  4. DNA
  5. Goodbye My Son
  6. If You Love These People
  7. Krypton’s Last
  8. Terraforming
  9. Tornado
  10. You Die or I Do
  11. Launch
  12. Ignition
  13. I Will Find Him
  14. This is Clark Kent
  15. I Have So Many Questions
  16. Flight
  17. What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World?

 

Disc 2 – Experiments from the Fortress of Solitude

  1. Man of Steel                                (Hans’ Original Sketchbook)
  2. Are You Listening, Clark?             (Deluxe Edition Only)
  3. General Zod                                (Deluxe Edition Only)
  4. You Led Us Here                         (Deluxe Edition Only)
  5. This Is Madness!                         (Deluxe Edition Only)
  6. Earth                                          (Deluxe Edition Only)
  7. Arcade                                       (Deluxe Edition Only)

Hans Zimmer has scored more than 100 films, which have, combined, grossed over 19.6 billion dollars at the worldwide box office.  He has been honored with an Academy Award®, two Golden Globes®, three Grammys®, an American Music Award, and a Tony® Award. In 2003, ASCAP presented him with the prestigious Henry Mancini award for Lifetime Achievement for his impressive and influential body of work. He also received his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2010.  Some of his most recent works include the History Channel’s miniseries The Bible; the Christopher Nolan-directed films Inception, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises; and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Upcoming titles include Ron Howard’s Rush, Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger and Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave.

Zack Snyder directed Man of Steel from a screenplay by David S. Goyer from a story by Goyer & Nolan, based upon Superman characters created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster and published by DC Entertainment.  Charles Roven, Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas and Deborah Snyder are the producers, with Thomas Tull, Lloyd Phillips and Jon Peters serving as executive producers.  The film stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni and Russell Crowe.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Legendary Pictures, a Syncopy Production, a Zack Snyder Film, Man of Steel.  The film will be released in 3D and 2D in select theaters and IMAX®, and is slated for release on June 14, 2013.  It will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

About Headphone: X

DTS Headphone: X enables content owners (e.g., movie studios, music labels or retail) to capture the acoustics of a high quality audio production studio and control the manner by which they are reproduced at the consumer end. Content providers can rest assured that the sonic reproduction presented to the listener can match the mix they so carefully crafted.

About WaterTower Music:

WaterTower Music, the in house music label for Warner Bros., has been releasing recorded music since 2001.  Distributed through InGrooves Fontana, WTM has released over 150 titles, including the film soundtracks to “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Project X,”, “Rock of Ages,” “Hairspray,” “Sex and the City,” “Elf,” “The Notebook,” and “Love and Basketball” among others.  Its 2013 schedule includes “42,” “Pacific Rim,” and “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”

Want to try singing “acapella” for youtube…

I think I’m gonna start singing songs for youtube acapella as well. For years, I have always sung songs with a guitar, but I think I want to try singing without an instrument. See what kind of feedback I get with my vocals without an instrument accompanying it. I can never tell how good my singing is, and this will be a good way to do it. Just to test out my singing skills. I really have been working hard on the singing. Trying to become an actual “singer” is tough. It doesn’t happen over night.

If I knew of a vocal coach, then I would work with him/her, but I don’t know any vocal coaches around here, so I just teach myself with an instructional DVD. I want to take singing seriously from now on. Have more range and control of my voice. Sing with more passion too!

Kev

Cool Video: Frank Underwood spoof of the White House Correspondents Dinner…

Netflix’s original series, House of Cards, has gotten so popular that Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is becoming a favorite character for everyone. The show decides to spoof the White House Correspondents dinner by having Frank Underwood join in. “House of Cards” is a political drama that has a bit of dark comedy in it as well. The show can also be humorous.

I laughed pretty hard at this video. Especially the Anthony Weiner comments which really did it to me.

“House of Cards”, really is a great show; wish they would get season 2 green-lighted already. Enjoy the laughs.

Kev

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dCzI521sgqE

Cover songs…

I think I’m gonna be doing a lot more cover songs for my youtube channel. I want to perform cover songs that I like and the ones that inspired me over the years. I’ll be performing my favorite cover song from the 50’s to today’s music — every decade. I just want to prove people that I can be something musically. I was proud of how that “Freedom” cover came out; if you’ve noticed, the singing has gotten slightly better. Singing a bit stronger and a bit higher as well. I’ve been practicing real had on the singing like I’ve been telling you. I’ve been taking the singing a little more seriously now. I’ve always liked playing cover songs; I’ve been doing them for years ever since I started gigging.

I’ve been doing cover songs for youtube ’cause I’m not ready to start writing new originals yet; will soon. This is just another reason why I want to get better at my grammar/English. It’s also to help improve my lyric writing to the next level. Writing good lyrics requires writing good sentences just like you would do in a novel or short story. Want to read more poetry to help with my lyrics like I said previously. Music is going to change for the better, and doing all I can.

Kev

Thought: Why “Rocky – The Musical” deserves to happen…

After Rocky – The Musical made it’s successful debut in Hamburg, Germany in 2012, Broadway has gotten the green-light to put the musical in production at the Winter Garden Theater in NYC for the year 2014 — which is obviously, next year! Of course, they had to get Stallone’s blessing, in which he seems to be all for it! While Sly has had a long movie career, it seems that he is most proud of his work with the Rocky movies more than everything else he has done in the past. The character Rocky means so much to Sly for so many reasons. One of the reasons is that the character reminds him so much of his real life. Before Sly’s fame & fortune, he too started off as a nobody just like Rocky in the first movie. Sly was homeless; living in the streets of New York City for a few weeks until he sold the script to “Paradise Alley” for a $100, and then he got his acting start doing adult-porn. Yes, it’s true. Just like Rocky, Sly himself went from zero to hero.

