Review: FM Static - Dear Diary

Title: Dear Diary
Artist: FM Static
Genre: Pop Punk

Rating:

Toronto-based two-piece side project of Thousand Foot Krutch frontman, Trevor McNevan and drummer Steve Augustine released a new album on April 7, 2009 through Tooth and Nail, who also released their first two albums. According to Trevor McNevan

It's a concept record, the entire album will be one story from beginning to end. It's based on a boy (and occasionally a girl) and their diary entries about what's going on in their lives. It deals with faith, doubt, love, death, and the honest questions that surround living and growing up in modern day culture. We're very pumped about this record and are excited to share it with you.

I finally was able to get hold of the tracks - and what I heard impressed me. The sound is similar to their sophomore, but a little bouncier, moving more to the lines of punk and away from their former emo tracks they have so been branded with (at least here in the Philippines). One of the best parts of the album is that instead of being a simple collection of pop punk tracks to listen to, "Dear Diary" is strictly a concept album - the lyrics and the music follows a story, which, compared to other concept albums, is quite easy to follow. Liner notes also contain extended "diary entries" that help fully develop the story.

Dear Diary

The album starts with their fast paced lead single "Boy Moves to a New Town With Optimistic Outlook" and the story continues with those petty high school problems of being left out and meeting a new girl. The bouncy sound becomes progressively slower and more melodic peaking in an unexpected tragedy which is an attempt to escape the risk of being called "cheap." The tragedy shakes the storyteller and the girl she has met, and leads to deep questions about life and God. The album abruptly ends with everything back to what it used to be, as the storyteller is now entering College on "The Shindig."

As a whole, the album is easy to listen to - not like other albums in the same Pop Punk genre, such as Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown." There is a vague trace of irony and defiance characteristic of the punk genre and the sounds have a pop sheen to it for mass appeal. Though the songs are quite fun and the slower ones dazzling, with a little spice of hip hop and even some choruses dancable, they never really caused that emotional effect - the music is just something you would listen to in the background. While the lyrics are unusually meaningful for a pop punk band (though not entirely surprising considering they are a Christian band) the music lacks the force and depth supposedly associated with these lyrics - such depth has been achieved in their former album. The music is too mild, too weak and while most would love the bouncy sounds of the album, I find their lack of power quite boring and uninteresting.

Nevertheless, "Dear Diary" still makes for a great album and will especially appeal to students like me, which can actually relate to the songs, while for those who have already finished high school, nothing's better than a trip down memory lane...

Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Title: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Genre: Fantasy-Adventure

Rating:

I went with my family to watch Harry Potter on iMax at the MOA - I didn't ask for it, it's a family gimmick. The movie disappointed me.

I have nothing against plot changing in movies; however, changes in the plot in this movie ruined the story and deprived it of taste and cleverness that has so enchanted JKR's millions of readers. They took away several critical parts of the plot - such as when Harry found out that it was Snape who eavesdropped on the prophecy - and added some scenes that is confucing and ultimately pointless. Plans and plotting that have made Harry's antagonists so clever and formidable have been omitted. The book is supposedly a story on Voldemort's past. The film, however, focused more on the book's sideplot - the love story of Hermoine and Ron - and, the part of the book that is most awkward and half baked on Rowling's part.

It is this point of the movie that really annoyed me. Not only did the focus on young romance made the movie feel like a soap opera, its portrayal is immature - it gives a wrong impression of teenage puppy love and even this 15-year-old student thinks that the actions done by the lovers are a bit goofy and childish, considering that these people are supposedly one year senior. The love story is already awkward in the book - in the film they made the whole thing much more corny. Sure, there are scenes that are quite charming, but most of the time, these scenes are rather dumb and unintentionally funny.

The film also lacks action characteristic of the other films. In fact, as this review on filmjunk said:

Early on in this movie there is an exciting sense that the dark magic is starting to bleed over into the real world, as illustrated by a Death Eater attack on the Millennium Bridge in London. Somehow after seeing something like this it’s a pretty big disappointment to wind up back at Hogwarts watching Quidditch matches and sitting through potion classes. We already know that Harry is the “chosen one”… does it really matter what he’s learning at school anymore?

They say that they omitted the battle near the end of the movie because a similar scene is to be shown on the last two movies. I can't say if that was good judgment but it made this movie seemingly lacking in the suspense the final chapters of the book holds. Anyways, there are marked differences between the two battles - in HBP, the battle was from the inside, in TDH, the antagonists were fighting from the outside. All-in-all, the lack of action and the lack of a suitable replacement for such action has made the movie quite boring.

The film also failed to capture the misery and hopelessness that JKR bestowed the protagonist upon several events on the plot. Part of the reason is already mentioned - the focus on puppy love. HP6, at least in my view, shows JKR's writing at its best, and coupled with a great plot equal to that of the fifth, makes for the best book in JKR's Harry Potter roster. In the book, the main theme has been of hopelessness, sadness - the book takes you along these lines and after reading, you feel unusually strong pity for the emptiness in the heart of the main character. None of these exist in the film - it is a poor recreation of the best book of the Harry Potter series, though it did show some touching scenes such as when they raised their wands in mourning for the death of their headmaster. The misery in these scenes, however, is quite shallow, compared to the deep sorrow that makes HBP such a good read. It seems as if they crammed the book as they prepare for the final two films in the series.

The characters have at least done a great job in portraying their characters, except for Jim Broadbent's portrayal of Horace Slughorn - I don't care what other critics say - Horace is supposedly a collector of students, loving luxury, a person who loves to stay backstage, loving the feeling of having a degree of control of the famous and influential people in the world of magic. In the film, he is an eccentric dumbhead of a professor - out of place, as if he has some sort of brain damage. The cinematographics and visual effects are still great, more visually appealing than the movie's predecessors, but it's not the movie that will keep you glued to your seats. The musical score successfully adds suspense to the rather tasteless plot.

In the end, the movie doesn't fully explain the events arising from the plot, and it will leave the viewers asking "What the hell happened?" Personally, I have no idea how they will proceed with the final two installments of the series, considering the movie has left so many holes and blurry spots that will supposedly explain the major twists and turn in TDH's storyline. It has always been a standard that in the newest installment to the HP series is "the best one yet" and several have been lulled into this line of thinking. I, however, beg to differ.

GGF Fail - TPB to be Turned into a "Pay" Site

Swedish company Global Gaming Factory acquired The Pirate Bay recently and has confirmed that it is going legit - it will introduce paid subscriptions. Under the new management, users will have to pay a fee to access the website. And so ends the noble life of one of the most famous P2P file sharing websites on the net.

BitTorrent file sharing websites have been the target of organizations such as the MPAA, who claim that their profits are being compromised by the technology. While the technology itself is legal, the files shared are copyrighted. In several countries, thousands of users who have uploaded files on the internet have been sent to court and made to pay heavy fines. Recent indignation and controversy has been aroused by the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who was to pay 1.92 milion dollars for downloading songs on the Kazaa network.

What really bothers me is the prediction of some internet users that in the near future, all services on the internet will be paid. The Pirate Bay has fallen to the pressures of Hollywood - how many torrent sites will remain free? And, how many free internet services we are enjoying today will remain free tomorrow?

wbxkifzg3s

Guestbook

Just drop in and say hi!