Rocky is not just a boxing movie and Sly always made that pretty clear. It’s about life and moving forward to bigger things. The character also means so much to all of us, which is how the movies got so big and successful. I’ve always loved the first movie. It’s one of my favorite films ever made, and I will never get tired of it — ever. To be quite honest with you, I always looked at the first Rocky movie as something theatrical. Like a play — almost. That’s what the first film felt like.

Bringing that story to the stage is just their way of keeping that legendary story alive. Keep it well known. It’ll help bring more people to the first film. Rocky deserves to be a part of everyone lives ’cause that character is so special. While Sylvester Stallone did so many great action movies, it was Rocky that mattered the most. That’s how I became obsessed with Sly’s movies to begin with. It all started with Rocky. The first Rocky film was Sly’s best acting out of all the films he has done. I wonder if the actor who plays Rocky for the musical will be able to make the acting style similar to Sly’s in the first movie. I’ll have to wait and see for myself.

This is a play I would like to go to NYC for to see. I think this deserves to happen.

More on the story, here.

Kev

Cool Video: The Brock covers Richie Havens “Freedom”…

Well, here it is. Did the best I could. Like I said, I’ll never be able to get Richie’s exact style of rhythm playing since he was so used to playing along with the congas, so I gave the song my own take. That’s what you want to do. You don’t want to make the cover song sound exactly like the original anyway; you want to give it your own style.

Enjoy! I hope!

Kev

Netflix Pick (DVD rental): Sinister (w/ Ethan Hawke)

Last night, I watched the new horror film, “Sinister” starring, Ethan Hawke.

It tells the story of the true-crime writer named, Ellison Oswalt, who moves his family into a home where a horrific murder happened in the backyard. Ellison’s family — who has a wife, a son, and daughter — doesn’t know about the crime. Ellison moved his family to the home to do research to write a novel about it. His novel writing career is in a career slump and he wants to write a book on the tragedy at this home, hoping that will make him a successful writer again. As he learns more and more about the crime that happened years ago at the home, he becomes even more obsessed with it and works on the research for hours & hours. Ellison finds footage of tapes that you would watch on an 8mm camera (pictured above). Each footage on the tapes has different murders that were disturbing and graphic; however, in each tape, he finds the face of a unique figure he never saw before. As a result, his family tries to talk him out of what he is doing, and things in the home get much worse after that.

That’s enough of the plot. On with my thoughts of the movie. Honestly, I thought this was one of the best horror films of the last 10 years.  I think this movie, “Sinister”, and the new, “Evil Dead”, movie were the best horror films ever made in over a decade. “Sinister” really was that good. It is true horror at it’s finest. True supernatural horror. The movie was well-filmed and well-made. It felt like a horror movie all the way through, and it didn’t rely on gore too much. There is gore but not a whole lot. The less gore, the scarier a horror film gets. “Sinister” was actually scary as hell and I was a little creeped out at some parts. Especially, the film’s ending which was a big shocker I never saw coming. This was Ethan’s best acting too.

I think I’m gonna get this film on Blu-Ray sometime ’cause it will be a great film to watch on Halloween. If you like creepy ghost movies, then this is the film to see. It really was a great movie, I was impressed with it.

Kev

Planning to start reading a lot of poetry, I think…

I think starting this year, I’m going to start reading a lot of poetry. The reason is that I want to read a lot of poetry to help with my lyric writing. Just more of my research material. I want to try to make my lyric writing a little more poetic instead of telling a story. I don’t really like “story-telling”, kind of songs anymore. I want to do research on how to write poetry. I’m also planning to start writing poems of my own just to start practicing. If I write songs that are a little more poetic, maybe listeners will start taking my songs a little more seriously. I think the storytelling thing in folk music is old and boring; I want nothing to do with that stuff anymore. I don’t like the Bob Dylan/Utah Phillips kind of songwriting, and I don’t want to be viewed as that for my music. I just want to make my songwriting a little bit different, next time around. I don’t like spoken-word storytelling songs and a lot of my earlier music is like that. I want to start making some actual songs with real singing and all that stuff. I’m working very hard.

Sorry, I haven’t posted the last few days. It’s just that the weather have been so nice out over the weekend — I’ve been doing better things, other than hanging on the computer. Sometimes I take a little break on blogging ’cause I just don’t care anymore and getting bored of the blog. I’ll only post things if it’s only worth posting, these days.

Kev

About the Richie Havens “Freedom” cover!!!

I think I got it! After practicing and rehearsing this song all-day-long, I think I’ll be-able to play this song just fine with no problem! Yes, I have been rehearsing the song with a metronome so it can sound much tighter. I love playing an entire song throughout with a metronome. It’s a bit of work and kind of hard to play at a steady pace in sync with the beat — especially, when you’re playing at 130 bpm, which is what I set the tempo on. I’ll never be able to get Richie’s exact rhythm pattern with the song at all; so, I just gave the song my own take on it. I’ll have the video uploaded in youtube this weekend. I think it has potential to be another big cover of mine for youtube. It might become just as big as my Whitney Houston tribute. The Richie Havens tribute could possibly get even more views. We’ll wait and see to see what kind of feedback it’s gonna get. It’s not that hard to sing either. Like I said: the song is a piece-of-cake. I think people will like my Richie Havens tribute coming up. I can play so much better with a metronome too! It really helps and makes a difference in your playing!

Kev

The Official Music Website of Kevin Brock – Brocking N' Rolling